Faith Lutheran Preschool eNews: Newsletter 12/3/14

Important Dates to Remember:
December 6th - Christmas for Kids; 9:00AM-12:00PM
December 19th - End of 2nd quarter; noon dismissal; Children's Christmas Service at U.A.A. at 6:30PM
December 20th-January 4th - Christmas Break; No Preschool

THIS WEEK’S LITERACY EXPERIENCES
Morning Books
"Llama, Llama Time to Share" by Anna Dewdney
"The Snowy Day" by Ezra Jack Keats
"The Tree House that Jack Built" by Bonnie Verbury and Mark Teague

Afternoon Books
"The Greedy Python" by Richard Buckley

PLANNING & RECALL
Instead of using any materials or props for planning and recall time this week, a little phrase was spoken that goes like this, "Jingle, jangle, jax...it's your turn to plan if your name is 'Max'". Using a rhyming chant increases children's ability to identify the concept of rhyme - especially when it's tied to something as personal as their names.

BIBLE LESSON
In our Bible lesson this week, we jump ahead a number of years. Moses is no longer leading the Israelites. Instead, a man named Joshua is in charge. In order to make the land of Canaan their own, the Israelites had to capture and defeat cities in Canaan. One of these cities was named Jericho. The inhabitants of Jericho anticipated the Israelites' attack, so they closed the city gate and prepared. God told Joshua the special plan for defeating the city of Jericho. The Israelites would march around the city once a day for six days. The priests leading the march blew on their trumpets but nobody else spoke a word. They did this for six days and on the seventh day they walked around the city seven times. On the seventh time around the city the priests blew the trumpets longer and Joshua gave the command to shout! The Isrealites all let out a great shout with the blast of the trumpets, and the wall around Jericho came tumbling down. God gave his people Jericho in a special way. All the gold, silver, and precious metal from the city was then dedicated to God.

The Israelites had sinned against God many times throughout their time in the desert and did not deserve his love and help, but God kept his promises to them by giving them many blessings, including the city of Jericho. We also sin against God and do not deserve the blessings he gives to us. Yet we thank him for all the love he does show us, including Jesus - who died on the cross to pay for our sins.

Bible verse: Psalm 119:47 "I delight in your commands."

MUSIC
In Music this week we begin to learn a song that we'll be singing for our Christmas Service on December 19th. We're learning "Away in a Manger" with some simple actions. We also begin spending more time learning our Christmas recitation from the book "Mary's Happy Christmas Day". Since we'll be doing both of these items by ourselves, without the "big kids'" help, we want to spend as much time as we can learning them!

MOVEMENT
In Movement Time we warm up to the song "Work Your Body" which asks us to stretch, bend, squat, climb, bend at the waist, kick our legs, and turn around. We have all really enjoyed using our new material this week: a parachute. In the introduction lesson we explore the parachute by sitting down and hiding our legs under it. We create slow and fast waves, practice rowing the parachute "boat" and rolling up the chute into a ball. To close our lesson we cool down with a song called "Tippy Toes".

SMALL GROUP TIME
This week during small group time, we’re focusing on the Key Developmental Indicator (KDI): Alphabetic Knowledge. Alphabetic knowledge means understanding the alphabetic principle, which is the systematic relationship between letters and sounds. Children acquire this knowledge by building letter recognition and building an awareness of letter-sound connections. Young children learn letter names and sounds in the context of their playing, reading, and writing. They do not benefit from memorizing isolated letters or studying the "letter of the day". Some of the things we do at Small Group Time to increase specific letter recognition include going on a letter hunt around the classroom, tossing bean bags on to large letters on the floor, using geoboards to connect upper and lower case letters, forming letter shapes using play dough, and using white boards to write different letters.