Pp is for painting!

 

This week we are going to paint. We will mix colors, talk about primary and secondary colors. We will paint and mix colors with watercolors and tempera. We will experiment with all sorts of color!

The KDI of the week is predicting- Children predict what they expect will happen. What do you think will happen when we mix yellow and blue, red and yellow, green and blue? 

Table Activities- Table activities this week include watercolor painting, playing with color paddles, mixing blue and yellow playdough, making color telescopes with different colored cellophane on the ends, water wash with washable markers, mixing clay colors, using little mice to mix paint and food coloring mixing.

Small Group Activities- This week our small group activities include mixing colors inside a ziploc with shaving cream, watercolor painting, adding Pp is for painting to our journal and painting with primary colors, black and white paint.

Large Group Activities- Playing "Mother, May I?" with color recognition, watercolor mixing in the water play table.

Books of the Week- "Little Blue and Little Yellow" by Leo Lionni, "Cat's Colors" by Jane Cabrera and "Mouse Paint" by Ellen Stoll Walsh.

Bible Story- This week we move way ahead in time. The Israelites have had their long journey to the promised land with Moses, 40 extra years of wandering because of their lack of faith. They have settled in and the time of the judges is where we will land. God gave Israel judges to keep them where and how he wanted them to be. He wanted them to be different than the people around them. Many of those people worshipped idols, not the one true God. The judges spoke to the people and told them what God desired. Some of the judges were good and some not so good, but each had a part in God's plan for his people. Our story this week is about the beginning of the last judge's life. We are learning about Samuel. There was a woman named Hannah, who was married and very much wanted a child. Her husband had another wife who had children and she wanted to have a child also. Each year her family went to the tabernacle to worship and while she was there she prayed desperately for a child. She said if she was given a child, she would give it back to the Lord! The priest whose name was Eli saw her praying and asked what was wrong. She told him that she wanted a child. Eli told her that the next year she would have a baby and she did! She named that little boy Samuel which means "God has heard". She and Samuel stayed home from the tabernacle until Samuel was about 5 years old. Then she and Samuel came to the tabernacle and went to Eli. She asked Eli if he remembered her. This was the little boy that God had blessed her with and she was keeping her promise to give him back to the Lord. Samuel lived at the temple with Eli and helped him take care of the special place where the Lord was worshipped. Once a year, Hannah came and visited Samuel and brought him a new coat. Samuel lived his life dedicated to the Lord. 

It would be hard for us to give up our child, but they really belong to God even if they live with us! May God help us to remember that these are His children we are raising and we pray that they stay his children their whole lives through!

Sorry, no pictures this week! We had a lot of active learning!

Bb is for ball!

 

Bb is for balls! We'll explore balls this week, make some, play with some, create with some and even look at the science of bouncing balls!

Our KDI for the week is body awareness- Children know about their bodies and how to navigate them in space. We are adding in movement with a ball, how to throw, catch and bounce it with our bodies.

Table Activities- The table activities this week include marble track, spiky ball painting, marble painting, straws and wiffle balls, balls in water, spaghetti and meatballs, bowling, balancing ping pong balls on golf tees, and cotton ball painting.

Small Group activities- We will make a ball with Model Magic, roll, bounce and dance with balls, add Bb is for ball to our journal, and work on ball handling.

Large Group Activities-  Balls in our parachute, pool noodle baseball and throwing and catching balls will be our large group activities this week.

Books of the week- "Franklin Plays the Game" by Paulette Bourgeois and "Snail Saves the Day" by John Stadler are our books this week.

Bible Story- This week our Bible story sees Moses grow up and God gives him a big job! Moses grows and knows who his people truly are. He leaves Egypt after getting in trouble for defending and Israelite slave. He gets married, has children and works as a shepherd. He is now in his 80's. One day he is watching over his flock when he sees a bush on fire, but not burning up. He approaches the bush and is told to take off his shoes because he is standing on holy ground. God calls him to return to Egypt to lead his people, the Israelites to freedom. Moses refuses, God's got the wrong guy! There is no way he can bring the Israelites out of Egypt- he can't even speak well! God won't take no for an answer and so Moses returns to Egypt. Along with his brother Aaron, Moses goes to Pharaoh and asks him to release God's people so they may go out to the desert and worship Him. Pharaoh refuses and the plagues begin. Ten times God visits the land of Egypt with different plagues, the water turns to blood, then frogs cover the land, then gnats, then flies, then a plague on livestock, then boils or sores on the people, then hail, then locusts, then darkness. Each time Moses and Aaron warn Pharaoh what is coming, it comes, Pharaoh says if you ask your God to take the plague away, then I'll let them go. Each time Pharaoh changes his mind. Finally, the tenth and worst plague comes, the death of the firstborn. The Israelites are told what to do so the angel of death will Passover their house and they do it. The Egyptians don't have that option and even Pharaoh's first born son is killed. Pharaoh tells the Israelites to go, leave Egypt, the other Egyptians give the Israelites gold and jewels to leave their land. So much sorrow and loss because the leader would not bow the knee to the one, true God. Even in this instance, Pharaoh changes his mind. The Israelites leave and camp for the night near the Red Sea. In the morning, they see a cloud of dust in the distance, it is Pharaoh and his army. They are coming to get them. God confuses them with darkness and quicksand while the Israelites get ready to go. God tells Moses to hold out his staff and the sea parts and every Israelite makes it across on dry land. God tells Moses to let his hand down and the Egyptian army is swept away and drowned. God makes a way when there seems to be no way! At conference this week a saying really brought this home to me- Don't tell God how big your problems are, tell your problems how big your God is! He is the God of Deliverance, not just from the Red Sea and angry Egyptians, but from sin, death and the devil who try to keep us from Him. He saved us through his death on the cross!

