Christmas Craziness!

Nobody could steal the joy out of our week!

We started off with some shape experiments.

We were testing to see which shapes were good at sliding

and rolling as well as which ones were good for building with.

After reading this wonderfully illustrated story about an elf who gets lost,

we had a few elf adventures of our own.

The kids enjoyed this matching elf game.

One friend called out a letter.

If you had that letter, you had to raise your hand quickly to catch the elf.

The kids were busy putting together elf sentences in this reading activity.

They worked together to figure out the mixed up sentence.

After reading it to make sure it made sense,

they tried to find the right elf that matched the sentence.

Some sneaky elves showed up in the afternoon.

First the kids had to put the trees in the right order.

One little elf was very sneaky and  hid under one of the Christmas trees.

The kids had to guess which tree the elf was hiding under.

Tuesday we headed over to chapel.

Mrs. Helmkamp lit three candles this week!

A very special visitor from Lutheran High came to be our speaker.  Mr. Jon Bernhardt is one of the head administrators at Lutheran High of St. Charles.

He talked about Jesus being born in a manger.

Then he showed us how Jesus grew up and then died upon the cross!  The kids were amazed at how the manger unfolded into a cross! :)

Thank you for your support and generosity for our future pastors and teachers.

Back in the classroom we were busy making different shape designs.

First the kids had to make a triangle using toothpicks.

These two little ladies made matching churches.

Looking closely and you will find a jack-o-lantern face!

Another fun elf book we read was called Advent Elf.  It was interesting to compare the two books.

More elves showed up to help us light up these words.

I told the kids a word, then they found the light bulb letters to make the word. 

I showed them the card to check their answer.

Every letter they got right, they lit up a light bulb!

Some creative minds were hard at work making elf traps!

The kids used different shapes to make traps.

Some friends chose to make houses for the elves.

Some of the creations were quite the balancing acts.

This team did a great job of working together and combining their creations!

The POLAR EXPRESS arrived on Wednesday!

The kids had a blast playing TRAIN TAG!

If they got tagged, they turned into a tunnel.

They had to wait for a train to come through there tunnel 

before they could start moving again.

One kindergartner said the game was SO fun they were going to play it at home!

This train was moving on to more adventures...

In the classroom our alphabet train tracks

were helping us spell words!

The kids worked together to figure out the word.

Once the track was complete...

The train conductor drove down the tracks to make sure it was the right word.

Some kids even figured out out to put their friend's names on the track!

All aboard!

Next stop...

The TICKET game!

Each child took a ticket that had a popcorn word on it.

Then they had to find the train that matched their ticket.

Welcome to the Reading Express!

Our Reading Train was full of great readers!

The kids finished the day by working together to make their own track.

They used different shapes to complete the town around the tracks.

This Polar Express game and kids sleeping on the train.

One they were asleep someone secretly delivered them some hot cocoa numbers.

Whatever number they got, the passengers had to practice writing.

We were building more memories on Thursday.

While working on the letter Yy we practiced some YOGA exercises.

A lot of the kids informed me they were already yoga experts!  :)

We were getting ready for Christmas in this fun math game.

One child dug deep into their stocking 

to find a shape.

Whatever shape they pulled out

their friend had to be their personal shopper 

and buy a gift that matched that shape.

Then they had to pay the cashier 5 cents for the gift.

The cashier had to count the pennies to make sure they had the right amount!

The last step was to deliver the gift to their friend.

These little gifts had to be delivered to the right sleigh!

They had to stack them up to see which sleigh had the most gifts!

These sight word gifts were missing their tags. 

The kids had to read their gifts and then find the right tag to match.

The Grinch came to help us finish out our week!

The Grinch brought us some ornaments that were nonsense words.  

We had to figure out how to make them real words.

The Grinch also mixed up our Christmas lights!  The kids worked together to figure out what word he was trying to make.

The Grinch was up to no good in this reading activity!

He stole our Christmas trees!

The kids had to be detectives and write down the letter that was stolen.

More Grinchy fun...

This time the kids were working together to make WHOVILLE!

We had fun finishing the day by making our best Grinch faces!

You're a Mean One

Mr. Grinch!

It was tough to see this fun week end!

Don't be upset...

We have some very special things planned for next week...