Author: Mrs. Malo

Proud mother of 3, Kaitlyn, Eileen & Michael Kindergarten Teacher
Posted in Books, Cooking with the Kiddies, Kindercrafts

The many 12 Days of Christmas

Posted on by Mrs. Malo

The 12 days of Christmas was a big theme for us this year, at school – and at home.  It all started with last year for Christmas Eileen received a copy of A Porcupine in a Pine Tree from her Aunt and Uncle.  This is a great Canadian 12 days of Christmas.

I had mad the decision to use this book at Christmas in my Kindergarten class a long time ago – but once we got started it took on a life of its own.  I started at the beginning of December by reading them the book.  Each child was given a large bristol board Christmas Tree and was told we were going to make the 12 days of Christmas.  This activity has a lot of teacher prep but it was totally worth it.  I had pre-printed and cut out all the gift for Christmas.  On the JK pictures I had stencilled in the numbers and on the SK pictures I simply put and empty box for them to print in the numbers.

My teaching partner suggested doing something to make the porcupine stand out at the top of the tree so we painted small doilies and glued them on the very top, and then put the porcupine on top.  We started with 3 ‘days’ a class but when we got to the higher days we only did 2 a class.  For 11 and 12 I saved time by leaving them in a strip and they just glued on.  It was a very time consuming activity and took us many classes but it was a perfect way to reinforce our numbers up to 12 that we had been working on in the month of November.  Feel free to use the file I made for the activity: porcupine in a pine tree, you will need to print in the number stencils if you wish for JK students.

On the last day we sequenced the story on the back on the tree.  This helped reinforce the idea of story sequencing and gave me an opportunity to introduce ordinal numbers.  I had strips for each day and first they glued them in order.  As this was a new concept I only gave one strip at a time (we had done the same thing with our numbers on the front).  It was much easier to track everyone as a whole class this way.  The same day we added the ordinal numbers before the sentences (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc).  This I gave it them each in a pile and asked them to put in order themselves – it was a great way to see who had mastered their numbers and who still needed some help.

The best part was at the end when they took them home.  As we were learning each day we were also singing the song – complete with actions.  I found a youtube video from a class in Kitchener that I would definitely recommend checking out!!

To make some text to text connections I also read a few other versions of the 12 days of Christmas.  I found a treaditional version on the discount shelves of our local bookstore.  After reading it to them I played them the true classic 12  days of Christmas sung by John Denver and the Muppets!!

Next I read A Stork in A Baobab Tree: An African Twelve Days of Christmas. I would love to have done more time on this one in my class but we drew some great connections to what they do in African and how it is different and the same to what we do in North America.  For example “On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me four market traders” – we discussed how many of us to to the market in our own downtown to get fresh food.

One book I ran out of to do with my class was A Pinata for the Pinon Tree.  This was our family book for December 15th!

This is the 12  days of Christmas in New Mexico.  When I picked it up I thought it would be a Mexican Christmas but instead it is a Southwestern Christmas.  The cool thing about this book is that on each page is shows one set of characters decorating for Christmas using the different items for the 12 days of Christmas but in the left hand part of the page is a grandmother character who is baking some sort of treat.  The treat is never mentioned in the story but at the end of the book is a recipe for Bizcochitos – a traditional New Mexican Christmas cookie.  It was very obvious that we had to make these cookies, but they called for a strange ingredient – aniseed.  The next Thursday when we went to market I asked the spice lady and she had aniseed!  We mixed up the batter and made a variety of Bizcochitos.  I let the girls pick from all of my cookie cutters so we had a wide variety of shapes.  These are a very different tasting Christmas cookie so not everyone may like them – but everyone we gave some to loved them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am looking for more great versions of The Twelve Days of Christmas to add to our library for future years.  If you have a favourite let us know!

Posted in Books, Family Adventures, In the Community

The Grinch

Posted on by Mrs. Malo

It is officially boxing day and we are done our 24 books of Christmas (with the exception of 1 book we ran out of time for that we are doing today), but I did not have time to blog about all our books and activities.  Over the next couple of days I will be blogging about the rest of our books and a few other things from the last couple of months.

Friday nights are movie nights at our house so on December 16th we decided to make it Grinch Night.

