Ii is for ice.

This week we are going to look and listen for the letter Ii and play and experiment with ice!

Our KDI for the week is problem solving- Children solve problems encountered in play. We are learning to work together again after having two weeks apart. What is appropriate play for school, how can we be safe around our friends, how are rules for home and school different. As we play together with ice or anything else, we watch out for one another and try to solve our problems together. It is important to watch, teachers will get involved if need be, but we need to be able to learn how to independently solve our problems, so now we practice.

Table Activities- This week we have an ice sensory bin, frozen water balloons, cars and dinos trapped in ice, melting ice with colored water, looking at different shaped ice, ice cube stacking, ice fishing and colored ice.

Small Group- We will paint ice, paint with frozen paint, add Ii is for ice to our journal and experiment with melting ice with salt water, sugar water or plain water.

Large Group - We will continue investigating ice outside.

Books of the Week- "Ice Boy" by David Ezra Stein, "Best in Snow" by April Pulley Sayre and "Snowmen at Night" by Caralyn and Mark Buehner.

Bible Story- This week we are going to hear about the wisemen coming to see Jesus. We aren't sure where they came from, we aren't sure how many there were, we don't know how they heard about the promised Messiah, but they came. Jesus came for the Jews and for the Gentiles. Most likely the men who followed the star had heard about a promised Messiah for the Jews from their ancestors who had heard about it from Daniel or other Jewish immigrants that had been living in Persia or Babylon in captivity. They had been watching for a bright star to lead them to the King of Kings. The star may have appeared at Jesus' birth. It seems to have taken them about a year to travel to Jerusalem and then Bethlehem. The wisemen came from the east and stopped in Jerusalem where King Herod resided. They asked around about a new king being born. This put many in Jerusalem on edge. King Herod was known for his violent streak to hang on to the throne, killing his brother and even sons. Herod granted the wisemen an audience. His own advisors had looked at the Old Testament scriptures and found a verse prophesying that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. Herod asked the wisemen to return to him after they had seen the child, they could tell him exactly where the child resided and he said he would go worship him also. That was not Herod's real plan. His plan was to kill the child. The wisemen were warned in a dream to go home a different way. Unfortunately, that didn't stop Herod, he visited Bethlehem with his jealous wrath and had every child under the age of 2 slaughtered. (We won't be talking about that in preschool) 

The wisemen followed the star until it stopped over the house were Jesus was. The wisemen entered and presented Jesus with three gifts- gold, frankincense and myrrh. They worshipped him and rejoiced with great joy at seeing him!

To escape Herod's plan, Joseph was warned in a dream to take Jesus and Mary and flee to Egypt where they stayed until Herod was dead.

Jesus came to save us! God shared his love with the whole world in the birth of Jesus! Help to share it with everyone you know too!!