We Are Santa's Elves

We are Santa's elves

Filling Santa's shelves

With a toy

For each girl and boy

Oh we are Santa's elves

We work hard all day,

But our work is play,

Dolls we try out

See if they cry out

We are Santa's elves

We Are Santa's Elves

Last year a parent offered me two bags of unused Build A Bear stuffing. I had no idea what to do with it, but like any good teacher, I took the bags gladly. We brought it out a few weeks ago and have been using it for many crafts. We set up a stuffing station on our back counter and the children stuffed their gingerbread men and gingerbread houses. We also used it for fur on our Nativity sheep. Watching the kiddos sew, stuff, and decorate I couldn't help being reminded of the elf song from Rudolph. Crafts are a big part or our preschool experience. The children are given the opportunity to make decisions for themselves about which craft they want to create. They explore many textures, practice fine motor skills with cutting and mostly use their imagination. Not all classes embrace the fun of crafts, but this class is full of imagination. Our creation station is always full at play time. The children use more colored glue, glitter, and tape than any class in the past - and we couldn't be happier about it. 

 

   

Stone Soup

It seems that this time of year we move from one event to another. I have the best intentions to fill the days with memories for my girls but sometimes I am so busy making memories I forget to enjoy the making part. When I take the time to stop I sometimes notice things I once overlooked. In the hustle and bustle of trying to capture every one's fancy Christmas outfits today I found pictures from our Stone Soup activity before Thanksgiving.

We have just over one more week before our Christmas break. The children have learned so much already this year. Next week we will work on finishing up a few Christmas crafts (that we will lovingly wrap as gifts). Good Luck opening them, we LOVE glue and tape :)

We will also work on finishing up our assessments for our first Progress Reports. We will send our Progress Reports home in January in conjunction with the end of the first semester of school.  Our first Progress Report will serve as a benchmark for the students. We will send reports home again in March and in May. Our goal is to show growth throughout the year. Regardless of how many uppercase letters the children recognize in December we will strive for marked improvement. The Progress Reports are a work in progress. This year Kindergarten transitioned to a new standards based Report Card. The PreK 4 and PreS 3 classes are working to create reports that better mirror the language of the Kindergarten Report Cards. The report we use in December may change a bit through the year, bear with us as we work to make our reporting process more beneficial to families.

We will send out more information regarding Progress Reports in January.