Activities at Home & Places to Experience
The winter holidays are often filled with traditions created by the greater community and traditions created by you for your own family. Traditions are a wonderful way to instill a sense of belonging, love and joy in your preschooler. Decorating a Christmas tree, lighting candles, making a specific recipe, exploring an art project, and reading books are some ways you can deepen your family bond through traditions.

Exploring holiday traditions outside of the home can be lots of fun! If you have experienced The Bellevue Botanical Gardens with Teacher Kym's class, consider visiting this time of year. A large portion of the garden has been decorated with scenes created by thousands of lights. For details visit https://bellevuebotanical.org/garden-dlights/

Parent Map offers a Family Fun Calendar of activities around Puget Sound. https://www.parentmap.com/calendar
Red Tricycle is a great resource for kid oriented activities. http://redtri.com/seattle-kids/

Teacher Amy's preschool teacher introduced this recipe to her when she was in preschool. Amy has carried on this tradition by making it with each of her classes. The children were fascinated by using their kid power and an old fashioned grinder to make this recipe. They enjoyed watching the berries and other fruit smoosh together. They even tried the juice that dripped into a bowl while grinding the fruit. You can also use a food processor but the old fashion grinder is so much more fun!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups rinsed raw cranberries
• 2 peeled and cored apples, cut into thick slices
• 1 large, whole (peel ON) seedless orange, cut into sections
• 1 to 2 cups granulated sugar to taste

Directions:  
     1. Wash fruit and get grinder or food processor ready
     2. Push fruit through grinder: Push the cranberries, orange sections, and apple slices through the grinder. Include the orange peel! Alternate the fruit as you push it through the grinder so that different fruits get ground together
    3.  Add sugar: Stir in the sugar. (Start with less than a cup and keep adding 1/4 cups to taste.) Let sit at room temperature until the sugar dissolves, about 45 minutes. Store in the refrigerator until ready to use.  You can store in refrigerator for up to 10-14 days or freeze for up to 2 months and then defrost in the refrigerator.

KCP's handcrafted wood sign tells a story of it's own. This summer it was given a facelift with a fresh coat of paint by our in-house teacher artist, Kym Meade. KCP is very fortunate to have an alumni grandfather determined to support the co-op spirit, who fashioned new posts and installed the sign. Deep gratitude to Walt Mauldin, otherwise known as our "Pa Walt." In the upcoming weeks, the posts will be painted our school colors of blue, red and green. Many hands make work light!