Ready for Christmas

This week we have had a full week of Christmas activities. We have been preparing lots of things for our Christmas performance. The children have been decorating our big papier mache sleigh with gold paint and lots of glitter. It now looks fantastic and is all ready for our nine naughty little elves to jump on in the  Christmas performance. We have also continued to make papier mache to create a big chimney for us to use as a prop for the song ‘Santa got stuck up the chimney’. The children worked fantastically to construct the chimney from cardboard boxes. They then cut up lots of squares of paper and stuck them onto the chimney.  Once the papier mache had tried we painted the chimney and use sponges to create gold brick shapes.  The chimney looks fantastic and the children  love using it as a prop when practising the performance. Finally, the children were all keen to make a background for the ‘stage’ as we decided that we should create a night sky of stars and snowflakes . Once the children had covered the cardboard with papier mache, they mixed lots of different colours to make their own grey paint to create the night time scene. We then had lots of fun making stars from tinfoil and working together to find out how to make snowflakes by folding and the n cutting into the white paper. We had to practise a lot before we were able to make the snowflakes small enough for the display. Once we had mastered the method, the children had great fun creating their own snowflakes and it was great to see how unique and individual each  of the snowflakes were. It was a great activity and it really helped to reinforce the mathematical concept of symmetry, as we identifies that each snowflake was exactly the same on both sides. 

As well as preparing for the props, we have been practising our Christmas performance a lot this week. The children have enjoyed using all of the decorations they have made for each song and they are now confident to know which decoration they need to use for each song. We have been singing and dancing to all of the songs and the children are now all very confident and excited to perform to their families.

As well as preparing for the performance, we have been working hard to make lots of Christmas crafts for the classroom. The Elves workshop and Christmas topic area now looks lovely and is decorated with reindeer spoons and lollipop stick stars. The children have also had fun creating big, fluffy snowballs by sticking lots of cotton wool onto polystyrene balls. They look very festive displayed in our Christmas topic area. The children  have also had the opportunity to use their imagination and be very creative. They were given lots of cardboard, glitter, paint, pens and sticking materials to create a present to put in our elves workshop. They had a great time and loved having the opportunity to be independent and free to use a wide range of materials. All of the children were very focused and motivated and they each created a very colourful and individual present. They are all now displayed in our elves workshop, ready for the elves to deliver at Christmas.

In phonics this week, we have been learning the ‘g’ sound. The children have enjoyed learning the action associated with this sound, as they need to create the gurgling sound of the water going down the plug hole. We have done lots of work on this letter, focusing mainly on the words ‘glitter’ and ‘green’. The children had fun decorating the letter g with glitter and lots of green materials . We have also had lots of opportunities to practise the formation of the letter. It is great to see the improvement that Luke and Sergi are making with their pencil control and letter formation. To end the week, we focused on the word ‘goat’. The children coloured in the goat and we focused on using appropriate, goat colours. I was very impressed with how much Kai is improving his presentation. He is now able to colour very well within the lines. He was very perseverant and focused on the task until he had finished. I was also very proud of Marcel and Amrita as they worked independently to sound out and write the word goat, independently on their work.

Sara and Judit have been focusing on proof – reading their Christmas stories to check that it makes sense and that they have spelt the words correctly . They then read the stories to the rest of the class and the other children thought they were very funny.  They especially enjoyed them because both of the stories featured all of the preschool children, getting involved in lots of mischievous adventures. The girls were very proud of their stories and Sara was super confident when reading it aloud. The girls have then focused on the spellings which were incorrect within the stories and have taken home the list of words to practise. At the end of the week both girls completed a spelling test and I was very proud of how well they could spell the words. They had obviously worked hard to practise them and they were keen to do well.

In maths, the girls have been working on solving word problems. Both girls found it difficult to solve the problems, particularly because they were unsure of which information to select from the problem and how to use this to find the answer. During the week, Judit became more confident to solve the problems independently, but both girls need to have more practise at solving word problems and this is something we will continue in the new year.

To end the week, we had a very special Christmas craft morning. Luke’s Mum very kindly prepared lots of Christmas themed gingerbread biscuits for the children  to decorate. She brought different coloured icing and lots of sweets and chocolate treats to decorate the Christmas biscuits. It was so great to see lots of the children’s family come to join us for this activity.  Everyone seemed to have a great time and the children  especially enjoyed the end result when they were able to eat the biscuits they had created. Thank you to all those who were able to come and join us- it was great to see you all!