Thanksgiving feast

Thanksgiving Feast

Monday 11/21 from 11-1

Northside Aztlan Community Center

Please arrive promptly at 11am so that we can get the food in the kitchen and have the kids perform all the things they have been practicing.

This week was spent preparing for the Thanksgiving feast. We practiced our songs and play. We made our costumes and talked about what we are thankful for. The kids are so excited about the feast, they asked me everyday "is today our feast?" I love their excitement and I can't wait to share it with you all on Monday.

The Dragonfly class had a guest teacher on Friday. A nursing student named Megan came and talked to us about eating the colors of the rainbow. The kids really knew their fruits and veggies! We had fun listening to Megan talk about the role different veggies play in our diets and bodies. (i.e. carrots are good for our eyes) The kids completed a fun project with her, they colored fruits and veggies and glued them to a paper plate. This was a great craft to teach them about choosing fruits and veggies. I took some pictures with Megan's camera and when she emails them to me, I will post them.

Can't wait to see all of you at the feast!

Count down to the Feast

This week at Funtime we have been busy preparing for the Thanksgiving feast. Some of the things we have done are top secret... so you won't find them here in the blog. Don't fret, because you will see them at the feast!

On Monday and Tuesday we had a lot of fun using corn to paint a cut out of an ear of corn. I put popping corn in a knee high panty hose and tied the open end. The kids dipped them in paint and then bounced them onto the corn. It makes a pattern on the paper that looks like corn. This is such a fun craft, the kids really liked to bouncing the bags of corn. Sometimes they bounced a little bit crazy and onto their shirt on their neighbors arm... my apologies to the dragonflies - I forgot to put paint shirts on, so a few kiddos got paint on their shirts. A little spray and wash or other stain remover should take it out. Sorry about that!

The Dragonfly class worked on patterns and shape and number recognition for Monday math.

Wednesday the Dragonfly class made super cute hand turkeys. Ms. Sedeane painted their hands & thumb brown and each of their fingers a different color, then the kids stamped it onto a piece of paper. Because we ran out of time to finish them by adding a googlie eye, a wattle and feet, Ms. Sedeane added all of this on Thursday. They turned out really cute and I love to see how their hands grow over the course of the year. We worked on letter recognition as a whole group for our Wednesday writing.

Thursday and Friday the butterfly class and the dragonfly class did yoga during gym time. They were very excited about it and seemed to really enjoy it. Everyday as part of our circle time we do a few forward folds and some deep breathing. So it was really fun to expand on that and watch the kids try some new (to most of them) poses. They are so darned cute and I love their sense of adventure - so willing to try new things.

The caterpillar class played with balls and ran circles around me in the gym - they are so fast! We also danced to animal action in the classroom.

Here are some pictures of the kids doing yoga.

Important information and reminders:

Thanksgiving Feast is Monday November 21, 2011 at the Northside Aztlan Community Center. It is scheduled from 11-1, you do not need to stay the entire time, but please plan on being there at 11. The children have been practicing for a short performance at the feast and we will do this at the beginning before we eat.

Family and friends are welcome, if you have people visiting for the Holiday, bring them along.

If you haven't signed up to bring something to the feast, please do that by Thursday (11/17). The sign-up sheet is posted on the bulletin board outside the classroom.

Please remember to help your child use the bathroom and wash their hands at the YAC before class.

The winter Recreator is out and registration begins Thursday 11/17. Plan to log on, phone in or walk in and get registered for Funtime... I anticipate classes to fill quickly.

Please remember to keep voices down in the hallway when waiting for class to begin or end.

Enjoy this beautiful weekend!

Pajama Fun

This week went by so quickly! I hope all of you had a fun Halloween, I heard many stories, most of them involving huge amounts of candy. :-)

Our Pajama days on Monday and Tuesday were a big hit. The kids really enjoyed hanging out in PJ's, it was fun to here them talk about their PJ's and what stuffed animals or blankets they sleep with at night.
The Dragonfly class and the Butterfly class watched the movie Rio. I loved hearing them sing along to the songs and we even got up and danced a few times. Both days were really enjoyable and relaxing.
The Caterpillars made cute Turkeys out of construction paper and feathers.

On Wednesday the Dragonflies made the same turkeys, they got really creative with the feathers, making arms and legs out of them. They also glued beans on the outline of their name, these not only turned out really cute, but they are great for name recognition and fine motor skills (gluing the beans on).

Thursday and Friday we had a great time in the gym playing soccer and basketball. These kids have some serious skills, I am impressed!

Thank you all for making our Halloween celebration and our PJ day a success. I feel truly blessed to have such wonderful and amazing parents. I couldn't do this without you!!

Get your party on

We had so much fun this week! The kids were so excited for our parties at the end of the week, they talked about it non-stop! I was excited too - I love seeing the kiddos in their costumes...

Monday & Tuesday we made the cutest little mummies. We used the cutout of a gingerbread man, glued it to a larger piece of paper and the kids painted it with watered down glue. Then, the ripped tissue paper into small pieces and placed it on the glue. We decided at the last minute to glue googlie eyes on the faces. They really turned out great and the kids had fun making their mummies talk to each other.
The Dragonfly class made a shape book, we will keep these in class and use them throughout the session.

