La Novena de Mama Suerte

My Z-man's dad is a first generation American; his parents moved here from Colombia before they had children. My family has been in America for as long as we have traced back. It is very important to me that I support and help to foster both sides of Z-man's cultural identity. 

I know my family's stories well, of wars fought, Great Depression struggles, the brave move from farm to city life, our legacy of educators.  Sometimes, my traditions, recipes, and values are shared so naturally that I don't even realize I'm doing it; these things are so much a part of who I am.

Fostering Z's Colombian identity is much more conscience for me-a challenge. I acknowledge that I might not always get things right, that my understanding might not be complete, and that the language barrier is a pretty big one. I'm committed to trying my best, asking family for priceless input and to make time with my guy, and to learning as much as I can.

So, last year, when his Tia mentioned la Novena, I knew I wanted to somehow work it into our December. I researched it and found out when to start it (December 16th) and what the ritual was. Then, I chose the parts of the ritual that speak to me, and that I thought would be important to Z-man. We haven't done the big party part of la Novena, but I'm hoping to incorporate at least one visit to a neighbor's house next year (any takers?).

So yesterday, and today, and every day for the next seven days, we will plug in our candle (classy, I know) and pull out our bible. I had the opening prayer from la Novena translated and I adapted it into something that Z can understand. We open in prayer and then read part of the birth story from the bible. We sing Christmas songs that Z-man picks out, lots because he loves to sing, and then close with a prayer.

I know my version of this is not culturally accurate. I know that it barely even resembles the traditional Novena. Today, Z-man asked if we could do his "novena". I can feel that this is making Christmas more meaningful for us. And that is what traditions are all about.

Christmas Around the World, Part Två

Last week, my class continued their world travels with trips to Australia, England, Israel, and Sweden. Oh what fun we had!
In Australia, we read The Australian Twelve Days of Christmas by Heath McKenzie. This book taught us about animals we might find down under (like kookaburra in a gum tree) and also gave us a great chance to compare and contrast this version with the traditional Twelve Days of Christmas song that they already knew (a partridge in a pear tree). We noticed that both versions repeated each of the items again and again and that they both counted down from 12. These are big things for a three year-old to realize! Christmas crackers were made: cookie cutters were dipped in paint to make prints on white paper and then wrapped around toilet paper tubes. My students put candy inside as they tied them up, making one for themselves and each of their siblings. They took them home to share and open.

Our trip to England included looking at Christmas cards, a strong tradition in Great Britain. Our school gets a lot of Christmas card front pages, which are so fun to make crafts with and also, really great for retelling the Christmas nativity story and The Night Before Christmas. We read The Jolly Christmas Postman by Janet and Allen Ahlberg. This is story plays with common fairy tales as familiar characters open little envelopes with holiday messages inside. I remember loving this book as a child, and my students did, too! Stamps, stickers, and staplers turned discarded bulletin board borders into Christmas crowns to wear on our heads like the children in England do this time of year.

One student in my class is moving to Israel with his family, so this day was extra special to our class. We ate cupcakes decorated with the Israeli flag in blue icing. We spun dreidels and talked about how some children don't celebrate Christmas, but celebrate other holidays. We read the Birds of Bethlehem by Tomie dePaola. My students covered six pointed stars cut from cereal boxes (the BEST crafting cardboard) with aluminum foil. Then, we used spray bottles filled with glue, water, and blue paint to sprinkle the stars. As we placed torn up tissue paper on it, the students watched the white tissue absorb our spray, changing to blue as it did. The stars are far from the best looking project we have done, (:/) but they really enjoyed making them.

We ended our week with a trip to Sweden for Saint Lucia's Day (a day early). Here, we made wreaths of candles for our heads to celebrate St. Lucy's Day. We glued green paper scraps onto paper plates and painted wine corks white for the candles, hammering the corks onto the circles to make them stay upright.

The best part of this week was our reference books. I found books on each country from the children's nonfiction section at the library. My students asked questions about each location, like "What do they drive there?" and "What do people drink and eat there?" Then, we used the index and table of contents to look up where to find the information and found it!
One more of world travels before the real holiday trips begin!

