T-Th Preschool News - Week of October 25

Do to others as you would have them do to you. Luke 6:31

Hello Tuesday-Thursday Families!

What an exciting week we've had at preschool. The highlight of the week was probably our Halloween celebration, but we did so many other fun things as well! And before I forget, let me say thank you, thank you, thank you to all of the parents who have been volunteering their time in the classroom! I can't remember the last time we had so many parents come to play with us at preschool. We hope you enjoy your time in the classroom as much as we enjoy having you!

At our art table this week, we had so much fun making masks! The teachers cut out a variety of shapes ahead of time, and the children were allowed to create ANY kind of mask they wanted to. The results are hanging above the cubbies!


We practiced our number recognition by playing with play dough and fun acorn counting cards.

For letter D week, we brought out our dinosaur toys (always a BIG hit with the children!)

We also played with some magnetic letter blocks to help us learn our letters A through D and to help us practice our fine motor skills and pencil grip.


On Thursday morning, we colored our trick or treat bags. On the bag was a pumpkin and the words, "Shine with the light of Jesus!" A wonderful Halloween message for all of us!

And of course...there were the costumes on Thursday! The classroom was full of princesses, but we also had a bunny rabbit, a Mario, a bumblebee (that didnt' sting!) and a butterfly. The children had so much fun when we lined up to trick or treat in some of the rooms of the church! The women's Bible study especially enjoyed our visit to them!


After trick or treating, we said our grace prayer on the steps and went back into the classroom for a wonderful Halloween snack (or should I say feast? I suspect that many of us didn't have room for lunch when we got home!). Thank you parents for supplying our trick or treat goodies and our yummy snacks for the morning!

We will look forward to seeing you next Tuesday for a shortened week of school. Remember there is no school on Thursday, due to parent teacher conferences. Enjoy those October Shutterfly photos that will be coming your way soon!

Fall blessings to you and your families!
Miss Jean, Miss Amy and Miss Pat

MWF Preschool News - Week of October 25

Do everything for the glory of God. 1 Cor 10:31

Dear MWF Families,

What an exciting week we had at preschool! We had an entire week full of activities and a Halloween celebration. This was also Letter D week, and many of our activities reflected our letter of the week. For Show and Share we had two students bring in a purple dolphin and a stuffed dog to share with the class. We listened to the story The Dinosaur by Anna Milbourne, played with dominoes, and practiced writing the letter D. We also practiced letter recognition and our fine motor skills when we played with our alphabet stencils.


Some of us practiced our scissor skills by cutting out rectangles and triangles.


We made a picture by dripping Red and Yellow paint onto paper with droppers and using a textured roller created a design on the paper.


We also played Duck, Duck, Goose and had a Silly Dance Contest.

This week we sang the Christian song “He’s Got the Whole World”, and we had a lot of fun taking turns at making up some of our own verses to the song. We discussed how GOD has everything in his hands and how he watches over each and every one of us. This week we listened to the story of “Daniel in the Lion’s Den” and “Jonah and the Fish” out of our Children’s Bible.

We also had so much fun celebrating Halloween this week. We participated in several activities to help celebrate this holiday. We painted spider webs on black, blue, or purple construction paper with white paint. We counted 100 spiders and creepy-crawly creatures on our One Hundred Poster. The children had so much fun dressing up in costumes for our Halloween Celebration and going Trick-or Treating throughout the church building. We had a wonderfully large snack followed by a paraded about in our Halloween costumes. Thank you to all of our parent volunteers who have made our Halloween Day such a success! Thanks to each of you for your contributions. We will see you at our Parent Conferences next week!

Miss Amy, Miss Michele, Miss Jean & Miss Pat

T-Th Preschool News - Week of October 18

Clothe yourself with kindness. Col 3:12

Dear Tuesday-Thursday Preschool Families,

What an exciting week we had at preschool! The highlight of the week was probably the visit from Firefighter Jeff and his friends on Tuesday. We all got to see what a firefighter looks like wearing all of his protective fire fighter gear, and we even had a chance to sit inside a real fire truck!


Pictures will be coming your way via Shutterfly real soon! We learned how important it is to "Stop, Drop and Roll" if our clothes ever catch on fire, and we were told to have our moms and dad check the smoke alarms in our homes to be sure they are working. This would also be a good time to decide on an outside meeting place for your family in the event that you ever did have to get out of your house quick!

