The Joy of Order and Goal Striving Day 2

Today, the children arrived ready to share their goals. I was very impressed with everyone's goals. Kai chose to work on controlling his body movements and to sit quietly during listening time. Isabel chose to memorize her phone number and address. Joseph chose to learn how to write his name. Emily chose to help her mom by putting away her own clean laundry. Eve chose to also learn her phone number and address and Grant chose to learn how to write his name. During learning time, we spent a good amount of time practicing our goals and earning stickers on our charts for practicing. But before we did that, we did something really fun... we talked about working together as a team to achieve goals. The kids sat in a circle on the ground and made ice cream by passing around an ice cream ball. They rolled it, shook it and passed it to their neighbors. It was a lot of work and it took quite a bit of time, but the reward was sweet! The kids LOVED their vanilla ice cream with sprinkles snack. Isabel announced that it was the best snack ever at Joy School!!

We even had enough for everyone to have seconds! (Hope I didn't ruin any lunch appetites!)

For craft, we made snowmen for our snowmen scene... but they didn't come home that day. I explained that there was an "order" to our winter scene and that we would finish them the next day at Joy School.

The Joy of Order and Goal Striving Day 1

Today was just lovely! Following our regular circle time activities, the children did a little show and tell with their Christmas presents. Grant shared his Star Wars Lego's... Eve shared her ladybug pillow pet... Joseph shared his robot... Isabel shared her baby penguin... and Emily showed up right in time to share her Rapunzel costume. It was a really fun activity and tied in well with reviewing sharing and gift giving and the feelings of happiness related to giving that they discussed at Liz's house before Christmas.

After a few stories related to setting goals, I was pleased with how well they really seemed to grasp the concept of goals. After I announced that they would be picking their own goal to work on, they continued to throw around a few ideas for the rest of the day. During our craft, which consisted of stickers, Eve suggested that Emily's goal be sharing stickers. That had me cracking up, especially since Emily protested that that is not what she wanted her goal to be.

The letter of the day was J. So perfect since J-J-JANUARY starts with the letter J. Naturally, our snack was J-J-Jell-o. Which Emily was thrilled about having just been at the dentist that morning. They also really had a fun time playing outside together, even though it was chilly. I made up a batch of fake snow in favor of winter, which they all had a fun time taking turns to play in.

For crafttime, we decorated the frames to their goal charts, which will come home at the end of the unit. The instruction was for them to go home and decide on a goal to work on for next time... I was excited to find out what they would choose.

Nativity

Nativity play for "the Grandmas"

Joy of Sharing & Service - Day 3

Today was the third and last day of our unit, which will also include a field trip to a Board & Care facility to debut our Christmas play. During the opening, after welcome and calendar, I explained to everyone that on Thursday we were going to a Board and Care facility to put on our play and sing for the grandmas at the facility. They were all very curious about these "grandmas" that they would be singing for and this opened a lengthy discussion about these particular residents and their own grandmas of course. All of the children were also very excited about the upcoming holidays and what they would be doing for Christmas.

We missed Kai in the morning as he wasn't feeling well, but he was able to come later in the day for the Christmas play rehearsal.

Following a Christmas book, we proceeded to work on our craft project for the day. The craft was to paint with glitter paint on cinnamon-scented pine cones. I explained to the children that we would be giving these pine cones as gifts to the grandmas and employees at the Board & Care. I also told then that they could pick one pine cone to take home to their families. We also practiced the Christmas songs that would be part of the Christmas play.

Today, we also had the culmination of our "secret buddies" and each of the Joy Schoolers received a Christmas present book from their secret buddy. They were all very excited about this.

After snack and some outside play, Eve's mom came to help us with our Christmas play, which she had written for them. The children all chose parts. Emily was Mary, Joseph was Joseph, Grant and Kai were wise men, Eve was a Shepherdess and Isabel was an angel. The practice went really well and everyone seemed into their part.

We look forward to a big Christmas spectacular!

Joy of Sharing & Service Day 2

Hi everyone.
Day two was another fun day with the all the children. Unlike Tuesday when most seemed pretty wiggly during circle time, today they were all pretty quite and attentive. We followed circle time with practicing our Christmas songs. Eve, Emily and Grant and especially good with the hand movements to "In a Little Stable" and Isabel seemed to be getting a little better with them.

After singing time, we read a story about how the tradition of the Christmas tree was started in the United States. According to the story, German immigrants to the US brought the tradition with them which was adopted by others. After the story and our discussion we had snack and recess (which is I think their favorite time). The boys seemed to be playing well together today. Everyone loved doing yard work in the backyard with Isabel's kid-size yard tool set. We also had a practice in sharing as their are only four tools which they had to take turns with.

For the lesson portion of the day, the children practiced writing the letter H. Eve and Emily were great with writing the letters. Grant did a great job with his letter H after I briefly showed him how to practice tracing the letter first. Joseph definitely tried hard to write the letters and got the concept of two lines down and joined in the middle, but just needs a little practice. (He's probably well ahead of his age group as he's still 3.) Kai wrote one good H to show me that he can do it. We also cut some chains on our chain of sharing and service ideas as we accomplished those certain tasks. We read from the lesson manual the story of Heather and Alice, which is a story of sharing and service. Everyone loved taping the story pictures to the board as a I read the story. We finished the lesson time with the book "The Giving Tree" which they all loved. Everyone was super quite listening to the story and had great answers to the questions I asked them during the story about service and sharing.

