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y is for year

i told the kids that when they came back from school after christmas, it would be a new year. when i would refer to “next year” there were several kids who raised their eyebrows and scrunched their noses to tell me, “sorry, i won’t be here. i’ll be in kindergarten next year.”

one of the concepts we worked on for L week and the first week of 2009 was left and right. we arranged and rearranged the numerals 2, 0, 0, 9 several different ways. i modeled reading left to right (and then right to left…funny stuff).

one activity we did was finding one 2, two 0s, and 1 9 in the room. they were pre-cut from outdated calendars (which means each is the size of a calendar page). once each child arranged them in correct 2-0-0-9 order, we glued them on!

happy 2009! happy new year!

h is for hanging magnet

i don’t know why i haven’t thought of this sooner.

the exploration with the same magnets, the same metal pieces, the same sorting trays had a new element with hanging magnets!

m is for marker

in general, markers are a pet peeve of mine. i don’t like how they smear a child’s work. but dry erase markers are different. we almost never use them, but in between art displays in the hallway, we open up our cases and set out the markers.

the kind of writing and drawing that happens in this easle-type setting is wonderful to watch.

dry erase board time by you.

knowing that their work can (and will) by wiped away ensures that it is the PROCESS not the PRODUCT.

k is for kitchen help

“we’re too tired to stand up to do the dishes and cook.”

i know what they mean.

p is for pond around the train

oh, good times. when we’ve pushed furniture to the side to make room for our christmas program, there is room for train play!

i cut a hole in one of our white pieces of fabric (thank you, sarah) and set one of our mirrors under it.

ta-da! a frozen pond for the train to go around. and for the train to go off the track and slide around on.