Vv is for Valentines!

 

This week we are concentrating on the letter Vv for Valentines! We will listen and look for Vv and enjoy lots of Valentines activities!

The KDI of the week is building relationships-Children build relationships with other children and adults. Building on our KDI from last week, we continue to encourage positive relationships and the ability to work together towards a common goal!

Table Activities- This week's table activities include a Valentine sensory bin, Valentine playdough and slime, decorating foam hearts, beading with hearts, Valentine coloring pages, hole punch hearts and heart cookie cutter painting.

Small Group Activities- This week we will decorate a bag to collect our Valentines in, add Vv is for Valentine to our journal, pass out Valentines and have a little celebration and paint giant Valentine's hearts.

Large Group Activities- Hide and seek hearts outside and decorating a huge heart together will be our activities for this week.

Books of the Week- "The Biggest Valentine Ever" by Steve Kroll, "The 12 Days of Valentines" by Jenna Lettice and "Click, Clack, Moo, I Love You" by Doreen Cronin.

Bible Story- This week's Bible Story takes us back to the Sea of Galilee. We were there a couple weeks ago when Jesus helped Peter, James and John with a huge catch of fish! This time Jesus and all his disciples are on the boat. Jesus had spent all day preaching to a large crowd, telling parables and he and his disciples decided to go to the other side of the lake. Jesus had fallen asleep in the stern of the boat when a squall came over the boat and they were in danger of being sunk. 

The disciples tried everything to keep the boat afloat. Finally, they woke Jesus up, panicking, and said, "We are going to drown!" 

He got up, rebuked the wind and waves and everything calmed down.  "Where is your faith?" he asked his disciples. The disciples were stunned! Even the wind and the rain obeys Jesus! 

By this time the disciples had seen water turned into wine, many people healed and even a young man raised from the dead. They had heard Jesus preach and rebuke the Pharisees and scribes, seen nets full of fish and eyes full of relief and faith after sins are forgiven and bodies healed. They still had room to grow in faith. 

So do we! Read, study, learn more about Jesus and who He is and what He has done for you each day! Let Him be the first one you turn to when life gets stormy! The wind and waves, physical, emotional, spiritual are stilled by His calming Word! 

Pictures of some of our group work!

Gg is for group

 

This week we are looking and listening for the letter Gg and learning how to do things as a group. Part of school, life and work all depend on being able to be part of a group. We will experience working and playing as a group this week.

The KDI of the week is cooperative play- children engage in cooperative play. Cooperative means working or acting together willingly to achieve a common purpose or benefit. Humans are naturally self centered, so working together, looking at other's ideas as valuable and essential, has to be learned. Listening to others, taking turns, including others ideas are all things that we will work on this week.

Table Activities- This week's table time will include sticky faces, cup building, stringing giant beads, building block towers, playing games, rock stacking and building with paper tubes and popsicle sticks together.

Small Group Activities- This week we will make a cooperative picture, build together, add Gg is for group to our journal and make a group junk sculpture.

Large Group Activities- This week we plan to  play with our parachute together, learn to play catch with a friend, pass the bean bag and rhythm sticks.

Books of the Week- "Will I Have a Friend?" by Miriam Cohen and Gerald and Piggy books by Mo Willems.

Bible Story- This week's Bible story is a great example of friends working together! Jesus was preaching in a house, probably in the village of Capernaum. Many people crowded in the house to hear Jesus and to have him heal their family or friend. There were some men who wanted to take their friend before Jesus. He was paralyzed and lying on a mat. Because of the crowd, they could not get into the house. So they carefully carried the man on his mat to the roof of the house, took up some tiles and carefully lowered the man down until he was laying right in front of Jesus. Jesus looked at the man with compassion and said, "Son, your sins are forgiven." The Pharisees were aghast, how dare he forgive sins!! He told them that he had that authority and power, he then said to the man, "Take up your mat and walk." and he did! Just like that, withered muscles were filled with strength again, balance restored! The man got up, rolled up his mat and walked out, forgiven and restored!

How amazing! The Bible says people were filled with awe and said, "We have seen remarkable things today!" We see them too, everyday. We hear God's Word, we experience God's love and grace through Jesus! What a great reminder to surround ourselves with Christian friends and receive the support and encouragement they provide. This can make us stronger and pull those who we are friends with who don't believe towards us and give God the opportunity to share His Word with them! What great friends this man had!! They could have given up, too crowded, too hard, too much work, but they didn't and they got their friend right before Jesus!

I know sometimes when we have a friend or family member who is going through a tough time, illness, disability of themselves or a child, sometimes they are left behind or left out. May God give us the desire to continue being support for them in any way we can! We work together for God!

Some pics of fun with letters and our field trip-

Let's look at our ABC's

 

This week we will look at all the letters. We will try to place the letters in our name in order, recognize the sounds letters make and match them to the initial sounds of objects and have fun playing with letters!

