Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Newsletter 10/30/13

Important Dates to Remember
October 31-November 3  Scholastic Book Fair

THIS WEEK’S LITERACY EXPERIENCES
Morning Books
The Kissing Hand Audrey Penn
Pete the Cat I Love My White Shoes  Eric Litwin
What Shall We Do With the Boo-Hoo Baby? Cressida Cowell

Afternoon Books
Froggy Went a-Courtin’  Iza Trapani

PLANNING & RECALL
For only being a few days into the preschool routine, the children are catching on to the planning process quickly.  They are becoming familiar with all the interest areas throughout the classroom which include: the sand and water table, the car and train area, the book and music area, the kitchen and home living area, and the block and toy area. By planning consistently every day, children remember plans they made on previous days. They have a chance not only to deliberately plan what they would like to play with based on their interests, but it is also becomes a social opportunity as many of them plan similarly to other children. This week, children will use letter link symbols to take turns pointing to the area in which they would like to work.

BIBLE LESSON
Last week in our Bible lesson we learned that our beautiful world was created by God in six days. Everything he made was perfect, without sin. God rested from everything he had made on the seventh day. This week we’ll look more in depth on the special creatures God created on day six—humans.  God created a man, Adam, in the image of God, shaped from the dirt of the ground. The image of God does not mean that Adam resembled God in appearance, since God is a spirit. This divine image means a special knowledge of God as the source of every blessing. It also means that Adam was holy, or without sin, just as God is holy. God put Adam above all the animals he created. As Adam named the animals he noticed that every animal had a mate, but he was without one. God caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep and God created a helper suitable for him—a woman named Eve, whom he formed using a rib from Adam’s side. Adam and Eve became husband and wife and lived in perfection in the wonderful garden of Eden God created.

MUSIC 
This week the children will continue to explore how voices can make different sounds. Children have discovered that we can sing, speak, whisper, or shout—changing the volume and tone of the sounds they make. This week we are using the song “Pat-a-Cake” to explore vocal sounds in different ways. Adding movements and gestures to the song also gives children a chance to practice large motor skills.

MOVEMENT
The children enjoy the chance they have to dance and stretch to music. Last week we practiced listening to the words in the music and freezing when the music told us to freeze. It definitely takes practice for the children to learn to control their bodies when the music stops. We will continue to dance to the song “Dance Freeze” this week and add the new song “Song about Slow, Song about Fast.” These new songs add the element of tempo and speed to our dancing.

SMALL GROUP TIME
Each week during Small Group Time, children have the chance to engage in a hands-on learning experience, chosen by the teacher. The teacher chooses experiences based on the children’s interests which also meets one of the Key Developmental Indicators (KDI). The KDI for this week is part-whole relationships. Children combine and separate, compose and decompose quantities of objects. As they create and rearrange sets of things, they discover that a whole can be divided into parts, and that these parts can be recombined again to make a whole. This basic understanding is an important concept in mathematical development, which will lead children to use numbers with ease and flexibility. The materials we are using this week to explore part-whole relationships include unifix cubes, shells, and beans as we create towers, rearrange, sort, combine, and separate.

AFTERNOON EXPERIENCES
After rest time, the children will continue to explore a KDI that we did last week during small group—fine motor skills.  Children will use geoboards to stretch rubber bands into patterns, we’ll sort buttons and marbles as we work on fine motor skills as well as the part-whole relationship concept, and on Friday we’ll have a chance to work with scissors as we snip pieces of paper.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Newsletter 10/23/13

Important Dates to Remember
October 25th – Harvest Carnival 6:00-8:00PM
October 28th & 29th – No Preschool

THIS WEEK’S LITERACY EXPERIENCES
Morning Books
"The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear"  Audrey Wood
"Thump, Thump, Rat-a-Tat-Tat"  Gene Baer
"Is Your Mama a Llama?"  Deborah Guarino

Afternoon Books
"Froggy Went a-Courtin’"  Iza Trapani
"Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?"  Bill Martin Jr.

PLANNING & RECALL
The Plan-Do-Review process is the central element in the HighScope curriculum model. In making daily plans, following through on them, and then recalling what they have done, young children learn to articulate their intentions and reflect on their actions. Plan-Do-Review encompasses the elements of active learning, and children get the opportunity to decide what they are going to do based on their own interests. This week we planned by forming a train and visiting the different areas in which each child chose to work. This also helped familiarize the children where all the areas in the classroom are located.

BIBLE LESSON
We begin our school year with the story of God creating the beautiful world in which we live. Many people believe that our world just happened to fall, evolve, or bang together the way it is. That’s like dumping out pieces of a puzzle onto a table and thinking they will all come together just perfectly. That would never happen! There must be a person to put together that puzzle. The same is true with our beautiful world—it cannot just happen to start up on its own and work so well. Someone needed to put together all the puzzle pieces perfectly, and that Someone was God.  In our lesson for this week, we learn what God created on each of the seven days of creation, and how everything he made was perfect. On the seventh day, when God was done making the world, he made that seventh day a special day to remember that his work was done.

MUSIC 
This week the children will discover how the voice can produce several types of sounds—both speaking and singing sounds. We are learning the song “Good Queen Isabella”. As we go through the song, we will use our voices to speak, whisper, shout and sing the lyrics. When we become experts at using our voices in different ways, we also will include a game. Each child gets a chance to be Good Queen Isabella or Good King Alexander, wear a crown, and select which of the four methods of voice production we will use for that round.

MOVEMENT
As the children dance and follow the directions of songs, they continue to strengthen their control of large motor skills such as stretching, jumping, and clapping. This week we’ll dance to the song “Shake My Sillies Out”. Children will also practice the skill of controlling their bodies with the song “Dance Freeze”. It’s tricky to stop and freeze when the music does!

SMALL GROUP TIME
Each week during Small Group Time, children have the chance to engage in a hands-on learning experience, chosen by the teacher. The teacher chooses experiences based on the children’s interests which also meets one of the Key Developmental Indicators (KDI). The KDI for this week is fine motor skills. Each day children work with different materials in a variety of ways to develop fine motor skills. Children will be threading dried noodles through string, working with pipe cleaners and beads, pinning clothes pins onto containers, using eye droppers to mix colored water, and digging through sand to find buried treasures. Small Group Time allows the teacher to observe and learn about individual children on a daily basis, scaffold their knowledge, and converse and encourage children.

AFTERNOON EXPERIENCES
After Rest Time, the children are once again busy at the tables! Fine motor skills are put into practice again as they work with a variety of art materials.  Children sculpted with play dough, explored texture by doing some rubbings, and painted with cotton and Q-tips. On Thursday children will have a chance to do some free drawing or painting of their choice, and on Friday we’ll put our large motor skills to use by marble painting.