P.S. We broke our pinata open!

Christmas Around the World

In December, my lesson plan focuses on holiday traditions around the world. Each day, we look at our class globe, pretend to pack a suitcase full of appropriate clothes (flip flops or winter boots?), and do some yoga poses to represent planes as we fly to a new country. Then, we read a book about Christmas, mostly about or from the destination of the day, work on projects representing Christmas traditions these, and talk briefly about each country.

This week, we visited Germany first. We ate Gingerbread cookies and talked about how these treats decorate some trees in German households. We cut and stapled our own advent calendar chains to count down the days until Christmas, because advent calendars are a big thing in Germany. First, the kids cut their own strips (yeah for scissor skill practice!). Then, they put them in patterns (math!). Finally, they stapled them in loops (fine motor skills!) and counted to 24 as they went (more math!). Each day we remove one loop and count the days until Santa's big arrival.

The next day, our travels took us to Mexico where we read The Legend of the Poinsettia by Tomie dePaola. Using a real poinsettia for inspiration, we turned toilet paper tubes into flower ornaments. For the first time ever, I tried paper mache. So. Much. Fun. So. Much. Mess. We made our own pinata to break at the end of the month, like the children in Mexico do on Christmas.

When we visited Brazil, we read Christmas Around the World by Disney Book Group (the inspiration and resource for most of this month's planning). We tried to mimic this awesome idea substituting a glowing Christmas tree for buildings in the firework pictures. Although our representations weren't nearly as cute, my students loved the idea of fireworks to celebrate!

Friday, we traveled to Holland and made Kruidnootjes together which was so much fun. This links to a fabulous recipe with easy instructions for use with kids. I substituted Trader Joe's Speculoos Crunchy Cookie Butter for the speculaas spice, because I couldn't find it in my grocery store and didn't want to take the time to make my own. They were pretty tasty cookies! 

During circle time, we placed our shoes outside our classroom and miraculously, they were filled with candy and small presents when we checked them later! We guessed that Sinterklaas had stopped by for a visit!

Feliz Navidad! Feliz Natal! Vrolijk Kerstfeest! Frohe Weihnachten!

C.H.R.I.S.T.M.A.S.

Since we had so much fun wrapping birthday presents together, I wanted Z-man to be part of prepping Christmas, too. Inspired by this pinner's classroom activity, I made little Christmas tree light bulbs from construction paper and wrote letters on them. Z-man searched for the first letter of each name from the pile of letters. Then, I pulled out the rest of the letters and he tried to find the next letter as I told him what it was. I'm thankful for family members with short names! And very thankful for every minute with my guy. 

Allergic to Skrimp

 

When my Z-man was a little over a year old, we learned that he was allergic to shrimp. I fed him ceviche at a family party and immediately noticed red bumps racing up his stomach. Since then, I have soaked up as much information as I can about food allergies. One of my favorite resources is http://www.foodallergy.org/resources/parents. I found this the perfect starting place when I really had little information on how to make sure Z-man stayed safe and I stayed informed.
One thing I've learned from all my article browsing is that really young children with food allergies may know what they are allergic to by name ("skrimp" if you ask Z-man), but often don't know what it actually looks like. This has really stood out to me. Because shrimp isn't as prevalent in our diets as nuts, milk, or wheat, Z-man might really not recognize it if he were offered it, like at a church coffee hour or at a family party. At this point in his life, there are few times when he is exposed to food I did not pack for him when I am not with him, but I know this will change as he grows. I want him to be prepared. When talking about food, Z often says "I don't eat skrimp and crab. I'm allergic." (A recommendation from the doc was to tell Z-man that he is allergic to seafood in general until he is able to differentiate between types of seafood and until he is tested for other allergies.)
I purchased a play food set that has pretend shrimp included. Z-man and I play with all the parts of the kabob set, but I point out the shrimp intentionally as we play. I say things like "On my skewer I'll put some steak, some peppers, and some shrimp.". In the grocery store, I often avoid the seafood section because it tends to smell ocean-y. But today, we passed by a restaurant that had seafood in the window. Perfect. I pointed out the shrimp to Z. He knows what shrimp looks like and even offered me some wooden shrimp to eat at a children's museum this weekend! I'm really proud of his awareness.
I still feel fearful sometimes, especially in restaurants that serve lots of seafood or when I notice that something I've been feeding him says "may contain traces of shellfish" (like every brand of Snapea Crisps I can find-BUMMER!).  Although, I check ingredient labels, don't serve shrimp in our house, and always carry his Epi Pen, I feel so much more confident knowing that Z is becoming equipped with the knowledge to be appropriately careful, too.

