Winter Holidays, Day Nine

Today is your Kwanzaa cooking activity! Kwanzaa kabobs are the order today. Give your students a variety of fruits-bananas, strawberries, orange sections, apple chunks, pineapple chunks, etc. (be aware of choking hazards, of course). You could put the fruits out in a bowl and let the students pick from the bowls themselves, or give each student a few of each type of fruit on a plate. At any rate, give your students red and green straws or toothpicks to thread their fruit onto.

For fine motor, make a “kufi” or hat. Make a headband for each student to fit their head. I would use black construction paper, posterboards, or sentence strips to do this. Give each student a couple of short strips of red, green, and black paper and have them glue them together in the center into a criss-cross or star shape, then glue it to the sentence strip.

Winter Holidays, Day eight

It’s been a few days, huh? Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I am going to be playing catch-up for a few days, I guess.

Today we will be making a Kwanzaa candelabra, also known as a kinara. You will need seven toilet paper tubes for each child (or your could cut paper towel tubes in half). Have your students tape (with adult assistance) their tubes to a piece of flat cardboard. Paint the middle tube black, then paint the tubes on one side red and the tubes on the other side green. Finally, have your students stuff yellow and orange tissue paper into the tubes with a little bit of glue to look like flames.

For fine motor today you will have your students make a Kwanzaa mat, or mkeka. Give each student a sheet of black construction paper. Have them tear or cut red and green squares of paper and glue them to the construction paper. If your students have the fine motor skills to do so, you could give them black paper with small slits cut into it and have them weave red and green strips of paper into the black paper. Whatever you have your students do, laminate their handiwork once it is finished (and dry, if you use glue) and send it home for them to use as a placemat.

Winter Holidays, Day Seven

Hooray! Today is latke day! I always loved making latkes with my class….probably because I puffy heart love latkes!

I’m going to be really honest with you. I don’t have an authentic latke recipe. I just make them in the way that, um, makes sense to me. If you have a problem with this, or if you have an authentic recipe, then by all means use an authentic recipe. If not…..here’s MY recipe:

Peel and shred some potatoes….maybe 4 or 5 medium potatoes. I use my food processor fitted with the shredder blade to do this. Your students will love to drop the potatoes in the processor, and you can use the Powerlink to let a student control it with a switch. Put the shredded potatoes in a towel and squeeze out the excess water. Work quickly, because if the potatoes sit out too long they will turn grey or pink….yuck!

Now, put the potatoes in a bowl. Crack in a couple of eggs and add a couple of large spoonfuls of flour. Stir it up, then drop spoonfuls of the potato mixture into hot oil (an electric skillet is the best way to do this). This is the only step that your students can’t help you with! Make sure that your latkes are nice and flat so that the potatoes cook all the way through. Once they are “golden-brown and delicious”, drain them on paper towels. Let them cool for a few minutes then serve with sour cream and applesauce.

For fine motor today, give your students a batch of blue baking dough or some blue playdough and help your students roll and shape Star of David sculptures. If you use playdough, put the creations on a piece of waxed paper with their names and let them dry in the window. If you use baking dough, of course, you will want to put them on waxed paper and bake them! The fact that the Star of David is open will make it easy to hang on the tree or make a door hanger.

Winter Holidays, Day Six

This week we will focus on non-Christmas holidays. I would recommend, again, that you base the length of time that you spend focusing on these holidays on the preferences of your children and families. I have never had students that celebrated any holiday other than Christmas during this time of year, so I viewed this time as an opportunity to expose them to something that they are not familiar with, but still spent more time talking about what they were familiar with, Christmas. If you have families that do celebrate Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, then spend more time researching and finding activities for your students to do-or better yet, ask for help from your families!

For the first couple of days, we will talk about Hanukkah. For storytime, continue reading If You Take a Mouse to the Movies, but try to find an age-appropriate book about Hanukkah and Kwanzaa that you could either read at morning meeting or in addition to your main storytime book. You could sing “Dreidel Dreidel Dreidel;” the Kwanzaa song that I used to sing with my class went like this (tune: Bingo): There is a holiday I know, and Kwanzaa is its name-oh! Candlelight and food so good, all around my neighborhood. Love and thanks for all that’s good-and Kwanzaa is its name-oh!

