Tt is for tools.

 

This week we are listening for the Tt sound and playing and working with tools.

KDI of the week is - Fine Motor Skills: Children demonstrate dexterity and hand-eye coordination in using their small muscles.

Table Activities- This week  we are using little fingers to thread nuts onto bolts, construct with cups and craft sticks, color tool coloring pages, using tools and playdoh together, making level constructions and using levels to check, playing with little construction vehicles and gravel, painting with tools and decorating and making our own paper tool belt.

Jesus Time- This week we are learning about Abraham's grandson, Jacob. Jacob was a twin brother to Esau. Last week we talked about the meaning of names, since Isaac was given his name since his mother, Sarah, laughed when she found out she was having a baby at 90! Isaac means laughter. Esau means red and ruddy and Jacob means heel grabber or trickster. God had made a promise that Jacob would get the blessing from Isaac that was usually reserved for the oldest son. Esau was older, if only by a few minutes and he should have gotten the blessing, but God had a different plan. He wasn't going to leave Esau without blessings, it just wasn't the blessing that the Savior was coming through his family. Jacob and his mother Rebekah knew that the blessing was to be his. Isaac was getting older and Esau was his favorite son. He was not intending to do what God had told him. He told Esau to go and hunt and make him his favorite spicy stew and then he would bless him. When Rebekah overheard, she conspired with Jacob to trick old, blind Isaac. Jacob went and killed a goat (since he was a shepherd) and he made a spicy stew to trick Isaac. His mother instructed him to dress in Esau's clothing and take the skin from the goat and tie it to his arms and put it in the chest of his clothes, that way he would smell and feel like Esau. Jacob went and gave his father the stew and pretended to be Esau. He received the blessing. When Esau returned and came to his father, Isaac was confused, hadn't Esau already come? When Esau found out that Jacob had tricked his father into giving him the blessing, he was angry enough to kill Jacob and Jacob ran away. All the wrong things that happened in this family make us go, why did God choose them to bring his Savior to the world? Wasn't there a better family? It brings home the point that it is not about what we do, but it is about a God who loves and uses us in spite of who we are and what we do, as long as we believe! Continue to have faith in a God who is more faithful to us then we could ever be to Him!

Small Group-  This week we are using tools- scissors to pratice cutting different materials, pounding in tees into styrofoam with rubber mallets, screwing screws into styrofoam with screwdrivers and adding Tt is for tools to our journals!

Large Group- We are playing with our tools outside, singing a Construction Worker Song, singing Johnny pounds with one hammer and finally building outside with our styrofoam and tools.

Books of the Week- "Tool School" by Joan Holub, "Alphabet Under Construction" by Denise Fleming and "I Love Tools" by Philemon Sturges.

Have a great week under construction!!

I will be sending more Scholastic Book Orders home next week. The orders from the last one should be coming this week! 

And a reminder- only 2 days of school next week! We will be doing some professional development as a staff! So you get time off while we go to school :)

Aa is for apple!

 

Aa is for apple is our theme this week! We would usually be taking a field trip to an apple orchard, but we'll have our own pretend field trip at school!

Table Activities:  This week we are doing apple printing, an apple sensory bin, "bobbing" for apples with water and tongs, apple pie playdoh play, apple tree stem experiment, gluing ten apples up on top, sorting by color on apple trees with fruit loops and experimenting with exploding apples (vinegar and baking soda).

KDI- Drawing Conclusions- Children draw conclusions based on their experiences and observations. We will look at the differences and similarities between apples and other fruits and formulate our ideas about apples!

Jesus Time- This week we leap ahead in time and find Abraham. Abraham is asked to leave his home and settle in a place that God directs him to. Once he is there, God promises to make him a great nation and use his family to help provide the Savior to the world. Abraham was 90 years old and his wife, Sarah, was 80 and they had no children. Abraham could look at what his life was so far and doubt what God had promised, but he believed! God took Abraham out and had him look at the stars in the sky and promised him that he would have as many children as there are stars in the sky. Abraham did have a son named Isaac. Isaac had twin sons named Jacob and Esau. We will see how God kept his promise to Abraham. He did become the physical ancestor of many people, but he also is our father in faith because of his belief in a coming Savior. We share in his family because we believe in the Savior too!

Small Group- This week we are looking very closely at apples. We will dissect an apple and look at the skin, flesh, seeds and core, the stem and where the apple blossom used to be. We will compare apples to each other, how do they look and taste, add an Aa is for apple page to our journal and make a rip art apple tree. On Wednesday, we will have our apple "field trip". We will have some hay bales for kids to play on and a Little Tykes wagon ride to go out and pick apples out of a bushel basket, so some apples are coming home for you. We will also have apple cider and donuts on that day. You can still pack a snack if you would like. 

Large Group- We will toss foam apples, dance with apples, have our apple field trip and be an apple tree and stretch all around!

Books of the Week- "Ten Apples Up On Top" by Dr. Seuss, "The Apple Pie Tree" by Zoe Hall and Shari Halpern and "How Do Apples Grow?" by Betsy Maestro.

Have an appley sweet week!

Ss is for super senses!

This week we will intentionally use our 5 senses!! We will look, listen, taste, touch and smell! 

Our Key Development Indicator for the week is Observation: Children observe the materials and processes in their environment.- We will use all our senses to observe.

Table Activities for the week are feeling warm and cold water, different block building, scented playdoh, feather and stones sensory, color with crayons on plain paper and sand paper, smelly painting, drawing with scentsy markers and finding jingle bells with magnets and listening for their sound.

