Real Snow and Making Gifts for Loved Ones

We finally got a bit of snow.  It was SO happily anticipated that the girls, below, avidly donned their gear to play in our 1/4 inch or so on the playground.

That little bit was all we got this week, so we did continue to make our own pretend snow...

 

On Friday, the "snow-making" evolved into "gunk-making" - just add water!

 

Below, we decided to work on our cutting skills some more - These girls are really getting the hang of it!  Summer has the scraps to show for it!

We worked on making some gifts for our families...

Noe wraps hers with custom-made paper...

Left, Jane worked for a long time making our stuffed animals a home with the blocks and right, Nabil shows us his favorite book.

The kids are loving playing house!  Below they cuddle together in front of our make-shift fireplace.

We endeavored to make our own "Gingerbread Houses" too.

This took a bit of architectural prowess.  We decided the triangular design was more sturdy than the traditional square design.

 

We got some new crayons to encourage our pencil grip!

At the end of the days this week we went around and labeled things in the room - the kids LOVED this - as a matter of fact it's a great and easy activity to do at home!

Noe really likes the custom labels with her name and picture!

Letters, Rudolph and "Snow"

We engaged in lots of seasonal, holiday activities this week, despite the unseasonal, balmy-like weather!

Below, Noe shows us that she has found one of the many small gingerbread cookies "hidden" around the room.

 

Our "writing" table became a great place to craft letters to Santa and Moms and Dads.  As you can see from our full mailbox, this was a successful endeavor!

This is a great way for the children to use all of those burgeoning drawing skills with a further purpose, to communicate through a letter to another person!

Getting the letter in the envelope can be challenging.  We are learning how to fold with a crease.  Below, Noe helps Summer.

Lots of singing of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer occurred this week.   Jane and Joy decided to play "Rudolph".

They created a sleigh out of chairs and instructed the others' how to say their parts...

We prepared a "hearth" or, fireplace, in order to have a place to hang our stockings.

Since we haven't had any snow to enjoy lately, we decided to make our own: shaving cream and blue paint.

Bridget likes to make handprints, so we got some paper out too.

The color became almost a Tiffany-blue. . . lovely!

We read the story about the Tomten,  an elf-like man who cares for the animals in the winter.  We made our own elf-ish hats and cared for our classroom animals.

There has been a wonderful enthusiasm surrounding cleaning, especially since we get to use the squirt bottle.  Look how clean they are getting that table!  Sometimes we forget to have snack we are so busy cleaning the table...

Summer painted a lovely tree this week!

We played a game with Noe's Dreidel.

...and enjoyed some hot cocoa.

We also made some pretty trees with glue and glitter - the children's gluing skills have really improved! (Meaning, they now understand that you stick things on paper with the glue, rather than enjoy the glue as a sensory/sticky experience... which we still do sometimes.)

While working with the playdough, Noe made her mom a bracelet!

A great week!