Christmas Tree Cookie Stack

Look at what we made today.

 We will enjoy it for morning tea tomorrow. It seems a bit sad to have to break all of the children's hard work, but I'm sure it will taste as good as it looks.

We used bought pre-rolled sweet shortcrust pastry for our stars and melted chocolate to ensure they stay stacked up.

Although the biscuit tree is for tomorrow, today the children got to enjoy these teddy bear sleighs made with mini candy canes. 

One of my lovely mothers made these for a special Christmas treat.

Check out our teddy bear cars that we gobbled up earlier this year.

Candy Cane Mice

Beware! Mouse infestation in Room 4!

Our candy can mice are decorating the Christmas tree.

I got this idea from Martha Stewart. But we used paper and drew on the eyes and ears.

Click on the 'Christmas' label in the cloud to see more Christmas activities we have enjoyed.

Yummy Chistmas "Cake" Balls

We made these Christmas 'Cake' Balls today, super easy and very effective.

What you need:

• Christmas cupcake cases
• Cake crumbs, any type (a lovely mother, who makes and decorates beautiful cakes, gave us a big bag full of cake off-cuts.)
• Butter
• Icing sugar
• Cocoa
• Water
• White chocolate melts
• Jaffas

What to do:

Make the icing, with the butter, icing sugar, cocoa, and water. I 'guesstimated'  my measurements, and made the icing quite soft, but not runny.

Mix the cake crumbs into the icing, add more water if you need. We had lots of fun crumbing the cake, I put the off-cuts into two plastic bags (one inside the other), and we took turns carefully massaging the outside of the bags to reduce the cake to crumbs.

 

 Clean up the crumbs you spill all over the table!

Mold spoonfuls of the mixture into balls, ours were quite large - it depends on your sweet tooth!.

Put the ball into a cupcake case and refrigerate till cold.

Melt the white chocolate and put a spoonful of chocolate onto each ball, top with a jaffa.

Yum!

Getting Ready for Santa

Christmas Discovery 2012....

 We made tissue and lollypop angels....

 .... and completed a Christmas book to read at home....

.... then dipped spoons in chocolate, before putting them in a bag with marsh-mellows and a ribbon all ready for a hot chocolate treat....

.... after that we made Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer headbands....

 ....and became busy elves and pretended to make Christmas toys to help out Santa....

 ....before writing a Christmas wishlist.

  Lastly we decorated the Christmas tree (it was an explosion of tinsel)....

....wrote Christmas cards for our loved ones.... 

.... and wrapped (pretend) presents for under the Christmas tree.

J-Block is all ready for Santa!


I would like to say a HUGE thank you to all of the parents that have helped us out during Discovery this year. The variety of activities we try to provide would not be possible without your support.

More Great You Tube Songs

We have been singing and dancing to these songs this week.

This counting back from 20 song is my favourite. (I especially love watching my class dance during the middle of the song.)

And counting forwards to 50 is great fun too.

There also some catchy phonic and sight word songs.

Summer Fun 2012

Summer normally means sunny weather and sun block. For our Summer Discovery session we had lots of outdoor activities planned to enjoy in the sun - but it rained non-stop all morning!

So we stayed inside and ....

.... designed sun protective outfits ....

.... then matched Alphabet Buckets .....

....  and turned summer fruit ....

.... into fruity faces....

.... and then we used the cool-melt glue gun ....

 .... to make sand castle art....

 .... and made newspaper hats (to protect our heads from the rain sun) ....

Outdoor Adventures

We have been having fun learning outdoors this week:

Cooking and eating BBQ sausages. Yum!

Visiting Staglands.

 A parent helper took this photo, the baby guinea pigs at Staglands were adorable!

Making and flying kites.

Treasure hunting. We followed the clues to the sandpit and dug up gold doubloons.

River walking (and watching M-Block Raft Race).

Rock art (click to see our ladybug rock painting). We used pastels to draw colourful designs on these rocks, then painted water-based sealant over the top.

We were meant to picnic at Harcourt Park, but unfortunately the weather was not quite up to scratch.


Learning outside the classroom has lots of benefits:

• Opportunities to satisfy curiosity and explore the world.
• Experiences to engage in creative activity.
• Improved self-confidence and risk-taking.
• First hand experience in real-life situations.
• Encourages independence and self-reliance.
• Establishes a team building attitude and support cooperative learning skills. 

 

Plus we had a week of fantastic photo opportunities!  
 
 

Paper Dolls

 Our paper dolls were fiddly to cut, but the children were very pleased with their finished creations.

 Paper fairies.

 These paper dolls have paper pants!

 Paper aliens.

Friendly paper monsters.

I used this website for paper doll ideas, and we have been singing and acting 'Miss Polly had a Dolly' all week. Our favourite part is when the Dr knocks on the door with a rat-a-tat-tat, because we like to loudly quietly knock on the floor.

Sailing Away....

.... on the deep blue sea.

We constructed giant boats with our friends....

.... and little boats out of junk....

 

.... then floated (and sunk) our boats on mini oceans.

We discovered what can float or sink....

.... then wrote a list of sea-creatures....

 .... made a chart of an imaginary ocean....

.... and constructed a compass to navigate our way across the paddling pool sea.

We had 18 Mountaineers (we call our pre-school visitors Mountaineers) visiting us today. It was a very busy Discovery session, but as you can see it was lots of fun!