Today’s art activity will be a Hanukkah suncatcher. You will need to prep this ahead of time. Cut out a large (the size of a sheet of paper) Star of David and glue it to a piece of waxed paper for each child. Have your students either cut or tear blue and white paper and glue it to their waxed paper. Once the glue has dried, you can either run it through the laminator (my personal favorite) or cover it with another sheet of waxed paper or with Con-tact paper. These really do look great hanging in the window!

For fine motor, have your students cut out a large Star of David themselves and glue bits of blue and white construction paper or other blue and white collage items to it.

Winter Holidays, Week Two-Lesson Plan Form

Winter Holidays, Day Five

Today you will make some strings for your tree! This is, of course, a time during which you will need to know your childcare licensing rules. If licensing allows, make pasta garlands with red and green colored rigatoni or wagon wheel (color it with food coloring and a little rubbing alcohol-just throw it in a zipper bag, shake it up, and spread it on newspaper to dry overnight). Let your students string it on yarn. If you can’t use pasta, try to find some chubby red and green beads, or make beads out of toilet paper or paper towel tubes cut to short lengths (you could let your students paint these). These will look great on your tree!

Your fine motor today is a great way to use old Christmas greeting cards. Cut off the fronts of the cards, laminate them, and punch holes all the way around the edge. If you don’t have any Christmas card fronts, you can buy Christmas-themed note pads from Carson-Dellosa….and remember to save your Christmas cards this year! This is one of the most inexpensive and easy ways to make Christmas-themed lacing cards!

Winter Holidays, Day Four

Today is stocking day. I have tried making felt stockings with my students and having them glue two sides together, but without much success. The glue just soaks into the felt and they fall apart….so I just cut them out of paper now. So….you will need a stocking pattern for each student. I would recommend having each student choose his/her stocking color before you make the patterns so that you are sure that you have enough of each color. If you are feeling adventurous, you can provide two patterns per child and have them glue them together (or if you have very dexterous students…..you can punch small holes and have them “sew” the stocking sides together using embroidery thread….but I have never been that brave!). Anyway…..

Have your students cut their stockings out and decorate. I love the idea of each student having a stocking with his/her name on it, so let each child put their name on the stocking however they can, whether they can actually write their name, if they can trace it with a writing utensil or glittery or colored glue, or whether they need to use paper or foam letters to make their name….what matters is that everyone gets his or her name on a stocking! Other than that, the sky’s the limit! Provide lots of paper in different colors and textures, yarn, buttons, jewels, colored or glitter glue, cloth scraps-WHATEVER. Let everyone decorate their stocking however they want! Once they have dried, you could hang them around your door or make a cute mock fireplace to hang them around.

For fine motor, make baking dough. Use your favorite recipe, or if you don’t have one, you could use this one. Let each child knead and roll out a ball of dough and cut it into a Christmas-y shape with a cookie cutter. Then, of course, you will want to put each child’s creation on a square of waxed paper with his/her name or initials on it and bake it! You will paint them tomorrow.

Since this time of year is one that we so often associate with different types of scents, this is a great time to use things with a nice scent in your sensory table. You could simply put bags of cinnamon potpourri, or you could buy cinnamon-scented pinecones and bury them in red and green shredded paper.

Winter Holidays, Day Three

Okay, we’re out of order this week! We will do our cooking activity today instead of Friday. Can you guess what we’re making? That’s right-gingerbread men!

I make my gingerbread men from a mix, for two reasons: (1) I am not brave enough to make them from scratch with preschoolers; and (2) my classroom budget does not allow for the 500,000 different ingredients necessary to make gingerbread cookies from scratch! If you are brave and rich, go for it! If not, buy the bag and be done with it! Have your students help you mix and roll the cookies, then let each child cut out a cookie (put it on a small square of waxed paper with their name on it). You can have everyone cut out the same shape or let them choose between a gingerbread man or woman….or, doggone-it, let them cut out whatever shape they please! It’s up to you.

