MWF Preschool News - Week of March 21

V is for Volcano! First we built up our volcano around a plaster mold with a plastic container on top. We had so much fun playing with the clay!


We took turns adding clay until we ran out of time (so we made a second one on Wednesday!)


We put vinegar, baking soda and food coloring and watched what happened!


In a couple of days, the volcano was all dried up and started to crack! Maybe we'll make another one some day!



See you all at conferences! Have a wonderful spring break!
Miss Amy, Miss Michele, Miss Jean and Miss Pat

TTh Preschool News - Week of March 21

We are very ready for spring! To celebrate, we made some beautiful spring art work to hang in our hallway! Some of the hand prints may look familiar to you :)


We are looking forward to seeing everyone at parent teacher conferences. Thank you all for participating!

Have a wonderful spring vacation! We will see you in April!
Miss Jean, Miss Amy and Miss Pat

TTh Preschool News - Week of March 14

...the Universe was formed at God's command. Hebrews 11:3

Hello Tuesday-Thursday Families!

It feels like spring is finally here (and on Sunday, it will be official)! We are soooo glad! We've already begun to feel some of those warmer temperatures, and today we even had a chance to play outside on our playground! We brought quite a few things outside with us. We saw how the wind made our parachute fly out of our hands. We brought out balls and practiced throwing UNDER HAND to each other, we took turns sliding down the slide, and we had fun chasing the bubbles that Miss Jean made!

This week our focus was on the letter U and the color blue. There were so many things we did...


For art on Tuesday, we made Under the Sea pictures. On Thursday, we painted on canvas with blue and yellow paints. It made green for St. Patrick's Day!
For music and movement, we listened to "Going on a Bear Hunt." We also practiced walking on our rainbow rope inside the church building. We want to make sure that everyone follows our safety rules inside before we start taking walks outside!
We practiced our fine motor skills by playing with modeling clay. It looks like play dough, but it's a lot harder to work with! We really strengthened our hand muscles while we played! Some of us learned how to make hearts out of clay!
We used tweezers this week to pick up different shaped pastas and sorted them using muffin tins.


We had so much fun exercising our larger muscles by throwing crumpled paper into our small classroom size basketball hoop! I think we'll be doing this activity a lot more around here! Don't be surprised if your children start asking for your scrap paper at home!!
We had even more fun playing with soapy water in the Exploration Station! Some of us had so much fun that we needed to change our shirts (thank you for keeping those extra clothes here!).

We read a wonderful book called "The Colors of Us" by Karen Katz about a little girl named Lena who takes a neighborhood walk with her mother. She sees friends with skin of all different shades of brown...skin that looks like honey, peanut butter, pizza crust, peaches, chocolate, and more. The boys and girls ALL listened so well to the story, which tells us that they must have really enjoyed it.
Another story they enjoyed this week was "In the Tall, Tall, Grass" by Denise Fleming. The children learned about all kinds of animals that they might be hiding in the grass: Beetles, snakes, birds, and fireflies were just a few!

And if your child brought a "ticket" home from school this week, it may have been from their "train trip to the mountains!" If your child didn't go on the imaginary train trip this week, they will have a chance again on Tuesday!

Remember that next week will be a short week for the children. No school on Thursday due to conferences. And yes, child care will be provided!

Happy Spring!
We can't wait to see you next Tuesday,
Miss Jean, Miss Amy and Miss Pat

TTh Preschool News - Week of March 7

Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Proverbs 3:5

Hello Tuesday-Thursday Families!
Spring is just around the corner, and boy, are we happy about that! We are so looking forward to taking walks outside and playing in the playground again! Did you know that children and adolescents should get 60 minutes of physical activity each day? It's true! For more information, check out what the Centers for Disease Control suggest. Just click HERE!

This week we took the children to the gym in small groups to play with balls. They love to roll them and kick them and try bouncing them. They are still a little young to be expected to bounce balls or play catch with them, but we still have so much fun and use up lots of energy in the gym using them!

Here are some of the other things we did at preschool on Letter T week...
We practiced our fine motor skills and learned about a new shape by making plates of "Tasty Triangles." They are taped to the office door if you'd like to see them up close!


We learned a new way to hold crayons and learned about textures while we made crayon rubbings with our Texture Plates. What can you use at home to make your own crayon rubbings? We'd love to see your results!


