Highlights weeks ending December 18, 2020
Happy Holidays Everyone!
From the Olive Room Staff we send out a big Thank You; for all of the wonderful Holiday gifts and cards. They are truly appreciated!
These past two weeks we continued exploring winter Holidays around the world. There are many wonderful holiday traditions and customs. What makes the Holiday Season special depends on the customs and traditions that were handed down in your family. Every family and culture are unique and distinct. Here at Schoolhouse Montessori, we are blessed to have such a diversified community.
We started our celebrations with the Mexican holiday of Las Posadas. Posados is celebrated on the nine nights before Christmas. Posada means inn or place to stay. Each night of Posados, children go from house to house looking for a posada. When they come to the house picked for that night, there is a big party. It is a different house each night. There is music, food and games. A favorite activity is breaking a piñata. A piñata is made of paper and paste. It is filled with treats. Blindfolded children try to break it open by hitting it with a stick.
We joined with Mrs. Gomez and the Maple toddler classroom for a fun time of breaking a whale shape piñata. “Feliz Navidad” – Merry Christmas in Spanish.
Mrs. Gomez's daughter Nicole gave us a presentation on Las Posadas. We used streamers to dance to the song “Feliz Navidad”. Nicole showed a poinsettia plant indigenous to Mexico and Central America. It is widely used in Christmas displays due to its beautiful red and green foliage.
Art:
Making our own poinsettia flower.
Next, I shared about the Jewish Holiday of Hanukkah and my family tradition. Hanukkah, also called the Festival of Lights is celebrated with food, the candle-lighting of a menorah, spinning a top called a dreidel and gifts. The menorah has nine candles. Eight candles represent the eight days of Hanukkah. The ninth and tallest candle is used to light the others. The children enjoyed spinning around like dreidels.
We also started honoring the most widely celebrated holiday in the world Christmas.
Not everyone celebrates Christmas in the same way. In some countries, people honor Christmas-related holidays such as Saint Nicholas Day, Saint Lucia Day or the festival of Las Posadas.
The children thought it was funny that in Australia, Christmas is in the summer, the weather is hot! Santa does not wear his red fur trimmed suit but a red swim/bathing suit.
The popular symbol of the Christmas tree popped up in our classroom. The children colored and cut out ornaments for one of the trees and placed mini light bulbs on the other. Germany is credited with starting the decorated Christmas tree tradition.
Language:
We read many different versions of the story – The Gingerbread Man.
The children paid attention to the details of the story. We talked about how some of the characters the Gingerbread Man ran away from were the same in each version and how some were different. We also discussed the differences with how the clever fox caught the Gingerbread Man.
The children enjoyed retelling the story with their own painted Gingerbread Man. They used oil pastels and watercolor paint.
Decorated Gingerbread houses originated in Germany however The Gingerbread Man place of origin is England. Both are a favorite Christmas tradition.
Math:
Holiday-themed counting and addition.
With the Ten board the children are introduce to quantities, numeric symbols, and names 11-99.
Happy Birthday Vera!
This is the last Scribbles for 2020. Scribbles will resume in January 2021.
Wow! What a year.
We wish you a very Joyous Holiday Season.
Enjoy spending time with your family.
Wishing you all a Happy and Healthy New year.
Let’s all stay up past midnight on December 31 to make sure 2020 actually leaves.
Stay safe and stay well.
Thank you for all of your support!
Mrs. Moore
Credits:
Created with an image by JillWellington - "gingerbread men houses background"