Newsletter 1/29/14

Important Dates to Remember:
February 7 - School Art Fair; 6:30PM
February 15 - Preschool Open House for the community; 10AM-1PM

THIS WEEK’S LITERACY EXPERIENCES
Morning Books
"The Napping House" by Audrey Wood
"Ugly Fish" by Kara LaReau and Scott Magoon
"The Doorbell Rang" by Pat Hutchins

Afternoon Books
"Green" by Laura Vaccaro Seeger

PLANNING & RECALL
Children's ability to recall events from Work Time increases with time. They increasingly become able to add detail to their recall stories, they tell longer stories, and they add to the recall narratives of their friends. This week for planning and recall time, we drew Bananagram tiles from a cup. If their letter name was drawn, it was their turn. This is also a great way to continue to incorporate letter recognition with letters that mean a lot to the children - the first letter in their name. 

BIBLE LESSON
God's people continued to live in the land of Egypt for many years and were called Israelites. The new king in the land became worried that the large number of Israelites would turn against him and join his enemies in fighting against him. He made the Israelites work very hard as his slaves, making bricks and working in the fields. Finally, the king made a new order to have all Israelite baby boys killed by being thrown into the river. One Israelite woman hid her newborn son at home, but as he grew older it became harder to hide him. She made a basket, placed her son in it, and set it among the tall plants in the river. The baby's sister stood nearby and watched the basket. Soon the daughter of the king came to the river to wash herself. She saw the basket floating in the river and after retrieving it and finding the baby, she felt sorry for him and wanted to keep him as her own. The baby's sister came to the king's daughter and asked if she would like her to find an Israelite woman to feed and care for the baby while he was still so young. The king's daughter agreed and the sister went to find the baby's own mother, who took care of him until he was older. When he grew older, she took him back to the palace to live, and the king's daughter raised him as her son, and gave him the name Moses. 

MUSIC
This week's music songs continue to explore the fast and slow tempos. "Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush" provides a chance for children to sing while they move their bodies quickly and slowly around the bush. The children also enjoy clapping to fast and slow tempos. 

MOVEMENT
We continue our work with balls this week. It takes a great amount of self-regulation not to let the ball fly all over the room. We work on controlling our balls through different challenges. This week we sit on the floor and roll our ball from side to side in front of us, roll it around our bodies, and roll it in the shape of a circle. We finish with a game called "Go, Doggie, Go!" where we pretend our ball is a dog, and take it for a walk around the "neighborhood" by rolling them using our fingertips.

SMALL GROUP TIME
This week during small group time, we’re focusing on the Key Developmental Indicator (KDI): Fine Motor Skills. In activities that focus on fine motor skills, children have the opportunity to practice and demonstrate dexterity and hand-eye coordination in using their small muscles. Fine motor skills such as writing, drawing, and cutting with precision can be difficult for many preschoolers, so young children are encouraged to explore materials and practice skills according to their own expectations and internal motivation, not to meet the possibly unrealistic standards set by adults. On Monday we used fine motor skills to hang socks on a clothesline, on Tuesday we snipped straws with scissors, and on Wednesday we thread those straw pieces onto string to make necklaces. On Thursday we use pipe cleaners and beads to combine a counting activity with using fine motor skills, and on Friday we count and separate beans using tweezers.

AFTERNOON EXPERIENCES
In the afternoons this week we explore some art concepts like watercolor painting, step-by-step drawing, and playing with shaving cream. In the afternoon, children also enjoy reading stories and choosing where to play in the classroom.

Recognizing letters in Before Care

Making Soapy Water 

Shooting hoops in the gorgeous weather 

Being creative and using the picnic table as a sled

Fixing the basketball hoop 

Building a wall at Work Time

Today it's green soapy water!

Painting with watercolors

Newsletter 1/22/14

Important Dates to Remember:
February 7 - School Art Fair; 6:30PM
February 15 - Preschool Open House for the community; 10AM-1PM

THIS WEEK’S LITERACY EXPERIENCES
Morning Books
"Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See?" by Bill Martin Jr.
"Whistle For Willie" by Ezra Jack Keats
"The Ugly Duckling" by Rachel Isadora

Afternoon Books
"Skip To My Lou" by Nadine Bernard Westcott

PLANNING & RECALL
To tie in our work with balls in Movement time, we use balls this week for planning time. Planning does not have to be an extravagant ordeal. Sometimes using simple methods like rolling a ball to a child when it is their turn, helps them focus more on sharing their plan than being distracted by the planning tool. 

BIBLE LESSON
Joseph became a very important ruler in Egypt, the man in charge of gathering and storing enough food for the years of famine in the land. Joseph's family lived in a land where there was little food to eat during these years. One day they traveled to Egypt to buy some food. Joseph immediately recognized these men as his brothers, but instead of revealing his identity, he wanted to see if they had changed. He gave them some grain but made them promise to return with their youngest brother Benjamin if they ever wanted to buy more grain. Before long, their first supply of grain ran out. They returned to Egypt with Benjamin to buy some more. This time when he sent them away with more grain, Joseph planted one of his silver cups in one of the brother's sacks of grain. He sent his servant after the brothers to get the silver cup. The brothers denied having the cup and vowed that if it was found, the brother in whose sack it was found, would die and the rest of the brothers would become Joseph's slaves. Sure enough, the cup was found in Benjamin's sack. The brother's threw themselves on the ground before Joseph, willing to work for him the rest of their lives. They realized their wickedness in selling their brother Joseph many years ago. When Joseph realized that his brothers were truly sorry for what they had done, he could no longer keep his identity a secret. He told his brothers who he was. After overcoming their fear of him, the brothers realized that it really was him and were overjoyed to be reunited. They returned home to get their father Jacob and bring him back to Egypt so that he too could be reunited with his son Joseph.