Here are some of the other things we did this week at preschool...

Introduced the new letter of the week...Letter C!
Drew pictures for our firefighter friends for a "thank you" book
Painted with red and yellow paint on flame shaped paper
Practiced using scissors a little more
Played a number game we call "Bears in Squares" (it helps us with our number recognition and counting skills)

Learned a "Stop, Drop and Roll" song (sung to Skip to My Lou)

If your clothes catch on fire, what do you do?
If your clothes catch on fire, what do you do?
If your clothes cathc on fire, what do you do?
I will stop and drop and roll!

(and of course, we practiced stop, drop and roll, too!)
So check your smoke alarms everyone, and stay safe! See you next week!

Miss Jean, Miss Amy and Miss Pat

MWF Preschool News - Week of October 18

Children, obey your parents in all things. Col 3:20

Dear MWF Families,

October is Fire Prevention Month, so this week our class took a field trip to the Fire Station. There the children watched an Elmo video about fire safety, and met Firefighter Jeff. Firefighter Jeff gave a wonderful presentation on fire safety and showed everyone the fire trucks and ambulance. The students especially loved climbing aboard the fire truck to get their picture taken. Another firefighter put on his uniform and equipment, and showed the children what a firefighter crawling around in a fire would sound and look like.


Later in the week, we practiced crawling low to the ground in an obstacle course to practice Stay Low and Go for fire safety. The children learned so much about fire safety.

Here are some of the other things we’ve done this week at school…
We glued stems and seeds on our pumpkins we painted last week. Then we practiced counting the seeds that we had glued.
We made a Thank You book for the fire fighters at the fire station and included pictures we made for them of our favorite things that we had seen there.
We read Firefighters by Norma Simon and Fred The Firefighter-an Usborne Book.
We practiced counting and sorting colored cotton balls and picking
them up with tweezers.
We practiced tracing and writing the letter C.
We also cut along a large template of the letter C to practice our scissor skills and then glued colorful circles to the letter.

Last week I sent home our Show and Share bags for Letter C week, and this week we had two students bring in items to share with the class. One student brought in a camera, and another student brought in a cat.

We had so much fun this week, and we are looking forward to Letter D Week and the week of Halloween!

Miss Amy, Miss Michele, Miss Jean & Miss Pat

MWF Preschool News – Week of October 11

Be kind to one another. Eph 4:32

Dear MWF Preschool Families,

We’ve had another great week here at the preschool! This week we focused on Pumpkins, and the Letter B. Appropriately fitting with our letter B theme, we had our first bookmobile visit this week. All the students had the opportunity to visit the book mobile and they each picked out several books to bring back to the classroom to read.

Here are some other things that we did for letter B this week…Used paint and dish soap to make bubble art work
Practiced tracing and writing the letter B as well as our other alphabet letters
Used our Busy Bugs Math Set to practice matching both colors and patterns


Played with our barnyard and farm animals
Practiced bouncing balls in the gym

This week we also took a close look at what was inside of a pumpkin.


Friday we painted paper plates orange to resemble pumpkins and we will finish them next week.

See you again next week!
Miss Amy, Miss Michele, Miss Jean, & Miss Pat

T-Th Preschool News - Week of October 11

Be still and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10

Hello Tuesday-Thursday Families!

It's letter B week! We had another wonderful week learning and playing at preschool! I hope all of you enjoyed seeing the photos that were left in your cubbies, too. All of the children look wonderful!! Please return the photo orders to me by next Friday, October 22. That way we can be sure to have the photos back before Thanksgiving break.

Here are some of the things we've been doing this week...
We played with play dough and plastic letter stamps at greeting time.
We had so much fun singing along with the song "Going on a Bear Hunt"
We heard the story "Fall Leaves Fall" by Zoe Hall.
We practiced our scissor skills and our number recogntion skills by cutting out some numbered pumpkin shapes.


We had fun painting this week with orange paint and some rubber texture brushes.


On Tuesday, we made drawings of what we thought was inside a pumpkin. Then on Thursday, we brought a pumpkin into class, and got to find out what was really inside! Here's what the children thought might be inside a pumpkin...

