T-Th Preschool News - Week of January 10

Hello Tuesday-Thursday Preschool Families!

Here's your LATE newsletter for LETTER L week :) and an "L" Bible verse to go with it...

"LOVE God with all your heart, all your soul and all your strength!"

Deuteronomy 6:5 (exclamation point mine!)

We've been so busy in preschool LATELY, and having LOADS of fun, as usual! We played with a new batch of white play dough at greeting time this week with LETTER cookie cutters (because white is our color of the month, you know!). We also continued to sing our "Two LITTLE Blackbirds" song a LOT... we really LOVE it!!

Here are some of the other ways we were LEARNING during LETTER L week:

For art, we made paint prints using real LEMONS and LIMES!

To develop our pre-writing skills, we brought our dry erase books. We had fun writing and drawing in them, and then we erased each page when we were done with it! Hmmm... these LOOK LIKE they might be the hands of one of the teachers...LOL!!

For our fine motor skills, we played with LACING cards. I hope you enjoy the photos of these from Shutterfly - there are some fabulous photos!

In our curtain area, we brought out the train set (by popular request) and we also brought out puppets and the puppet stage.

At our Exploration Station (aka, the sensory table) we played with cotton balls, foam packing peanuts and winter animals - LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of fun!

For story time, we heard the stories Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney and My Friend Lucky by David Milgrim (a book about opposites)

For LARGE motor, we played Follow the LEADER in the church hallway. The children took turns being the LEADER and choosing what we would all "be." On Tuesday, "being a train" was the most popular choice, by a LONG run. On Thursday, Miss Jean suggested we choose an animal (adding a bit of variety to our activity!!).

Yes, indeed, it was a busy week! (Will that be a good enough reason for being 2 weeks behind on this blog??? Possibly :)

See you soon!

Miss Jean, Miss LACY and Miss Pat :)

MWF Preschool News - Week of Jan 18

Dear MWF Families,

As we learn about cooperation in our classroom this month, let us remember the golden rule from the book of Matthew..."In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you..." Matthew 7:12 New American Standard Bible

This week of January we learned a lot about God’s Love for all the children of the world. We talked briefly about Martin Luther King Jr. and how he taught the world to love one another. For our Letter M week, one of our students brought in Mickey Mouse and Angelina the Ballerina Mouse. We also celebrated another half-birthday!

With these recent cold and dreary days we have extended our center time and played in the gym during small group time. The children played with balls, and also played “The Ants Go Marching,” and “Tag, You’re It.” We also brought some books to the gym with us, in case the children needed to sit down and take a break!

With Letter M Week, we also played a few Memory Games at the Rainbow Rug. They really enjoy these group games and they have a great memory! With our January characteristic trait of cooperation, we have been doing a variety of collaborative activities! Our children are really learning to work well within a group setting!

Here are some other highlights of our week...
Worked on Partner Drawings where two persons work together to create a drawing on their half of the paper.
Created a Group Collage of Magazine Pictures of God’s Children.
Practiced drawing lines through several mazes, a good fine motor activity.
Used Magnets and Magnetic Letters and Numbers at our Exploration Station.
For Dramatic Play we set up our own Market and used play money.
We also played with Medical Kits.
Practiced writing our names on Handwriting Sheets.
We read the books We All Sing With The Same Voice by J. Phillip Miller, and On The Moon by Anna Milbourne. (This was a great educational scientific book which kept the children very attentive.)
We went to the Chapel and listened to Pastor Greg telling a story about God’s People from our church working together and building a school for some children in El Salvador .
We sang “This Little Light of Mine.”

Have fun at the field trip on Friday this week! We'll see you soon!
Miss Lori, Miss Donna, Miss Pat and Miss Jean

MWF Preschool News - Weeks of Jan 4 & 11

Dear MWF Families,

Welcome to the year 2010! We hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas vacation. We appreciate your kindness and generosity, and your gifts in serving. Winter has quickly arrived at the preschool. For our Letter K week, one of our teachers brought in a play set of Keys which made noises. The children had fun exploring them. We also celebrated a half birthday! For our Letter L week one of our students brought in his favorite stuffed lion. On Wednesday, our back to school day, it was fun to receive a visit from our Bookmobile. What a way to start out the year! Friday surprisingly greeted us with a snow day. We hope each of you enjoyed the day off! With our winter weather, we made use of our gym and played with balls and gave the children the opportunity to run, run and play! They loved it! We also had a lovely sunny winter day, above 30 degrees, so we went on a winter exploration walk. The students loved looking at the icicles hanging from the roof on our building.