We practiced our matching skills as we played with the Texture Dominoes. Some of the circles were smooth, some were bumpy, some were slippery. It was a good opportunity to learn some new words to express how those textures felt.


We also spent some time learning the capital letters of the alphabet when we played "The Alphabet Game." The children picked a letter, and put it in the matching square. If they knew the name of the letter they would tell us, and if they didn't know it, we taught them what it was! We had lots of fun learning!


We also made some beautiful "stained glass" windows on Thursday with our college student helper, Miss Lainey. The boys and girls had so much fun with our special visitor! Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

We look forward to seeing you all on Tuesday,
Miss Jean, Miss Amy and Miss Pat

MWF Preschool News - Week Of March 7

This is the day the Lord has made. Rejoice and be glad in it! Psalm 118:24

MWF Preschool Families,

We had a terrific week here at the preschool. This week we learned all about the letter T.

On Wednesday we painted pictures using textured rollers. The rollers made designs on our paper with blue paint. We also made pictures using crayons and texture plates. We learned that if we rubbed the crayon over the paper sideways when it was over one of these plates that a really neat picture would appear on the paper.


We practiced our fine motor skills this week when we sorted multicolored teddy bears into tins by only using tweezers. It could be a little tricky sometimes.

We had Chapel on Friday and learned all about the stained glass windows in the sanctuary. We even learned how they were made. We had so much fun learning about it that we decided to make our own out of paper. They turned out so beautiful, and now they decorate the office window.

This week we also read listened to the stories The Best-Loved Bear by Daina Noonan and Elizabeth Fuller, and “Slowly, Slowly, Slowly” said the Sloth by Eric Carle. We played with balls in the gym, and practiced matching our alphabet letters. We even had a visit from the bookmobile! We were so excited to pick out new book for the classroom.


Looking forward to seeing everyone again next week!
Miss Amy, Miss Michele, Miss Jean, & Miss Pat

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

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

MWF Preschool News - Week of March 8

Dear MWF Families,

The theme for this week was our five senses. Monday the children received a vision and hearing screening from our local county health department. Everyone participated wonderfully! We also went on a walk on Friday. During the walk, we practiced using our senses. We saw a UPS truck, felt the wind, heard the local traffic, and smelled fresh air. And we were able to taste yummy vanilla cupcakes, as we celebrated a birthday for one of our students.

For our letter T week a student brought in a Teddy Bear and a little pony named Toola-Roola. On a bittersweet note, we said goodbye to one of our students who is going to a full time preschool program. We made special cards to say goodbye to him and send him best wishes. Next week we will have fun exploring the theme of Farm Animals.

Here were some other highlights of our past week...

Our local bookmobile paid a visit and we chose new library books for our classroom.

We painted with sponges shaped like the letter T and Triangles.

We drew with Chalk Cray-pas to explore other textures of creating drawings.

Played with Texture Dominoes.

Marched around our building with maracas, bells and tambourines and sang our favorite songs, including Christmas carols in March!

Watered our bean seeds and observed one is sprouting.

Used our fine motor skills and played with tweezers and counting plastic Teddy Bears and placed them into muffin tins to practice sorting and counting.
Looked at I Spy Books
Listened to the story We Are Going On A Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen. Great Rhymes and Sounds are in this book for Senses Week.
Read the story My Five Senses by Aliki.

We will see you in two weeks for our Parent Teacher Conferences. Please note that there is
NO SCHOOL on Friday, March 26. The teachers will be busy meeting with you!! Enjoy this beautiful sunny refreshing weather! (Our playground is beginning to dry...Yippee!)


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

Nine More Days Till Spring!

T-Th Preschool News - Week of March 8

Another fun filled week of learning at Tiny Treasures!

We continued our unit on the Five Senses this week, exploring the world of taste and touch! We also are already on letter T week, so we did several activities related to the letter T. I think one of our favorite times this week started out at our rainbow rug when we explained to the children how to "trace triangles." The children immediately commented on how the triangles look like pizza, and everyone wanted to say WHAT should go on top of a pizza! Here's what we heard...

Macaroni & Cheese

Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwiches

French Fries

Rice

Paw Prints (ew!)

A Unicorn

Cheese (there must be a realist in our group!)

Crayons

Feet

Our Heads!

So, if your child is suggesting strange pizzas at home, this may be why!!

Here are some of the other things we've been doing this week at school...

