Faith Lutheran Preschool eNews: Newsletter 10/15/14

Important Dates to Remember:
October 17th (This Friday) - End of First Quarter; noon dismissal
October 20th - "Making Life Better" class with Pastor Ewings; 6:30PM-8:00PM
October 24th - Faith's Harvest Carnival; 6:30PM-8:30PM

Special Notes:
If you'd like to help donate goods or time to our Harvest Carnival this year, there will be another work night at school this Wednesday the 15th starting at 6:30PM. Another way you may consider helping is by making donations of candy for the goody bags. You can bring them to the school office at any time. You could also donate cakes/cupcakes/caramel apples/cookies for the cake walk. The PTF would like those by 10/23 or 10/24 or as you arrive for the carnival that evening. Thanks! :)

THIS WEEK’S LITERACY EXPERIENCES
Morning Books
"Oink! Moo! How Do You Do?" by Grace Maccarone
"Sheep in a Jeep" by Nancy Shaw
"The Mixed Up Alphabet" by Steve Metzger
"Giraffes Can't Dance" by Giles Andreae

Afternoon Books
"Mooncake" by Frank Asch
"Happy Birthday Moon" by Frank Asch

PLANNING & RECALL
This week for planning and recall time we used animal puppets. Children chose which animal puppet they wanted to use, and many of them used pretend voices to share their Work Time plans. Right before we have planning time in the morning, we have Morning Message time, where the teacher writes a special message or reminder for the children. Children really enjoy trying to decipher and interpret my (often terribly drawn) pictures. Messages can include reminders to flush toilets, or use only 1 or 2 paper towels. They can be used to let children know if something different will be happening during our routine such as a visitor or if we move something around in the schedule. If it's a child's birthday or we have a new student, they are often the focus of the message as well.

BIBLE LESSON
While living in Egypt, Joseph worked for a man named Potiphar, who was one of the Pharaoh's high officials. Joseph worked so hard 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 using 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 and God gave Joseph the ability to interpret them. 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.

The lesson this week illustrates how God's plan may be very different from our own. Who would have thought that Joseph - sold as a slave to some merchants from Egypt, would become a great ruler? God works ALL things for the good of those who love him.

Bible verse: Romans 8:28 "God works for the good of those who love him."
Bible song: "Consider How the Birds Above" (We'll be singing verses from this hymn for quite a while because we're learning it to sing in church on November 23rd)

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' song is called "Did You Ever See A Turtle?" - which focuses on tempo (or speed). We also tie in literature to Music Time as we read and sing the book "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" by Iza Trapani.

MOVEMENT
We open Movement time with the song "Caterpillars to Butterflies”, but instead of using ribbons this week, a new item is introduced -- scarves. After pretending we're caterpillars and butterflies, we move on to some challenges with the scarves. We practice balancing them on various parts of our bodies such as our knees, feet, elbows, shoulders, and head. We also try to roll our scarves into a ball, balance them on our hands or elbows, and blow them off. It's quite challenging to blow enough air to actually make the scarf fall off! We end Movement Time with some catching practice. "Toss and Catch" is our final song, where we practice our "crab pinch" catching as well as catching with parts of our bodies - head, back, tummy, and hands.

SMALL GROUP TIME
This week during small group time, we’re focusing on the Key Developmental Indicator (KDI): measuring. For preschoolers, measurement is about realizing that things have measurable properties and making comparisons on these dimensions (height, volume, age, time, older and younger, lightest and heaviest, short, medium and tall). We focus more on the length,height, and volume measurements this week with our small group experiences.
Our measuring activities this week include using "pancakes" (paper circles) to measure ourselves. The class average was 9 pancakes placed side by side. We used magna-tiles to measure various objects like blocks, stuffed animals, and yarn. On Wednesday we measure ourselves again - this time using yarn. Keep your eyes peeled for our body measuring activity to be posted on a wall somewhere. On Thursday we measure the quantities of different materials such as rocks, cheerios, beans, and noodles using measuring cups and spoons. On Friday we'll go back to measuring length when we measure the distance we can jump. We'll use tape measures to help us measure the distance of our frog jumps.