A monster
A monster and a seed
Lots of stuff
A lot of orange things
A pumpkin

Have fun carving your own pumpkins at home this month! Have a wonderful weekend!
Miss Jean, Miss Amy and Miss Pat

T-Th Preschool News - Week of October 4

All things were made by Him. John 1:3

Hello Tuesday-Thursday Families!

This is the first week for our "Letter of the Week" theme! For the next 26 weeks, each week we focus on a letter of the alphabet. We also began a new month, and with the new month, we have new colors that we are focusing on (orange and black) and a new Christian character trait (self control).

The scripture verse on our bulletin board this week says, "For the grace of God teaches us to live self controlled, upright and godly lives." (Titus 2:11-12)
We explained to the children that they are showing self control when they are able to sit quietly at the rainbow rug and listen during story time, and when they are keeping their hands and bodies to themselves.

Here are some of the other things we've been doing during Letter A week...
We brought out orange crayons at greeting time on Tuesday to color some "orange" coloring sheets and on Thursday we colored in a Bible "book" about Noah's Ark (we hope the children been having fun finishing that book at home!)

For art, we used foam ABC stamps and orange paint on Tuesday and on Thursday, we made beautiful fall tree collages with torn paper.


For pre-writing and literacy, we brought out some fun alphabet puzzles. We also practice making circles by tracing around plastic circle shapes. We also played an alphabet game where we matched capital letters.


For stories this week, we read "ABC I Like Me" by Nancy Carlson and "On Market Street" by Arnold and Anita Lobel.

See you all on Letter B week!
Miss Jean, Miss Amy and Miss Pat

MWF Preschool News - Week of October 4

As for me and my family, we will serve the Lord. Joshua 24:15

Dear MWF Preschool Families,

We had an Amazing week at preschool. This week was “Letter A Week” so many things that we did in the classroom involved using the letter A and our Alphabet.

Here are several of the things that we did in preschool this week…

For art, we used our fingers and ink pads to put ants on our orange letter A paper, and made an apple mural using cut apple pieces and red and yellow paint.


We practiced writing both our uppercase and lowercase letter A, and played an alphabet game.


We worked on matching numbers together, listened to many stories about our ABCs, and sang our Alphabet song.
We also practiced our balancing skills by walking around the gym with bean bags on our heads. We even challenged each other to a bean bag race, to see who could make it to the other side of the gym without letting our bean bags fall off of our heads. This was a big hit with everyone!

Enjoy the long weekend! We will see you again next Wednesday!
Miss Amy, Miss Michele, Miss Jean, & Miss Pat

MWF Preschool News - Week of Sept 27

Dear MWF Preschool Families,

We have been having so much fun this week learning about the Signs of Fall. Our leaves are just starting to turn colors. It would be a great time to take a nature walk with your family at one of our nearby forest preserves!

Here are some of the things we've been doing this week...
We had our pictures taken by Miss Leslie (proofs should be in next week!)
Each child was assigned their own letter at the rainbow rug. They will keep these letters for a few weeks.
For art, we painted with yellow, red and orange paints. We also made beautiful fall tree pictures using torn pieces of fall colored paper.


We practiced our fine motor skills this week by playing with our Bug Lacing toys.
We brought out our notebooks and colored pencils to have fun with our pre-writing skills. The children each have their own spiral notebook, and they can "write" or draw anything they want in it!
We played a game of "Hot Tomato" to encourage the children to share and wait their turn for something.
At the playground this week, we brought out our parachute! We had so much fun learning how to lift the parachute high in the air. Once we learned how to do that, we were able to take turns "trading places" with each other while the parachute stayed up! We also took a "nature walk" and looked for signs of fall (we also saw the moon during daylight hours!).
At story time this week, we heard "Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf" by Lois Ehlert, and "I Am a Leaf" by Jean Marzolla.

We also learned a new finger play this week, called "Five Leaves"

Five little leaves so bright and gay
Were dancing about on a tree one day
The wind came blowing through the town,
And one little leaf came tumbling down.

(Continue with 4 leaves, then 3,2, 1 and 0)

Enjoy the weekend! See you next Monday!
Miss Amy, Miss Michele, Miss Jean, & Miss Pat