School Christmas

For this year's Christmas presents to their five teachers, Anna and Alexander made ornaments. They are so cool. I came across the idea on some other mom's blog and I totally stole it and put the craft project in one of their Advent bags.

I purchased clear glass ornaments and several bottles of pretty-colored metallic acrylic paint. In a nutshell, you swish a little rubbing alcohol inside each ornament and let that dry. Then you gently squirt your desired colors into the ornaments and let the color run down the side to the bottom. Then you can turn the ornament around and let it sit in various positions until you get your desired effect. It was really quite easy. You have to drain out the excess paint and let it dry. Then I wrote the teacher's name and 2008 with a gold metallic pen around the outside. Then I replaced the top and tied a pretty ribbon for hanging. And, of course, they had to be placed in a cute little box.

I also stayed up until the wee hours of the morning making yum toffee and packaging up that goodie in cute little Chinese-style take-out Christmas boxes. It's all about the presentation! The children also painted their own Christmas cards and wrote their names inside.

Today was their last day of school until the new year. Of my two, Anna only attends on Fridays, and she got to ride the little school bus with her friends from the Montessori school to a nursing home, where they sang Christmas songs for the residents. As observers, Alexander and I attended. But, of course, Alexander eventually got up there and sang along with his friends, too. Anna is standing behind Alexander in the group shot.

I'm trying to upload a little video, but I'm not having much luck. I'll keep trying to add it. But for now, here are photos.

P.S. When they go back to school in January, Alexander will join Anna in going to school five days. You may remember we'd tried to get him in five days before school even started in the fall but were discouraged by the school because he was only 3. Generally, 3-year-olds don't go five days for various reasons. But it seems they had an opening come up for the semester starting in January, and since Alexander has proven himself to be a good worker and well adjusted to school they asked if we were still interested in him being a five-day student.

It will cost more, of course, but I think he'll benefit because the five-day kids get a lot more academic things accomplished on the Mondays and Fridays when there are fewer children around. (Alexander currently attends Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.) It really is a good kindergarten prep opportunity. I think they work on writing and pre-writing skills and who knows what else. I know Anna has also been learning about the solar system on Mondays and Fridays this fall.