Yoga in the Classroom!

As one of our field trips, we brought in Melissa from True Yoga in Edmonton. She came for two sessions in a row, and I was so happy to see the children get down on the floor and have some fun.

Yoga is very good for children for various reasons.

·         It helps children reach full potential of flexibility and encourages them to keep flexible for life

·         Strengthens the core of your body for good posture, strong bodies, and better balance, body awareness and coordination

·         Offers pressure on parts of the body that doesn’t often get pressure (top of the head) and offers stretches to body parts that aren’t easy to stretch (shoulders, hips, etc)

·         Encourages a calming affect on children’s bodies and mind

·         Develops a strong and flexible body

·         Reduces stress and anxiety

The children and families really enjoyed spending time with Melissa doing yoga.

My favourite part of both sessions over all was the amount of laughter I heard from the parents and children. It was rewarding and very much music to my ears. I also enjoyed the confidence I saw build in the children when they realised what their bodies were capable of doing and how flexible they were.

Melissa was AWESOME! She really understood how to entertain the children while enjoying yoga

Sincerely,

Ms Asha

Setting up Christmas

We have been very busy in the classroom to prepare for the Christmas holidays!

The children have been active learning lyrics to perform at our Christmas party next week. They are learning actions, and doing an outstanding job.

The kids used sparkly play dough to roll and make snowmen, or use to cut and mould.

Mixing white glue and shaving cream we made “puffy paint.” We used it to create snowmen for us to decorate.

We put up a Christmas tree in our class for the children to decorate. They have done an excellent job being careful with our class tree taking off and putting on the garland, and using the ordainment's.

I love giving children the opportunity to be creative with our class tree. I hope all of the decorating has put us in the Christmas spirit! We also decorated Dora's house, the house center, and have been wearing fun Santa and reindeer costumes.

It has defiantly been a busy week, and we can not wait for the exciting events December has left for us.

Christian Note:

With the Christmas spirit, comes a very exciting celebration of Jesus’ birth.

On Monday we lit our first advent candle and learn a new song:

Light the Advent candle one

Now the waiting has begun

We have started on our way

Time to think of Christmas day.

Chorus:

Candle, candle burning bright

Shining in the cold winter night

Candle, candle burning bright

Fill our hearts with Christmas light.

Each week we will light the next candle, and learn a new verse to our candle song.

We also made our own wreaths that the children can put their own candles on each week.

Our first devotion about the birth of Jesus, was the travel Mary and Joseph took to Bethlehem, and how tough it was for them to find a place to stay.

We had a tough time finding the perfect nativity set for the children to enjoy in the class. While we waited to find the right set for the school I made the children a felt set.

Thankfully, Jenny and her husband found us the most amazing Little People’s set, that the children will play with this week.

Sincerely,

Ms Asha

Adapt, Hibernate & Migrate

Over the last couple weeks we continued to talk about Bears and how they hibernate. We also talked about some animals that do not sleep during the winter; they adapt. The class also looked at birds that migrate such as geese and hummingbirds. 

For craft we made our own bear faces to play in the bear cave before it is transitioned for the next topic. The children were extremely creative with recycled materials making wonderful bear faces.

The children also took lots of time during play to “feed our bear.” They cut out books from old scholastic orders, and were allowed to cut as much or as little as they wanted to feed the bear. This open ended exposure lets the children who are still learning to cut, one to one teacher time to master the hand placements and motions, and didn’t have the stress of assuring they cut specifically as directed. It also offered our advancing cutters the personal direction to cut around each book and feed it to the bear.

We read one of my favorite bear books, The little mouse, the red ripe Strawberry, and THE BIG HUNGRY BEAR by Don & Audrey Wood. I love how much fun it is to read this book. We also read The Mitten which has many animals that hibernate as well as adapt. I am very excited to go back to class this week to ask the children who they remember from the story and act it out.

Acting is harder at the preschool age, as children have a tough time remembering lines sometimes. It is encouraged though, to create confidence in front of crowds and peers, being the ability to public speak, avoid fears down the road to speak up for themselves, as well as introduce children to acting and fine arts.

Lastly, we talked about how we as humans adapt to the change in the season. In Edmonton our environment gets VERY cold and we need to begin to bundle up from the snow. The children used their fine motor skills to manipulate tiny puzzle pieces to be painted with white paint. We will be transforming them into snow flakes to decorate our class room. 

We sang the "snowy pokey" - which is exactly like the hokey pokey except we talked about what outside accessory would go on our body part before we put it in the middle, such as "you put your toque in, you take your toque out ..." During this experience I took the time to point out which hand is left and which is right to practice dominate hand discrimination. We also practiced our left and right with a "Handwriting without Tears" song - the Hello song; in which the children offer their right hand to their peers and shake one another hand. For this activity I offered a sticker or stamp on the right hand to remind them which hand they're using. We will do more of this to support our classroom knowing left from right.

Our roster adult braved the cold and brought snow into the classroom as our sensory experience with scissors and cups. The children had the option to wear mittens since even in our warm cozy classroom that snow sure is cold! We observed the transformation of snow turning from snow to water.

Sincerely,

Ms Asha