Wrapping Up Winter in the Woods
January 5, 2020
Our first week back at school after Christmas break was filled with activity. This post may contain affiliate links. We were closed the whole week of Christmas and the week before Christmas had so many activities centered around our holiday. That left us with one week to finish up three weeks of our topic. We ended up doing some that last week of December and some the following week. Our Winter in the Woods theme has been one of our favorites. I have to say, though, we feel that way with each new theme. I can’t say enough about our curriculum, Experiencing Early Learning, formerly Mother Goose Time.
One of the things we love most is our books that we read each month. We have a huge library and many of our books are from Usborne Books and More. We always have an open party link for anyone to order that wants to support our school while filling their home with wonderful titles. This month we enjoyed a Shine-A-Light title called Secrets of Winter. They loved it because we get to use a flashlight to see what is hiding in the page.
We talked about the many things that take place in the woods during wintertime. The children learned that lumberjacks cut down trees to make logs to use when building log cabins, to put in wood burning stoves and making a fire in the fireplace. We talked about other ways of keeping warm besides the fireplace; eating warm food and wrapping up with a warm quilt or blanket. We couldn’t forget to talk about the winter clothing like coats, mittens and hats. We used our new modular blocks to build all sorts of different things, including big houses. The blocks come apart and link together to create different shapes. They put animals and people in them and made up stories. They have come up with fun ways to use that all on their own.
Each week the older kids that will be going into kindergarten in the fall have a chance to work on their literacy and math skills. Our favorite way to do that is the MORE Literacy and MORE Math from Experience Early Learning. It is an extension of our core curriculum for children ready for a bit more challenge. They are getting better each week. We have to slow them down, at times, because they want to rush through too quickly. They forget that they need US to read the instructions for them because they might just guess wrong as to what they are supposed to be doing. That is a good lesson for them, too. It won’t be long and they will be able to read it for themselves. That will be an exciting day.
One of the many resources IN our curriculum each month is a word family decoder game. We have a full size one and each child gets one to cut out and take home. They practice sounding out each word with three different letters in the first spot. They have to match the sounds with a picture that starts with the same sound underneath it. We encourage the children to practice their cutting skills and help the younger ones, when needed. Our three year olds need more help than the older ones. We hold and guide the paper while they use the scissors. We teach each child the proper way to hold them and scissor safety when holding or giving them to someone else.
This month’s I Can Read book was “What Is In Your Bed?” It contained the sight words and pointers for “in”, “what” and “not”. Each child gets their own book and we keep the pointers and sentence builders in a plastic bag with an extra reader for individual or group practice. The children have their own book baskets with these books and their own copies of some other readers that we have ordered from our Scholastic Book Orders each month. We enjoy growing the children’s library since they will eventually take all of the books home with them when they graduate from our school.
Our book with matching puzzle and magnet set was the story of The Shoemaker. I remember a similar version growing up. Experience Early Learning does a great job of taking a fable or fairy tale and making it more preschool friendly and shorter for their attention span. After we read the story, the children drew pictures and wrote on their postcards the name they wanted to “send” it to.
Experience Early Learning has their own book series called Forest Friends. Those books touch on the different moral character traits we need to have. Owl’s Disappearing Muffin is a story about honesty and truth. We read the story several times during the month and do different activities. The children made a puppet and then drew a picture of owl or mouse. They were encouraged to make up a story to go with their drawing. Those that needed help, we wrote what they told us on the lines below the picture. Some children’s stories were too long for the lines. There are those children who love to tell it all while others have very little to say. We encourage both types of children to use their imaginations.
We brought in the new year with four of our friends. Each year we offer a PNO that is either until 1 a.m. or they can do an overnight. This year had had three overnighters. They had a great time making party shakers and eating pizza before having an Aladdin movie marathon. We offer two PNO a month, usually one Friday night and one Saturday night. This was was different because it landed in the middle of the week right before a closed holiday.
We had great month with our Winter in the Woods theme. We had so many books on our shelf that they were able to enjoy. We read many of them as a group. Did you see any crafts or art projects you would like to try with your children? Which ones were your favorite?
