SHOW AND TELL
Bring a Christmas symbol.
Topic: Christmas
Why we celebrate Christmas
The value is peace, which is like a starry night in the country. Peace inside ourselves and with the people around us is a good thing.
For manners we’ll practice how to say hello and good-bye and thank you for a gift.
Outside we’ll play Rudolf, Rudolf Reindeer.
The songs we’ll be singing are Let There Be Peace on Earth, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, Deck the Halls, Twelve Days of Christmas, Up On the Housetop, and Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer.
Our art activities are Pinecone Christmas, Standup Tree, Candy Cane Animals, and Snowman Ornament.
Creative dramatics is The Night Before Christmas.
For body development, we’ll work on coordination with carrying Santa’s toys and holiday colors. For motor development we’ll do proprioception exercises with pushups, pass the jug, leap frog, and tow truck.
COPING WITH THE HOLIDAYS
The Christmas crazies are upon us, and I’m reminded how wise these ideas are from Unplug the Christmas Machine. It’s better to implement this plan now than to resolve after the fact to do better next year.
- You’re so busy the kids feel neglected, and you get into a vicious cycle of their increasing crankiness, which takes more of your time and makes you more irritable. Take a few minutes to reconnect. Involve your children in your tasks. It’s true that it takes longer, but first, you’re staying connected with your children, and second, they’re learning important life skills.
- You’re spending more time away from home. Your year-end office work, parties, and shopping take you away more than normal. A simple “rule of two” applies here. Make it a policy that neither parent will be gone from home more than two evenings a week.
- Everyone gets tired and grumpy. The children are staying up late and you’re staying up even later. Work to simplify your life, especially during this season. If a regular dinner takes too much time, the children have eaten well all day at the school. Soup and toast or cereal and a banana won’t hurt them when it’s occasional. Try to stay on the schedule that you know works best for your family. Remember the small rituals that keep you anchored. If you need to skip baths, keep the story time. Lots of hugs and kisses and assurance that you’ll love them forever mean a lot, especially if they’re feeling a little insecure.
- You’re anxious about overspending your budget. Just the exercise of creating a realistic budget will put a subconscious brake on your spending. Creative and thoughtful here is better than more expensive anyway.
- It’s a natural law that children will act up in front of guests or relatives. Anticipate this by telling your children what to expect. Generally we put our little people in situations that are totally foreign to them and expect them to be socially competent. Designate one parent to make sure that the children don’t feel left out. If things get too overwhelming for the child, take a walk or go into a quiet place and read a book.
- Be grateful. Give gifts because of the joy you get from the giving, not because the receiver will appreciate them. Understand the pleasure people took in selecting the gifts they gave to you – whether or not you like the actual gift. Treasure the connectedness of the season regardless of the material things involved in it. Count your blessings of simply having family, of having a safe home, and of your good health.
On the Calendar
Holiday Closing – Confirming that the school will be closed the week of Christmas, December 24 - 28. We’ll only be closed Tuesday, Jan. 1, for New Year’s.
About the Christmas Let-down – The progression up to Christmas is so hectic that the days after Christmas can be pretty anti-climatic. You might want to consider a quiet event in those after-days. Consider on planning a trip to the Museum of Natural Science to see the model train exhibit. Even a family walk through the woods works. At the school, we’ll have a pajama party on Friday, Jan. 4, for that very reason.
Parents Request – One of our parents is collecting money for gifts to give to the teachers if you would like to contribute you can Venmo @melisa-crian-1, cash app $melissacrain in the comments area leave your child’s name, dead line Dec.19.
CLASSROOM NEWS
In the toddler class Elle is discovering numbers and showing interest as she works with the number and shape matching peg work. Sae is improving her ability to focus as she works with the bead stringing work; this work also helps with her fine motor skills. It’s a joy to see when toddlers develop friendships, John and Didi are just that, outside they joyfully play together and in the classroom the learn together as the use some of their class time to work with the stacking and building work, after they completed the work they picked up all the pieces and put it back in its proper location.
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