12 Days of Christmas Gifts

Moonsand and playdoh are great, fun, hands-on materials that the Young Nursery and Nursery children love! With never ending options of things to make, these are materials to be used again and again. The children enjoy these during art time at the tables. Playdoh and moonsand tools, including: plastic scissors, pizza slicers, and different shaped cookie cutters This also provides the teachers with a variety of additional teaching moments discussing colors, shapes, and size. Playdoh and moonsand allow creative juices to flow, and open a variety of discussions.

As the children in the Junior Room (3 year old) are continuing to learn body parts, they also enjoy making Mr. Potato Head into a silly potato. Mr. Potato Head is an enjoyable way to reinforce body parts. He can be found for $7.99 at Toys R Us.



All of our classrooms have an easel. Most of the children love easel time, especially the four year old group in the Pre-K Room. Not only do they enjoy showing off their art creations, such as water color paintings, marker drawing, and coloring pages, but using vertical surfaces strengthens shoulder and arm muscles.

To go along with the easel theme,  the Kindergarten children are at the age they begin to really enjoy drawing freely. We recommend for 5-6 year old children Drawing Paper or Writing Paper.   

12 Days of Christmas Gifts

Christmas is getting close! If you are still looking for 'teacher approved' Christmas gifts for your last minute shopping (or all year long) be sure to continue to follow the Bobbie Noonan's Child Care '12 Days of Christmas Gifts' Blog.

Today we recommend for our 15 months-2 year old children, wooden blocks. Wooden blocks are large, bulky, and the children love to stack them. Melissa and Doug make this colorful wooden block set that can be found at Toys R Us for $19.99

The three year children in our junior room enjoy playing pretend with large cardboard blocks. The children below are enjoying snack while sitting at their pretend tables and chairs they made playing with the cardboard blocks.

The four year olds and Kindergarteners love to have computer time. Jump Start computer games are great for computer beginners, and we recommend Lakehore Learning Computer games for the older children. www.lakeshorelearning.com

Visit your local Lakeshore Learning store or the link above for a variety of different computer games.

12 Days of Christmas Gifts-Books

Day five of Bobbie Noonan’s Child Care 12 Days of Christmas Gifts Blog includes one of our favorites…BOOKS!

We recommend for 15 months-Two year olds board books. The children in our Young Nursery and Nursery look at books when they are getting ready for nap time, sitting quietly on rugmats, or any other time during the day. Board books are durable and a great fit for this age group. One of their favorite board books is Bill Martin's Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? They also love books with their favorite characters.

The Junior room at Bobbie Noonan’s loves the classic story There is a Monster at the End of This Book starring Grover. Another favorite is Pete the Cat I Love My White Shoes. This book comes with a catchy tune that three year olds can not get enough of!

 The three year olds also enjoy Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr.

We recommend for 4 year old children, Caldecott Award and Honor books. Caldecott Awards are chosen based on the artist with the most distinguished American picture book for children, which means the pictures are outstanding! The teachers enjoy sitting with the children and reading the stories to the children, but they LOVE to flip through the pages, allowing the children to tell their own story.

Below is a link for a list of the Caldecott books

http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/caldecottmedal/caldecottmedal

These are some of our favorites:

• Casey at the Bat illustrated by Christopher Bing, written by Ernest Thayer (Handprint)
• Click, Clack, Moo: Cows that Type illustrated by Betsy Lewin, written by Doreen Cronin (Simon & Schuster)
• Olivia by Ian Falconer (Atheneum)
• When Sophie Gets Angry-Really, Really Angry by Molly Bang (Scholastic)
• Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathmann (Putnam)
•  Owl Moon , illustrated by John Schoenherr; text: Jane Yolen (Philomel)
• Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey (Viking)

Lastly, for our Kindergarten friends, easy reader books are a great gift. Five and six year olds are beginning to develop their reading skills in Kindergarten. These books come in a variety of different themes that they really enjoy.   

Scholastic offers a variety of the "Best Easy Readers" at the link below.

http://www.scholastic.com/resources/booklist/best-easy-readers/

'12 Days of Christmas Gifts' Large Motor

Another area of the Bobbie Noonan’s Curriculum is Gross Motor. Everyday the children at school participate in activities to get their body moving. Today’s Christmas gift theme is large motor toys. These toys will help develop coordination and balance.

The children in our Nursery and Young Nursery (15 months-2 years old) love to play with push/pull toys. The Fisher Price Popcorn Popper below can be found for $15 at K-Mart. They also love to push around pretend vacuums, and shopping carts while playing at school.

