Faith Lutheran Preschool eNews: Newsletter 4/16/14

Important Dates to Remember:
April 18th - No Preschool; Good Friday
April 21st - No Preschool; Easter Monday
April 19th - Kid's Day at the Dena'ina Center; 10AM-4PM
May 2nd - "Are We There Yet?" School Musical at UAA Music Hall; 6:30PM

THIS WEEK’S LITERACY EXPERIENCES
Morning Books
"Naked Mole Rate Gets Dressed" by Mo Willems
"Mr. Tiger Goes Wild" by Peter Brown
"Old Black Fly" by Jim Aylesworth

Afternoon Books
"The Nowhere Box" by Sam Zuppardi

PLANNING & RECALL
This week at planning and recall time we use Bananagram letter tiles to draw children's letters from a bag. The children have been enjoying the surprise of seeing whose tile they pick from the bag. This also gives us the chance to practice some letter recognition.

BIBLE LESSON
This week we hear how Jesus was handed over to his enemies to be crucified on the cross. Jesus was taken to stand before the leader named Pilate. Although Pilate saw no valid charges that could be made against Jesus, he was afraid about what the crowd would do if he let Jesus go free. The crowd of Jesus' enemies shouted, "Crucify him!" and Pilate gave in to their demands. Jesus was beaten, mocked, spit on, and nailed to the tree. Around midday, Jesus spoke the words, "It is finished!", bowed his head, and died.

Hearing about Jesus' incredible suffering and gruesome death makes us sad. Even though he was perfect and didn't deserve punishment, he went through it all willingly in our place. We grieve that our sins put him on that cross, but at the same time we are happy. His death means our life. He paid for the sins of all people for all time. We rejoice that through faith in Jesus, we will live in heaven with God forever because of his death on the cross for us.
Bible verse: Ephesians 1:7 "We have through Jesus' blood, the forgiveness of sins."
Bible song: "Oh Perfect Life of Love"

MUSIC
This week we continue to explore rhythms and clapping the beat of a variety of rhythms. We clap the basic rhythms to the song "Hey, Betty Martin!" We focus on clapping rhythms that are the same as the ones modeled by the teacher, as well as patterns that are different. Some other songs we sing at Music Time include "Shoo Fly", "Here Is the Beehive", and "Clap My Name".

MOVEMENT
In Movement Time we warm up to the song "Dance Freeze". We continue to explore the parachute this week as we play the game "Color Jump". When the teacher shouts the name of a color, whoever is sitting by that color on the parachute stands up, and jumps in the air. We also practice shaking, rattling, and rolling the parachute as well as standing and working together to move it like a wheel.

SMALL GROUP TIME
This week during Small Group Time, we’re focusing on the Key Developmental Indicator (KDI): Art. On Monday we split into smaller groups to paint by rolling marbles in a round tub across the paper. On Tuesday and Wednesday we worked on creating paper chains while also practicing to use staplers and scissors. On Thursday we had the choice to either paint using watercolors, or play with play dough.