Lakeside Academy (Dec. 12th): Christmas

Yesterday was the last official day of Lakeside Academy and we celebrated our fun together with a Christmas theme.  We started the day by making cinnamon applesauce ornaments (recipe).  We rolled out the dough and then used cookie cutters to cut out hearts and stars.  Then we popped the trays of ornaments in the oven to bake for the day to dry them out.  The house smelled so good all day!

 For circle time we sang our welcome song, had show-and-tell and then read some of my favorite 

Christmas books.  We also sang a little song to go along with The Mitten book and had lots of fun with the big sneeze at the end.

 After lunch we went for one final walk to visit Birthday the horse.  She was really far away, by the barn, when we got there but we clapped and called (and waited, and waited) until she finally noticed us and came running over.  Then we were all able to take turns feeding her apple slices.  She was very happy to see us!

 When we got back the we played a few rounds of Christmas BINGO (with M&M's of course).

 Then the kids played in the playroom for a bit while we got the cooking project ready.  They told us they were going on a trip to New Hampshire in their car.  With lots of baby dolls and telephones.

 Cooking time!  Today we let the kids have every type of candy imaginable (I think Nana bought out the HEB candy aisle) and we made graham cracker gingerbread houses.  The kids had so much fun with this and they were all very creative.  I think they snuck in a few bites of candy here and there too! 

 After cooking we had a friendly snowman building contest.  The kids were split into two teams and each team was given the pieces to make a snowman on the door.  They did a great job!

 To finish off our day of fun we had a little music and movement time.  First some yoga stretching, pretending we were snowmen and melting to the ground.  Then we turned on the Christmas music and did some sock ice skating until it was time to go home.

 It was a fun day and the kids were all wonderful.  Thanks to all the families who have entrusted their kid to us for Lakeside Academy.  We sure will miss these Mondays!