Wednesday the dragonfly class carved pumpkins. We split into 2 groups and carved 2 pumpkins. The kids had to work together to get all the guts cleared out. We used out hands and scrapers. Some kids really liked touching the inside of the pumpkins and others didn't. They also had to work together to decide what shapes to carve as the eyes, nose and mouth. Ms. Sedeane and I did the carving and the jack-o-lanterns turned out great!

I took these pictures with my phone and the exposure is a little off... but you get the idea!

Thursday and Friday as you know were our party days. It was wonderful to see all the families moving through the centers together. I really enjoyed talking to all the parents and getting to know you better. I hope you all had as much fun as I did!

Here are some pictures. Please feel free to email me your photos and I will post them.

Halloween fun

I hope you all enjoyed your days off of Funtime! I enjoyed being home with my boys, we spent some time at Something from the Farm yesterday. Got lost in the corn maze, shot the corn cannon and went on a hayride. I highly recommend it if you are looking for something to do this weekend.

A few important reminders:

PLEASE have your child go potty at the YAC before coming into class. It never fails that right as we sit down for circle time, some one has to go potty and once one has to go, they all have to go. :-)

Homework - Due 10/24 & 10/25. Please decorate your leaf and return it to school. I will hang them up outside our classroom by the big tree.

Halloween celebrations- Thursday 10-27 for the caterpillars and butterflies. Friday 10-28 for the dragonflies. Please sign up to contribute something to the party.

Pajama days - Monday October 31st for the dragonflies and Tuesday November 1st for the caterpillars and butterflies.

Now to the fun stuff! Even though it was a short week, we had a lot of fun making fall and Halloween crafts.
On Monday and Tuesday, we painted a pumpkin cutout with Karo syrup, tinted orange with food coloring and then added some orange glitter to make them really sparkle! The caterpillars were so cute, they kept saying "it's sticky" and I'd wipe off their fingers and then they would just plunge back in and tell me how sticky it was - little cuties!!
The dragonflies worked on some math skills, we did 2 different Halloween worksheets. We did them both together as a class, because the directions were somewhat complicated. The first worksheet we had to circle a certain number of each item, of course there were more than we needed to circle, so it was a bit confusing. I always tell the kids to do their best and they are going to make mistakes, but that's OK. We are learning and we will make a lot of mistakes, but that is all part of learning and practicing. The other worksheet was counting and then writing the correct number on the line. Since we haven't learned to write numbers yet, I taught them how to make tic marks... some kiddos got carried away making the marks, so the numbers don't quite match up. This worksheet was all about the counting, so I didn't worry too much about how many tic marks their were. Those who know how to write their numbers were asked to do that instead of tic marks.

Wednesday we made hand print bats. They turned out so cute! Miss Sedeane and I painted the kids hands black - they had a ball with this, because it was cold and it tickled. There were lots of giggles over this! After we 'stamped' the kids hand prints onto yellow paper, they glued the body and head on and drew a face on their bat. The conversations as they did this were really cute. "Mine is going to be a bad bat." "mine is going to be a scary bat." "Well, I'm making a girl bat." "Me too, I'm making a girl bat this is good, not bad." It was really fun to listen to these conversations. We even had a few evil bats... I love to listen to how their brains work!
We worked on writing horizontal and vertical lines. The lines on the page were a little hard to see, they were short, but I told the kids to just start at the dot and make a line. It didn't matter to me if they went farther than the printed one. They did a really good job. I am so proud of each and every one of these kids!

Next week we will continue our Fall/Halloween theme. Culminating with our Halloween celebrations at the end of the week.

As always, if you have questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to email me or catch me before or after class.

Welcome

A big Welcome to Ms. Sedeane and Mr. Trey. It has been so wonderful having them as assistant teachers in Funtime. They are working on learning the kids names and figuring out which parent belongs to what child. If you have a minute when dropping off or picking up, introduce yourself and let them know who your child is. 

Welcome to our new students, it's been fun getting to know you this week!

A few reminders:

Please have your child go potty before entering the classroom.

Please have your child wash his/her hands with soap and water before entering the classroom - there are a lot of illnesses going around this time of year and a little prevention goes a long way!

No Funtime Thursday 10-20 or Friday 10-21

We will be having our Halloween parties this year on Thurs. 10-27 & Fri. 10-28 More details to come...

We did a lot of fun fall activities and crafts this week.  We also took advantage of this beautiful Indian summer and spent some time outside. 

Monday, the Dragonfly (9:30 am MWF) class spent time collecting leaves to make leaf rubbings, but we were having so much fun collecting the leaves, we ran out of time to do the actual craft.  I think after all the fun we had collecting leaves, the craft would have been a little bit of a downer anyway. :-)

For Monday math, the kids used different shapes to make a cute Halloween witch. We talked about each shape and where to place it. This was a really fun and cute way to do some shape recognition.

 

The good news is, the caterpillars (9am T, TH) and butterflies (10:15am T,TH) got to use the leaves the Dragonfly class collected to make a leaf collage.  We glued the leaves onto paper to make a beautiful fall collage on Tuesday.

