Learning Station - Gingy Case Match

The kiddos worked together to match all the upper case letters to their lower case friends.

These are just craft foam gingys that I got on clearance, puzzle cut them in half and wrote the letters with Sharpie.

I love that this kiddo decided to spell his name!

Gg Week

Journals - Gum! - Today we enjoyed a piece of bubble gum while working in our journals.  The kiddos taped their wrappers in and drew a picture of someone blowing a bubble.

Candy Canes - The kiddos were excited to put some candy canes on our class tree. 

Glitter Glue Ornaments - This was fun but a bit messy.  Ha!  The ornaments should look fabulous on our tree!

If they wanted, I drew a quick shape for them to follow with the glue.

Here is a Santa in the making...

On the Tree - Their works of art dried nicely.  Today they hung them on the class tree...

 

Giraffe - Tee hee, these turned out pretty cute!  We looked at different pictures of giraffes, then created our own.  We also talked a little bit about these beautiful animals and shared our experiences at the zoo with them.

All different styles of giraffes.  Drawn, ribbon-ed, ....

 

...and the youngsters glued poka-dots and added a face.

 

Here are the toddler's giraffes...

Gingy in the Oven - We made a gingerbread man to bake in the our ovens...  I think we should have decorated the gingerbread men.  Hmm...

I saw this cute idea on this blog:  Here!

Science - Baking Real Gingerbread Men - Yum!  We enjoyed smelling spices and molasses while we worked on these cookies.

Science - Gingy Dissolve - We were wondering what would have happened if the gingerbread man in the story had fallen in the river.  So we tried it with one of our cookies.  We were surprised that the gingy sunk to the bottom right away. 
One kiddo noticed that the color of the submerged gingy changed after a while.

 Here it is after about 20 minutes.  Ewww...

Gg Snack - grapes, goldfish and gingerbread cookies!
 

Snowy Ornaments - The kiddos enjoyed knocking snow off our outdoor ornaments.

Gg is for Gift - We have started our Santa's workshop by making gifts for our parents and starting on some for our siblings. 

Science - Growing Grass - We hope!  Ms. Sara doesn't have the best track record with growing things, but we're going to try.  In theory we're growing grass seeds on wet Christmas tree shaped sponges.  If it works, we'll have lovely, fresh growing Christmas trees!  We shall see. 

We soaked the sponges, then sprinkled them with seeds...

 Now we just have to spray them with water every day.   

I got this idea from this blog:  Here!

Science - Everlasting Gobstoppers - They change color (and taste)!  So we plopped a few in our mouths and a some in our tin to watch... 

You can see in this tray that the purple turned to red and the red to yellow...  Cool.

I got this idea from this blog:  Here!

Glow Stick Groove - Also science-y.  We cracked them and then had a dance party with the theme from Big Hero 6.

The Gingerbread Man

Welcome to our week on the Gingerbread Man!  Should be tasty and fun!

Journal Time - Gingerbread Men - Ms. Sara punched out a bunch of gingerbread men for the kiddos to glue into their journals. 
A few kiddos discovered that they could camouflage their gingys!

Free Play - Map!  The kiddos were using sticky tabs to mark bad guy hideouts, then off they went to capture them.  This lovely, large, laminated map was a donation.   Sweet!

 

Finger Puppet Gingys - The kiddos decorated their gingerbread finger puppet with eyes and buttons (I glued those one with a hot glue gun).  Then they added puffy white paint.

For the toddler class, I did the puffy paint ahead of time, then had them choose and place the buttons.  I hot glued them on.
 

Gingerbread Man Story Map - The kiddos created their own retelling by adding various animals along the gingerbread's path.

Using donated file folders, I set the stage for our story.  The green square is a pocket to hold our gingerbread man. 

 

I stamped animals for the gingerbread to encounter.  The kiddos picked which animals and the order of their story.  The fox did have to go at the end of the story though.

 

This kiddo added gingerbread crumbs by the fox.  Ha!

 

Science - Is is really freezing outside? - During circle time, while doing the weather, we noticed the thermometer was below freezing.  I told the kiddos that meant water would freeze outside.  We decided to do an experiment.  ...  We took cups with varying amounts of water outside to the front porch.  

One kiddo wanted to spill his cup.  We decided away from walking spots was safe.  He poured it on the snow. 

When we came back at the end of class, the cups of water hadn’t frozen yet, but the spilled water did.  In fact, a few more cups were spilled while investigating and that water froze in just the few minutes it took for moms to pick up the kiddos!  Brrr!  We are leaving the cups on the porch to see if they freeze over night.

Science - Is It Freezing? - Continued - The kiddos cups of ice froze on Wednesday, but the "warmer" temperatures on Thursday and Friday melted them a bit.  A few cups had an ice flow in the top.  Cool. 

 

Continued Inside -  One kiddo melted her ice chunk with the heater and her hands.  Another left hers on the table in her cup and it too melted quickly.

Circle Time - Gingerbread Men - The kiddos gingerbread puppets are all dry and ready to run. While reading the story, the kiddos followed along with their gingys.

 
Gingerbread Cookies - Always a tasty adventure.  Recipe: Click here!




Science - Wet Gingerbread Man - In the story, the gingerbread man meets his demise when he takes a ride across the river with a fox.  We decided to see for ourselves what happens when you put a gingerbread man in a "river". 
 
 
We decided to try a few more items...
 

Eating - Yum! "Run, run as fast as you can ..."



Pink Ribbon - I found this at Goodwill this summer for $1.99.  Isn't it fabulous.  I took it as a personal challenge to find uses for it.  This kiddos strung it up as a trip line for bad guys, she rolled under it in spy fashion.


Cereal Box Gingerbread - Ornaments - First I opened several cereal boxes and had kiddos paint them.  We mixed cinnamon into our brown paint.  Once they dried I cut a simple gingerbread shape, the placed out a variety of craft items for them to decorate with.
  



Clay Gingerbread Ornaments - A few of the kiddos thought we were making cookies again.  Nope, nope.  These are for the tree.  On Monday we'll paint them.  I got the recipe for the clay at this site:  Here!

 Once I had baked them in the oven, the kiddos used paint pens (Sharpie) to decorate them.