Family Trip: {Yosemite, part one}

El Capitan

Over Thanksgiving, I had the opportunity to stay with my grandfather in his house outside of Mariposa, a small town near the entrance of Yosemite. So, on Black Friday, I took my brand new camera, my family, and drove up the mountains into Yosemite National Park.
Our first stop was El Capitan, a beautiful granite rock formation. It was so tall! It was also quite chilly, seeing as it was late November. There was even a little bit of snow on the ground. 

Yosemite Chapel - frost on the ground!

It was a wonderful experience - I can't wait to go back and explore some more, when it's a little bit warmer. I think snow is gorgeous but I much prefer it when I'm curled up (wearing fuzzy socks) next to a warm fire with a good book.

I have some pictures of the historic Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite to come!
Have you ever been in Yosemite?
xoxo

Pre-K Wednesday: {Christmas}

Play-dough Snow

It's so sparkly and it smells like peppermint!

This year, we have had a variety of play-dough colors and scents, and for Christmas, we decided to make play-dough "Snow." 

Since we live in coastal California, snow just isn't something we come by too often, but this was a very fun (and much more warm!) alternative. We added glitter and some peppermint extract, and it really got the kids talking about Christmas! 

They even made snowmen:

Letter Recognition Tree

We have been working with letter recognition, writing practice, and spelling quite a bit, but the kids have been losing focus. I wanted to find a fun way to get them excited about spelling again, and this worked! I cut a ton (seriously, these kids have so many letters in their names!) of small circles in various colors for their 

"ornaments" and then added a letter to each one. I then cut out a tree for each child, spelling their name on the tree. They then had to match their letter ornaments to a letter on the tree and glue it down. 

We had so much fun!

Christmas Ornaments

We also made little circle glitter ornaments, and the kids love glue and glitter, so this was really fun for them! 

On top of our fun crafts, we've also been reading quite a few Christmas books, listening to Christmas music, and we are even having a mini-party!

xoxo