Symbols of Christmas {The Candy Cane}

I've decided for this last month of preschool that I would do the 4 remaining lessons on the symbols of Christmas and their meaning.  The four I have chosen are candy canes, Christmas trees, Santa and the Nativity.  There is something much deeper than than yumminess of a candy cane, the prettiness of the Christmas tree and the gifts from Santa.  I really want my kids to understand how those things came about and hopefully teach them more about the 'true' meaning of Christmas and this is my attempt to do just that.

So today we started with CANDY CANES......

Blake received this book last year from his Aunt Jen and it was just perfect for this lesson!  The book tells about a candy maker who moves to town and creates the 'candy cane' to share the gospel with others.  If you haven't heard of the 'legend of the candy cane' here's a quick run through:

-It is shaped like a shephard's staff, the first people told of the birth of Christ

-If you turn it upside down, it is shaped like a "J" for Jesus

-The red stripes symbolize the blood that Jesus shed on the Cross for our sins

-The white represents the purity and removal of our sins because of that blood

-I like to add too, that if you put two candy canes together it makes a heart and the reason Jesus died for us is because he loves us.

After the story, we used beads and pipe

cleaners to string together a candy cane using and 'AB' pattern

The kids took turns sharing the candy cane story when we were finished.  So precious hearing the gospel out of their little mouths!

(Can you tell I finally fixed my camera!  No more orange photos!)

The letter for this week was "J" so we practiced our J's from this worksheet from confessionsofahomeschooler.com

        

And of course we had to enjoy a candy cane while we worked!!

Finally, I used this website to print a 'legend of the candy cane' tag to pass out with candy canes

Next week we'll discover the meaning behind the Christmas tree and why we decorate it with lights and  a star.  

What's a mayflower?

Today's lesson........why do we celebrate Thanksgiving?  Gotta confess, I had to study up on this to make sure I was getting all the details right (silly, I know!).  I knew this would be hard to explain to a 2,3, and 4 year old, but I gave it a shot anyway.  Anything would be better than last weeks failures....oh yeah, I didn't blog on that.  Totally planned to share my failures with everyone, but never got around to it.  The lesson was 'Pumpkins' which would be hard to mess up right?  Well, some things went well.  But the pumpkin seed activities were a bust when I realized my pumpkin seeds were moldy and the pumpkin playdoh?   well, it's in the garbage because it did not turn out to be play-doh.

Here's a few pictures.  That is NOT the play-doh we made, I had to break out my own stash for this activity.  These play-doh mats from pinterest are pretty cool I'll say.

 So, onto this week.....Thanksgiving

I didn't have a great book to read that explained the first Thanksgiving well, but I did check out some books that had good pictures of pilgrims, indians, and the mayflower and explained it the best I could.

We made a handprint mayflower craft, which turned out pretty cute.

 Painting the water

Hard to see in the picture, but it's a handprint sailboat with little sails glued on the fingers.

For snack we made little pilgrim hats.  I used a grasshopper cookie and a reese's pb cup...

For math, they each had a counting page from confessionsofahomeschooler.com  I ended up ordering the K4 curriculum and I must say I really like some of the math and letter activities she has (and now I have!)

We learned the number 4 and letter M today.  Here's a cute poem to remember how to make a four "down and over, down some more that's the way to make a four"

Enjoy!

Blake's Pirate Party!

Yes, my little boy is already four!  The theme he chose for this big day was PIRATES.  Here's a few pics of the fun day :)

I wrote this on our steps, leading to our house.  No one saw it however, because literally within 5 minutes of me writing it, it POURED.  Just long enough to erase the sidewalk and then stopped.  At least I got a picture of what it would have looked like ;)

Pirate wear for the guests.......

 My evil camera (or lack of camera knowledge more or less) presenting the food table in a beautiful shade of orange

 

 Pirate Maggie.......

Pirate Audrey.......

Pirate Titus........

Pirate Blake...walking the plank.........

 

Audrey loved the plank/ball pit :)

Because of the rain and crazy cold day we had to move our outside activities into the garage.  Not the most beautiful background for pictures but it worked great for our pinata :)

Who says you can't eat candy off a dirty garage floor?

Cousin pirates with their treasures 

Aaaaaaarrrrrggghhh!

 Not so aaaarrrrggghhh....

Can't forget Titus :)

Pirate ship cupcakes....

Tractors!

An extra cutie to add to our preschool lesson today....sweet Ella!  I don't have as many pictures of today's activities because I was outnumbered 4:1 and needed my hands and eyes more than the camera did :)

We talked about farming/tractors today and read the book "Driving my tractor"  We talked about letter "T" and then made this "T is for Tractor" craft found here

Start with just making the letter "T" then add wheels, a seat, and a steering wheel and there you have a tractor........

 

 Do-A-Dot activities are awesome!  Ella knew what to do aright away!  We 'dotted' our number 3 and letter T.....

Then some farm fun

 And tractor fun.