Happy New Year To all !
This blog will allow me to share our weekly adventures in our preschool and to give you some more insights about the activities, rhythm, festivals we offer to the children.

We have welcome Fabienne as our new assistant. Karen has left the program on a daily base, but she will be volunteering here and there as she is pursuing further her diploma in Early Childhood.


We had a great week together even so the weather kept us mostly inside. It was filled with playfull activities.

With all the snow, I brought in a poster featuring the work of Wilson A. Bentley, "The Snowflake Man":
"Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others. Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever repeated., When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost. Just that much beauty was gone, without leaving any record behind."

His pictures of snowflakes fascinate me. Without wanting to give the children a science lesson on crystals, I just wanted them to take a look at the manifold of shapes the snowflake come in. Also I displayed crystals and semi precious gemstones, for the children to look and play with. If they felt inspired they could sort them out by color or shape, and so on. I also brought out crystals of sea salt and showed them the different colors of salt one can find.

Then I offered them to grind the salt, so that they realize how the table salt is made. Various kind of mills allowed them to work on fine motor skills.

I also finally brought out the herbs we had been gathering in the fall: thyme, oregano, marjoram, parsley and offered them to rub the leaves off. These will be powdered in an electric grinder and then added to the sea salt to make an herb salt they will bring home. We will probably make some vegetable dip with some of it.

On Monday, we made Pretzels, a german tradition to celebrate the New Year. Pretzels are a symbol for good fortune, good luck. We read the story of "Walter, the baker" by Eric Carle, which in a funny way describes the whole process of making Pretzels involving throwing the dough to the ceiling (where it gets its shape by twisting itself in the shape of the Pretzel), have it fall in a pail of water (we used a pot of boiling water) and having the cat spill the salt over it( well, a simple shaker will do)...Keir's eyes got all excited as I announced that now we are going to throw the dough to the ceiling! I hope he was not too disappointed that we ended up just twisting it on the table... Our Pretzels turned out quite rustic as I only had 100% spelt flour on hand, but my children who came home hungry after school, told me that they tasted quite fine. They didn't even leave me a crumb...

Still with the crystal theme in mind, we decorated crowns in the afternoon with paper jewels. The children were fully involved and really enjoyed themselves . We repeted the activities on the other days , so that each child made a crown. Each of the children is a King bringing a special gift to the child who is born in the darkess time of the year. A New "seed"filled with new inspirations, skills is ready to sprout and each King child brings its special gift to honor it and prepare the soil for it to thrive.

It was good for me as I could "assess" each child on their "color, cut and paste" ability skill, not that it means a lot to me, but it just seems to be on what most of the children are evaluated. I do not particulary do much of these as such but I do believe that with all the fine motor exercises we do, their cut and paste skills improve as well. I can reassure parents that all of the children are doing just fine at their level.

On Tuesday, we painted watercolor: ultramarine blue as the big wide sea from which our salt is coming...and we sprinkled salt on it...With prussian blue, we then painted deep snow and as an experiment we placed our watercolors out hoping that Jack Frost would play with them...but he didn't...He must have been too busy since it was soooo cold! (yes , I was hoping that it would draw nice shapes on the painting, but the experiment didn't work!)

On Wednesday: we celebrated the Three Kings. Following the French tradition, we baked our Three Kings pie in the morning with puff pastry made in the Alpine Bakery, homemade marzipan (so easy to do: 1 cup ground almond, 1 cup powder sugar...I may cut a bit on it next time..., a few drop of almond extract, mix it together with 6 Tablespoons of water, stir and heat...without letting it burn, Ready!) and apples and had a royal celebration in the afternoon. Each of them took a turn under the table to determine for who the next piece of pie was going to be...Laker was the Queen! I feel always a bit queer when I single out someone, and I could also have chosen to have three kings, but still it would have singled out some children. However, I must say that the children didn't seem bothered, especially since they already each had their crown...

We ended the day reading the book "Frederick" by Leo Lioni about a little mouse who is doing an unusual harvest while her brother and sisters are gathering substantial food for the winter monthes to come... Inspired by the little mouse , we had the little mouse with a colorful tail and a poky nose run through our fabic and started making a dream pillow...The children were enthrilled and hard working...
Our circle and story time this week kept still the focus on the Christmas story and the Three Kings arriving in Bethleem. We told the russian story of Babushka who was too busy tidying her house, rather than following the three Kings and had fun after playing it out. Here is the circle to give you a taste:

Babushka, Babushka

She swept and swept all day.

Babushka, Babushka
Could not take time to play.

Kings came riding 1,2,3

Over and and over sea.
Following the shining star
Calling to them from afar.

Babushka, Babuskka

She swept and swept all day.................

Melkior the King in red

Knocked upon her door and said:

Oh Babushka come with me

And the tiny babe we'll see.

But, Babushka, Babushka

She swept and swept all day
Babushka, Babushka
Could not take time to play.

Balthazar the King in blue

Knocked and said I'm asking too

Oh Babushka come with me

And the tiny babe we 'll see.

Repeat...Babushka, Babushka......


Then King Caspar all in green,
Is the last one to be seen.

Oh Babushka come with me

And the tiny babe we'll see.

But, Babushka....repeat

Then at night in bed she'd pray

There she thought I will not stay.

Toys and cakes with me I'll bring

And search now for this little King.

Now--Babushka, Babushka

She walks and walks all day.

Babushka, Babushka

is searching on her way.

I translated it in French as well for French day.:

Babouschka, Baboushka,

Elle balaie et balaie

Babouschka, Babouschka

Balaie toute la journee.

Trois grands rois s'en sont alles

Par dela monts et vallees

Trois grands rois ont poursuivi

La grande etoile qui resplendit.

Mais, Babouschka....

Melchior , tout en rouge, a ete le premier

De frapper a la porte pour demander:

Babouschka, Babouschka, arrete de balayer

Viens avec nous saluer le bebe.

Mais....

Buis Balthazar, en bleu, s'est arrete pour l'inviter

Et lui aussi a pris le temps de lui demander:

...

Mais...

Finalement Caspar, de vert vetu, a essaye

Et une derniere fois lui a demande:

...

Mais dans son lit cette nuit,.

Babouschka s'est rappele.

Et elle a decide qu'elle devait s'en aller.

En hate elle rassembla pain, gateaux et jouets

Et les rois et l'etoile, elle s'est mise a chercher.