Ii is for ice cream

 I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!

This week we are looking for the letter Ii and listening for its different sounds.

The KDI of the week is counting- children count things. We will be counting scoops of ice cream!

Table Activities- The table activities this week include dramatic play ice cream shop, painting with ice cream cones, playdough ice cream, counting the scoops and invite to create an ice cream cone or sundae.

Small Group Activities- Small group activities this week include an ice cream number stack, making ice cream, adding Ii is for ice cream to our journals and painting an ice cream cone.

Large Group Activities- We will have an ice cream relay, add to the sundae race, an outdoor ice cream shop and sand ice cream.

Jesus Time- This week we jump ahead several hundred years again. The Israelites had settled into the promised land of Canaan after many years of wandering in the desert with Moses, wars and battles when entering the promised land with Joshua and unfortunately being influenced by the pagan worship around them as they began to worship false gods and live in ways contrary to God's desire for them. Israel was a theocracy, ruled by God, through judges that communicated God's will directly to the people. Israel went through many judges, some good, some bad. The judge in our story is named Samuel. When we are introduced to Samuel, he is just a baby. We are learning the story of how he came to be the last judge Israel was ruled by. A woman named Hannah was Samuel's mother. She was married to a man named Elkanah. Elkanah had two wives, Hannah had not been able to have any children and the other wife teased her about it mercilessly. Hannah and the rest of her family were visiting the tabernacle to worship when the old priest, Eli, saw her. Hannah was sobbing at her failure to have a child. She was begging God to give her a child. When Eli saw her, he was very concerned. He didn't know what was wrong with her. When she calmed down enough to explain, he promised her that she would have a child by this same time next year. She did, and that child was Samuel. Because of the Lord's favor on her, she promised to dedicate her child to the Lord's service. When Samuel was five years old, she brought him with her to the tabernacle and gave him into the Lord's service. She then made him a new coat each year and came to visit him to deliver it. This seems so strange to us! Our pastors would not want you to drop off your five year old so that they can clean church and he would make them sleep on a cot in the back room and you would come to visit them once a year! As moms and dads, we sometimes only think of our children as ours, not God's. What plans and dreams we have for them! How we want to hold on to them and make sure everything goes perfectly for them their whole life. We don't want anything bad to befall them or them to struggle in any way. It's hard to give your children to the Lord and let Him direct their paths. Our job as parents is to raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. That means making sure they know the Bible, know how God wants them to live and most importantly, know what God did for them. WE give our children to God, but HE gave his child, his one and only Son, for us. He loves our children more than we ever could!

Books of the Week- "Groovy Joe: Ice Cream and Dinosaurs" by Eric Litwin, "Gorilla Loves Vanilla" by Chae Strathie.

Book Orders went home today for November. Lots of great books!! And books make great Christmas gifts! In Iceland, everyone receives a book on Christmas Eve and everyone reads!! Make books a special part of your life!

As I mentioned to most of you at Parent-Teacher's Conferences, we are planning on having a Preschool Only Christmas Program on the Thursday before Christmas break, which is December 17th. It will be about 20 minutes long. The AM class will have theirs at 10:40 and the PM class will have theirs at 2:40. We will have a little time to get fancy dress on before that if you want!

Have a delicious week!

Here are some pics from last week's pumpkin fun!