St. Nicholas Day Celebration ECE

A few notes from our week of festivities, leading up to the St. Nicholas Day celebration on Thursday!

I didn't introduce any new movement verses in Circle Time this week. Since we have so many new stories to hear all throughout this month, I'm keeping the Circle as consistent as possible. However, I did put one little addition into the verses for classroom routines: "Here are Grandma's Spectacles." This goes after we have washed our hands for snack and before we sing blessing.

Songs, Verses & Movement for Classroom Routines

cleaning up after indoor play
"This Is the Way We Tidy Up"
to the the tune of "Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush"


laying out the sunflower quilt for circle time
"A Ram Sam Sam" song
from the Seven Times the Sun CD, track 17

at the end of the story
"Snip, Snap, Snout" verse

washing hands
"This Is the Way We Wash/Dry Our Hands"
to the the tune of "Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush"

folding hands and waiting
"Here are Grandma's Spectacles"

grace before snack time
"Blessings on the Blossom"
from The Singing Day, track 23

getting ready to go outside
"This Is the Way We Put On Shoes"
to the the tune of "Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush"

lining up to go outside/inside
"All in a Row"
from The Singing Day, track 11

goodbye verse
"Goodbye"
from A Child's Seasonal Treasury, page 14

Circle Time

#1 - "Good Morning, Dear Earth" verse

#2 - "Morning Verse"
from A Child's Seasonal Treasury, page 13

#3 - "I'm a Tall, Tall Tree" song

#4 - "The Squirrel" finger play
from A Child's Seasonal Treasury, page 49

#5 - "We Push the Saw, We Pull the Saw" verse
from The Breathing Circle, page 76

#6 - "Hop Old Squirrel, Eidledum, Eidledum" song
from The Singing Year, track 68

#7 - "Bear Has a Snout" verse
from The Breathing Circle, page 93

#8 - "Ten Bright Candles" finger play
from The Breathing Circle, page 84

Monday

• Wet Felted Acorns craft
• legends from Saint Nicholas by Jakob Streit
  "St. Nicholas, the Boy," page 5
  "Will Pico Come?," page 10
  "The Little Cart," page 11

Today we made wet felted acorns as parent gifts for St. Nicholas Day!

Tuesday

• Wooden Shoe craft
• traditional German poem from Winter, page 20
• legends from Saint Nicholas by Jakob Streit
  "Little Trips Around the Neighborhood," page 14
  "Nicholas Loses His Parents," page 17
  "When Nicholas Left the Earth," page 39

Snow!

As it began to snow first thing in the morning -- when we were in the middle of gluing the acorn caps onto our wool acorns -- we went and spent an hour outside. Then we had the rest of our St. Nicholas legends during our snack time and I read the poem on the top of page 20 in Winter. After snack, we sewed our paper shoes and set them under the Christmas tree. The wooden shoe template I found was perfect. On my printer, I printed at 260% and only printed page 2 and it was the full-size shoe. Trace and cut two out of light brown construction paper for each child and lay one over the other and hole punch along the sides and bottom edge for sewing up with a yarn needle and 18 inch length of light brown yarn. Write the child's name on the shoe and put a carrot in it for St. Nicholas's horses on the evening of Dec. 5.

Becca helps Zac when his thread comes out of his needle

On Wednesday night Zac carefully put the carrots for St. Nicholas's horses in his shoe and the ones for his friends.

Thursday

• "St. Nicholas" legend from Winter, page 73
• St. Nicholas Day gifts

And, of course, today was also Stone Soup Day! Here was our list of group contributions to the Stone Soup this week:

celery
carrots
white potato
butternut squash
baby spinach

Zac was so very excited to share the gifts which St. Nicholas brought for our family! We do all of our gift exchanges on December 6th since my older daughters spend Christmas with their father in a different state. In the morning we had our St. Nicholas gifts under the tree, as well as the chocolate coins and clementines in the shoes. St. Nicholas brought Natalie, Becca, and me one gift each and there were two gifts for Zac (a train table and the Caravan) plus a gift for the whole family to enjoy (the absolutely gorgeous Grimm's Large Stepped Pyramid of Wooden Building Blocks)! Even the big kids crowded around eagerly to build with those blocks.

There was so much excitement around the presents that it was an absolutely lovely day. And that night we opened our family gifts which we gave to one another and Natalie made a delicious special dinner, Forbidden Rice Pilaf.

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