Wednesday I read a story called The Leaf Man. It's about a leaf man who used to live in one place, but when the wind blew, it picked him up and now we don't know where he is. It talks about where he might be flying. It's a great book and all the illustrations are made out of leaves, so when it talks about how he might be flying over the spotted cow, the spotted cow is made out of leaves. After I read the story, we used our collected leaves to make leaf people. It's really fun to see what the kids create out of leaves, some had skirts, some had feathers, some were people like us with arms, legs and a head. They had a good time looking at the different leaves and deciding what to create. We just let them do whatever they wanted, my philosophy is: it's not about the product, it's about the process. So, you will see a lot of things coming home that are far from 'perfect'. I don't believe in making samples, because I don't want the kids to make something exactly like I made it, I want them to use their own creative visions. Sometimes we will complete projects as a group, where we do each step together, these projects will come home looking a little more 'perfect' or at least looking more uniform.

For Wednesday writing, the kids traced lines using dry erase markers. We wrote on page protectors and erased with toothbrushes.  If they wanted, I also had them write different letters , I called out a letter for them to write, then erase.

Thursday and Friday were gym days. The caterpillars and I ran back and forth across the gym. I asked if they wanted to get something out, I gave them a few choices, bouncy balls, big fit balls, basket balls and a basket. They said no to all of it - "let's just run" a couple little cuties said. So that is what we did, back and forth, back and forth, we got a lot of exercise and also got the giggles! :-)

Because I had a couple of requests last week for the big balls from the butterflies (and we didn't end up honoring those requests) we got them out this week. The kids have so much fun rolling on them, kicking them, rolling them and running behind. It's really a delight to watch! 

The dragonflies also did some fun 'science' today. We again collected leaves and when we got back into the classroom, we crumbled them up. We made sure to get the driest leaves we could find. After we crumbled the leaves, we sprinkled them onto wet paint on a piece of paper. Natures confetti or natures glitter is what we called it. When we crumbled the leaves, they had a different smell then when they were whole - interesting....

Next Week we will continue our Fall theme.

Have a great weekend!

Amy's final week

While we've had a lot of fun this week, talking about fall, taking walks to see the different colors on the leaves and playing apple games, as the week comes to an end, the reality sets in... Ms. Amy will no longer be with us at Funtime. It's a little bittersweet... She is a great assistant teacher and really keeps me on task. So if I seem a little off in the coming weeks, you'll all know why! :-) We will Miss you Amy- words cannot express how much!!!
We have 2 new assistant teachers starting next week, Sedeane and Trey. Sedeane will be with us everyday in the Butterfly and Dragonfly classes. Trey will be helping out on Tues., Thurs. in the Butterfly class and on Wed. in the Dragonfly class.
On Monday, the dragonfly class painted with worms! Yep, that's right, worms... gummy worms! This is one of my favorite crafts and I do it every year - the kids have so much fun dragging the gummy worm the paint to make worm tracks, but I think the best part is when they get to tell you they painted with worms! :-) The Butterfly class also did this project on Tuesday, I thought they would be a little apprehensive about painting with the gummy worm, but they surprised me and just went to town - I love it!
The caterpillar class helped paint the tree trunk that is now hanging up in the hall. We used brown, green and black (the bottle said black, but it was more of a reddish brown) finger paint and had a ton of fun getting messy up to our elbows! These little cuties did such a good job painting the tree trunk, it puts a smile on my face every time I walk by it in the hallway.

This week, the dragonfly class worked on shape recognition and patterning on Monday and name writing on Wednesday. We made shape rubbings using shapes cut out of sandpaper and played with pattern blocks to make different AB patterns. For name writing, I printed out each child's name and put it in a page protector, then the kids used dry erase markers to trace their names.

On Wednesday, the Dragonfly class made stained glass apples, this is another one of my favorites. We used the cutout of an apple, cut a circle in the middle and covered it with clear contact paper, the kiddos stuck colored tissue paper on it to make a beautiful stained glass!

Thurs and Friday are gym days. The caterpillars love to accompany us into the storage closet to choose which ball they want to play with. We always have a look around and talk about the other choices, but somehow they always come out with the balls. :-) A few of the kids in the butterfly class had requested we play with the big balls, but once we got in there, they all started running around and grouping up to play various games, so we just went with it and a good time was had by all. The dragonflies always seem to have a game in mind before their feet hit the gym floor... and today was no different, it seemed like there were 6 or so groups playing different games, but somehow all of their games were part of 1 big game it was pretty cool to watch!

The Caterpillar class paining the tree trunk

Amy reading to some of the butterflies during free play

Amy's goodbye breakfast celebration - she has to wear a hair net at her new job, so we thought we'd start her off on the right foot...

Group hug for Amy from the dragonflies - I wasn't quick enough with the camera -so I caught the end of it.

Important information:
New 6 week session begins Monday 10/10 and Tuesday 10/11.
Please help your child go potty and wash hands with soap and water before class!

Good Luck in your new job Amy, we wish you all the best! We will miss you!!