Once your cookies have baked, you can let your students decorate them for fine motor. Mix up several colors of icing and put it into piping bags or Ziploc bags, cut the corners, and let them go to town. If you use canned icing, you may want to mix some powdered sugar into it to thicken it a bit, as canned icing can get pretty then when you try to pipe it. Please don’t get bent out of shape if their cookies don’t look perfect-piping is fun and all your kids probably want to do is get as much icing on their cookie as possible! Of course, once they have decorated, it’s time to eat! Have fun!

Winter Holidays, Day Two

Day two=more gingerbread people! Today you will make sandpaper gingerbread people. You will need a large sheet of sandpaper (whatever grit-it doesn’t matter. I usually buy it in multi-packs that contain several different grits) for each child. You will need to trace a pattern of a gingerbread man onto each sheet of sandpaper. I like to trace on the back of the paper to save my markers!

Give each child their gingerbread man and have them cut it out. As always, this is a great opportunity for children who have limited motor skills to operate the scissors using a switch while someone else holds the switch-powered scissors. This is an awesome cutting activity because the sandpaper gives a little more resistance than regular paper, which helps to build hand strength. Try to think about the different ways that you can provide a little resistance in cutting!

Once all the gingerbread people have been cut out, you can do one of three things: (1) have the students decorate their gingerbread person using paint/brushes; (2) have them decorate using buttons, rick rack, pieces of cloth, etc.; (3) fill Ziploc bags with different colors of puff paint (equal parts glue and shaving cream with paint to add color) and have them “pipe” the decorations on their people-just like they would pipe icing on a cookie!

Today, have your students glue their popsicle sticks from yesterday’s fine motor activity into a Christmas tree shape-the three green form a triangle “tree” while the brown is the trunk. Add a laminated yellow paper or craft foam star. Once the glue has dried, tie a piece of red yarn to make a hanger. I always write the year on the star as well. Take a nice holiday picture of your students (I have mine pose in front of the Christmas tree) and cut it to fit your ornaments, and then glue into place.

Winter Holidays, Day One

Winter holidays are sure to be a big hit in your classroom! Be careful that you are sensitive to all belief systems in your classroom. Because the schools at which I have taught are publicly funded, we do not discuss religious beliefs but rather traditions that people observe during the holiday season. The majority of my students celebrate Christmas, but I want to at least expose them to other holidays, such as Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. I will allow three weeks for this theme.

Your book for this theme is If You Take a Mouse to the Movies by Laura Numeroff-another of her fantastic circular books. The book does not talk so much about holiday traditions as it uses visuals to show holiday traditions. Of course, there are SO many Christmas songs, so you can choose whatever songs you like and your students know. We always sing “Dreidel Dreidel Dreidel,” and the students love it.

For the first few days, we will be focusing on gingerbread men (women, etc.). Day one, you will be making puffy gingerbread people. Give your students a gingerbread person to cut out (use construction paper, because the puff paint will make copy paper soggy). Have the students cut their gingerbread person out then paint with puff paint, which is one part glue, one part shaving cream, and enough paint to turn it the color you want. DO NOT mix this ahead of time, as the shaving cream will deflate and your paint will not be puffy! Encourage your students to dab rather than spread the paint; it will really dry puffy! Once they have painted their gingerbread people, they can stick on pieces of paper or foam, rick-rack or buttons to make faces, clothing, etc.

For fine motor, give each student 3 craft/popsicle sticks. Have them paint three of the sticks green and one brown. Set these aside to dry-you will use them tomorrow to make a Christmas tree picture frame ornament.

An easy, inexpensive, and fun sensory table activity is to shred several sheets of red and green construction paper (wrapping paper works well, too) and put it in the sensory table along with pine cones, small gift boxes, mini stockings-whatever you like.

Winter Holidays Curriculum, Week One

Thanksgiving Curriculum, Day Three

Well, today is Wednesday…but technically, it’s like Friday-which means it’s cooking day! Today’s cooking activity is pumpkin pie pudding-mmmmmm! For this activity, you will need enough vanilla pudding mix for all of your students, plus a can of pumpkin pie filling-NOT plain canned pumpkin. Oh, and milk to make the pudding, of course!