At greeting time on Tuesday, we made some beautiful flower petals that will be hanging up soon! On Thursday, we played with puzzles (which gave the teachers a little more time to assess those puzzle skills!)

We brought out some musical instruments and played along to Ella Jenkin's CD "You'll Sing a Song and I'll Sing a Song"

We traced some triangle shapes and learned that triangles have 3 straight sides (just like pieces of pizza!)
We played with two science games this week - one about seasons and one about bugs

We explored some unique pieces of nature at the exploration station: Milk Weed stems and seed pods, Queen Anne's Lace stems, Locust Tree seed pods and a Wasp nest. The children were fascinated to open up the Locust Tree pods and see all of the seeds inside. They also REALLY enjoyed blowing the Milk Weed seeds around the room!

We brought out tanagram shapes to make pictures

We used some textured bug templates to make crayon rubbings

We practiced making patterns and learning colors while we played with our counting bugs

At story time we heard two more stories in BIG BOOK form: The Seals on the Bus by Lenny Hort and The Little Red Hen by Paul Galdone

We also went out to the hallway in pairs with Miss Jean to have some puzzle and name recognition skills assessed.

For a simple "Get Ready for Spring" activity, make a paper chain at home to count down the 10 more days to spring! I know I'll be making one at home (even if my kids are 18 and 20!)

Have a wonderful weekend!

Miss Jean, Miss Lacy and Miss Pat

T-Th Preschool News - Week of March 1

Hello Tuesday-Thursday Families,

This week we began our two week unit on the 5 Senses! We started out this week learning about sight, sound and smell. I think my favorite part of the week was making bread in our bread machine and smelling it as it baked!

Here are some of the other things we've been busy with...

At greeting time, we played with our pink play dough with spring and Easter cookie cutters

For art we colored some snakes on Tuesday, and cut them out with scissors on Thursday. The children did so well staying safe with the scissors! We remind them that they must stay seated when using scissors!

We played with dry erase boards and dry erase markers. Many of the children would sit down and start writing their names without even being asked to. They sure know how to make the teachers smile!!

We planted bean seeds in sandy soil. We talked about how the seeds will need sun and water to grow. We'll be watching them carefully over the next few weeks. The seed packet said it would take 7 to 10 days for the seeds to sprout.

We had sand and alphabet molds in our exploration station. We also had a spray bottle to help moisten the sand (it was very, very dry!). The children did so well keeping the sand in the sand table and only using the spray bottle on the sand!!

We heard the story My Five Senses by Aliki. It is one of the BIG BOOKS owned by our preschool. The children love our big books because they can see the pictures so well. If you stop by your local library, they have a wonderful selection of "Big Books" - definitely worth a visit!

We took advantage of the warmer weather this week by taking a walk with our rainbow rope. There's still too much snow in our playground, but maybe the warmer March weather will make that snow go away soon!

See you next week!
Miss Jean, Miss Lacy and Miss Pat

MWF Preschool News - Week of Mar 1

Dear MWF Families,

We hope you had a wonderful day off for Casimir Pulaski! Dr. Seuss Week was a fun and silly week! We gave the children plenty of opportunities to “shake their sillies out!” And we enjoyed looking at everyone’s silly socks they wore to class for Silly Sock Day! We also took advantage of our warmer temperatures and took the children out for walks on both Wednesday and Friday. We played with streamers in the gym, and practiced marching and skipping while holding the multi-colored streamers in our hands. The students also played “Follow The Leader.” For our Letter S week, one of our students brought in a soft striped kitty. We played please pass the soft kitty to practice patience, manners and following directions. We hope you get a chance to shake your sillies out this sunny weekend! Next week we will explore the Five Senses.

Here were some other highlights of our past week.

We made Cats in the Hats with round circle and hat shaped paper templates.
The children decorated them with crayons, markers, and stickers.
Practiced writing numbers and the alphabet with Stencils.
Played with Sequence Activity Cards.
Planted bean seeds in the sand as a science experiment to see if they will grow.
Explored an “Oobleck” mixture of equal parts of corn starch and water. It makes a liquid/solid type mixture. Some children were quite fond of it. And some chose not to touch the ooey gooey substance.

Miss Jean brought out a new transportation tabletop game which the students really enjoyed.
It was a great hit! We’ll bring it out again next week!

Listened to the story Green Eggs and Ham and parts of the story of The Cat in The Hat by Dr. Seuss

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