MUSIC
Music time provides not only an opportunity to learn new songs, but it also touches on a Key Developmental Indicator within the Creative Arts section: Music. Young children begin to develop ideas about rhythmic and tonal patterns, beat, and tempo. They also begin to explore music's emotional component and spontaneously use and create music during their free play. According to music educators Cherie Stallacio and Marie McCarthy, "Early childhood years are critical to the development of the child's potential for comprehending and producing music." This weeks' songs include "Did You Ever See A Turtle?" - which focuses on tempo, "Johnny Works With One Hammer" - which focuses on beat, and "If All the Raindrops Were Lemondrops and Gumdrops".

MOVEMENT
This week during Movement time we introduce balls to the movement activities. This week as we begin playing with balls, we spend a lot of time in exploration of the balls, and guidelines for playing safely with them. Once we become more familiar with the balls, we include some challenges such as balancing them on various parts of our body and holding them between our elbows or knees as we walk in a variety of ways around the carpet. We open Movement time with a warm up song called "Letter Movements", and close with a song called, "It Is Monday".

SMALL GROUP TIME
This week during small group time, we’re focusing on two Key Developmental Indicators (KDI): Writing and Book Knowledge. Children enjoy reading stories, and the more they read the more they begin to identify parts of a book. As they read with others, or look at books on their own, children see how books are made. They notice the front and back, covers, title pages, story pages, end papers, and spines. This week we focus on book knowledge by first illustrating a familiar story - one of our Story time stories. On Tuesday and Wednesday we work on creating our own books using different drawing mediums, magazine pictures and letters, tape, scissors, and glue. On Friday we focus more on writing by creating different letters in a container of sand. 

AFTERNOON EXPERIENCES
In the afternoons this week, we touch on a Science KDI: Predicting. Before we conduct certain experiments, we predict what might happen. This process touches on cause and effect thinking. Some of the experiments we do this week include rolling marbles and small balls down cardboard tubes and predicting which ones may go the longest distance, predicting which items may sink or float in a bucket of water, predicting what colors we might make as we mix finger paints, and predicting what will happen when we fill a bottle with water and then mix in dish soap and food coloring.

It was a beautiful Friday afternoon last week!

Serious about art.

In the midst of imaginative play.

Playing with balls for the first time in Movement.

Newsletter 1/15/14

Important Dates to Remember:
January 20 - No Preschool; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day
February 7 - School Art Fair; 6:30PM

THIS WEEK’S LITERACY EXPERIENCES
Morning Books
"Jumpy Jack" by Henry Holt
"Duck Soup" by Jackie Urbanovic
"Time for Bed" by Mem Fox

Afternoon Books
"The Wheels on the Bus" by Maryann Kovalski

PLANNING & RECALL
During planning and recall time this week, we used telephones. The children enjoy talking on the telephone, so pretending to call them and discuss their work time plans was a great way to incorporate their interests into planning time. At planning time, teachers help children turn their interests into purposeful actions, and at recall time they help them turn their purposeful actions into narratives. Educators who help children capture these moments help children acquire the language they need while at the same time keeping a playful attitude toward language alive.

BIBLE LESSON
Now that Christmas is over, we return to the Old Testament again for our Bible lesson this week. We learn about a man named Joseph, one of the 12 sons of Jacob. Joseph was not very well liked by his brothers, who thought their father favored and loved him more than them. One day they beat Joseph up and threw him into well, with the plan to kill him later. Shortly after that some  merchants from Egypt walked by and the brothers decided to sell Joseph to them instead. When they returned home, they told their father that Joseph had been killed by wild animals out in the field. While living in Egypt, Joseph worked so hard for Potiphar that he was put in charge of Potiphar's household. But after some false accusations by Potiphar's wife, Joseph was thrown into prison. While in prison, Joseph helped the other prisoners by his God-given ability to interpret dreams. After spending a few years in prison, the king of Egypt had some dreams that were troubling him. Joseph was brought to him to interpret his dreams. God gave Joseph the ability to interpret the king's dreams. Seven years of plenty were about to come to Egypt - plenty of food and rain. But seven years of famine were to follow. Joseph advised the king to place a man in charge to make sure that during the seven good years, they could save up enough food for the coming famine. The king liked Joseph's plan and made him in charge of the land. God took Joseph, the lowly prisoner, and made him a ruler in Egypt, second in command to the king himself. 

MUSIC
Our study of steady beat in music continues this week. We have greatly increased our ability to clap, tap or play instruments along to the new songs we learn. Our songs for this week include "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and "Four in a Boat". Since there are four children right now, this song worked perfectly to pretend we were in a boat rocking our bodies from side to side with the beat. 

MOVEMENT
This week's movement songs also include an element of music -- tempo, or speed. We mastered several tempo challenges. The three tempos we practiced were slow, medium, or fast. Some of the challenges included wiggling our body, twisting from side to side, reaching in the air, curling our bodies into a ball, shaking our hands, and walking on our toes. We ended movement time with the fitting song, "Song About Slow, Song about Fast".

SMALL GROUP TIME
This week during small group time, we’re focusing on the Key Developmental Indicator (KDI): Number Words and Symbols. Young children encounter numbers and number concepts all the time in their environment. They learn to use cardinal numbers (zero, one, two...) and also ordinal numbers (first, second, third...). Children develop what is called "number sense", the awareness that numbers represent the quantity of things in a set and can be manipulated or operated on in various ways. The ways we encouraged "number sense" this week include dropping pom-poms into numbered cups, manipulating unifix cubes, playing with clock puzzles and numbered stacking cups, exploring dominoes, and playing with dot cards.

Christmas Service 2013

Getting ready to sing

We love the water table!

Playing with the doll house