First of all, have your students help you make the pudding according to the recipe on the box. You can mix it in a bowl, or you can pour the ingredients into a zipper bag and have the students shake it and knead it. Help each student scoop a serving of pudding into a cup, then mix in a spoonful of the pumpkin pie mix. If you want, you can top the pudding with whipped cream (or whipped topping) and graham cracker crumbs.

For fine motor, have your students make a turkey….give them a turkey body cut-out (or let them cut the body out themselves). To make the body, just draw a bowling pin shape on brown paper. Have them cut out circles for eyes, two orange triangles for feet and one for a beak, and multicolored ovals for feathers, and glue them to the turkey body cut-out.

For math, have your students vote on their favorite Thanksgiving food-turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, or pumpkin pie (or whatever foods you would like to include). Graph these on your classroom graph.

Thanksgiving Curriculum, Day Two

So, can you tell that Thanksgiving is not my favorite curriculum? Sorry that you have to suffer for it! I can only take so much of the turkeys and the cornucopias and the Indian corn and the pies…..oh well. That’s okay. I’ll make up for it later!

Speaking of cornucopias…..that’s today’s art activity-a cornucopia collage. Give each student a cornucopia pattern to cut out, or a pre-cut cornucopia. Look through magazines to find pictures of fruits and vegetables; cut them out and glue them to your cornucopias.

Alternately, you could do a “thankful collage.” This is a family project and you will need to ask your parents to send in pictures of family members, pets, friends, favorite toys, etc. You could have each child glue these to a giant cornucopia or just make a poster saying, “Sally is thankful for….” You can go back later and label the pictures. At circle time, look at each student’s collage and talk about who/what they are thankful for and why.

For math, you can do patterns with feathers, Thanksgiving stickers or foam cut-outs, leaves, or candy corn/crème pumpkins (if licensing allows this). Your graphing activity will be tomorrow. For science, you could bring in a real turkey feather (if you can find one). For fine motor, you can use your pumpkin playdough again, or you could make “Indian Corn”-have the students cut out a corn cob shape from white construction paper then glue colored popcorn (lots of grocery stores sell it) to their cob. You could also use blue corn popcorn, which I have found in one of the natural food stores here.

Thanksgiving, Day One

It's Thanksgiving week! I have provided a fun book-5 Little Turkeys-for you to use in your classroom this week. I have written 3 days worth of lesson plans-our district only goes 2 days Thanksgiving week.

Today, your students will make turkeys. Give each student a turkey pattern to cut out, then give them colorful feathers to glue to the turkey. You can use your Boardmaker symbols to give your students a way to make their requests. Students who can't cut their own turkeys out can either have a precut turkey or use switch-operated scissors to cut their turkeys out.

Make turkey lacing cards out of a turkey notepad (I use these notepads).

Thanksgiving Lesson Plans

Please note that I have only given one week for Thanksgiving. I consider my food curriculum part of my Thanksgiving curriculum, and I never had much luck finding good Thanksgiving books. In our district we go to school for 2 days the week of Thanksgiving, but I have written the lesson plans for three days.

Book: 5 Little Turkeys

This is a book that I illustrated several years ago for use in my classroom. The author of the poem is unknown, as far as I am aware. At the preschool where I taught, the Assistive Technology Center staff scanned the book into the computer and created a book in Intellitools Classroom Suite that my students could "read" on the computer-something I copied with many, many books during my time there. It's a great way to expose children to the books with a level of independence that they can't usually have when viewing books. Of course, if you don't have one, another great way to help students read to themselves is the Bookworm.

Please forgive me that some of the letters were lost. I made this book on construction paper and it's a bit large for my scanner!

Food Curriculum Books

....this is no means an exhaustive list, but a good starting point!