 

I first read Kaitlyn our copy of Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas!  This is the first year she hasn’t been scared of the Grinch (Eileen still is).  My kindergartens for the month of December each brought in thier own holdiay traditions to share with class.  We had an awesome variety from: advent calendars, Christmas crackers, heirloom stockings, decorating Christmas cookies, and upside down Christmas trees.  One boy brought in a picture of his and his Grandparents houses decorated for Christmas – which would put the Grizwald’s to shame!  On the same day that I read “The Grinch” to my own children, a boy in my class brought in his copy of the Grinch DVD to share with the class, along with colouring pages for everyone.  His tradition is to watch the movie with his Dad at Christmas.  My class decided to invite the other Kindergarten class over to join them in watching the film, so Kaitlyn got to watch the movie at school.  This ended up being a very good thing because after we read the book at home I could not find the movie!  I have since found it and she has watched it a few times this season.

Posted in Books, Craft Thursdays

Candy Christmas Wreath

Posted on by Mrs. Malo

On Wedneday, December 14th our book was Dav Pilkey’s Dragon’s Merry Christmas.

This book has three short stories on Dragon’s Christmas adventures: The Perfect Christmas Tree, The Candy Wreath, Mittens and Merry Christmas, Dragon.  I read the girls the first two stories before craft and Daddy read them the last two before bed.  To be honest I picked this book because I thought it would be fun for us to try and make a candy wreath.

These proved to be a much more difficult venture than I had originally thought.  We live in a small town, without any big craft stores, so finding a wreath form took a bit of work.  I checked all the dollar stores along with Walmart and Zellers but ended up finding one, the very last one, at a flower shop. It was a 14″ inch green, hard, foam, wreath.  I had planned on making a smaller one but took what I could get.  I also purchased 5 bags of candy at the dollar store.  We never plan on eating our wreath so we picked based on the colour of wrapper.  I picked up a lot so I wouldn’t run out which was a wise decision as we used almost all of it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We decided the girls would put the candy on the top flat part of the wreath, so they could use the normal craft glue and Mommy would be responsible for the sides (inside and outside) with the hot glue gun.  This worked pretty well, as the sides would not have stuck with white glue.  It would be interesting to try it with different types of wreath forms to see what would stick best.  After all the candy was glued on I made a bow and hot glued it on as well.

I think it turned out pretty cool.  Gord even liked it (sincerely) and that is unusually for our craft creations!

Posted in Books, Craft Thursdays

A Fancy Christmas

Posted on by Mrs. Malo


One of the series that many little girls love is Fancy Nancy.  Last year for Christmas Kaitlyn recieved Fancy Nancy Splendiferous Christmas.

Nancy’s favourite time of year is Christmas because everything that is normally dull and boring becomes fancy.  Last summer she spent all of her birthday money to buy the most extravagant and fancy topper for the Christmas tree and finally can put it on the top of the tree.  While waiting for Grandpa to arrive she is playing with her dog and they accidently knock over the tree breaking the angel.  Nancy is devastated but then Grandpa helps her make a new special ornament that can become a family heirloom.  A cute story with familiar characters and a good message about family traiditions.

The activity for this one was very obvious.  I got a large variety of items out of our craft bins, everything from pipcleaners and pom poms, to paint, plates and every sticky, sparkling or sticker that we have.  First the girls painted their paper plates (both sides) and then I let them loose to decorate them.  The only thing they needed help with were making the holes for the pipecleaners and ribbon (which are difficult to see in the pictures. Kaitlyn’s is a star and Eileen decided her was a face.

Posted in Books, Character Ed, In the Community

Rudolph & Kaitlyn to the Rescue

Posted on by Mrs. Malo

December 13th book was Rudolph to the Rescue by Robert L. May and illustrated by Lisa Papp

I will start off my saying I am not a huge fan of this book but the girls like it, it is an identifiable character and it fit nicely with the activity I wanted to do on the 13th.  After Christmas Rudolph helps Santa go through all of his Thank you cards from the boys and girls around the world and finds a very sad letter from Sonny and Sis who Santa missed because they are part of a circus and Santa couldn’t find them.  Rudolph makes it is mission to find Sonny and Sis and make sure this doesn’t happen again.

Every year at Christmas the school we ask that instead of buying teacher’s Christmas Presents the children bring an unwrapped toy for the toy drive.  Kaitlyn hadn’t purchased hers yet so this became a good activity for one of our books.  I thought it fit nicely with Rudolph to the Rescue as there were two children in the book who didn’t get any presents for Christmas.  After skating on Monday I took the girls to Zellers to find a toy.  Kaitlyn picked out a ZuZu pet toy that was perfect for the toy drive.

