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.
Monday, November 30, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, November 23, 2009
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.
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
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Thursday, November 19, 2009
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!
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.
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.