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KORDAS KORNER

PRESCHOOL AND HIGHERLEARNING CENTER

IMPORTANT DATES!

º Saturday, Dec 6th – Frozen Festival at Kordas Korner

Thursday, December 18th and Friday, December 19th - In-class Holiday Parties

º Wednesday, December 24 - No School - Winter Recess Begins

º Monday, January 5th - School Resumes

Delays and Cancellations

We do not always follow the Region 10 schedule for delays and cancellations. It’s very rare that we delay. Snow days will be made up at the end of the year. We did have our first snow day Wednesday, November 26th. E-mails and text notifications were sent out, if you did not receive these, please notify Sheila as soon as possible.

School News

Holiday Parties - School holiday parties will be held on Thursday, December 18th and Friday, December 19th. On these special days we will be making fun crafts, having hot chocolate, reading wonderful books and hearing great stories.

If you need supplemental care over the Holiday Recess please contact Sheila, by December 17th with the dates and times that you need.

If anyone, parent/relative/guardian would like to come in for the Holiday Parties, we welcome the following:

Read a special family book to the class or read one of ours

Help during the parties with our projects/games

Share a special family tradition or story

Bring in a special craft or project of your own for the class

The cold weather is here!! We would like to remind all of the parents to send their child(ren) to school with the appropriate clothes for going outside. We go outside if the temperature is 30 degrees or higher without a wind chill factor and if it is not raining. You can also leave any of the following in your child’s cubby. Please make sure your child has:

Warm winter jacket

Mittens

Hat

Boots

Snowpants

Our play dough makers this month were Kelly, (Maddie’s mom) and Andrea (Lauren’s mom). This is not only a wonderful help to the teachers and a lot of fun for the students but a great motor skill for the students as well. Thank you for taking the time to make the play dough.

Candy for the Troops

Thank you for all your generous donations of Candy for the troops. We collected over 30lbs of candy along with making 16 cards to be sent to the troops. Thank you so much to Doug and Kelly (Holly’s parents) for donating money for the shipping expenses to mail the candy. Mailing 30lbs added up so this was very much appreciated.

Ms. Diane

November’s theme was harvesting and thankfulness. In November we discussed secondary colors from two primary colors. For example, we mixed yellow and red during an experiment with food coloring in a clear bowl. The color came out a deep orange. We discussed how vibrant the color looked. We repeated this experiment twice during one week. The children loved mixing the food coloring and adding extra to see the different shades of orange. We discussed the significance of the color orange around the world, which signifies heat and the sun. We learned new finger plays and poems, which included Five Little Turkeys, and Brown Leaves sung to ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’. Our favorite is a puppet play, sung to ‘On Our Way to Grandpa’s Farm’.

Many of our projects emphasized strengthening fine motor skills and following tasks in sequence. We made a centerpiece for Thanksgiving dinner named Crazy Lace Turkey. We used a latch hook canvas with brown, yellow and orange yarn lacing the canvas in no particular pattern. This represented the turkey feathers. Then we added the details to a toilet paper roll to create the turkey’s body.

This month we created a Writing center where children had an opportunity to color and practice worksheet activities that start at the left of a page and work towards the right. A lot of conversation can occur at this center.

Two sensory centers were big this month. We discussed hibernation and then created a center for animals that hibernate. We had tunnels, fabric, taffeta, pipe cleaners, leaves and animals in the touch table. Another favorite was a sand table filled with farm animals, farm people, fencing, tractor equipment, etc. We also built our own barn out of a box and painted it red. We built a beautiful environment with blocks, plastic farm animals, farm people and tractor equipment and we created a great imaginative center.

To boost our youngsters’ self-esteem the children put together a bulletin board display titled: We’re Nuts about Each Other! Please feel free to wonder over and check it out in the back of the classroom. Our favorite music and movement activity is the Hokey Pokey. We use practically every part of our bodies. There was a whole lot of shaking going on.

In math we introduced non-standard measurement to find out how far a turkey needs to travel to get to its nest. We first made predictions then we placed the nest all over our room, measuring the distance by counting turkey tracks. Most of us could count to fourteen. I left the tracks out during center time so the children could measure independently. We started working on an AB patterns during calendar time. Most understood the concept.

Camaraderie is developing at our different centers. I hear laughter and conversation. The children are following instruction very well during project time. The Boehm’s concepts we have used repeatedly in the farm center this month were front, top and bottom.

Our Thanksgiving feast was so much fun. We used the placemats we made by rolling corn cobs covered in yellow and orange paint on card stock. Students worked hard making their feast by mashing potatoes, using an old fashion hand mixer to make pumpkin cheesecake and making homemade butter. Most importantly the children are thankful for their wonderful families.

During December oh what fun we will have talking about winter fun and holiday traditions. We will continue to identify our shapes, colors, letters and numbers. I will be asking the children about their family traditions and celebrations.

Ms. Abramczyk, Mrs. Schultz & Ms. Katie

November was stuffed like a turkey with Art Projects, Math Concepts, Science Investigations, and Multi-Cultural Awareness. The children created the most beautiful Lily Pads. Monet would have been impressed! The children loved the Roll & Slide unit in Science. They raced cars and marbles and they all agreed that wheels need to be round not square. Our Thanksgiving Feast was amazing. The children all worked together to prepare for it by mashing potatoes, using an old fashion hand mixer to make dessert and shaking a bowl of heavy cream to make butter. We were all thankful for the delicious food, our friends and family!

Oh, what fun we will have talking about HOLIDAY TRADITIONS and the wonderful books written by Jan Brett. We will learn about Hanukah, Christmas, and Kwanza. We will ask the children about their family traditions and celebrations. If you, or a family member would like to come in or send in something your family does for the holidays, please let us know! Just a few of the magical books we will read by Jan Brett are,

The Mitten, The Hat, and The Gingerbread Baby.

The Drama Center will be transformed into a holiday shopping, decorating, wrapping, letter writing and game center. Students will be able to play games from different holiday traditions, wrap gifts, decorate a tree, write letters to Santa, and much, much, more!!

The letters for December are S, J, and G. The numbers are 3, 4, and 5. We will review H, T, I, and U. Kids in the Kitchen this month will be making German jelly donuts. We will continue to listen to classical music and enjoy the music from the Nutcracker.

We have many fun activities planned including a gift the children will make to bring home to share with their families. This our “shsh” project! This month will go by quickly, let's hope we don't have many snow days!!

We wish you and all your loved ones a happy and safe holiday. We will miss all the children over the holiday break.