Posted in Books, Kinder science

Ice Cubes & What Christmas Means to You

Posted on by Mrs. Malo

December 11th was a Sunday and our book was the veggie tale book Yuletide Ice Cub Festival.

A few years ago Kaitlyn loved Veggie Tales and we picked up this book.  It is a large board book format.  They still enjoy Veggie Tales but not as much as they use to.  This story is about the annual Ice cube fair and the famous ice block carving festival.  Participants have to make an ice sculpture on Major Bob’s theme and this years theme is “What Christmas Means to You”.  In rhyming verse all the characters create their glorious creations and it finishes by showing Junior’s tiny sculpture of a shepherd kneeling beside the stable, of course his was the winner.

I decided to do a science activity with the girls and let them explore with ice cubes.  First we tried to make our own sculpture out of ice using ice cubes and salt but that was a dismal failure.  Instead I decided to go more simple and challenge them to see who was able to melt their ice cube the fastest.

Kaitlyn instantly tried to squeeze hers and it started to melt pretty quick.  After she accidently dropped it on the floor she realized that was a good thing and it would melt faster in more pieces.  This was bit tricky for Eileen and with Daddy’s help she microwaved it for a few seconds, after that she thought is was more fun as a bath for Donald Duck.  Even with Daddy’s help Kaitlyn’s melted faster, and she was quite proud of herself!

Posted in Books, Family Adventures

Here Comes Santa Claus

Posted on by Mrs. Malo

Every year we host an All Ages Family Christmas Party.  We have been doing it since 2007 making this our 5th Annual and it has been the ‘it’ party for our kids and our friends kids.  It started out as a way for everyone to get together without having to get a babysitter and for the kids to get to see Santa in a non-threatening environment. I knew that it has become a hit when all of the older kids were plastered to the front window when I asked everyone to come up from the playroom, next year Santa is going to come to the back door – LOL!

For December 10th, the day of our party I picked the book: Here Comes Santa Claus, illustrate by Bruce Whatley.

The words to this book are the lyrics of the song, 4 verses.  The illustrations tell a story all their own and are included with a bit of their own text in terms of a letter to and from Santa.  Kaitlyn was excited to read these letters all by herself.

At the beginning and end of this book there is also the sheet music for playing the song.  It is not an easy song to play but Daddy can play the easy one hand version and we have been practicing the first verse so before Christmas I will record us all singing it and post it in a podcast.  Kaitlyn took it to her piano teacher last week and she played it with both hands for her so she could hear the full version.

 

Posted in Books, Family Adventures, Milestones

The Christmas Tree

Posted on by Mrs. Malo

One of my main themes I have been using with my Kindergarten class this month has been Christmas Trees and so I am very tired of tree books but I found a different one that was perfect  for December 9th, the day we were suppose to get our Christmas Tree.  Grandmother’s Tree by Avril Tyrrell and illustrated by Frances Tyrrell  is told through the eyes of a Christmas Elf ornament, one of the oldest ornaments on the family tree.  The ornaments are very excited as it is the time of year that they get taken out and placed on the Christmas tree.  Some of them are older and others are new but they all have a place on the Christmas tree.

This is the perfect story to read before decorating the Christmas tree.  It provides children perspective and leads to great questions while putting up their favourite ornaments.  This didn’t quite work for us as we changed when we got our tree and it was already up when I read this story.  This didn’t stop Kaitlyn – she loves pointing out all the ornaments they each got on their first Christmas.

Instead I found a simple Christmas Tree craft the girls could both easily do in our Usborne Preschool Activity book Christmas Fun. 

The very first craft in this book is Stencil Trees.  Kaitlyn and I made these a couple of years ago so I knew Eileen would be able to do it easily.  I wanted to let them make them their own way so I did not show them the pictures in the craft book.

To prepare I made the tree stencil by folding a piece of paper in half and cutting out half a tree for each of the girls.  Then I taped it to a piece of cover stock and set the girls up with green paint.  I showed them how to make fingerprints all over their trees.

This started off pretty well but then Kaitlyn decided she liked it better if she smeared all the prints together and pretty soon they had covered the entire tree.  It wasn’t what I had planned but it was what they wanted to do so it was perfect.

