We've Had our first Snow!

Last weekend we had our first snow, and it was several centimeters - a good one. It seems that the first snow never fails to excite both the children and adults at our center. We are blessed with lots of good windows, and the snow outside seems to change the light inside, making things brighter. For several days this week many of us have been playing Christmas music in our rooms - and me and my children found ourselves spontaneously singing "Jingle Bells".

My children love dancing with our small selection of musical instruments, and like attaching these bells to their wrists or ankles. The CD in this picture has a wonderful selection of Christmas tunes by Raffi.There are some quiet tunes such as "Snow is Falling on Douglas Mountain", which is lovely - and lots of old favourite winter tunes such as "Frosty the Snowman", and of course "Jingle Bells".

The second youngest child in my group, a toddler aged boy, decided the bells could be hung up here. :)

I enjoy these three CD's as well, during the holiday season. The Sharon, Lois, and Bram selection has some lively, happy, dancing tunes, as well as several songs for the Hanukkah season. My children tend to really like The Dreidel Song. I have a nice collection of childrens' picture books for Hanukkah, and one with the Dreidal Song which came with a small dreidal.

The music on the CD's by YoYoMa, and Kenny Loggins are very good for quieter times such as early morning, and sitting down to eat.

My personal favourite song is the first one on the Kenny Loggins', with a haunting, calming tune "We're walking on the Wind". I also have enjoyed Loggins'  CD, "Return to Pooh Corners", for use in my room, at any time of the day.

I will probably put the festive music away for a few more weeks, so that they don't become tiring toward the end of the holiday season, but it was fun to play them for a few days.

We unfortunately didn't get outside the first day of our snow, as some of my children didn't have their all their winter clothes at daycare, so we made handprint snowflakes.

We continued our interest in reading about ladybugs.      

This is a small counting or sorting work job, and I wasn't sure where the felt black spots for the ladybugs had disappeared. Later in the week, I found them in the sand table. With this age of children I find that things will go missing - put into a basket, or purse, or glued to paper, and I am learning to be fine with this. I can always make more black spots. In a preschool with older children this might be a concern, but I feel that I want my children to manipulate items in their own way. This is where they spend almost 10 hours a day, and I like that they create something from the material I provide to make it their own.

We made this small collage of ladybugs under the leaves last week. As well we did some painting with a ladybug stamp, and of course then found we needed to use our hands, and there were personal requests for other colours - such as this nice bright yellow!

 Next week, we'll be sure and get outside every day. We found our collection of "daycare" snow pants, mitts, and boots...so there will be no stopping us! 

We are expecting warmer temperatures next week, so there is a possibility the snow will disappear. There are those among the adults who won't complain, if the snow holds off for a few more weeks, and we have some more lovely warm fall weather.