Christmas Ornaments and Parent Gifts

SPOILER ALERT!!!! If you are reading this and you are a parent of a student in my class, your Christmas gifts from your child will be revealed. Please go back and visit again after Christmas, so the surprise is not spoiled!

We make several ornaments each year. One is for the school tree and we usually make a couple for parent gifts.

I saw these cute ornaments made from recycled cds on Monkey See, Monkey Do in the post "Decorating Our Tree With Handmade Ornaments" and knew I had to try them! We painted the cds with white paint, added some dots of black paint for a coal mouth, a pom pom for a nose and of course, some googly eyes. (Okay, I admit, we used a little iridescent glitter for added bling!)

We also added a little black fun foam for a top hat.

For our parent gifts, I decided to do the handprint snowmen ornament I've seen, but never tried. I've seen them featured everywhere, including The Crafty Crow and Little Giraffes.

We added the students' names and year to the back.
As another present to the parents, we used our fine motor skills to wrap small little pieces of foam (I didn't have any small boxes).

These may not be the most professionally wrapped, but they are certainly held together by love! We attached this poem to the package with ribbon:

I took an ordinary box
As empty as can be
I filled it with a special gift
And wrapped it carefully
But please don't ever open it
Just leave the ribbon tied
And hold it tightly near your heart
Because my love for you is inside!

It occurred to me as we were wrapping these parent gifts up, that I wouldn't get any new handmade ornaments under my tree this year. My youngest daughter is in middle school, and they are focused on midterm exams the final weeks before the holiday. It makes me a little sad. I hope the parents of my students will treasure these for many years, even after the kids grow too old to make Mom and Dad a little something with their own two hands. :)

Hanukkah

I have two families this year that celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas. I wanted to include their traditions with the class, especially since we were studying holiday traditions around the world. Since the parents were not able to come to school to share, I used what I had to decorate.

We made a menorah from wooden lacing beads, a large rectangle unit block and a few wooden bbq skewers. We dipped the tops of the skewers in yellow and orange paint to simulate flames.

 One of our parents later sent in an electric menorah for the last couple of days of Hanukkah.

We also played the dreidel game daily throughout Hanukkah with some lovely wooden dreidels loaned to us by families.

This was great fine motor practice, plus we got to practice using the mathematical terms "all", "none" and "half". We played with large buttons until the last day when we played with chocolate gelt.

Of, course we sang the dreidel song and another song called "Spin, Dreidel, Spin" which was a good large motor movement activity. We also read a few books about Hanukkah.

Admittedly, I don't have a lot of knowledge about Hanukkah, but I feel it's important to include the traditions form all my students' families. I always ask the families to come and share with us and it seems some years, families are more willing to share. Every year I learn a little more! :)

Gingerbread Houses

Every year, we get a few gingerbread house kits to make as a small group project. I ask parents to come in and help. I have some really awesome parents who seem to be up for any challenge I've thrown them---bless their hearts! The kits came in right before the Thanksgiving break and have been sitting on the counter and the kids have asked several times each day WHEN are ever going to get to make them? We counted down the days and FINALLY the day arrived.

I've done gingerbread houses in the classroom for several years, and every year it's gotten a little smoother. The first few years, I had one kit and tried various methods to make sure everyone got to be part of all the stages. For the last couple of years, I've had two kits and worked in smaller groups. Last year, I invited a couple of parents to come and help. (I'll admit having parent helpers was brilliant!) We put all the pieces together and glued them with frosting. We decorated and iced to our hearts content. At the very end, the pieces kept sliding off with the weight of the candy. One of the moms had to hold the pieces and try to prop them up until she could eventually let go. They were definitely an adventure!

This year, I asked several parents to help this year and we were fortunate enough to get 4 kits, which meant only 5 kids per group. I was secretly patting myself on the back for such great planning as I passed them out to each table when a true Christmas (or Hanukkah, if you prefer) miracle occurred. We opened them up and they were already put together, just waiting to be decorated! Let the fun begin!

