Tuesday, April 20, 2010

TTh Preschool News - Week of April 6 & 13

W and X Week? Already??

W...We know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

For W week, we learned about all kinds of weather! We ready one of our big books called "The Wind Blew" by Pat Hutchins. And we read the story "The Rainy Day" by Anna Milbourne and Sarah Gill.

We had fun with new green play dough at our greeting time
We played with our new Magnetic Letter Learners
We brought out some small, colorful bears, with a small scale to weigh them
We played with some new File Folder games that had us matching capital letters


But the most fun we had was probably playing with the water and the Water Works toy at our exploration station. The preschool offers our apologies for any wet sleeves that came home that week!!

X is for...Exalt the name of the Lord! Isaiah 24:15

For letter X week, we learned about Eggs (which kind of sounds like "X" doesn't it?)

We heard the stories "The Golden Egg Book" by Margaret Wise Brown and "Chickens Aren't the Only Ones" by Ruth Heller. The second book told us about many different animals that come from eggs. So to go along with that idea, we used sponge brushes to decorate some egg shaped papers, and on the inside, we drew pictures of what was inside our eggs! There were so many wonderful ideas...be sure to look at them in our hallway when you come to preschool next time!

At the exploration station, we played with plastic eggs to find the matching half. There were also foam letters and lots and lots of Easter grass in there as well!

Since we are learning about eggs, it was the perfect time to introduce the oval shape. The children know their shapes so well! We are so proud of them!

During our center times, we took children out in the hallway in groups of 3 to learn a new game. It's called the All Around the Town Game, and it is so much fun! (It's also a great learning tool to develop language and matching abilities, reading and memory skills, and following directions. Basically, it's a table size rug with a little town and roads on it. We take turns rolling a die. It could land on red, yellow or green. We pick the matching card, and it tells us where in the town we should go. We get to pick any vehicle we want when it's our turn.

This game has been a HUGE hit in both of our classrooms! It would also make a great family game for home.

See you all at preschool,
Miss Jean, Miss Lacy and Miss Pat

MWF Preschool News - Week of April 5 & 12

Dear Parents,

It is hard to believe that we are almost at the end of our alphabet and the preschool year. These two weeks we focused on Letter W and Letter X. Most of the students really enjoyed the worms we brought in for Letter W week. For show and share one of the children brought in a wallet from another country he received while traveling abroad. Our favorite item for Letter X week seems to have been a miniature xylophone. It was a class favorite for many. We have had beautiful weather and have spent the majority of our small group time outdoors playing in our playground.


Our themes have mostly been spring and God's creatures. Thank you to one of our parent helpers who assisted with a craft on Easter Monday. We made coffee filter flowers for our bulletin board. They turned out lovely. The next time you are near the classroom, please feel free to stop in and take a peek. We have also purchased some new literacy resources for our classroom which we have been using frequently. Thankful for God's blessings. Have a wonderful spring!



Here were some other highlights of our past weeks.

Used scissors to cut out leaves for our spring flower craft.
Created a beautiful butterfly by using eyedroppers and various colors of paint. We painted on one half and then folded our butterfly to create symmetry.
Used magnifying glasses to explore a variety of plastic insects.
Painted with watercolors on a walrus template.


Listened to the fingerplay "Five Little Speckled Frogs" at circle time.
Read Come Rhyme With Me by Hans Wilhelm, One Duck Stuck by Phyllis Root and The Wide Mouthed Frog by Keith Faulkner.
Practiced counting with our Busy Bugs Math Cards.

Continue to enjoy this beautiful spring weather! And enjoy the two newly planted maple trees in our playground. Thanks to all of you who made it possible with our fundraising AND for the dads who came in on Saturday morning to help plant them!

Your Team,
Miss Lori, Miss Donna, Miss Pat and Miss Jean

Letter V Week

The Very Good News this week...

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

Enjoy celebrating the Easter miracle with your families! We'll see you back at preschool in April after our spring break!

T-Th Preschool News - Week of March 16

Jesus said...
"Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

It's already letter U week, the perfect time to learn about the opposite words, Under and Over!

We made beautiful "Under the Sea" pictures this week, using some blue/green transparent paper. The children had fun using shapes to make collage fish for their artwork. Also, this week, we made beautiful candle pictures based on the song "This Little Light of Mine."

At story time, we read the books Under the Sea and Under the Ground both by Anna Milbourne. They are two of the wonderful Usborne books that were purchased from last year's fundraiser. Absolutely beautiful books!




For fine motor skills, we practiced writing our names in our name books and we played with the Stack and Sort toy. We loved stacking the pieces oh so high! We also played with our dry erase boards.
For large motor fun, we played a game in the classroom called "Stand on Your Toes." The children love listening to this song and doing what the music says. Each line ends with "this is the way we do it." The teachers get a real good work out with this, too! Here are all of the things we do along with the music...

Stand on your toes and stretch up high
Reach to the sky like you're climbing a rope
Hands on your waist, bend all around
Shoulders up and down
Spin your hands together
Stoop and touch the ground, and jump back up
Marching in place
Hop and kick your feet, first one now the other
Jogging in place
Do jumping jacks
Shake your arms out, high and low
Take a deep breath, and let it out
Sway side to side and clap your hands
Everybody give yourself a hand!

Lots of moving UP and down with that song! See you next time!
Miss Jean, Miss Lacy and Miss Pat


Thursday, April 1, 2010

MWF Preschool News - Week of March 16 and 23

Dear Parents,

First of all we want to thank each one of you for attending our parent conferences. The students are doing wonderfully as they are heading toward kindergarten. It is exciting to see their progress. The last two weeks have been extremely busy. Our themes were farm animals and spring! For our Letter U week one of our students brought in an umbrella. And Miss Pat brought in a vase from Greece for Letter V week. We changed our small groups so the children will have other peers to play with in on a smaller basis. We have had several highlights. One, was we were able to play on our playground once again! Two, Pastor Greg discussed the Palm Sunday theme as we are preparing for Easter, and the children sang " The BIBLE " Song. And three, one of our preschool parents Miss Mary from Kindermusik gave the children a delightful spring presentation with music, instruments, puppets and scarves! LET'S BRING ON SPRING!

Here were some other highlights of our past week.

Practiced using scissors and colored and cut-out a barn template and used stencils to draw animals..
Painted with animal cookie cutters using blue paint, and made a group collage..
Dipped vegetables into violet paint for letter V week to make broccoli and cauliflower prints.
Played with our Uppercase Letter Builders Game and our Can-Do Seasons Game.
Explored various vegetables with magnifying glasses in our Exploration Station.
Some of our favorite stories were The Little Red Hen by Paul Galdone,The Butterfly by Anna Milbourne, and Barnyard Boogie puppet book by Jim Post.

Hope you are enjoying this beautiful spring weather Have a great spring break and a blessed and happy Easter! See you back in school on Monday, April 5th!

Your Team,
Miss Lori, Miss Donna, Miss Pat and Miss Jean