It was so great to see the Live Oak families during our Holiday potluck. Thank you for the wonderful brunch. We hope you enjoyed the little performance the students prepared for all of you!

Part of our focus these weeks were the different winter holidays: Hanukkah, Christmas and Kwanzaa. We observed with pleasure how the children were open to learning that people around the world have different cultures and beliefs. Through presentations and story books, we exposed the class to these holidays, which the students showed a lot of interest in. They noticed similarities and differences between Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Christmas.

 

Author visit

We were very lucky to have Hope Alper, who read from her book “The Chanukah Bears of  Marin Circle.” The children were a great audience and interviewed Hope after her reading. Having an author visit gives children the opportunity to see that books are created and made by people, and this encourages or inspires them to create their own books.

 

The art shelf was provided with a lot of winter holidays art projects, such as the punching work  Christmas tree (fine motor skills), Pine Tree and snowmen with geometric shapes, and the Kinara project (counting candles one to one). We also had a menorah and dreidel art project (fine motor skills) and gingerman puppet and prints. All these activities were both, in small groups, one on one, and by children’s choice.

 

Our class definitely loved the winter sensory bin, which offers a variety of textures, shapes, colors and sounds. This gave children the opportunity to use most of their senses. 

 

The fantasy corner was also winter holidays themed with a Kinara, a Christmas tree, a menorah, candles, ornaments, dreidels, and jingle bells. The children play in the fantasy corner in groups of 3. Together, they explore the materials, and interact with each other by socializing, role-playing, and learn and practice negotiating and sharing.

 

The Winter tree

Making presents for the families was a large group project. Everybody helped paint the pinecones green and white and helped finish the cookies for their families. They constantly counted them to make sure we made fourteen, one for each family!

Another community activity was decorating the classroom for the holiday potluck/party.

 

Dance

Our focus on dance was  “Borriquito”, a Mexican holiday song. The children had a blast with this dance everyday! Also, each student decorated their own borriquito head.

Along with the festive mood, we encouraged the children to explore and work on the classroom’s areas, such as language, math, sensorial and of course movement.

 

We are very excited to welcome Leo and his parents Isabel and Tony to Live Oak!

Agradecimientos:

Thank you to Quinn and Aliyah’s families for taking care of the laundry!

Thank you to Elise’s family for baking cookies for our class last week!

 

Reminders:
School resumes on January 4th 2023

January birthdays: Let us know if you want to celebrate your child’s birthday at school.

We wish you a wonderful holiday break with your family!

Griselda, Niki and Catherine