Sorry, no pics from this short week!

Clean Up! Clean Up! Everybody, everywhere!

 

This week we are talking about cleaning up! Cleaning up the garbage we see on a walk, in our classroom, in our playground, at our home. We are talking about clean up efforts when there is an oil spill. We are looking at recycling or reusing. We're cleaning up!

The KDI for the week is ecology- Children understand the importance of taking care of their environment. We take care of the trash we make and make sure it goes in the proper place. We are stewards or caretakers of the world God gave us! He entrusted Adam and Eve with this job even in a perfect Garden of Eden. We have this job too. We don't worship the earth, but we do our best to care for it!

Table Activities- Table activities in this short week include cleaning up an oil spill (made with cocoa and vegetable oil), garbage truck clay mats, washing toys, sorting recycling and reusing items for art.

Small Group- This week our small group activities are making recycled paper and cutting and sorting trash and recycling.

Large Group- This week we will take a walk in the field and around our playground to pick up trash.

Books of the Week- "I Stink" by Kate and Jim McMullen and "Oil Spill" by Melvin Berger.

Bible Story- This week we travel time as we go from Joseph and his family living in Egypt as the heroes who saved them through a famine to the time when the Pharaoh ruling doesn't know about Joseph. He only sees a group of Israelites living in prime Egyptian real estate and having healthy, large families who could rise up and revolt and take over his country. He decides to clamp down on these foreigners! He enslaves them and forces them to work. He instructs his midwives to drown the male babies of the Israelite women when they assist them in giving birth. One Israelite mother named Jochabed keeps her pregnancy a secret. She gives birth and hides her little boy in her closet. When he is about three months old, he is getting too big to be hidden. She makes a basket-boat and places him inside. She is counting on the tender heart of an Egyptian princess. She sets the basket afloat in the Nile with her daughter, Miriam, closely watching. The little basket floats close to an Egyptian princess taking a bath and she hears the baby crying. She sends one of her maids out to see what is in the basket and instantly wants to keep the baby! Miriam is there and asks if she would like her to fetch someone who could nurse and take care of the baby for her. The princess says yes, and Miriam goes and gets her mother! The princess names the baby Moses, which means drawn from the water. Moses is taken care of by his own mother for the first five years of his life. He learns about what it means to be an Israelite and his religion and background. He then is taken to the Egyptian palace where he is raised as a prince of Egypt and learns all about the Egyptian religion and political system. God is preparing him for the job he is going to be calling him to do!

Here are a few pictures from our reptile week-

Rr is for reptiles.

This week we are learning about reptiles and the letter Rr. We will get to meet some reptiles and see what makes them a reptile.

Our KDI of the week is classifying. Children classify materials, actions, people and events. We are going to be classifying animals too! We will compare and contrast to see who belongs in what group.

Table Activities- This week we will have the opportunity to  play with a bubbling alligator swamp, make a bead snake, play with models of reptiles, color pictures of reptiles, play with snakes in jello for some texture fun and make reptiles out of pattern blocks.

Small Group Activities- Our small group activities this week include making a paper plate snake, a mosaic turtle and adding Rr is for reptile to our journals.

Large Group Activities- We will play with reptiles outside in the water table and who knows, we may see a reptile on the playground.

Books of the Week- Our books of the week are both by Eric Carle- "The Greedy Python" and "The Foolish Tortoise".

Bible Story- This week we hear the end of Joseph's story. Last week, our story left Joseph in jail. He was a model prisoner. Two men who worked for Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt, ended up in prison with Joseph. They had some strange dreams. The baker had a dream that he was carrying baskets of bread on his head and some birds came and ate the bread out of his basket. The wine taster had a dream that he squeezed some grapes into a cup and Pharaoh drank the result. Joseph told them the meanings of their dreams. The baker would be put to death and the wine taster would return to service in Pharaoh's court. When they came true, Joseph asked the wine taster to tell Pharaoh that he was in prison unjustly. It seemed as if the wine taster had forgotten until Pharaoh had some crazy dreams. Then he remembered how Joseph had interpreted his dream and it had come true. Joseph was fetched from the prison and Pharaoh not only demanded Joseph tell him what his dreams meant, he also made him tell what the dreams were in the first place. God gave Joseph the knowledge of the dreams and their meanings. Pharaoh had two dreams- one was that seven fat cows were grazing by the bank of the Nile River and seven skinny cows came up out of the Nile and ate those fat cows, but they didn't get any fatter. Then he had a dream that seven fat heads of grain were eaten by seven skinny heads of grain and they didn't get any fatter either! The meaning of the dreams were seven years of plenty followed by seven years of extreme famine. Joseph suggested to Pharaoh that he find someone to coordinate storing up grain and harvest during the seven years of plenty to distribute during the seven years of famine. Pharaoh liked the idea so much that he made Joseph in charge! Joseph's prison chains were replaced by golden chains and he became second in command of all Egypt. Joseph's brothers were also experiencing famine and they came to Egypt to buy food, since they heard they had stored food up. Joseph's dreams came true as he saw his brothers bowing before him begging for food. They didn't realize that the Egyptian ruler they were bowing to was their little brother! Eventually their family was reunited. Joseph's brothers were very worried that he would seek revenge for everything that they had caused, but he assured them that God had worked it out to save them all! Even though things may seem insurmountable, we know how the story ends! God works all things out for the good of those who love Him!

Blessings on your week!

Pictures from apple week!