Senses of the Season

Each year our Gingerbread Man unit of study is a big hit!  It is a perfect opportunity to explore the five senses.  Next week I will be using a couple of new activities I've created.
On Monday, when I introduce the 5 Senses, we will be singing the following song and doing related activities.
"Senses of the Season" (sung to the tune of Oh Christmas Tree) 

"Oh gingerbread, oh gingerbread
Tell me something you see.
Oh gingerbread, oh gingerbread
Tell me something you hear.
Oh gingerbread, oh gingerbread
Tell me something you feel.
Oh gingerbread, oh gingerbread
Tell me something you  taste.
Oh gingerbread, oh gingerbread
Tell me something you smell."

As we sing the song, children will call out items that fit into each category.  There will be pictures available for them to use for a visual prompt ase we sing the song.

Christmas Greetings

I have recently created some new Christmas greetings for you to use in your classroom to help with "making connections".  One of my classroom jobs is a "greeter".  Each day, the children are greeted by me when they arrive.  They are also greeted by another child at circle time.  They love trying out new greetings!  Check these out!


Santa Greeting:  Hook arms together at the elbow with your partner (like they do at weddings when they feed cake to each other).  Bringing your arm up to your face as if stroking Santa's beard, look at your partner and say "ho, ho, ho!"


Gingerbread Man Greeting:  Each partner runs in a small circle while saying:  "run run just as fast as you can".  After one rotation, stop facing your partner and grasping them on the arms say:  "I caught you little gingerbread friend."


Christmas Candle:
The child is the candle, so they stick up one finger.  The adult is the "lighter" and they "light" the candle while making a clicking sound.  Then they say "you light up my life" and then the child blows out the candle.



Twinkling Star:
Adult and child touch fingers together on both hands while holding them up in the air.  Then they wiggle their fingers like "twinkling" as they say "twinkle twinkle little star".


Christmas Present:
Holding hands with the child, the adult acts as if opening a present.  As if untying the bow they look at the child and say "Surprise!  I love you!"


Christmas Tree Greeting:
Adult and child both put hands over head like the point on the top of the tree. Next, they lean over and touch "tips" and say "Oh Christmas tree, how lovely are your branches."


Candy Cane Greeting:
Both the adult and child stick out arm like the stick of the candy cane and then make a hook by curving hand and wrist.  "Slide" down the arm of the other person then get hooked at the bottom by the hand and say "what's up sweet stuff?"

Planting a Pumpkin

This is a very relaxing and gentle way to connect with someone you love.  This is great just before bedtime or during quiet times of day.  The original idea of "Planting a Flower" came from Mary Jo Huff at a recent early childhood conference.  My daughter and my students love it so much that I wanted to create a seasonal version to use since we are currently headed into the colder months here in Indiana.  So I adapted the original activity to make it "Planting a Pumpkin".  Here is how you do it:
1. Find a partner to play with you.
2. Turn so that you are facing your child's back.
3. Start in the lower lumbar portion of your child's back near the waist line.
4. Right on the spine you will use your index finger to pretend to dig a hole in the dirt.
5. Next you will gently dot the same spot as you put a "seed" in the hole.
6. Once you've planted the seed you need to cover it up with dirt by using a sweeping motion as if to push dirt over the hole to keep the seeds safe.
7. Pat it down so the dirt stays in place by gently patting your child's lower back in the same spot.
8. Now you move up to their shoulders and gently rub in a circular motion with open hands as the "sun" shines on their shoulders to help the pumpkin seed grow.
9.  Next comes the "rain" in the form of your fingers wiggling and moving down their back from top to bottom.
10.  Now it begins to "thunder" as your hands gently pat the child on the back in a thundering pattern.
11.  The "lightening" moves down their back as you use the side of your hand to "slice" it down the back as lightening would across the sky.
12. As the storm passes and the sun begins to shine again a "sprout" begins to grow from the seed that was planted.  Use your finger to draw a pumpkin vine that loops around the child's back.
13.  Of course the vine also has large leaves that are drawn on the child's back with your finger.
14.  Finally, you draw a large round pumpkin on your child's back, "pick the pumpkin" by giving your child a big hug or even carrying them off to their bed so they can go to sleep.
***As you do the above activity be sure to talk your child through it and describe what you are doing***
Have fun! 

Pumpkin Crayons

My daughter wanted to do a fall craft today.  We looked on Pinterest for a fun activity.  The idea we found was for using old crayon pieces and melting them into heart shapes for Valentine's Day.  Since it is almost Halloween we decided to make ours into pumpkins. 

We chose to use mostly orange, yellow, green, brown, and red crayons.  We found that the older the crayons, the easier the paper wrapper came off.  We peeled as many as we needed and then broke them up into small pieces and placed them in the mini muffin tins.  The original idea suggested that you use a butcher knife and cutting board to make the pieces, but I wanted my daughter to do as much as she could to help and breaking them worked just fine.

You bake them in the oven for 15 minutes at 230 degrees.  I sat them in an old cookie sheet to make transferring them more smooth.  This is what they look like when they come out of the oven.  Try not to disturb them until they cool so that the colors don't mix.

Next, we popped them out of the muffin tins.  This was no easy task and I am sure there is a trick to it.  I will have to do  a little more research to see how to get them out with more ease.  They didn't take long to cool, maybe 15 minutes tops!

We used scrap paper to cut out stems and leaves.  The original idea we had was to use wiggle eyes and black paper to make them into jack-o-lanterns, but after peeling all the crayons my daughter was just about crafted out, so I wanted to keep it simple from there on out.  We used Elmer's Glue, but noticed that some of the stems and leaves popped off when we transferred them to another container.  If we do it again, we may try glue dots.

Here is our little pumpkin patch.  We noticed that some of the ones with more red in them looked like apples.  You could make apples by using more reds and pinks.  My daughter plans to take these to school next week to give away to her classmates.  Enjoy!

Showing Appreciation

Last week was Pastor Appreciation Sunday at our church.  I have been working with the children's Sunday School class this month on making a gift for our pastors to help show our appreciation for all they do. 

We made fall wreaths for each of them.  The children and adults traced their hands on colorful scrapbooking paper.  We cut out the hands and used markers to write the word "thank you" in many different languages on each hand.  We got the list of foreign languages off the internet.  The children had a great time learning to say thank you in so many different languages.  This was a fun activity that involved many different age groups!  We then took a piece of brown bulletin board paper and twisted it like a vine and made the base for the wreath out of that.  The hands were glued on and an beautiful wired ribbon was added.  Before giving the gifts, we added a tag that said, "No matter how you say it, we're thankful for you!"