Father Christmas

Today I felt like I was kind of in an episode where the ghosts of Christma’s past visit me.. only it was preschoolers of the past.  We had two 8th graders come job shadow today at Bright Beginnings. I would hear them say ”  Remember when … ” or ” It’s so different  .” I was telling a momma that I actually feel sad for the littles that came to me years ago. They were safe. They were happy. But I know so much more now.

In a curriculum that is led by the children’s interest you listen to them and what they are interested in.   There has been ZERO talk about Thanksgiving.  Sigh… I was listening to a podcast this morning about a child led curriculum and the expert said “it is ok to add elements to intrigue and promote curiosity.”  Just to see if the children had any prior knowledge about Thanksgiving that I could feed off of for the next two days we asked what is Thanksgiving. Here are some of the answers we got.

hmm……

I tried to throw some ” Thanksgiving vocabulary ” out there like teepees, Indian, Mayflower.

Nada …

Someone ( I think Gabe did yell TURKEYS!) so I felt justified in doing a prompted drawing.  I LOVE These activities because I feel like it really shows the children they ARE artist and they CAN draw.  I give them direct instruction like ” draw a circle for the head.”  ‘ Draw a larger circle underneath for the body. ”  In addition to the art piece they are working on we get to work on following directions, math and position words and listening.

I just LOVE their drawings .

Mrs. Holly made playdoh with them this morning.  The intention was pumpkin scented playdoh but I was out of pumpkin pie spice so they made apple. They still tinted the playdoh orange by combining colors.

They love the feel of warm new playdoh.