Here are some other highlights of the last two weeks...
Decorated a Snowman Template with crayons. Also glued snow cotton balls.
Painted a wintry snow picture using special painting tools. White tempera paint on black construction paper for contrast.
Created Little People by using markers on person templates and glued fabric scraps on them for clothing.



Made a replica of our earth by tearing various colors of construction paper and gluing them on a large circle.
Looked through Kaleidoscopes.
Played with our Workshop Bench.
Some of the books we read at Circle Time were A Busy Year-by Leo Lionni, The Lonesome Polar Bear by Jane Cabrera, The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, and Little Cloud by Eric Carle
At our exploration station, we explored a winter scene, composed cotton balls and various winter animals.

We wish you a great New Year,
Miss Lori, Miss Donna, Miss Pat and Miss Jean

I Made a Little Snowman

Hello Preschool Families!

Here's a fun little snowman rhyme that I found many years ago (if I knew the source I would share it with you). It's always a favorite with the preschoolers, and I thought you may have fun saying it at home....

It is sung to the scale, with each line going up one note. Start by squatting on the ground, and as you go up with each musical note, bring your body up a little more, too. At the end, when the snowman "melts" you can let your body melt down to the ground as well! Have fun!

I made a little snowman

I made him very round

I made hime from a snowball

I rolled upon the ground

He has two eyes, a nose, a mouth

A lovely scarf of red

He even has some buttons

And a hat upon his head

And then one day....the sun came out, and what did that snowman do?

Melt, melt, melt, melt, melt, melt, melt, melt!

T-Th Preschool News - Week of January 3

Hello Tuesday-Thursday Families!

We had a wonderful first week back at preschool! It was great seeing all of those smiling faces back in the classroom again. We had a beautiful background of snow outside last week just in time for WHITE WEEK! We had fun painting with white paint on black paper this week. We used small paint brushes, which are especially helpful in developing those fine motor skills!


We also gave those hand muscles a work out when we used our new name books! We will keep these fun books in the classroom until all of the pages are filled up, then they will go home with you! But feel free to ask one of the teachers if you'd like to see your child's book before then!


And to celebrate white week (and all of that snow on the ground) we read TWO different books with the same title. An old classic by Ezra Jack Keats...

And a newer story (published by Usborne) written by Anna Milbourne and Elena Temporin. I love the stories and the illustrations in both of these books. Tough to choose a favorite!
I will leave these on top of the cubbies this week if you'd like to take a peek at them this week!

Here are some of the other exciting activities we did at preschool....

We had so much fun learning a new song called "Two Little Blackbirds" which is from Susan Salidor's CD Come and Make a Circle
At greeting time, we used crayons to make some colorful mittens
(look above our cubbies to see!)
At our math table, we sorted shapes with our shape cards and mats
At the exploration station, we played with texture dominoes
For dramatic play, we brought the train set out to our curtain area
(We also brought out keys for counting!)
For large motor, we played Duck, Duck Goose! It was amazing how fast we learned the game!

See you all next week for more fun and learning!
Miss Jean, Miss Lacy and Miss Pat

MWF Preschool News - Week of Dec 13

Dear MWF Families,

This was a joyful Christmas week! We had so much fun singing a variety of our favorite Christmas carols. For our Letter J week, our student brought in a jumprope. For our large motor play we played “Redlight Greenlight” and listened to a Stop Go Follow Me Song in the gym. A parent helper was very kind and brought in a Foam Christmas Wreath project and assisted the class in creating their very own wreath! Our Christmas Party was a real hit! (Many thanks to all of our Parent Helpers!) We enjoyed a great time with all of our students and their loved ones, especially when we sat on our rainbow rug and sang “Happy Birthday Jesus,” “Away In A Manger,” and “Jingle Bells.” It was very peaceful as we watched the snow falling …We wish you peace this Christmas!

Here are some other highlights of our week.
Colored and glued to create a Christmas Wreath on a Paper Plate.
Wrote on Christmas Cards to give to our loved ones.
Made geometric designs with Red and Green Tanagrams.
Read the story Is It Christmas? By John Prater.
Heard the story Asleep In The Stable by Will Hillenbrand.
Played with puppets using our Christmas Manger Figurines
Played with a Jumbo Jungle Floor Puzzle
Had a terrific time celebrating Christmas with all of you!


With Peace,
Miss Lori, Miss Donna, Miss Pat and Miss Jean

We hope you had a wonderful Christmas! We will see you back at Preschool on Wednesday January 6, 2009!