We learned a little bit about the holidays of Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. We noticed that these two holidays, along with Christmas, centre around being with the ones we love while enjoying music, yummy food, gift giving, and general quality time together. We sure had a fun time dancing along with Elmo to a dance for Kwanzaa and playing the Dreidal game with our friends. We also made a Kinara and sorted/patterned coloured candles.

Our letters this week were W and X.

The countdown to Christmas is on! We have been keeping track of the days we have left; building the number with our number blocks and writing the number on Bob the chalkboard elf.

The Kindness Elves, Ted and Fred have returned. We were so excited to see them! Each evening they have been leaving a new kindness idea in our advent calendar and finding new places to hide for us to find them. This week we made doggy treats for the pups in our lives, wrote letters to nurses for all their hard work, practiced allowing others to go out the door before ourselves and helped set up the Christmas tree. I cannot mention the 5th one, as it has turned into a very special gift.

We cannot wait for our first PJ day on Friday!

Animals of the night were our focus this week. We learned why some animals are awake at night, what characteristics they have to make night a better time for them to be awake and what these animals eat. We were surprised to learn that there are nocturnal snakes!

Since the September, we have been working on number counting, identifying and sequencing.  This group as a whole seem to be particularly interested in numbers so we have been having a little fun practicing skip counting by various numbers to see if we can make it to the current date on the calendar. This has been useful because this includes extra counting, identifying, figuring out odd/even, sequencing and fun. It has turned into quite the fun activity at morning meeting; there are always some squeals if we can arrive at the day's date when counting by whatever number they have chosen to try!

The kids made potato bats by poking toothpicks into a potato, and gluing paper wings they cut out to the toothpicks. They also made snowy owls by stamping forks into paint and onto their owl. Some then chose to cut their owl out while others left them as is. Great fine motor practice with the toothpicks, cutting and stamping!

This week the kids have been working on a game called I Have Who Has, where each child has a set of random numbers and when their number comes up in the sequence they say" I Have (ie: 7) Who Has (ie: 8)". We are practicing this game up to the number 20. The kids also worked on an owl number, number representation and number word game. Some of the kids were able to recognize what letter a number word started with and others used the Number Wall to match up the word to see which one was correct. When offered support, where they can still do it on their own, they are often more excited and feel independent.

Our letters this week were N and V. It worked out that the letter N fell on a week where we were learning about nocturnal animals. So when we tried sounding out the word Nocturnal there were definitely some AHA! moments. The kids also used their play dough to make a volcano for letter V. It was great fine motor practice squishing out a volcano shape and using a syringe to add vinegar to their baking soda. Baking soda and vinegar never gets old!

Some other things we did this week were Legos, colouring and playing the backyard. The cold weather didn't get us down, even though we could only spend 20-30 minutes out there at a time. A little one told me "at least we are very lucky to go in the backyard". Love it!  <3