Merry pre-kinder Christmas!!

It’s officially Christmas break for El Camino! Right now teachers are finishing finals and putting in grades. I am in the classroom listening to Christmas music and taking down Christmas decorations. It’s like Christmas is over, but hasn’t even really started.

Today we decided to do a family Christmas party! It was so fun to interact with the parents and spend the last day together as a community. Here are some of the highlights:

Starting the day with a fun coloring page.

Decorating cookies that we made the day before. I think they were more into eating frosting!

Snack time outside!

We played some minute to win it games such as move the cookie down your face, pass the ornaments with spoons in the mouth, move the ornament across the room and blow the card off the table.

The kids sang some songs to the parents.

Then it was group and family picture time!

And of course my co-teachers had to join the fun!!!

Thanksgiving virtual day

Every year our school designates 2-3 days as “virtual day”. This means that a full day of school activities are done at home. Some of the activities are computer-based while others are not.

For pre-kinder I try to keep the activities fun and family-friendly. I usually post 3-4 different choices for the families to choose from for their activities. I also include one of our math resources which gives ideas of using math concepts at home. For example counting steps as your walk up a stair way or organizing plastic containers from smallest to biggest. This hopefully gives the parents ideas of how to have a math rich environment in the home.

This year for Thanksgiving I gave students a few options of Thanksgiving activities. One of them was to create a “turkey sandwich” using materials in the kitchen. They then send me a picture. Here are some that I have received.

 

Bogota vs. Bamako

I started this post last year and forgot about it. Did some updating of pictures so here you go!

Over the past few months people have asked the question “how is Bogota different than Bamako?”. This is a great question- and one that leads to a lot of thoughts and comparisons. I decided that rather than use words, it would be good to make picture comparisons. As you will see some things are very different, while others are quite similar. The pictures to the left are in Bogotá (or surrounding area) and the right in Bamako. Hope you enjoy!.

Landscapes

     

Down my street

Cityscape

Iced treats

 

Theme parks

 

  

Soccer

 

Service trip 2013

One of the joys of a theme of service is not just using our words, but leading our students in action. As a pre-kinder class we visit a nursing home 2 times a year to share a time of singing, coloring and sharing a snack.

I was so excited to see my students embrace this time whole-heartedly. One student’s mother told me she woke up at 4am so excited to visit the grandparents. Another student who has difficulty focusing worked hard to color a picture for his “abuelito”. Plus all the students spent 45 minutes cutting fruit for fruit salad without being crazy or wanting to stop. Their prayers for the grandparents (in English!) were genuine and sweet- asking God to care for them and for them to show God’s love! What a blessing to share this special day with my students.

Cutting fruit for the fruit salad (they all wore masks to catch the sneezes)

Greeting the ‘grandparents’

Singing songs to the ‘grandparents’

Coloring pictures with the grandparents

Christian Character Day

Every year October is a month dedicated to learning about people. The library hosts a contest to see who can read the most biographies. Classes learn about historical figures and many write biographies. And to end the celebration, elementary hosts “Christian Character Day”.

This is a chance for elementary students to dress up as a famous Christian Character. Pre-Kinder and kinder are Bible characters and 1-4th grades are post-Bible characters (missionaries, pastors, people of faith, etc.). Each class has a time to share with parents, then all the students across grade levels join together and share. It is a great time for my students to practice English- plus the love dressing up! Check out the cute pictures:

Many of my girls were Queen Esther

Classroom activity with parents (and grandparents, aunts and uncles)

As close to an all class picture as we could get!

Elementary small groups sharing about their character

That’s about right kiddos  

22 four year olds looking in the same direction=impossible!