Christmas Elves Give from the Heart

The school friends at Harmony's House know what Christmas is all about: bringing joy to those around you, and sharing in it too!  These are the ways our "Christmas Elves" gave from the heart this season:

Each school friend made ornaments for their families, from helping to roll out the dough, selecting cookie cutters, and painting them with glitter when dry.

They hung ornaments on the trees with great precision and care.  

Some friends reverently arranged the stable to create a Christmas scene, reflecting on who was there, what happened so long ago on a very special night, and what this means for us today.

Some friends made festive decorations to ready the house for a big Christmas party!

The "bakery" was busy with little elves making Christmas cookies and cinnamon toast, and other yummy treats!

And finally, we celebrated all together with songs of joy, yummy Christmas tree snacks, and fellowship.

 Merry Christmas to you from us at Harmony's House!  We'll see you back in the new year!

Christmas is Coming!

And we've been preparing to celebrate this holiday!  These are some of the ways we are getting ready for Christmas.  We like to use these village blocks and magnetic Christmas tree to create a complete Christmas village.  

We've engaged our senses with a variety of textured ornaments, Christmas ducks, finger puppets, chimney tubes, sparkly trees and gingerbread boys, and even cinnamon pinecones.  One of the most enjoyable results from this provocation is hearing the children invent stories about Santa going down the chimneys, snowball fights, gingerbread boys outrunning reindeer, and more.  Additionally, the children engaged their fine motor skills by threading fuzzy sticks through the ornaments and hung them on the Christmas tree.

We've worked with green and white paint at the art easel, determining what happens when these colors are mixed.  

One of the BEST part of the Christmas season is driving after dark and seeing the lights!  Night time field trips for preschoolers are impractical, so we turned off the lights and turned on our glow sticks to play with lights.

Some of our friends have become more interested in letters.  Ms. Harmony planned a Small Group activity where each child was given a large letter 'C' for Christmas with a pencil, a fuzzy stick, and a ball of play dough.  One friend in particular, loves the letter 'C' because it is the letter the starts her name!

The children were encouraged to trace the letter with their fingers or pencil.  We talked about how the letter 'C' has a curvy shape.  We tried to form this shape with the fuzzy sticks and/or play dough.

Some of our friends were even able to hear the /c/ sound that 'C' makes and thought of their own 'C' words: candy cane, Christmas tree, carols, and cookies!

Christmas is coming, and we are almost ready!  Songs, lights, smells, letters, and stories... so many ways to fully experience the joyous holiday.

Merry Christmas! We're on Break!

Happy Winter Break and Merry Christmas from Harmony's House!  :)  We'll see you back here in January!

PERFECT No Cook Play-doh

After making sugar cookies on Monday, reading about Gingerbread boys, and practicing with cookie cutters, we were ready for a fresh batch of play-doh so the school friends could "make cookies" and tell stories all on their own.

This is not a new recipe, but it is hands down, the BEST and EASIEST play-doh to make in minutes. It's soft, easily moldable, and cheap.

Recipe and Instructions:

• Put 2 cups of water in the microwave for 4-5 minutes.  Get it boiling.
• Put 2 cups of flour in a bowl.
• Add 1 cup of salt.
• Add 2 tbsp of Cream of Tarter and mix all the dry ingredients.
• Form a well in the flour mixture.
• Drop 2 tbsp of oil into the well, along with any desired food color or glitter.
• Add boiling water and stir all ingredients.
• Let sit for a few minutes and continue to knead until you have a well formed ball.
• When the temperature has come down a bit, PLAY!

During Work Time, the school friends continued to explore with cookie cutters, rolling pins, cut up straw pieces, pipe cleaners and more.  Irresistible, sensory fun!

Tis the Season to be Jolly

We welcomed December with festive new work in the Explore Table and House Area.  In addition to singing "Jingle Bells" on repeat, this new table filler encouraged lots of conversation about shapes, sizes, textures, materials, colors, quantities, and sounds.

We have one unsolved mystery as of now.  Not one jingle bell could be found that would fit in the smallest circle Christmas box.  We are on a mission to find a bell small enough to fit inside with the lid on tight.  :)

We also filled the boxes and pretended to exchange Christmas gifts, and it was SO hard to wait to open them up!  We would shake the boxes and listen to see if we could figure out what was inside!  Super exciting!  ;)

We had a cookie party today with the new Christmas cookies!  Snuffy even got in on the action.  We "fed" him so many cookies he got a tummy ache!

Poor Snuffy.  He had to lay down and take some medicine.  That's what happens when you eat too many cookies at Christmas!

What now? Life with toddler and baby...

After the Halloween party (last day of school), a parent asked what I would do now that I wasn't making lesson plans, setting up activities, gathering materials, running the program, and cleaning up afterward?  I wanted to say, "Well I'll probably just sit at home and cry."  I didn't really sit around and cry, but I was sad to have to put preschool on hold while I waited for the new baby to arrive.  I did work on setting up things for the baby.

During the break, I worked to SIMPLIFY, SIMPLIFY, SIMPLIFY.  Because I didn't have school friends coming over, I reduced the number of toys I had available to Toddler "K."  Less kids means less toys.  In doing this, it made clean up much easier for her.  Because she is younger than the school friends, she also has a shorter attention span and plays in less elaborate ways.  Offering fewer materials has helped her to focus her plans on the play instead of simply dumping materials out (a toddler fave!).  

Toddlers are still very much sensory seeking beings even though they are graduating from the "mouth-everything" stage of infancy.  Harmony's House always makes use of explore tables, but in keeping with the theme SIMPLIFY, we needed to have opportunities that are quick to clean up and safe for toddlers.  Ms. Harmony knew that keeping the work in the explore tables fresh would keep her toddler busy when mom was busy with baby.

These are some of the things we've done in the past few weeks:

Silk fall leaves, pine cones, and forest animals

Play-doh, rolling pins, potato smashers, googly eyes, spatulas, cookie cutters, etc.

Pom-poms, bowl, wire whisk, ladle, and Fisher Price hand mixer

Turkey feathers, large buttons, and colander (not pictured)

Christmas boxes in different shapes and sizes, jingle bells, cotton balls, and bows

As you can see, each table set up includes a sensory component, but also works additional developmental objectives too like fine motor skills, artistic creativity, imaginary play, etc.

With the most recent explore table, Ms. Harmony has been talking to Toddler "K" about shapes, colors, sounds, quantity, size, and popular Christmas tunes like "Jingle Bells."  And just like that, we are surviving the adjustment from one child to two, from baby to toddler, one jingle at a time.  :)