Ring the Bells

To me Christmas and bells go hand in hand.
We hear them at this time of year in songs, stories, churches, school
and around town.
 
I thought of buying the set of bells you can get from teacher supply stores
but, one, I didn’t have the extra money and two, I know they can be very noisy.

So off to the thrift stores and it didn’t take me long to find this collection
right here in town.
      
Each little bell makes a slightly different tone from the other.
   
Then there are different jingle bells, single, clusters, some with fabric
to change the tone.

I posted a few songs on the wall to encourage singing
but the interest lays in experimenting with each bell.

Had An Old Coat Take 2

I love this story and there are many ways to tell it.

The book “Something From Nothing”,
as a cut and tell called The Blue Coat and
this story song by Bev Bos.
You can find the lyrics at this old post.

This time our grade 7 buddies were involved.
As you watch the video you’ll see that each of the six buddies
that participated held an article of clothing.

Remember I didn’t have to audition for this job but I try my best with my singing.

Hope you enjoy.

Build a Tree

              
 
 
Roll a Tree
 

Gingerbread Fun with our Buddies

     
While focusing on gingerbread we did a couple of activities with our big buddies
this past month.
One of the activities included making a book called
“One Yummy Gingerbread”.
    
Each book came with one gingerbread cut out.
 
As they read the book they would pretend to eat the gingerbread and
rip a part of the body off and glue it into the book.
Until every part was done.

Then they read it together.
 
I was able to record a few of them reading together.

The following video shows a young child who rarely speaks to me or
others in StrongStart but with her big buddy she was very open.
It so impressed me that her big buddy helped her feel that comfortable.

We also decorated gingerbread people to really eat – yum!
 
An opportunity to talk about body parts,
     
work on math (sharing out and counting the candies),
 
and to chat and get to know each other better.

But the best part?
 
Was the eating, yummy!
 

Gifts for the Fairies

          
The whole family is home for Christmas. 
We woke this morning to rain but by the time we finished opening
presents and playing a few games it had begun to snow.
Great big beautiful flakes that just called for us to go out for a walk.
 
Two of my daughters hadn’t visited Fairy Lane since it’s creation
so off we went trekking to the woods.

       
But we didn’t go empty handed. 
My oldest daughter made a gift for the fairies – little stockings to keep
their feet toasty.
 
We carefully strung them on a clothesline and hung them from the bark.
 
Two lines were hung over doors, one at each end of Fairy Lane.
The fairies are sure to find them.
         
    We watched for a while but couldn’t spy any of them.
      
 
But our dog spent a lot of time sniffing around.  Could it be she could sense
the fairies were about?
I don’t know but others were looking too because we saw other gifts
left in the woods.
   
          A red heart hung in a tree.

And a little green nutcracker keeping guard by one of the doors.
It’s nice to know that others are thinking of the fairies too.


Goodbye Fairy Lane, we'll visit again soon.

Merry Christmas from my family to yours.

Gingerbread Play

We have been having a lot of fun playing with gingerbread this
past month.
Here are a few activities that included gingerbread.

In the house area we have been baking gingerbread cookies using
these cork cut outs that have magnet on the back of them so they
stick to the pan.

Someone thought they were real and took a bite, oh oh!

The cookies were used for picnics with the reindeer.
Love how he has served each reindeer their own cookie on a plate.
Maybe it was one of the reindeer that took a bite.

 
They were used to match to the cookie cutters.
Trying to figure out which cutter was used to make them.
Also these two children worked on their ‘taking turns’ skill and
watched while each other tried to find the match.


Gingerbread play dough to decorate.


Sticky easel gingerbread house decorating.

Thanks to Deborah Stewart at Teach Preschool for the sticky easel idea.

To make mine I covered the easel with yellow paper then cut out
the house from brown tissue paper and taped it to the yellow.
Finally covered it all with contact paper, sticky side out.

Provide lace, door and window cut outs and lots of shaped, sparkly sequins.

The great thing about a sticky easel is that you can take everything off at the
 end of the day and they can redecorate it again the next day.

And finally we had many gingerbread story books to share and enjoy.