Mimicking Matisse

This month, my students are learning about shapes. Our favorite activity has been spying shapes in famous art! 

Using orange frames, contact paper, and scraps of paper we tore during transition times that day, we made these great Matisse look-a-likes!

 

 Can you even pick out the real The Snail in the middle? They are pretty similar!

We also looked at Auguste Herbin's work Composition on the word "Vie", 2. I pre-cut the shapes in matching colors and sat with each child individually as they did their Herbin, encouraging them to put shapes on top of shapes.

Also, I reused my idea from last year, looking at Kandinsky's work. As my teaching becomes more process focused (instead of product), I find that I am tweaking things I've used previously to more thoroughly teach concepts and better support my learning objectives. This year, each child contributed one or two squares to our large piece of art, instead of making their own. We focused on discussed the sizes of the lids we used (big, bigger, biggest). 

I just hope my students remember to invite me to their gallery openings when they grow up to be famous artists!

Halloween Happenings in my Classroom

Holidays are so fun when you are a preschool teacher. There are endless craft ideas, silly songs, and creative books. I'm eating it up.  This year in my class, my students did some of the same activities that my students did last year. But, I also added a few new ones.  Here are some of my favorite Halloween picks (and pics)!

Today, my students help cut a pumpkin open and then reached their arms in to scoop out the pumpkin goop. Then, they each drew their ideas for how we should carve the pumpkin. We picked one feature from every students' drawn jack-o-lanterns. 

This is what we ended up with!

All month we have been singing a spooky song about witches' brew. Stirring and stirring and stirring my breeeeewwwwwww. Stirring and stirring and stirring my breeeeeeewwwwwwwww. Tip toe, tip toe, tip toe....BOO!  We've talked about brew and the cauldron we would stir it in. We've brainstormed what we would add to our potions and discussed how this is all fictional, not factual. Today, we used the ingredients they suggested and made our own brew to stir! 

Ingredients? Assorted bugs, spider rings, lizards, one gold fish, one frog, two small pumpkins, witches' hair (some black stringy decoration I found), eye balls, and ghosts. Mix those disgusting tidbits with some cornstarch, water, and yellow and green paint and you get WITCHES' BREW! My students played I Spy in the cauldron, practiced scooping things up with the spoon and filling the small pumpkins, and talked about which items sink and which float. This one definitely exceeded my expectations. 

I saved my favorite for last. We sing a silly holiday song about five pumpkins on a gate that roll away. My students started asking questions about how the pumpkins would roll: Bumpy or smooth? Fast or slow? Does every pumpkin roll? So, we tested it out. First, we built ramps. Some steep, some with small inclines, some horizontal (not ramps), and some vertical. We roll small pumpkins down these ramps to answer our questions (and to unearth another slew of investigations)! Another teacher built upon my idea and offered my kids gourds to roll down. Some rolled and some didn't. We made guesses using what we already knew as to why this was true. So much fun!

Happy Halloween!

The Many Faces of Z-man

Z-man and I like to play a game that we call "The Faces Game". We usually do it to keep him entertained like while we are waiting in line at the grocery store or waiting for someone to meet us or when he is getting grumpy and I want to make him laugh. I make a face and then makes a matching face. Then, its his turn. We end up giggling--or as he says "wiggling"--like crazy.

 

An added bonus? We also talk about the faces and how we are probably feeling. Its really insightful to see what he thinks I'm feeling when I make different faces. He says "Happy." "Lovey." "Frust-ur-rated." "Silly." Its like a mirror for me and glimpse into how my guy views me. Also, the three seconds or so that it takes him to move his face to match mine, trying to move different parts...priceless.  

