December 20th, 2014

K is for Karate Kick!

This week we karate kicked our way through the remaining days of school!

Learning the letter, "K" is actually very difficult.  The sound is not easy to discriminate and the diagonal strokes of its shape are not easy to print.  So, we made sure to practice a lot.  With shaving cream, with playdough, with whiteboards, and finally on paper, we eventually mastered the letter (mostly).

The majority of our week, however, was concentrating on Christmas.  We watched poignant scenes from The Nutcracker...

...and then practiced cracking our own walnuts.

We made ornaments...

...and carefully wrapped them as gifts.

We practiced our sorting skills as we crafted a Christmas tree, with shortest-to-longest branches.

Then, on Friday, we performed The 12 Days of Christmas and Navidad, Navidad in front of a gracious audience.

Merry Christmas!!!

December 6th, 2014

J is for Jingle Bells!

This week, we really got into the Christmas spirit!

The weather outside was frightful...

...but inside was so delightful.

Let it (hydrated polymer blend) snow, let it snow, let it snow.

While we will closely examine the Christmas Story the week of the 15th (so it will stick longer over Christmas break), we took the opportunity to learn the basics this week.

This week, we also learned a concept we will continue extensively after Christmas break; Independent Study.  As we rotated through small groups in the morning, one group was given a set of multi-step instructions to follow without teacher support.

By the week's end, we were getting the hang of it!

j is for jack-in-the-box!

On Thursday, we learned all about The Gingerbread Boy...

...and, in preparation for our Friday night pajama party, we made a batch of gingerbread cookie dough.  

We cut out our own gingerbread boys and the plan was to actually decorate and consume them.  But, in an unfortunate turn of events, I did a fantastically terrible job baking them.  They were dry, crumbly and burnt.  

The show must go on, however, and Vons supplied our party with tasty sugar cookies to decorate instead.  I was forgiven.

Actually, our Friday night pajama party was so fun!

Our little school family is the best!