Arctic animals and health/safety month

It's been a fun and busy month so far. We have been working on lots of things and I have been doing a lot of testing for Parent/Teacher conferences. But through it all we have of course enjoyed ourselves too. We have a field trip this week to The Bean Museum and will be seeing their live reptile show. I am excited to go. This month we have been focusing on Health and Safety as well as learning about some Arctic animals and their survival skills in the cold bitter months.

We talked about the Emperor Penguin and how the father penguins hold onto the egg while the mothers go to get food. The father has to make sure not to drop the egg and have it sit on the ice for too long or else the egg would crack and the baby would die. After the baby penguin is born it is also important for him to hold the baby between his legs to keep the baby warm and able to survive. We watched a video to show the kids how this exactly works. I was so excited to use my new apple TV so I didn't have to show the video on my laptop. Instead we watched it on a much bigger screen. The link is below.

Penguin Dads

Afterwards we did an activity that we did last year. I have rolled up socks that the kids get to pretend to be the father penguin caring for his egg. They have to waddle around holding the egg between their ankles. If it falls out they have to quickly pick it up with only their feet.

We also made these cute little penguins for art that day. 

For Health and Safety so far this month we talked about the Food Pyramid one day. I made a picture of the food pyramid and then had a bunch of different foods in a box. Each child got to use my little shopping cart to go shopping for some food. They then brought the food they picked up to the chart and told me which food group it belonged in. They really liked doing this. We had talked before they went shopping about how important it is to eat all sorts of food and to not eat a lot of junk food. I was surprised that they all wanted to pick healthy food when they went shopping. No one would pick out the donuts, cake and other junk food. Hopefully they eat that healthy at home :) Afterwards we played food bingo and then made some juice using my juicer. The juice had apples, oranges and carrots in it. I always find it funny that they think it will taste gross to have carrots in their juice and then end up loving it. They all looked so cute with little orange mustaches. Too bad I didn't get a picture of them.

On a different day we talked about emergencies and made a list of things that were emergencies and what isn't an emergency. I found a news clip of a little girl who was able to save her mother during a seizure by calling 911. The kids thought this was so neat that they could call the police to help them if someone was in trouble and needed help. 

Girl saves mom video

Afterwards we each took turns practicing dialing 911 on a toy phone and then made our own little phone to practice learning our home phone number. I laminated each phone so they could keep practicing at home with their parents. 

Christmas 2010

You will have to forgive me for not updating the blog the last couple of weeks. Life got super busy and I kept forgetting to get to it. We had a great month though! We were able to do Christmas Around the World and learn about different ways that other kids celebrate Christmas. The first Country we talked about was Germany. Their Santa Claus is named St. Nikolous. Saint Nikolous Eve is on December 6th. On that night, German children put a shoe in front of their home's fireplace, so that Saint Nicholas will leave behind goodies. This custom is a bit similar to our Santa Claus tradition, in that children wait to see whether they have been deemed "good" or "bad" by Saint Nick. Children who think they may have been "bad" worry that twigs will be left in their shoes. They also love to decorate their homes with Gingerbread houses. The children were able to decorate their own gingerbread house and  color a picture of the German Santa Claus. 

Another day we talked about Christmas in Mexico. They have presents delivered from the three kings also on January 6th. In Mexico they love to celebrate with lots of pinatas. They also make homemade ornaments with foil. I thought I took pictures of the ornaments we made but can't seem to find them. We used tin foil cupcake liners and flattened them out and then glued scraps of green and red tissue paper on it. I then punched a hole at the top and strung some yarn through it. The kids loved learning how to say Merry Christmas is Spanish. Feliz Navidad! I found a picture online of a foil ornament to give you an idea of some of the ornaments they might make. 

We also had  a Polar Express Day this month. The kids looked so cute all dressed up in their pajamas. We played a couple of Christmas Games and then I had them all sit in rows that would be like a train. We read the book and talked about the bell and how the boy was the only one in the end who could hear the bell of santa's sleigh ring. It was because he still believed in Santa Claus. I had some large bells that looked very much like the bell from the book and we took turns jingling it while singing jingle bells. For cooking today we made homemade hot chocolate. I have a really good friend who is obsessed with "real" hot chocolate not the stuff out of cans. I use to think it must taste pretty similar but I was so wrong. This hot chocolate was so delicious and healthy as well. It is made with honey to make it sweet instead of sugar. It is also really easy to make. 

Hot Chocolate

2 cups milk (or try 2% milk)
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
Combine 1 cup milk, honey, and cocoa powder in a saucepan and heat on stove on low/medium heat until honey and cocoa dissolve. Add the other cup of milk. Heat until you get the temperature just the way you like it. Whatever you do, don't boil. Top with whipped cream or marshmallows.

Serves 2.

I gave them each a peppermint stick to stir their hot chocolate and suck on too.

We were also really busy taking pictures and working on our Christmas books we made for the parents. 

