i told the kids that when they came back from school after christmas, it would be a new year. when i would refer to “next year” there were several kids who raised their eyebrows and scrunched their noses to tell me, “sorry, i won’t be here. i’ll be in kindergarten next year.”
one of the concepts we worked on for L week and the first week of 2009 was left and right. we arranged and rearranged the numerals 2, 0, 0, 9 several different ways. i modeled reading left to right (and then right to left…funny stuff).
one activity we did was finding one 2, two 0s, and 1 9 in the room. they were pre-cut from outdated calendars (which means each is the size of a calendar page). once each child arranged them in correct 2-0-0-9 order, we glued them on!
happy 2009! happy new year!
newcreationpreschool.com 
This looks fun. I really like the idea. We have calendar pictures everywhere.
You make me want to un-retire and go back to teaching. But I want to work at your school, with you. You are so inspiring and full of ” developmentally appropriate” ideas!
I love your site!
Kathy b