Faith Lutheran Preschool eNews: Newsletter 10/8/14

Important Dates to Remember:
October 13th - "Making Life Better" class with Pastor Ewings; 6:30PM-8:00PM
October 17th - End of First Quarter; noon dismissal
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 2 work nights at school (October 8th and October 15th starting at 6:30PM) to start making decorations. 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
"Alaska ABC Book" by Charlene Kreeger and Shannon Cartwright
"Bears in the Night" by Stan and Jan Berenstain
"Cat's Colors" by Jane Cabrera
"The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle

Afternoon Books
"Franklin and the Tooth Fairy" by Paulette Bourgeois

PLANNING & RECALL
Recalling activities involves social interaction on a very personal level. Children have to find the right words, actions, and gestures to convey their meaning to others. The process of talking about their intentions and actions helps children actually create or construct meaningful memories. This week we use playing cards for planning and recall. The children are dealt a card, and when the teacher turns over the matching card, it's their turn to talk.

BIBLE LESSON
In our lesson this week we hear how Jacob was now an older man, and was blessed with many sons and a daughter. One of his sons was named Joseph, and Jacob gave Joseph a beautiful coat to wear. Joseph was not very well liked by his brothers, who thought their father favored and loved him more than he loved 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 came 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. When Jacob heard the news, he wept for his son Joseph, believing he had been killed. Yet God knew what had happened, and it was part of His plan for Joseph to be taken to Egypt.

Joseph may have been afraid--afraid of his brothers, their intent to kill him, when they sold them to strange people from a strange land, and when he was taken to a new land. Yet God was always with Joseph, and had a special plan for him. God gives us the promise that he is always with us as well and that all things work together for the good of those who love him. (Romans 8:28)

Bible verse: Isaiah 41:10 "Do not fear, for I am with you."
Bible song: "Cast All Your Anxiety On Him"

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". We keep the beat by clapping along, or rocking our bodies back and forth. We even play a little game for the song "Four in a Boat" as we pretend to be in a boat rocking from side to side.

MOVEMENT
We warm up our bodies with ribbons to the familiar song “Kuma San”. We then attempt a variety of ribbon challenges such as making different shapes and letters in the air, and following the leader as we move our ribbons in different ways around the classroom. A perfect tie in to one our morning stories, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", comes in the closing song "Caterpillars to Butterflies". We curl up like caterpillars in our cocoon until we break free, stretch our wings, and fly with our colorful ribbon wings around the carpet.

SMALL GROUP TIME
The KDI for this week’s small group activities is alphabetic knowledge. So much of young children's early literacy learning is connected. Speaking, listening, reading, and writing develop concurrently (together) rather an sequentially (one after the other). Literacy learning is often social as children seek to interact and communicate with others. It also occurs during meaningful interactions, experiences, and activities. We try to create experiences that are hands-on for each child to explore materials and identify letters based on their own level of development. Literacy experiences we explore this week include dot letter painting, identifying matching letters by sticking stickers onto a cardboard tube, tracing different letters with our fingers in salt trays, ordering and matching letters with can lids and plastic spoons, and playing a game where teachers call out a letter, and the children pop the appropriate letter bubble which is made out of shaving cream and glue.