Faith Lutheran Preschool eNews: 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.