Group Meeting:  We have been talking about gingerbread people all week, but had not tasted a gingerbread cookie.  So, I stopped at Hy-vee on the way to school and bought a package of  gingerbread cookies for us to try.  Most of the children agreed that they were yummy.  We even ate the ones with missing limbs!

Story:  We read the story of The Elves and the Shoemaker.  This is an old story, so I first had to explain to the children that a shoemaker was a person who made shoes by hand.  In this story, the poor shoemaker has just enough leather left to make one pair of shoes.  He cuts the leather and leaves it on his workbench overnight.  In the morning, he finds a perfect pair of shoes waiting on this workbench. A customer comes in and offers him two gold coins for the shoes. The next night, the same thing happens.  He and his wife hide in the closet to see who is making the shoes.  Ask your child to tell you who it is.

Small Group:  We worked on another Christmas secret.  Sorry, I can't tell!

Large Group:  Following the story, we played the "shoe game".  The children removed their shoes.  They put one in the middle of our rug and hid the other somewhere in the classroom.  Then they had to select another child's shoe and find the match for it.  To get their own shoes back, we reversed the process.  So simple, yet so much fun.

Snacks:  The morning class had graham crackers and juice brought by Grace.  The afternoon class had Christmas pretzels and milk brought by Leigha.  Thank you!