Creepy Crawly Things

As I've mentioned before, bugs aren't really my thing. I'm trying to embrace them, or more truthfully, I'm trying to not freak out when I see them. Z-man's teacher, who is a true nature lover, has reminded me several times that he will learn to react as I do and she has encouraged me to react curiously and without fear. Blah. Easy for her to say. And truly it is. She feeds the class crickets daily with meal time in the class. She brings in walking stick bugs that she has caputred with her own hands. She brings slimy slugs, furry caterpillars, and cockroaches into her class in various containers for observing.

I'm trying to embrace the creepy crawlies. I had white grubs in my classroom for a while. We found them while digging for worms and put themt in with grass we were growing. We watched over about two weeks while the grubs destroyed the grass by eating the roots. Cool stuff.

Then, one of my students brought in a woolly bear caterpillar she found on her way to school. Next thing I knew, I was Amazon Prime-ing a butterfly house, complete with five painted lady caterpillars to keep our Woolly Bear company. Today was the first day with all the caterpillars in the classroom. Before I knew it, I was scrapping my lesson plan and embracing my students' questions about caterpillars and worms, our other class pets.

We read books about worms, caterpillars, and butterflies. Then, my students looked at the books in small groups and my assistant and I led them in conversations about similarities and differences between worms and caterpillars.

We poured out our worms and pulled out the caterpillars (my braver assistant took on this task). The students made observations about what they saw.

Finally, my students told me about the observations they had made and the facts they had learned. We made this awesome Venn Diagram!

Rolling in Colors

This month, my class is learning about colors. We started by learning about the primary colors and moved on to secondary colors last week. Each day, the children experiment with color mixing using different mediums. I set up a water table with two sides, one side with red water and the other with yellow. As the kids poured, scooped, and drizzled the water, it turned orange. 

 

Using a projector, we overlapped red, blue, and yellow blocks to make the secondary (and tertiary) colors.

The children combined yellow and blue shaving cream to make green shaving cream. 

My favorite way that we have experimented with colors so far is with rolling pins. I streaked large butcher paper with blue and red paint and my students rolled the pins back and forth in different directions to make purple.

We used these neat textured pins to make unique prints!

 

Its been a colorful month so far and its only the beginning!

Painting Our Way Through the Alphabet

I try hard to take time to reflect on my teaching, my parenting, myself. To think about areas that are real strengths and to identify areas I need that could use some improvement. Perhaps its the social worker in me, but I'm really good at this step. The next step, the important one, of making a plan to improve the not so stellar parts, is a little more difficult for me.
After last school year, I looked at the Virginia Standards for Education for preschoolers and looked over my lesson plans, highlighting some places that I wanted to focus more on this school year. Writing and cutting are two areas that I tended to place less emphasis. I think because this is painful for some three year olds, difficult for most, and successful for few. Its more fun to focus on the other things most of the time. This year, I challenged myself to develop a challenging, educational, and fun way to work on writing regularly in my classroom. I didn't want to it to feel like work for my kids. (More on cutting in a later post.)
My plan?  Each week on Wednesdays, my kids and I first look at a letter (only capitals for now) and brainstorm words that start with the letter, often with my clues, such as "I'm thinking of a word that starts with B that is the opposite of small. Bbbbbb....." and then my students guess "big". Then, we trace a cardboard cut out of that letter one by one around the table while saying a catchy phrase to describe writing it. For example, for A, we said "Up, down, across" while tracing. B? "Line down. Bubble. Bubble." C- "Around, not all the way!" D- "Line Down, BIG Bubble". I have reviewed the previous letters each week through the week as we see them printed in books, find them in our names, or wait in line for something. The kids have been saying them on their own, too!
Then, the most fun part. I squirt paint on the table. Everywhere. No paper, no smocks. (Thank God for stain remover.) We practice writing the letters with either fingers or paint brushes using the paint on the table. I walk around helping each student make the letter by first moving their hand while the say the catchy phrase and then watching them do it on their own. It is a huge mess. But so much fun. And my students literally squeal with excitement when it is "Letter Time!".
That squeegee I have in my classroom? The kids use it to clean up their own space and table is clean in no time!

Writing on their own on easel paper.