Finally the last day we had our big Christmas party! Thank you so much to those of you that helped out, it was so much fun. We played a fun game with a gift bad and a bean bag. The kids had to balance the bean bag on different parts of their body and get it into the gift bag. They also played Santa Says which is just like Simon Says. We made a really yummy popcorn treat with m &m's and almond bark. We read some christmas and winter books. Played the dance freeze game. Just turn on some Christmas or any music really and let the kids dance like crazy, freezing when the music stops. They love this game. And we also opened our gifts from each other, every child was able to get a new book! 

I hope you all had a wonderful Winter Break and Christmas. I am looking forward to starting up again in a couple days. See you soon! 

Snow Men

I forgot to put in a few pictures of an art project that we did last week. We first got some snow and talked about how and where snow comes from. The kids got to watch during the class time and see how the snow started to melt into water. They were really surprised that is wasn't very much water after it had all melted. We also made these fun snowmen.

Getting Ready for Winter

Today we talked about how animals and people get ready for winter. We played a fun little game with my daughter's bear and a bunch of her clothes. I would make up a story of what the weather looked like when Mr. Bear got up in the morning and then they would take turns picking out something that Mr. Bear needed to wear for that day. We discussed how it was fun to do that with a stuffed animal to learn the ways people dress and stay warm in the winter time but how it is very different from what real bears and other animals do to get ready for winter.

The children learned that a lot of animals collect and eat more food before winter comes.
They get more fat and fur on their bodies to keep them warm during the cold months.
And some animals even hibernate during the winter.

I found this really cute video on National Geographic kids that talked about Mother Polar Bears that hibernate. The kids really loved the baby cubs.

Polar Bear VIdeo

After watching the video we did an experiment that we also did last year that shows the kids how extra fat can keep them warm. All you need to do it put Crisco into 2 ziplock bags. Then put both of those bags in another ziplock bag. The kids first touch some ice water with their bare hand and then compare it to putting their hand in the middle of the fat and then touching the water. Their hand stays very warm in the crisco bag.

After doing the experiment we made some trail mix and they got to pretend they were hibernating and then when it was time to wake up they went to find there food. We made the trail mix with the following ingredients: 

1 cup pretzels

1 cup craisins ( I bought the cherry kind)

1 cup Gold fish

1 cup peanut butter chips

1 cup m &m's 

1 cup cheerios (any flavor)

It was really yummy and the kids really seemed to like it. 

Here are some books we read  today as well:

Water Cycle Day/ Yummy treat/ Turkey Hats

We have had a lot of fun learning about the weather and all the different seasons.  This week we talked about the water cycle.  There are some big words like evaporation, condensation and precipitation but we just focused on the process and what is happening. I found this cute little story about Drippy the Raindrop to help the kids understand it a little more and then we did a science experiment with blue water (Oceans, lakes and rivers) and cotton balls ( our clouds). All you do is rest the cloud on top of your river and watch as the cloud fills up with water. Then they got to pick it up and watch the raindrops begin to fall. They really liked doing this.

Drippy the Raindrop


Making our own little rain clouds. It was great when the kids left preschool today to see a bunch of black clouds. They were all talking about how there was going to be rain today.

For cooking this day we made frozen chocolate bananas! They were so yummy :) All you have to do is freeze your bananas before (I cut mine into thirds and stuck a popsicle stick in it). Then melt some chocolate. We used Reeses peanut butter cups and chocolate chips. Also add a little oil so your chocolate is a little more runny.  Dip your banana in the chocolate and then cover with sprinkles or other fun toppings. Amy at Super Healthy Kids has some great tips if you want to look at her site. The kids loved them and so did I. I think I need to make some more, they were so yummy. 

Chocolate Banana Recipe

We also made some turkey hats this week for art. I spent at least an hour prepping most of the stuff so that it would be easier for the kids but it still took a lot of time. It was worth it though to see how cute they looked and how excited they were to wear them. 

Fairy Tales and Seasons

I have to apologize for not getting the last 2 weeks posted sooner. We had a gross sickness going through the family last week and I completely forgot to post the week before. To top it all off when I went to download my pictures they were gone. I think my 2 year old may have got to the camera and deleted them. So I have just taken a quick few pictures to show you some of the fun activities we did.

Fairy Tales: We were able to read a couple of my favorite fairy tales. The Frog Prince was the first one and the kids loved making these frogs out of paper plates. I think there favorite part was gluing on the tongue and then making their frogs ribbit over and over again.  I love how fairy tales teach a life lesson. In The Frog Prince we learned that it is important to keep your promise if you say you will do something.

We also red the story The Little Red Hen. We talked about the importance of helping out with the work if you want the reward at the end. They were then able to help roll out the dough and help me make scones. We did this activity last year and the kids always love the scones. Even though they usually put way too much cinnamon sugar on it. 

Seasons: We have also been talking lots about the seasons and how the weather changes for each season. We have been doing a lot of sorting to practice learning the difference between each season. The kids have been doing really well at the sorting games and seem to be catching on well. We have read some fun books as well to go with each season. We collected leaves one day. We talked about the leaves that were still on the trees and those that had fallen on the ground. They loved to see all the different colors that the leaves were changing. We then practiced tracing our leaves onto paper and then they got to paint their leaves all the different fall colors.