If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Numeroff, illustrated by Felicia Bond
Delbert Ate a Muffin by Shirley D. Holt
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff, illustrated by Felicia Bond
The Best Mouse Cookie by Laura Numeroff, illustrated by Felicia Bond
Let’s Make Cookies by Mary Hill
Mr. Cookie Baker by Monica Wellington
If You Give a Pig a Pancake by Laura Numeroff, illustrated by Felicia Bond
Pancakes, Pancakes! by Eric Carle
Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie DePaola
Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert
Eating the Alphabet: Fruits and Vegetables from A to Z by Lois Ehlert
Hi, Pizza Man! by Virginia Walter and Ponder Goembel
The Little Red Hen (Makes a Pizza) by Philemon Sturges and Amy Walrod
The Princess and the Pizza by Mary Jane Auch and Herm Auch
Pizza Counting by Christina Dobson and Matthew Holmes

Food Curriculum, Day Ten

All right! Sadly, today is the last day of my food unit….it’s time to move on to Thanksgiving (of course, there’s a fair amount of cooking involved in the food theme)! Today is likely to be your students’ favorite day of the theme-pizza day! Naturally, you will set your theme at story time by reading Hi, Pizza Man! and singing “Do You Know the Pizza Man” and “I am a Pizza” (if you have it-and believe me-you SHOULD have it!).

Of course, your cooking activity is going to be to make pizza! You could make a large pizza for your whole class to share, but I feel like it’s more of a crowd-pleaser to let everyone make their own pizza. I like English muffins, but if you are feeling especially daring, your could buy some pizza dough at the grocery store, or even make it from scratch (a bread machine is great for doing this without a lot of fuss). Whatever you choose, let the students help you put out the ingredients in paper bowls, then let them build their own pizzas. I find that the most popular toppings are pretty obvious-cheese and pepperoni-but there are always some students that surprise you by eating olives, peppers, or mushrooms. At any rate, provide them so that your students have that option! Also, provide Boardmaker pictures so that they can request whatever they want for their pizza. The best way that I have found to identify each child’s cooking is to cut out a square of waxed or parchment paper in the size of whatever they are making, write each child’s name on a square, and then make sure they put their treat on their square. Perfect!

You could also order a pizza to be delivered-so your students can practice saying, “Hi, pizza man!” of course-but the one year that I tried to do this I spent $10.00 on Pizza Hut pizza only to have my students stare blankly at the pizza man and then have only one student eat the pizza. I mean, I know kids with autism tend to be picky eaters, but I thought everyone liked Pizza Hut pizza!!!! My point is, I wouldn’t spend my money on this unless I was certain the children were going to eat it!

For math today, of course you are going to vote on which food your students have liked best-muffins, chocolate chip cookies, pancakes, vegetable soup, or pizza! I hope that you have enjoyed my favorite EVER theme. I hate that it’s over! I’ll have to think of some more ideas to add to it!

Food Curriculum, Day Nine

Today-like Tuesday-is so much fun that I can hardly contain myself! This is likely to be your students’ favorite theme in your food unit-PIZZA! The book for this theme is Hi, Pizza Man by Virginia Walter and Ponder Goembel. Your students will have a great time imitating the sounds that all of the different animals in the book make! Of course, you will sing “Do You Know the Pizza Man?”-but another song that I always sing with my class (not just during pizza theme!) is “I am a Pizza” from the CD 10 Carrot Diamond by Charlotte Diamond. This song has a corresponding book that your students will also love….it is sure to be the biggest hit in your classroom. You can find this CD at www.N-E-N.com.

The art activity is another VERY cute, fun project. We’ll be making pizzas today! Give your students the thin cardboard circles that they cut out during fine motor time yesterday. Have them request paint using verbalizations, switches, or Boardmaker symbols, then have them paint almost to the edges of their circle using a very thin layer or the red paint. Next, have them glue yellow shredded paper to the circle. They will need quite a bit of glue and not too much shredded paper, or the paper won’t stick! Finally, they get to add their “toppings.” You can provide Boardmaker symbols of all of the “toppings” that you have provided (like I said yesterday, I do white and green slivers of paper for onions and peppers, red circles for pepperonis, and mushroom cutouts). Have the students request their toppings either verbally, using a communication device, or using a picture, them have them glue their toppings onto their pizza! Once dry, you can hang these up and they are sure to attract lots of attention!

A fun fine motor activity to do for the two days that you are talking about pizza is to have a “playdough pizza party.” Provide playdough in lots of colors-red, yellow, green, white, brown-plus rolling pins and round cookie cutters. Have your students use the playdough to make pizza.

For math, have your students vote on which pizza toppings are their favorite! Graph their votes on your classroom graph and talk about which is the most and which is the least popular.