Our KDI of the week is alphabetic knowledge- Children identify letter names and their sounds. As we work through our letters our ears should be able to recognize which letter makes which sound, or scientifically, which grapheme (written letter) matches which phoneme (spoken sound). This is the foundational skill needed for reading (decoding) and spelling (encoding). Taught in isolation and by direct instruction, ie. Tt makes the /t/ sound, /t/, /t/, /t/. We practice how our mouth moves to make it and look at what it looks like. Then as we get to know more sounds, we can blend them together- /t/ /a/ /p/ makes tap. If you know the sounds the letters make, you can sound out thousands of words, as opposed to memorizing sight words. Most words can be sounded out! So we are learning the basics to help us read for the rest of our lives!

Table Activities- This week we will have fun with a letter sensory bin, dot painting letters, letter playdough mats, magnetic letters and cookie sheets, sticky paper letters, letter coloring pages, letter beading and giving our letters a bubble bath!

Small Group Activities- This week we will arrange the letters in our name, letter/sound match, and add our name to our journal.

Large Group Activities- We will see if we can shape our bodies like letters, have a letter hide and seek and write some letters with sidewalk chalk.

Books of the Week- "Chicka-Chicka Boom Boom" by Bill Martin and John Archambault, "The ABC's of What I Can Be" by Caitlin McDonagh and "A, you're Adorable" by Buddy Kaye, Fred Wise and Sidney Lippman.

Bible Story- This week we hear the account of Jesus interaction with his fishermen disciples. Peter, Andrew, James and his brother John were all fishermen on the Sea of Galilee, near Capernaum where Jesus set up his home base. Jesus had been preaching and the crowd was pressing close to him. He asked Peter if he could step into his boat and Peter could take his boat out a little and Jesus preached from in the boat. Peter and his brother had been fishing during the early hours and had caught nothing. After Jesus had finished preaching, he told Peter to go out a little further and let down his nets.  Peter protested, saying they had been working hard all night and had not caught a thing! But because Jesus asked, he'd put the nets out. When he did, immediately his nets were so full, they were in danger of sinking the boat! He called out James and John to help him pull them in. They filled both boats!

Peter fell to his knees and said to Jesus- "Get away from me! I am a sinner!" They were so amazed at their great catch of fish!!

Jesus told him that he would no longer be catching fish, but catching men!  Jesus was taking smelly, poor, uneducated Galilean fishermen for his disciples. Through their sharing the story of Jesus, they would bring many to faith, including you and me!

Do we ever think we know better then Jesus? But because he asks us to , we will do what he calls us and sometimes there are amazing results, sometimes there aren't, but we are the better for it because we did His will. God loved us enough to send his Son and we show our love for him by doing what He asks! Who knows who or what we will catch!

Some pics from our jungle week-

Jj is for jungle

 

This week we are listening and looking for the letter Jj! We will be talking about jungles or rainforests and what they are like, what animals live there and what plants grow there. On Tuesday, we will see what animals live in the area we live in when we have our field trip to Oakwoods Metropark and attend the program "Animals of Oakwood". We can compare and contrast our wilderness with the wilderness of jungles!

Our KDI of the week is geography- Children recognize and interpret features and locations in their environment. We'll get to know what is special about the animals and lands where we live and how it is the same and different as other places around the world.

Table Activities- This week we will use animal print paper to make an animal, make a jungle with plastic animals, trees, and playdough, color some jungle animals, make a jungle scene with stamps, enjoy a jungle sensory bin and explore the layers of the jungle and which animals make their homes in each layer.

Small Group- This week we will practice our cutting skills by making a paper plate snake, add Jj is for jungle to our journal and take a virtual rainforest/jungle tour.

Large Group- We will do some Animal Actions along with our music and dance with our paper leaf umbrellas.

Books of the Week- "The Umbrella" by Jan Brett and "Welcome to the Green House" by Jane Yolen.

Bible Story- This week we begin our stories that take place during Jesus' public ministry. After the account of the boy Jesus in the temple, we don't hear about Jesus until he is baptized by his cousin John. He begins to teach and preach and already has some disciples following him when he is invited to a wedding in the village of Cana. 

In those days, weddings were large affairs, often lasting a week. During that time the families of the couple would provide lodging, clothing, food and drink. It was an embarrassment if something ran out! This wedding might have been a family member or family friend of Jesus, since his mother was also there. It was towards the end of the celebration and the wine had run out. Because Mary knew who Jesus was and his abilities, she told them that they had run out of wine, perhaps hoping he would do something. This makes me wonder if this was only Jesus first public miracle, if he had done some privately, because Mary knew it was possible for him to do. It isn't really important, because Jesus shows himself to be true God to his disciples through this miracle. 

When Mary spoke to him, he told her it was not yet time. She went and told the servants at the wedding to do whatever he told them to do. Later, Jesus came to the servants and asked them to fill the large water jugs. Then he dipped out a cup and told them to take it to the master of the banquet. When they did this, the water had turned to wine! The master of the banquet called the bridegroom to him and said how delicious it was! Usually the worst wine was served at the end, but they had saved the best for last! When Jesus does a miracle, he gives his best! Jesus told the servants not to tell anyone what he had done. 

Jesus was not doing a miracle to get attention for himself in a prideful way, he did it to help someone and build and strengthen faith. What a blessing that our faith can be encouraged by this event that happened 2000 years ago! 

I didn't get many pictures of our exploration week- thanks for braving the cold to come to school!