Nativity Play

Our church has multiple Christmas Eve services to celebrate the birth of Jesus.  The first service of the day is the family service, where the preschoolers put on a nativity pageant.  This was Owen's first year to be eligible to participate.  His Sunday school class were sheep, but Owen was selected to be an ox that sat in the stable.

Friday (the 21st) we had a full-on dress rehearsal.  This was the only time we were allowed to take pictures as they want to keep the service as reverent as possible.

The other stable animals: the donkey, black sheep, ox, chicken, and other ox who was very sad.

Children's choir who helped narrate the play

 I was a volunteer so I had to sit on stage..so there will be very little pictures.  Thanks to my friend Caron for taking some for me.

 Owen's Sunday school class: the sheep

The wiseman. Our friend Matthew is in the green

Owen sat very nice and still near the manager

The program was so sweet and such a fun way to celebrate the birth of Christ.  It was a great way to start off our Christmas week. We hope that this will be a yearly tradition for our family. 

My Preschool Classroom

One aspect I've always loved about teaching is classroom decorating. Teaching at my current preschool is interesting because we share our room with another class on the days were aren't there. Because of this, 4 teachers plan and decorate the class together.

Here is what we came up with this year..a crayon theme.

The door...each crayon had a student's name on it.

View from the door

We have this huge mirror on the wall.  We started with the quote from one of our favorite crayon quotes from The Crayon Box That Talked. "We are a box of crayons.  Each one of us unique.  But when we get together, the picture is complete!" There is a crayon box for each class and a crayon for each child.  Each student colored their crayon and we wrapped it around a paper towel roll to give it a 3D effect.

I am proud of those boxes as they were labor intensive.  I had to wrap a sweater box in paper, then a yellow plastic tablecloth. I cut out all the letters with my Silhouette and then we put contact paper over them to seal it all in.

Art display bulletin board

Little artwork cubbies with YMCA character traits above

Calendar station with alphabet above

Reading corner..tree changes each season.

Color board, helper and behavior chart

Teacher cabinets with birthday chart above. For each month, we took the kids holding the date of their birthday. (Thanks Pinterest for the idea!)

The name plates over the bookbag hooks outside the door.My class is the top row.

Preschool Trick or Treat

Today at preschool the kids got dressed up in their Halloween costumes and trick or treated around to all the church staff's offices. The MMO kids even got to participate as their teacher drove them around in the big red buggy. Owen was a cute little giraffe. I really wish I could share all the awesome pictures of the other kids but to protect their privacy I can't. What is it about kids in costumes that make them so cute and squeezable?