Food Curriculum, Day Eight

Can you guess what today is? That’s right! It’s vegetable soup day! Of course, you will read Growing Vegetable Soup and sing “Do You Know the Veggie Soup Man?” For your cooking activity, pass around whole vegetables-a potato, a carrot, a celery stalk, an onion, a tomato…talk about how they look, feel, etc., have your students name them and describe them. To actually make your soup, you could either chop the veggies in front of the students and have them help you put them in the pot, or you could use bags of frozen vegetables or use canned veggies. I prefer using frozen or canned veggies so that the students do not have a lot of time to just sit and watch you! I think that a Crock-Pot is best for this….put your veggies and water or broth in the pot in the morning, set it on high, and let it cook all morning. You could have it for lunch or for a snack.

For fine motor today, give your students a large circle traced on a sheet of thin cardboard to cut. You will want to use something really sturdy for this….construction paper won’t work for tomorrow’s art activity-pizzas! You will also want to prepare several things ahead of time: shredded yellow paper (cheese), slivers of white and green paper (onions and peppers), mushroom shapes cut from light brown paper, and small red circles (pepperoni). You could have your students use a handheld circle punch (like you would use for scrapbooking) to cut their own pepperonis.

Food Curriculum, Day Seven (with patterns!)

Oh my goodness. Today’s activity is so cute I can hardly stand it! The next two days are “vegetable soup” days. Your book for today and Wednesday is Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert. I always use this book during my food unit and then again in the spring when we talk about gardening and things that grow. Of course, your song is going to be “Do You Know the Vegetable Soup Man” (or Veggie Soup Man, if you would prefer to abbreviate).

For art….if you had your students chop their “veggies” on Monday, hand out the bags of “chopped veggies.” If not, have them cut up the veggies first. Each student will need a soup pot with the inside cut out of it that has been run through the laminator or glued to wax paper to make a clear center. Have the students glue their “chopped veggies” onto the clear center. Once the glue has dried, run the pot through the laminator again. This is a very important step; if you do not do this the veggies will have a tendency to fall off.

For tactile today, make a huge pot of “vegetable soup.” Put water and red food color or bath dye into a clear sensory table to look like a big pot of tomato-ey broth. Put lots of vegetables and some spoons, bowls, and ladles into the table, and encourage the students to pretend that they are making vegetable soup just like in your book!

For fine motor, give each student a sheet of paper with their name written in large letters. Have the students use fruit and veggie stickers to “trace” or cover the outline of their name (Carson-Dellosa makes lots of cute stickers that are widely available at office and school supply stores).

I have provided patterns for the veggies and the soup pot below….

Food Curriculum, Day Six

Today will conclude “pancakes” as your theme. Of course, you will read Laura Numeroff’s If You Give a Pig a Pancake as your story time book. Sing “Do You Know the Pancake Man.” (I know the “Do You Know” song is getting old….but kids like routine and repetition, and it is especially beneficial for students with cognitive and language delays).

Naturally, today is pancake cooking day! You can use a mix if you prefer, but I like to make the pancakes from scratch so that the students can see the process from start to finish….how eggs, flour, milk, sugar, and a few other ingredients turn into the flat, pancakey goodness! The best way to cook them is on an electric griddle or in an electric skillet. Whenever I cooked in an electric appliance in my preschool classroom, I always set up a little table in front of the students so that they could see me cooking but they were not close enough to reach out and touch the appliance. Have the students read the recipe off of your recipe poster and mix/measure the ingredients. As long as they are VERY closely supervised, you could let the students come up and help pour the batter onto the griddle-but I would ONLY do this if an adult was available to stand right with the students as they poured. Provide several toppings for students to try…syrup, fruit, jam, whipped cream….the sky’s the limit!

For fine motor today, you will be getting ready for tomorrow’s art activity. This will take a good deal of preparation by you ahead of time. You will be making “soup pots” tomorrow, so your students will be “chopping vegetables.” For each student, you will need to cut a potato, celery stalk, carrot, and tomato out of construction paper. The students will “chop” the veggies with their scissors. Once they have finished, put the chopped veggies in a plastic bag with the student’s name on it to save for tomorrow.

Lesson Plan Form: Food, Week Two