Merry Christmas!

I hope you are having a great Winter Break! Thank you so much for all of your help at our Christmas Party. The kids had a blast. They played musical chairs, made snowflake ornaments, ate yummy cookies and listened to some great christmas stories. Each child got a new book as a gift as well. I hope you enjoy your break and am looking forward to starting up again next week. It's crazy that I am already missing them and all their cute smiles. I hope you enjoy these cute pictures. Thank you Angie for taking them. I will make sure that my camera is charged next time.

Hibernation

This last week was so cold. We talked a lot about different animals that hibernate during the winter. I found it very interesting that bears are not True Hibernators. They wake up several times during the winter to find food close by. Female bears have their babies in the winter and take care of them in their den. The kids got to pick an animal out of the jar that hibernates and they had to act like that animal. We made chex mix for their food they gather to fatten up for the cold months ahead. We made our den out of blankets and chairs and then each kid found a place to hibernate until Spring came. They seemed to have a lot of fun.

Dancing Raisins and Rudolph Peanut Butter treats

Hi! I haven't updated the last couple of weeks. I'm sorry, life has seemed extremely busy lately and I will try to do better at keeping up. A couple weeks ago we did a fun science experiment with sprite and raisins. We made predictions of what would happen if we put raisins in the sprite. I love the answers, " It will blow up!" "The raisins will explode!" "It will shoot off like a rocket!" I think I got such extreme answers because of the volcano and rockets we made in the past. Unfortunately it wasn't as intense but it still got a good reaction out of the kiddos. We also made some yummy Rudolph Peanut Butter Treats. They were suppose to not be so runny so you may want to omit some of the butter. I had to put them in the freezer to get nice and hard. But they were pretty tasty. I told the kids that I would post the recipe so they could make them on Christmas Eve for Rudolph. I hope you enjoy them like we did.

Rudolph Peanut Butter Treats

You will need:

• 3/4 cup butter or margarine, melted (you may want less, mine were runny)
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup oatmeal (not instant)

Preparation:

• 1) In a medium bowl, combine melted butter, peanut butter, and brown sugar. Stir well.
• 2) Add oatmeal and stir well.
• 3) With your hands, roll oatmeal mixture into 1 inch balls and place on waxed paper.

Makes 20 treats

Scones, ice cream and cornucopias!

Sorry I haven't updated things the last couple of weeks. We have been having so much fun and I have been forgetting to take pictures of everything. Last week we learned the letter I and made homemade ice cream for cooking. The kids are always so funny. Everyday they ask me if we are cooking. It is there favorite part I think. We made cornucopias this week for art. I always thought there was more symbolism to the cornucopia but when I looked it up it said it is a symbol of having an abundance of food. Which makes sense why we have cornucopias at Thanksgiving time. This week we read the story The Little Red Hen. We talked about the importance of helping if we want to share the reward. Along with this we made scones. I have never seen happier kids. They kept saying how good they were and that they needed to have the recipe. So for you parents, I'll let you know my "Famous" scone recipe. Rhodes rolls thawed and rolled out. Then fry in a couple inches of oil. Top with butter, honey, jam or cinnamon sugar. It's that simple :) Next week we only have class on Tuesday due to Thanksgiving. I am excited for all the fun things I have planned. I hope you have a great holiday and just wanted to to say that I am Thankful for your children. Thank you for sharing a piece of them with me each week. They bring so much joy to my life.

Halloween pictures

Thank you to all of you that were able to come to our Halloween Party and help out. It was a lot of fun to see the kids all dressed up and having such a good time. We had so much fun reading Halloween books, making art pumpkins with marbles and paint, playing bingo and Don't eat Jack! And of course had some yummy treats. Thanks Trisha for taking these pictures :)

Thankful Tree and The Food Pyramid

Today was a fun day even though I was sad that two of our students were absent today. We made a thankful tree and put leaves that were covered in glitter and stickers of some of our favorite things. Included in this list was: The sun, My Toys, My Family, My mommy, Trains, My Friends and my little pony with the purple comb. :) Kids are so cute! We also learned about the 6 food groups and made a giant food pyramid. We then put all the food from my bags into their correct category. I think the kids were a little sad when we talked about not eating a lot from the sweets, fats, and oils group.

G is for Giraffe

Did you know that Giraffes are the tallest of all animals? They can grow to be 18 ft. tall and weigh over 4,000 pounds. They have short upstanding manes, the same number of neck bones as all other animals, sharp eyesight, and unique pattern of patches on them. They eat leaves from acacia trees and twigs from the top of the trees. They live in Africa and travel in herds. This is what we learned this week for letter G day. We also read a book called "The Unhappy Giraffe" that Miss Julie wrote in Junior High. Afterwards we made our own giraffes which the kiddos were so excited to see stand up on their clothes pin legs. It was a fun day!

Watch out it's about ready to BLOW!

This week was a lot of fun! We had a lot of activities to do. Thursdays are always the busy days trying to do music, science and cooking all in an hour but the kiddos just love this day and I enjoy watching their smiles on their faces. This last Thursday we made spider cookies for cooking and then we did a couple of experiments for science. Our first experiment was with pepper and dish soap. Apparently pepper repels the dish soap when they touch. Then we made our very own volcano and made it erupt. It was so much fun and the kids wanted to keep doing it over and over again. Each time the screams got a little louder.

Will it Sink or will it Float?

This week was Fall Break so we only had class on Tuesday. I made sure I got cooking and Science in since we had our field trip last week and because these are the FAVORITES for the kiddos. For science we played a little game of will it sink or will it float? They got so excited to pick an object out of the bag and make a guess before putting it in the water. I was really surprised by a few of the results. I had thought for sure the chapstick would sink but it floated and the cotton ball ended up sinking once it was filled with water. :0 It was a lot of fun! For cooking we made Carmel Apples with candy corns. They were tasty and everyone loved dipping and decorating.

Chip Clip floated
Action Figure sunk very quickly!
Potato sunk to the bottom.
Apple floated, anyone want to bob for apples?
The whistle sunk.
The small dish floated high.
Of course the nail polish sunk.
The empty pill bottle floated.

Field Trip to Vineyard Nursery

We had a lot of fun at out field trip to Vineyard Nursery in Orem. The kids got to make their way through a corn maze and then played in some fun little houses and tunnels. They went through a "light alley" which they all thought was neat. We ate lunch together and then picked out a pumpkin to take home. Thanks for a great day! It was so fun to see everyone have a great day.