Camping Day!

We did this back in October to go with our theme "The Great Outdoors" which is loosely based on the movie featuring John Candy...not really :) but I do love that movie! Our adventure isn't as comical as the ones in the movie but we do have some fun!

 

 

The week before our Camping Days we work on making some binoculars out of painted toilet paper rolls and some yarn! We use these on our Camping Days to go on a "hike" and look at nature. Luckily for me have a large campus with a lot of landscape and I even take the kids on a path behind the fence of the playground, which they are always super excited about!

 We borrow a tent from a parent and have it setup in the courtyard as well as some hay bales and I create a fake fire with some tissue paper and rocks we have!

 We have hot dogs, chips and juice for our snack! And for dessert we make s'mores by roasting marshmallows (we use the heat from the BBQ after Mr. Chris made the hot dogs for us!

We do some fishing! I make fish out of craft foam and add paper clips and use fishing poles I made that have a magnet at the end of the string!

The kids get to play in the "mud" which I made with sand, brown paint and I add some hand soap!

The kids bring sleeping bags and we play a few games of sleeping bag hop!

This is another favorite day for the kids! They go home super excited with many fun things to share!

Chinese New Year!

Did you know that Panda Express does a fun little presentation for school age children to teach them about Chinese New Year? Well I had no idea until a very enthusiastic parent happened upon it as she was on their website. This mom decided to take it upon herself to organize this fun little event for our preschoolers. This wasn’t mandatory and not everyone participated because they weren’t interested and had already made other lesson plans and this was a last minute thing. However, the classes that didn’t participate soon learned that they missed out on a cute and fun event for their class! I for one am thankful that I participated because the children had so much fun and this mom went above and beyond for us!

 

Before the day of the event the mom who was coordinating the event came to each of the 4 classes that were participating with a basket full of goodies…she prepared crafts to go with the Chinese New Year theme, she bought each teacher two new books that had to do with Chinese New Year, she gave us each a gift card to Panda Express for lunch, a fun hate, chopsticks and some other goodies.

She came in the day before to decorate the Fellowship Hall and get everything set up. She also prepared goodie bags for each child and included a red envelope for each kid with a dollar inside because it is customary to give little red envelopes with money inside as part of the Chinese New Year celebration.

There were 3 employees who came for the event: the manager came and read a story to the kids and showed a 7 minute video that taught them about Chinese New Year, a second employee played a fun animal game with the children where they acted out each of the twelve animals, and a third employee was kind enough to dress up in the Panda suit in order to take pics and hang out with the kids!

After all the fun, each child got a fortune cookie and some Chow Mein noodles as a snack and they received a little red envelope from Panda Express with free meal certificates!

Not only did they have a blast, they also learned about a different culture and their tradition and I am so grateful to the mom who put this all together, this was definitely right up my alley as a teacher and party/event planner! It never goes unnoticed by me how blessed we are as a school!

Snow Days Hooray!

Well you would think that there would be some cold weather going on in the middle of winter but this is Southern California...so for the past few years our themed "Snow Days" have been pretty hot, but that doesn't stop us from enjoying some snow fun!

We start off with our "Penguin Math". The children have to glue on goldfish crackers in the amount of the number on each penguin belly.

We had a fun little penguin tent that a kiddo shared with the class!

We made snowflakes out of marshmallows and skinny pretzel sticks! The kids love this and they cant wait to eat it!

For our special snack we made snowman out of donuts and cookies and mini Reese's buttercups. We also had some hot coco!

We did some pretend ice skating! All you need is paper plates, rubber bands and some packing tape! The kids LOVE this!

One of the grandpas of a preschooler brought real snow for us because he lives in the mountains and wanted to contribute to our Snow Day fun!

In order to create a great "Snow Day" the classroom needs to be decorated for the event! The kids and he parents are excited and amazed when they walk in and the classroom is transformed. I always request that they bring jackets, beanies, mittens, and scarves because although it is hot outside, I have that air conditioner on and it is cold! And we have to dress the part don't we?

Crafts are a fun part of the day! We created igloos using Styrofoam bowls, cotton balls and paper plates!

These days are such a hot that I have parents come back and tell me their children had "Snow Day" themed birthday parties because they loved it so much!