This Week at Monmmy and Me: Holiday Green

For more on the structure of our Mommy and Me class, please see the Mommy and Me link above.

This week at circle time, the kids got to decorate the tree. Each child received a felt ornament to put on the tree. I named their piece as I handed it to them and encouraged them to listen carefully for me to sing the name of their ornament. If you have ever worked with two-year-olds, you know that doesn't always (rarely) happens. It's all about progress, not perfection. Teacher lesson learned: only give them one ornament. I had a smaller group, so I gave them each two different pieces. Those amazing little brains are working on a lot. If they are putting a piece on the tree, that pretty much means that any pieces they have go on the tree. We sang "Santa Had a Christmas Tree" as we decorated.

During centers, we made pine cone ornaments. This is always a favorite activity. It is very challenging to find developmentally appropriate art activities for toddlers. This one is perfect. Most kids are very engaged and fill their tree. Just dip the pom poms in the glue and stick it into an open spot.

Our shaker project for the color green is this jingle bell shaker inspired by a project on Crafts by Amanda. I adapted it for the younger crowd. First they dot stamped the plate. For extra writing practice, parents could encourage their child to use a marker to draw circles around the dots and make a small dot in the center of the larger dots. I try to give parents ways to expand activities if their child is ready for a greater challenge.

After decorating the plate, they fold it in half and slip pipe cleaners through the holes to fasten. There are a variety of items to slip onto the pipe cleaners including beads, buttons, sequins and jingle bells. I put numbers on the tray if parents want to add counting to the activity ("pick two jingle bells"). I added larger pipe cleaner loops to the jingle bells to make it easier for the toddlers to string them onto the pipe cleaners.

For Music and Movement, we popped popcorn (crumpled up paper) in the parachute to the song Popcorn by Barenaked Ladies.

Another fun week these fun little people.