We followed the story about the giving tree and also incorporated our story about Christmas trees and boughs, with the craft project. I gave each child some decorations for the trees and they were to "share" their decorations with everyone else so that everyone's tree was beautiful.

Joy of Sharing & Service Day 1

Hi moms.
The first day of the unit Joy of Sharing and Service went well and (I think) the kids all had a fun day. We started with circle time and Isabel and Emily sat like little angels on their mats. The boys were a little wiggly but also did a great job. Grant volunteered for everything and nicely led the children in the Pledge of Allegiance. After Circle Time we started to learn the Christmas songs to sing at the Board and Care. We practiced "Jingle Bells" and passed around the bell during the song for each child to ring as we sang. They seemed to really like that and they all knew the song really well. Kai did an especially good job in making sure everyone had a turn ringing the bell. We also practiced "In a Little Stable." Emily and Grant were great with the hand motions that go to the song. We then chose "Secret Buddies" and I explained to everyone that they should try to do especially nice things for their buddy the next three school days.

We had a lesson learning about nice helpful sharing and service things we can do for others. We made little strips of paper with the sharing and service ideas on them and then stapled a chain together with the sharing and service ideas. They all had a difficult time working the staplers at first but I think they all were doing an OK job by the end. Throughout the next two days of school we will be cutting the chain links off as we practice and accomplish each of the sharing and service tasks.

In our craft time we sewed and decorated stockings. The children all seemed to enjoy the craft. Emily and Isabel were in a competition to make the most beautiful stocking (I told them they were both equally beautiful). Joseph particularly liked putting the Santa Clause together on the stocking. Kai seemed to like trying to figure out the best way to sew it together. Grant took great care in placing the stickers and Santa Claus on his stocking perfectly and spent a lot of time on it.

I think a hit with the boys during freeplay was the Thomas Train. Kai told me he had seen the movie and Joseph had a tight grasp on the remote so as not to set it down and potentially lose it to one of the other boys. Emily and Isabel liked being in their own little girl world. Kai also really liked playing with the big dinosaur and all five of them loved the magna doodles. First Isabel and Emily started with the magna doodles by sitting at the table and saying they had serious school work to do. Then Joseph also wanted a magna doodle to do serious school work, and eventually they all ended up with one. Luckily we have many of them in various types and sizes.

I look forward to our next school day with the children. They are all so unique and wonderful in their individual ways. I really enjoyed spending time with each of them.

Joy of Thanksgiving Day 1

Hello fellow moms,

Today was a great day1. We talked all about being thankful, and we made a Joy School "thankful tree". The children listed many wonderful things they were thankful for including, family, friends, brothers, sisters, pets, and toys to name a few. We learned a new word for thank you, Ma halo, (that is thank you in Hawaiian). And we sang a song about that. They played well together. I think they are settling into the routine we have planned and that is a compliment to all the mommy teachers! They all sat "criss-cross" very nicely and Kai did a great job with the share. He let everyone hold his "little rat". And none of the kids grabbed or got up..they just waited for their turn. And they did so great at asking questions about what the object was before he took it out. And I was so impressed at how well they know the Pledge of Allegiance. It was awesome. They stood so nice with their little hands over their hearts...so sweet.We must be doing something right!

Grant has the share bag for Thursday.

We will be having a mini "Thanksgiving Feast" on Thursday. It would be nice if all the kiddos could bring something to contribute. We will be making bread and butter here that day. So anything they would like to bring to share would be lovely. Emily will be bringing turkey. So maybe a veggie or apples or whatever! We will be eating outside just like the pilgrims and Indians did.

I will take lots of pictures...it should be cute.

So see you Thursday!

Amy

Reyes Adobe House

Joy of Communication & Relationships--day 2

Yesterday was a great day with the kids. Eve brought a recorder for her share, which was the perfect segway to musictime where each child got to play a different instrument. I taught them the song, "Two Little Magic Words", which emphasized saying "please" and "thank you". They loved playing their instruments We then read "Enemy Pie" for storytime which really held their attention.

Snacktime was great. Thank you everyone for bringing a contribution for our "Friendship Mix". We talked a lot about the symbolism--if one of them is missing from Joy School one day, the day couldn't be as fun as it would be if they had been there. Just like how our snack mix wouldn't taste as good if one of the ingredients were missing. We talked about how much more fun yesterday was than Tuesday, because Eve was there (she was absent Tues.). Grant brought the apple chips, Kai brought the craisins, Eve brought the goldfish, Isabel brought the yogurt-covered raisins, Joseph brought the peanuts, and Emily brought the pirate booty. Great mix!

We played with the bubble wands for outside play (thanks Cheyenne!) For lesson time we talked about the Golden Rule and I told a flannelboard story. We then practiced more writing the letter F on their little chalkboards and drawing pictures of fish.

We made paper-bag turkeys for our craft, with the polite words we had learned about on the feathers. I was amazed with how fast these two days flew! I look forward to seeing everyone Tuesday at the Reyes Adobe House.

Leslie