We let them dry overnight and the next day it was time to decorate them.  I picked up a variety of jewels and decorations up at the dollar store and they glued them on the tree.  Kaitlyn did hers independently and Eileen just needed a bit of help putting the glue where she wanted it.  I didn’t get any stars and they both asked for stars for the tops of their trees.  This is a bit ironic as our family tree has an angel at the top.  Kaitlyn put snowflakes around the top of her tree and declared it was outside.  A very easy craft to make with young children, especially those who love paint!

Posted in Books, Cooking with the Kiddies, Craft Thursdays, Family Adventures

Our Ginger Home

Posted on by Mrs. Malo

When I was shopping at the end of November I picked up Home For Christmas not realizing it is the newest book by Jan Brett.  I knew it was a Jan Brett but didn’t notice the 2011 publication date.  I hadn’t even read the book but decided it would be good for the 8th day of December when we were to decorate our Gingerbread House.

This is the tale of a young and carefree troll named Rollo who still has his tale, because trolls only loose their tail if they are kind.  Always doing whatever he wants Rollo leaves home and on his journey spends time with different animal families throughout the year.  No matter what he does he just doesn’t seem to fit in with any of the animals for very long, and ends up back at home, a changed troll, just in time for Christmas.  We read through it for simple enjoyment, and loved taking in Brett’s pictures but their are so many literacy and character connection that can be made.  As with all of Brett’s book the illustrations are perfect for helping children predict what is coming up next in the story, and inferring what the characters are feeling and thinking.

This was to be a fun activity so I didn’t want to get too serious – on to the Gingerbread house.  Now we do a Gingerbread house from scratch every year and it is a 3 day adventure.  A number of years ago I found a great site that gave a perfect outline and template for making a gingerbread house.  I printed it off and we use the same recipe every year.  The first year I made templates for the shapes and a board for the house, which are put back into one of our many Christmas boxes after the holidays to be brought out the next year.  On day 1 I bake the house and sometimes get a bit of help from the girls.  I always have lots of dough left over and make Gingerbread Men out of the leftovers.  Sometimes I make the stained glass windows using lifesavers (if I remember before baking) and this year the girls loved crushing the lifesavers.

On day 2 I assemble the house.  I use books and pop cans to help prop up the pieces.  This is an activity for after the kids have gone to bed!

Day 3, which fell on December 8th this year, is the fun day – it is decorating day.  I took Kaitlyn to the grocery store bulk section and let her pick out a variety of candies.   We we everything up on the table and decorated!

Mommy’s job is to put the icing on and the girls are responsible for decorating.  This is the first year I pretty much did none of the decorating.  Kaitlyn is very much into hearts so she put a large heart on each side of the roof.  Eileen pretty much ate more candy than she put on the house, but she made a good effort with creating a pattern with the M&Ms.  This year we pretty much had to decorate the house twice.  We did it Thursday afternoon before the daycare Christmas concert, but while I was getting Eileen dressed for the concert Michael crawled up on the table and ate off half of the candy (most of it he simply spit out).  I quickly cleaned up the mess the best I could and then when we got home from the concert we decorated it again.  Now it is kept well out of reach from Michael.  It has dried but I still don’t want to take any chances!

Posted in Books

A Barbie Christmas?

Posted on by Mrs. Malo

A couple of years ago my in-laws gave Kaitlyn the Barbie version of “A Christmas Carol” for Christmas. This was her very first introduction to Barbie and I wasn’t quite ready for it – especially when she watching the movie non stop for 3 months.  Then I quietly managed to hide it and only bring it out during the Christmas season. I never thought I would intentially bring it out for the girls but that is exactly what I did on Day 7 of our 24 books of Christmas.

I don’t remember where  it came from but the book ended up in our collection last year.  I needed an easy book and activity for Wednesday as Eileen has hockey and when we all get home we are tired and have limited time.  I read the book to the girls and then they curled up and watched the movie, I even made myself watch part of it with them.  This year we didn’t do any more than that but I can definitely see doing some text-to-text connecting with other versions of “A Christmas Carol”.  The problem right now is that many are quite scary for kids, even the Mickey Mouse version is pretty dark, but this Barbie version is not frightening for the girls.

The whole Barbie issue is an interesting issue.  This year it is very big in our house.  I can understand the issues that some people have with the body image issues that Barbie brings up, but the creative play that my girls do with their Barbies is very cool.  They are always making up new setting and scenarios for them and that is the type of creative play I love to encourage.  I would love to hear your thoughts.