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.

Fun on the Playground

The weather has been wild this month, but we've made the most of it anyways!  Did you know that for young children, 90% of verbs are learned while actively participating in action?  This is only one benefit of outdoor play.

We received a donation of these wonderful log stumps that have been used to make climbing structures, gates barring the "big bad wolf," drum sets, and even a campfire.  It's likely the imaginative plans will continue to grow as the children use their big muscle groups and their creativity together.

The large stumps have been fun, but small tree biscuits and small logs have also been used endlessly this month as well.

The playground is also a fantastic place for artistic expression.  Children love to color on walls, and with chalk outside, they CAN!

Probably the best part of the playground is the muddy puddles that form with heavy rain!

No matter the weather, get outside and have some fun.  The vitamin D from the sun will do the body and the mind some good!

Remember, there's no such thing as wrong weather... just wrong clothes.  :)  

Preschool Party Halloween Style

Do you want to know how we had the "BEST Halloween party EVER???"  Of course you do!  Harmony's House wants to share our spook-tacular ideas so you can have the most fun too!

Large boxes painted into haunted houses are super fun, especially when orange and black bandannas hang down from the roof!

Art should be done on an outstanding scale, with witches brooms, of course.

Don't let that spider out!  He's enormous!  Just throw your rings at him!  He might catch one or two!

Water beads, eyeballs, creepy critters, colanders, and ladles made the brew station a sensory sensation.  We made witch brew in different ways over and over again!

Believe it or not, "Screwing a Pumpkin" was a favorite activity that children returned to again and again.  Getting the screws in the pumpkin was a bit tricky, so Ms. Harmony prepped this activity by screwing all the screws in.  The children explored ways to turn the screw driver to make the screws go up or down.  Some children even got the screws all the way out!

Eat a book, or read one... whichever suits the little monster.  ;)

These blocks were filled with real bones from an opossum!  It was neat to combine them with mirror blocks, and talk with the children about what parts of the body each set of bones came from.

Play in the Vampire Lair, or the Mummy House, or the Witchy Woods!

And don't forget to trick or treat!

We appreciate all of the parental involvement in pulling this off!  We couldn't have done it without you!

 That's a wrap on how we party hard in the preschool!  <3