Jesus Time- This week we are hearing the story of the flood. Adam and Eve lived in the garden God created for them for a time. He asked them to show their love by not eating from the trees in the middle of the garden- The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and The Tree of Life. Adam and Eve fell into temptation when the devil came in the form of a serpent to tempt them. They were cast out of the garden and in one short generation, their son committed murder. Things got worse from there! People did whatever they felt like and fell farther and farther away from God. Finally, there was only one family who still believes in God. That man's name was Noah. God came to Noah and instructed him to build an ark. It took Noah many years to build an ark. People came to watch and mock Noah. There were no rivers nearby to float it on. Crazy Noah!! What was he doing? He tried to tell people to turn back to God and repent, no one listened. When the ark was finished, God sent at least two of every animal to Noah to put into the ark. Noah and his wife and his sons and their wives packed up food and bedding for the animals. God told Noah and his family to enter the ark and he closed the door. And it began to rain! And rain and rain! It rained for 40 days and 40 nights. The water covered the entire earth, mountains, deserts, valleys and hills! It was only water as far as the eye can see! Every living thing on the earth drowned. The water remained on the earth for 150 days. Finally the ark came to rest on the top of a mountain and Noah let out a raven and a dove to see if the water had gone down enough for them to leave the ark. Finally God told Noah that it was time to leave the ark. Noah and his family came out, along with all the animals! The first thing Noah does is build an altar and thank God for seeing them safely through the flood. God placed a rainbow in the sky as a sign of the promise that he would never destroy the earth by a flood again. Every time we see a rainbow, we can remember that God always keeps his promises!

Small Group- This week we are making a texture collage, tasting sweet,salty, spicy and sour, feeling different materials and using our senses to describe them and adding Ss is for senses to our journal.

Large Group- This week in we are using our senses and describing words in freeze tell, breathing deep and smelling, a listening scavenger hunt and finding "kryptonite" with our sense of sight!

Books of the Week-"I Hear a Pickle (and Smell, See, Touch, and Taste It, Too!) by Rachel Isadora and "My Five Senses" by Margaret Miller.

Have a great week!!

 

Mm is for mess!

 

Hello all!! Welcome to the first week of preschool! This week is "Mm is for mess" and we hope to have lots of fun out of doors experimenting with mud and messes and other "m" things!

Each week you will be invited to read this blog to see what is going on at preschool and give you the information to ask your child specific questions. Instead of the "What did you do at school today?" answer of "Nothing" or "I can't remember", you can pinpoint activities or stories to pull out some memories and expand at home!

If you didn't have a chance to bring supplies before the first day, feel free to bring them anytime! The most urgent supply needed is a one inch three-ring binder, so we can begin our journal of letters.

Table Time- We start each day with a choice of activities at our tables before Morning Meeting. This week, we are making sculptures out of marshmallows and sticks, building with some dirt blocks, pressing plastic bugs and dinosaurs into mud dough to make fossils, playing in a "swamp" box, making "Stone Soup" and building a mud monster. We do two of the activities each day and the children are asked to try one before they play other things as we get the day started.

Morning Meeting- This week Emilia (am) and Cannon (pm) will have their show and tell on Wednesday, September 9th and Braxton (am) and Pepsi (pm) will have their show and tell on Thursday, September 10th. I will send the show and tell calendar home this week for the rest of September. We will be reading "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" by Michael Rosen, "Edward Gets Messy" by Rita Meade and a traditional telling of "Stone Soup". To plan our play this week, we will take a tour of choices on Tuesday, trace the letter Mm before going off to play on Wednesday and add to a mess on Thursday.

Jesus Time- This week we hear the story of creation. God created the entire world with just his word. He said it and it was perfect. On day one, God created the heavens and the earth, light and dark. On day two, God created the sky, he separated the water on the earth from the water above the earth. On day three, he separated the land and the water and created plants to grow on the land. On day four, he created the sun, the moon and the stars. On day five, he created all the things that fly in the air and swim in the waters. On day six, he created all the creatures that move about on the earth and the crown of his creation- humans!! In the Bible it tells us that after each thing, it was morning and it was evening, the first day, second day, third day, etc. The Bible tells us that God created everything that exists in 6, 24 hour days and that it was very good!! He created everything with just his Word, except for us. We were specially created by God. He formed Adam, the first man, from clay and breathed the breath of life into him. He then created Eve, the first woman, by taking a rib from Adam as he slept and created her. We, both men and women, were created in God's image. Just like our children are often said to look, act, be, like us. We were meant to take after God. Unfortunately, Adam and Eve weren't content with all the blessings they were given and they wanted more. We lost the image of God when we went against his will for us. Even then, God had a plan in mind. Just like we, as parents, do all we can to recover a relationship with a rebellious child, God planned to win us back. He sent his Son, Jesus, into the world to rebuild the relationship between God and man. All the sin we commit was paid for by Jesus death on the cross. Through His death we were made one again with God through faith in his Son! I pray that through the year we learn more about God's plan to make and keep us his!

Large Group- Tuesday we will race through a messy obstacle course, Wednesday we will wash dirty vehicles and Thursday we will paint with a rubber mallet.

Small Group- Tuesday we will make and decorate mud pies, Wednesday we will fingerpaint and Thursday we will add the letter Mm is for mess to our journals. If you aren't here Thursday, we will add the page to your journal. We will usually do journals on Wednesday, but since this is a short week, we are doing it a day later.

If you have rain boots for your littles, it may be a good week to wear them. Sandals or open shoes will not be very comfortable these weeks.

A book order will also be coming home on Tuesday. You can order online or return the order form to me with a check written out to Deanna Schneck or cash and I will place the online order if you are not comfortable doing that. The order deadline is Saturday, September 19th.  There are several on line flyers, but I only have one printed one. If you'd like to look online, here is the link- https://editions.mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?i=667459.

Have a super weekend! We will see you Tuesday morning or afternoon!!

Mrs. Schneck