 The Playskool Sit-n-Spin is an exciting large motor toy for the 3 year olds in our Junior Room. The children love to laugh and spin as they play on the Sit-n-Spin

 A simple and fun toy for the Pre-K Children is a hula hoop. Although, not easy to wrap, the 4 year olds LOVE the challenge of how many times they can get the hoop around their hips. 

Cup Stilts or steppers are a great toy for kids to improve balance and coordination. The 5 and 6 year old Kindergarteners love to play with these out on the playground.  They are sold in sets of two for $10 on amazon.com  

Day 3-'12 Days of Christmas Gifts'-Fine Motor Skills

Our ‘12 Days of Christmas Gifts’ theme of the day is fine motor skills. A fine motor skill is the coordination of small muscle movements, which occur in body parts such as the fingers, usually in coordination with the eyes. Fine motor skills are important in learning and life.

Duplo blocks are large manipulatives and an excellent toy for children ages 15 months to 2 years old. Block building helps children with fine motor coordination as they try to assemble the bricks. Lego makes GREAT duplo block sets. They come in girl and boy colors, wide price range, and a variety of different pieces.

Below is the Lego website that includes a link to explain Duplo blocks and child development.

http://duplo.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx

Play-doh for the 3 year old Junior Room is not only fun for the children, it is included in our curriculum as a fine motor skill. The teachers also allow the children to use scissors while playing with play-doh. Both scissors and play-doh can be found at your local Target, Wal-Mart, K-Mart.

This link is to the Hasbro Play-Doh website which includes many activities to do with Play-Doh

http://www.hasbro.com/playdoh/en_US/activities.cfm

In our Pre-K room, is when we really begin to see the 4 year old artists coming out of their shell. For this age, we recommend an art set. The children are old enough to understand what to do with each tool and are able to freely enjoy it. Crayola makes an 'Ultimate Art Supply' case that includes water color paints, colored pencils, markers, a variety of paper, and scissors. It can be found at a variety of store for $20. 

Our last Christmas gift of the day for Kindergarten is drawing stencils. Stencils are a small fine motor manipulative that requires children to use both hands. One hand to firmly hold the stencil down, while the other holds a pencil. There are many websites that you can find printable stencils, but a variety of different sets can be found on the Discount School Supply Website

www.discountschoolsupply.com

HAPPY SHOPPING!

The Season of Giving

Bobbie Noonan's Child Care in Palos Hills practiced giving and sharing this holiday season. The Kindergarten class each brought a new, unwrapped, toy to donate to Toys for Tots.  

The primary goal of Toys for Tots is to deliver,  a new toy at Christmas, a message of hope to less fortunate youngsters that will assist them in becoming responsible, productive, patriotic citizens

Mrs. Skirmont said she is proud of her class for donating to the less fortunate. The smile on the children's faces, knowing that they are making another child happy during the holiday season, is the reason her class participates in Toys for Tots each year.

Please visit www.toysfortots.org for more information on how you can help during the holiday season.

Thank you to Mrs. Skirmont and her

 Kindergarten Class!

12 Days of Christmas Gifts-Games

Today our theme for the Bobbie Noonan’s Child Care recommended '12 Days of  Christmas Gifts' is games. Sometimes is important to step away from the computer or TV  and sit down with your child to play a developmentally appropriate game.

 The teacher’s in our Nursery Room recommend board puzzles with pegs for 15 month-2 year olds.  Melissa and Doug make wonderful wooden puzzles with pegs.  They are 'heavy duty' with large pieces, perfect for a younger child. You can find their products online at www.melissaanddoug.com

They also give you the option to personalize their products and include the shipping costs for orders over $25.  The puzzles below are $7 each and worth the price for their durability. These colorful puzzles last many years in our child care centers.

The children in our 3 year old program learn and enjoy Leapfrog Alphabet games.  Children do not need a Leappad to have fun with Leapfrog products. Leap Frog products can be found at Target and Toys R Us.  However, www.leapfrog.com has a holiday sale for many of their items.

This "Lettersaurus" is great for a younger 3 year old.
$19 on the leapfrog website

The TouchMagic Learning Bus is on sale for $21

The 4 year old teachers favorite childhood games were Candyland and Chutes and Ladders. Both games reinforce Pre-K concepts without the children even knowing it. Candyland will teach the children about color matching while taking them on a colorful adventure! 

Chutes and Ladders is a game of rewards and consequences. While playing children also practice number recognition and counting to 100. 

   

Both games can be found at K-Mart, Target, or WalMart.

Our last game for the day is OPERATION. The Kindergarteners can't get enough of the thrill of this battery operated game by Hasbro.  Operation tests hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.

Enjoy!