Polar Express Day!

     Today we had Polar Express Day!  This is another one of my favorite days of the year!  I just love all of our events leading up to it, the activities that we do during it, and watching them all come in their cute little Pj's! :)  It's so hard to get good pictures because we are so busy durning this activity!  I also realized I forgot to take some pictures that were sent home today, so maybe next year I will remember!  

Having our Polar Express snack!

We had cookies, popcorn, and hot cocoa.  We also had marshmallow and candy cane to put in our hot cocoa.

Getting ready to take off for the big event!

I make these ornaments every year!  I love it!  This year I had a mom come in to help, and I am so thankful that she did!

Candy Train Oranemnt- One roll of Life Savers, I package stick gum, 1 starburst, I miniature Hershey bar, 4 peppermint candies, 1 Hershey Kiss, and 1 Rolo.  Use String to hang as an ornament.  We use hot glue to put the candy pieces together, but you could use glue dots.

We had a special delivery from the North Pole!  It was freezing cold and addressed just to us!  Inside were silver bells with ribbon on them.  We could all hear the bells ring...even the teachers! :)

Working on our journal page- They drew a picture of what they would like for  their first gift of Christmas to be.  I forgot to take a picture of the train that we made.

Sweet Friends

Receiving the bells

     Tomorrow we have our party and last day before the break!  Whew!  Fun times, but it will be nice to sleep in!  Hopefully will get some pictures up tomorrow of some more activities that we did during December.

Cooking in the Classroom

     I just love learning about Gingerbread! (I don't know why :0)  We had so much fun!  Not only did we make Gingerbread Houses, we made our very own Gingerbread Boys and Girls!  We have a wonderful  teacher (Mrs. C), who no longer has a class of her own, but comes in twice a week and works with our 4 and 5 year old classes.  She loves to cook, so I have been having her come in and bake with us!  The kiddos love when Mrs. C comes to visit us! :)

She explained our activity and sanitized everyone's hands.

She went through each ingredient and showed them the different measuring tools that we would be using.  She also told them each person would get to do one thing, but everyone would be able to roll out their dough, cut out their cookie and decorate it.

Mrs. C did the mixing. :)

Taking turns putting in the ingredients.

Mixing all of the ingredients together.  My pictures did not turn out of rolling and cutting the dough. :(

The final product!  Yummy, Yummy!  We were surprised that they didn't run away!

    I will try to remember to get her wonderful recipe and post!  These were the best Gingerbread cookies I have ever tasted!

Sad Day

     I was going to post more Gingerbread activities, but I just can't do it today.  My heart is deeply saddened and broken by the events that have taken place in Connecticut today.  I'm a mother and a teacher, so it affects me in so many ways.  It is just unthinkable that someone would come in with a loaded gun and shoot innocent children.  You don't expect to send your baby to school, to not come home because they were murdered.  As a teacher, you would never expect someone to come in and attack your classroom.
    I know this has deeply affected every family, school, and community in the country.  My heartfelt sympathies and prayers are with everyone at Sandy Hook Elementary School.  I pray that Jesus will hold them and comfort them, and give them the peace that they need.  I pray for those poor babies and staff members that witnessed this terrible tragedy and pray that someday they will be able to heal.  The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18  Hug your own children a little tighter tonight, and on Monday hug your weekday babies!

Gingerbread Houses

     We had so much fun making our Gingerbread Houses!  Each person was assigned something to bring in to help make the house.  We hot glued the graham crackers to the cartons the day before.  This is a huge help because they really have a difficult time putting the graham crackers on by themselves.  A few moms came in and helped.  After decorating, we took some pictures, wrapped them up and sent them home! Fun day!

Run, Run as Fast as You Can

     Sorry for the lack of post, but it has been CUH-RA-ZY!!!!!  We've had a lot of fun the past couple of weeks learning about the Gingerbread Man, the true meaning of Christmas, and doing lots of fun activities.  We are also in full swing practicing for our program, which is tomorrow!  I can't believe Christmas is almost here!  Happy 12-12-12...only 23 more days! :)

We made Gingerbread ornaments using the recipe found here.

The boys had a Gingerbread Boy cookie cutter and the girls had a Gingerbread Girl cookie cutter.

We let them each take a turn measuring and putting in the ingredients.   Then they rolled out their dough and used the cookie cutter to make their ornament.

We let ours air dry all week, but you can put them in the oven for a few hours.  We also used a pencil to make a hole at the top for our ribbon.

We put the ribbon is and hung them on our tree.  Our room smells so yummy! :)  Our ornaments will go home when we
leave for the break

     More Gingerbread fun tomorrow!  Hopefully! :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

     Hope everyone is having a wonderful, safe Thanksgiving!  Enjoy the memory making with family and friends, and don't eat to much turkey!

Thanksgiving Rules

     Before our Thanksgiving Feast, we had a wonderful Mystery Reader come and read to our class.  She read the book Thanksgiving Rules.  She also dressed up and brought props to go along with the story.  I did not get pictures of everything, but it was the cutest thing!  I love when the reader gets the class involved with the story!

Sharing the book and telling them her basket of props.

This was really cute.  In the book it talks about getting dressed up for Thanksgiving dinner.  She had some wigs to show them how to fix their hair!

She also had ties and some other clothing for them to try on.

I missed all the food items!  She said had several different things.

You can definitely tell he knew who the Mystery Reader was! :)

 

     Hopefully, I will have our pictures preparing for our feast tomorrow!  Until then gobble, gobble!