Our first week back at school after Christmas break was filled with activity. This post may contain affiliate links. We were closed the whole week of Christmas and the week before Christmas had so many activities centered around our holiday. That left us with one week to finish up three weeks of our topic. We ended up doing some that last week of December and some the following week. Our Winter in the Woods theme has been one of our favorites. I have to say, though, we feel that way with each new theme. I can’t say enough about our curriculum, Experiencing Early Learning, formerly Mother Goose Time.
One of the things we love most is our books that we read each month. We have a huge library and many of our books are from Usborne Books and More. We always have an open party link for anyone to order that wants to support our school while filling their home with wonderful titles. This month we enjoyed a Shine-A-Light title called Secrets of Winter. They loved it because we get to use a flashlight to see what is hiding in the page.
We talked about the many things that take place in the woods during wintertime. The children learned that lumberjacks cut down trees to make logs to use when building log cabins, to put in wood burning stoves and making a fire in the fireplace. We talked about other ways of keeping warm besides the fireplace; eating warm food and wrapping up with a warm quilt or blanket. We couldn’t forget to talk about the winter clothing like coats, mittens and hats. We used our new modular blocks to build all sorts of different things, including big houses. The blocks come apart and link together to create different shapes. They put animals and people in them and made up stories. They have come up with fun ways to use that all on their own.
Each week the older kids that will be going into kindergarten in the fall have a chance to work on their literacy and math skills. Our favorite way to do that is the MORE Literacy and MORE Math from Experience Early Learning. It is an extension of our core curriculum for children ready for a bit more challenge. They are getting better each week. We have to slow them down, at times, because they want to rush through too quickly. They forget that they need US to read the instructions for them because they might just guess wrong as to what they are supposed to be doing. That is a good lesson for them, too. It won’t be long and they will be able to read it for themselves. That will be an exciting day.
One of the many resources IN our curriculum each month is a word family decoder game. We have a full size one and each child gets one to cut out and take home. They practice sounding out each word with three different letters in the first spot. They have to match the sounds with a picture that starts with the same sound underneath it. We encourage the children to practice their cutting skills and help the younger ones, when needed. Our three year olds need more help than the older ones. We hold and guide the paper while they use the scissors. We teach each child the proper way to hold them and scissor safety when holding or giving them to someone else.
This month’s I Can Read book was “What Is In Your Bed?” It contained the sight words and pointers for “in”, “what” and “not”. Each child gets their own book and we keep the pointers and sentence builders in a plastic bag with an extra reader for individual or group practice. The children have their own book baskets with these books and their own copies of some other readers that we have ordered from our Scholastic Book Orders each month. We enjoy growing the children’s library since they will eventually take all of the books home with them when they graduate from our school.
Our book with matching puzzle and magnet set was the story of The Shoemaker. I remember a similar version growing up. Experience Early Learning does a great job of taking a fable or fairy tale and making it more preschool friendly and shorter for their attention span. After we read the story, the children drew pictures and wrote on their postcards the name they wanted to “send” it to.
Experience Early Learning has their own book series called Forest Friends. Those books touch on the different moral character traits we need to have. Owl’s Disappearing Muffin is a story about honesty and truth. We read the story several times during the month and do different activities. The children made a puppet and then drew a picture of owl or mouse. They were encouraged to make up a story to go with their drawing. Those that needed help, we wrote what they told us on the lines below the picture. Some children’s stories were too long for the lines. There are those children who love to tell it all while others have very little to say. We encourage both types of children to use their imaginations.
We brought in the new year with four of our friends. Each year we offer a PNO that is either until 1 a.m. or they can do an overnight. This year had had three overnighters. They had a great time making party shakers and eating pizza before having an Aladdin movie marathon. We offer two PNO a month, usually one Friday night and one Saturday night. This was was different because it landed in the middle of the week right before a closed holiday.
We had great month with our Winter in the Woods theme. We had so many books on our shelf that they were able to enjoy. We read many of them as a group. Did you see any crafts or art projects you would like to try with your children? Which ones were your favorite?
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