Group Meeting:  The play buddies worked so well yesterday that we did it again today.  Everyone was assigned a new buddy to play with for 10 minutes.  Many chose to stay with their new friend, but a few decided to change.  Either way, they are making new friends and are learning the names of their classmates.

Story:  The Quad City Arts has invited the children to decorate a tree for the Festival of Trees.  We have done this in the past.  I usually pick a Christmas story and use that as our theme for the tree.  This year, the theme of the Festival is Christmas Around the World.  So the story that I have selected is The Spider's Gift by Eric Kimmel.  This story is a Ukrainian folk story.  The story is about a family that is too poor to celebrate Christmas with a tree and gifts.  The children ask their parents if they can cut a tree from the forest.  After selecting a tree, the family takes it home and decorates it with buttons and a paper star.  That night, mother discovers that there are baby spiders in the tree.  The warmth from the room has caused the spider eggs to hatch before spring.  Mother wants to throw the tree out, but the children beg her to keep it so that the spiders won't die in the cold.  When the family returns from Christmas services, the discover that the spider webs on the tree have turned to silver and the buttons on the tree have turned into gold coins.  The spiders have done this to thank the family for saving them. 

Small Groups:  Following the story, the children got into their small groups to make spider ornaments for the Festival tree.  They used clay, glitter, sparkly pipe cleaners and googly eyes.  We will put them on the tree and add silver thread for the webs.

Large Group:  The children participated in an obstacle course of a crawling tunnel, a tumbling mat, and balancing stepping stones.

Snacks:  The morning class had strawberries, Wheat Thins, and juice brought by Cooper.  The afternoon class had cheese sticks and grapes brought by Elizabeth.  Thank you, Cooper and Elizabeth!