Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Newsletter 8/27/14

Important Dates to Remember:
September 1 - Labor Day; no preschool

Special notes:
This is a reminder if you'd like to bring in a picture of your family for your child to keep at school, you can bring it in anytime, and we'll laminate them and keep them here at school.

Our church will be hosting a Parking Lot Sale on Saturday, September 6th starting at 9:00AM. If you have any items laying around the house that you'd like to get rid of, let the director know and we can add them to sale. If you'd just like to shop the sale, feel free to come on over on Saturday the 6th!

THIS WEEK’S LITERACY EXPERIENCES
Morning Books
"Harry the Dirty Dog" by Gene Zion
"Pete the Cat; I Love My White Shoes" by Eric Litwin
"The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear" by Don and Audrey Wood

Afternoon Books
"Franklin in the Dark" by Paulette Bourgeois
"There's a Hole in the Bucket" by Nadine Bernard Westcott

PLANNING & RECALL
Children are catching on to the planning process quickly.  They are becoming familiar with all the interest areas throughout the classroom which include: the 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, we will roll a ball to each child when it is their turn to make their work time plans.

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.

Bible verse: Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
Bible song: "In the Beginning"

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. This week we warm up with a song called "Work Your Body" where we practice kicking our legs, pushing our hands up to the ceiling, bending at the waist, stretching our arms out, and squatting with our knees. We then work on our self-regulation skills by pretending we have an invisible bubble around ourselves as we practice moving in different ways. It takes a lot of self control to keep from popping somebody else's bubble!

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, colored noodles, gem stones, and plastic animals. 

Working last week on some fine motor skills.

Fireman to the rescue! 
Taking my puppy and donkey for
a walk

Using some tools to build a house. 
Using play-dough to make people



Painting during Work Time.

Look at the policeman Potato Head
I made!

Building some unifix cube towers.

Concentrating really hard.

I made a pattern with my blocks.

Look how tall that is!

Measuring to see whose is the tallest.

Playing tag outisde

We're so glad it's not raining!


Friday, August 22, 2014

Get to know the teachers

We put together a little information about ourselves, so you can get to know us and our backgrounds a little more. 

Miss Wendland
I received my Bachelor's Degree in Early Childhood in December of 2011 from Martin Luther College in New Ulm, MN. After graduation, I traveled to Zambia, Africa where I taught English for 3 months. When I returned to the USA, I moved to Anchorage where I taught my first year at Faith Lutheran School in the elementary school - departmentalized English and Spelling. That first year was also the preschool start-up year, where we began investigating what it would take to have a preschool here at Faith. With the Lord's blessings, we opened our doors at Faith Lutheran Preschool in October of 2013. I am now starting my 3rd year of teaching.

Fun facts:

  • My father was a missionary in Africa, so I grew up there from 1991-2003.
  • I have a twin brother (I also have an older brother, a younger sister, and 3 half-sisters).
  • My older brother and younger sister are also Early Childhood majors (it must run in the family).
  • I can play the violin and piano.
  • My favorite food is homemade, REAL, garlic mashed potatoes.

Miss Zarnstorff
I am a born and raised Alaskan! After high school I attended the same college as Miss Wendland and received the same degree as Miss Wendland. Shortly after graduation, I taught preschool at a sister church in New London, WI. I then returned to Anchorage mostly because I was homesick (once an Alaskan, always an Alaskan). Upon my return, I found a job at a local daycare. I spent my days, up until recently,  taking care of wonderful little infants. I now look forward to spending the next year exploring the preschool setting once again! 

Fun facts: 

  • I love traveling! (I've been to 23 of the 50 states).
  • I broke my first bone at the age of 23 but I didn't spill the coffee!(Ask Ms. Wendland).  
  • Due to the previous fact, I now have a metal screw in my toe.
  • I love photography, kayaking, and playing tennis.
  • In my family, all the boys' names start with T and all the girls' names start with C.
  • My favorite color is orange. 

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

First week of school! 8/20/14

Important Dates to Remember: 
September 1st - Labor Day; no preschool

Special notes:
For many of your children, it is their first time in a formal school setting. I think it would be a great idea to have pictures of the children's families that they can keep in their cubbies in case they need to look at a familiar face. If you would like to bring a picture of your family to school, we can laminate them here, where your children can look at them, and maybe show their family to their friends. 

THIS WEEK’S LITERACY EXPERIENCES
Morning Books
"Bark, George" by Jules Feiffer
"Five Little Monkeys Sitting in a Tree" by Eileen Christelow
"Pizza" by Saturnino Romay

Afternoon Books
"Franklin is Bossy" by Paulette Bourgeois
"Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle

PLANNING & RECALL
The Plan-Do-Review process is one of the critical aspects of the HighScope curriculum. We'll take a look at the "plan" aspect of the process this week. Here is a quote that summarizes planning time: "When young children plan, they develop specific ideas about what they want to do, how they will do it, and with whom they will play...Children’s planning and skills will move from the simple and concrete to the more complex and abstract, with [the teacher's] support, as they become familiar with the plan-do-review process." (HighScope Press)
For planning time, teachers will plan little group games or activities to make planning interactive for children. This week we use binoculars to search around the room for the area in which we would like to play.

BIBLE LESSON
Bible lesson sheets from our Christlight curriculum will be sent home at the beginning of every week. It would be a wonderful supplement to our daily Bible lesson at school if you would like to read them at home with your child.

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.

Bible verse: Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
Bible song: "In the Beginning"

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 beads onto pipe cleaners, using tweezers and tongs to place pom-poms into egg cartons, and on Friday will get a chance to choose from a variety of fine motor activities: lacing cards and beads, puzzles, and plastic links. 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.