Since we had enough helpers, I was able to roam freely between the groups and hear all the exciting chatter!

The kits came complete with candy, but I had some leftover candy that I wanted to use up, so we added some of that.

We had a few leftover gingerbread men, so we added them, as well.

We found some lollipops to add. Two of the groups added them right side up as trees or decorations. Two groups placed them upside down, one is an antennae and on the other, the lollipops are a chimney. The finished products:

Gingerbread Fun

Our gingerbread unit is well underway and we are having a big time learning with all the fun activities. I'd love to bake gingerbread as a class, but due to kitchen space limitations and health department regulations, using the school kitchen is just not an option. One of our parents sent in Little Debbie Gingerbread men for us to use instead.

Our first activity with the gingerbread cookies was to place one in a bowl of water and make predictions about what would happen. Our predictions:

1. He will break.
2. He will sink.
3. He will melt.
4. The cookie won;t be yummy anymore.
5. His sprinkles will come off in the water.

Well, he did not break or sink. He did disintegrate, I guess that is like "melting". I didn't taste him, but I'm most positive that he wasn't yummy anymore. His sprinkles did come off, too. An unexpected change was that the color seeped out and sunk to the bottom.

It's a good thing that this took a little time, because I'm not sure any of us would want to eat them after seeing them in the water. We decorated them and ate them for snack. Surprisingly, you can fit quite a few decorations on these little guys! They were pretty and very yummy!!!

I made a batch of gingerbread scented playdough for the friends to use. They've been making Gingerbread men and women all week!

You can even make scented bracelets and rings!

A Visit with Miss Bindergarten

 Last year, I signed up to have the Miss Bindergarten doll visit as she traveled around the country. I met Lisa Collins, via the Miss Bindergarten Facebook page, thought it would be fun to send her to various schools and record her adventures on Facebook and in the blog,  Miss B Travels. When I heard we would finally be getting her last year, it was our last week of school and I had to let Lisa know that we wouldn't be able to participate. Lisa let me know that the response had been so positive, that she had decided to send her on more adventures as school as school reconvened in the fall. I admit I was excited as the kids to learn shortly before Thanksgiving that she was on her way. Here's the entry we posted in  her travel journal about her visit with us in Pre-K.

Greetings from Mrs. Ayn's Georgia Pre-K class at Oakbrook Country Day School in Evans, Georgia! In our class! We have 20 students, a lead teacher, Mrs. Ayn and a paraprofessional, Ms. Tiffany. Our town is on the outskirts of Augusta, Ga., home of the Masters golf tournament. People come from all over the world each year to see our town and watch the Masters. Our town is right next to the Georgia/South Carolina border.

We had a great surprise when we returned from our Thanksgiving break. Miss Bindergarten arrived while we were away and was waiting to greet us when we returned to school on Monday.

We enjoyed having her sit with us at circle time while we read about her classroom adventures.

She took turns sitting with each student.

During center time this week, we were able to sit with Miss B and read her books.

Miss B enjoyed visiting with our class mascot, Mr. Scruffy. Mr. Scruffy visits with one of our families each weekend. Mr. Scruffy has a travel journal like Miss B.'s for families to record adventures and pictures. Mr. Scruffy enjoyed hearing all about Miss B.'s travels, but decided that he's still not quite ready to travel that far from home yet.

 
We have really enjoyed having Miss B visit our class. We love to  read her books and have enjoyed reading her travel journal and looking at all her pictures. She is so AWESOME and we will miss her. Thanks for visiting, Miss B! You are welcome to visit Pre-K anytime!

Our last activity with Miss B was dictating our entry for her travel journal. We packed her up and sent her on her way to Alabama. We can't wait to hear more about her adventures as she travels around the country! We will be following the Miss B Travels blog to see more of her adventures!


Correction: Earlier, this post stated that Lisa Collins was the creator of the Miss Bindergarten Facebook fan page. I believe the creator is Ashley Wolff.