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

Preschool News - Week of October 11

It's letter B Week! A perfect time for us to introduce a very familiar song about a very important book. And now, you even have the words to it so you can sing it with your children!

Thank you to our snack helpers last week, our shopping volunteers who brought back kleenex, cardstock and drinking cups, and to the moms who took home our towels and dollhouse toys to be cleaned!! We appreciate all of you so much!

Reminders for next week.....
MWF class will meet AT THE FIRE STATION on Monday at 9:30 for our field trip! The field trip should end around 11:00, when we will be dismissed for the day.
Mixed Bag orders due in Monday at noon
Picture orders are due in on Wednesday, October 21
And now for our weekly news....

Dear Tuesday-Thursday Families...

We had so much fun this week learning about what was inside a pumpkin. Before we cut open the pumpkin, the children all had a chance to say what they thought was inside. Here are some of their ideas...juice, goodie bags, a pumpkin, goodies, and chocolate! After we cut the top off, we explored the insides and found lots of seeds and lots of gooey orange stuff (one of the children thought it looked like a spider web!). We learned that we can make pumpkin pie from the inside walls of a pumpkin, and we found out that many of us have eaten pumpkin seeds before! Here are some of the other things we did for letter B week...

At greeting time, we colored a B is for Bible coloring sheet and drew pictures on orange construction paper.
For story time, we read a big Weekly Reader poster about Baby Animals and heard the story Birds by Kevin Henkes.
For art, we made prints using bubble wrap print blocks on pumpkin shape paper. We also colored with some orange crayons that were shaped like circles.
For fine motor and hand strength, we played with orange play dough and fall shaped cookie cutters.
For math, we counted and sorted different colored bears. It was one of the favorite activities of the week.
For our small group time by the steps, we played with the train set and we got to walk across a balance beam.
We also played bean bag catch and bean bag basketball in the gym this week. It was so much fun, that I'm pretty sure we'll repeat it again for next week if we can't go out to the playground!

See you all next week when we learn about fire fighters and fire safety!!
Miss Jean, Miss Lacy & Miss Pat



Dear MWF Families...

This week our harvest theme was Pumpkins and it was also Letter “B” week. For our Show and Share Miss Lori brought in a silly looking “Bee Bug.” We sent our Show and Share Bag home with one of our students who will bring in a letter C item next week. At our exploration station we had a real pumpkin with the lid cut off to explore its inside. Most of the children used spoons, but there were a few brave ones who felt the pumpkin with their fingers.

We played Duck Duck Goose in the gym on Wednesday due to a light drizzle that day. On Friday we went to the gym and tossed beanbags into a basketball hoop and also into buckets. We also listened and acted out the motions to a Beanbag Song in the classroom. We were very thankful to have a parent helper with us on Friday! Thank you so much! Our theme for next week will be Firefighters and Fire Safety. We will see you at the Fire Station on Monday for our field trip!

Here are some of the other things we’ve done this week at school…
At Greeting Time we played with play dough and rolling pins, and colored and drew on a pumpkin sheet.
At Circle Time we listened to the Five Little Pumpkins Fingerplay and played a sharing game of passing the pumpkin.
At Art we created little pumpkins by tearing orange construction paper and gluing the pieces on to mini paper plates. Also for Art we painted little wooden bugs and butterflies, which we will turn in to magnets. And on Friday, some of us colored some BIG pictures of Bugs!
For Science and Sensory we explored a real pumpkin.
For Language, Literacy and Math we used stencils to write the numbers from zero to nine.
For Dramatic Play we played with the Barn and animals. We also played with pretend medical kits.
For Construction we played with Builders and Benders, Cardboard Bricks and Blocks.
During Small Group time we looked at a variety of books on Pumpkins.
For Faith Based Ideas we sang the song “He’s Got the Whole World in His
hands,” and talked about God’s great protection. He gives us Courage.
We also sang the B-IB-L-E Song.

Looking forward to the season,
Miss Lori, Miss Donna & Miss Pat

Preschool News - Week of October 4

Hello Preschool Families!

It was Letter A Week at Preschool, and it was absolutely amazing! A good time to remember that...

"...All things work together for good to those that love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." Romans 8:28

A big thank you goes out to all of our preschool angels, especially...
Our families who have provided snacks for us recently and
Our shopping angels who have donated Goo-Gone and more painter's tape!

A few quick things to mention...
1. Now that the weather is getting colder, make sure that your child is dressed appropriately for our outside play time! It's definitely been "jacket weather" these last few days! I'm hoping that next week doesn't bring out winter wear!!
2. Please send your child to school in shoes that are safe for active play. We suggest "gym shoes" for everyone. Dress shoes, clogs and "crocs" are hazardous to those little ankles when we are out in the playground or when we are inside playing in the gym.
3. Our fund raiser from Mixed Bag Designs will run through October 16. Thank you to everyone who has already participated in this unique new fund raiser!
4. All of you should have received an order form for the amazing class photos that were taken recently. Please try to return those to me by October 20.

(PS...Mixed Bag orders and photo orders can be dropped in the gray box next to our sign in sheet)

And now onto our weekly news....

Dear T-Th Families,

We've had another fun and exciting week at preschool! The rainy weather kept us indoors, but that just led to even more fun playing with balls in our BIG gym! We broke up the class into two smaller groups (one with Miss Lacy, and one with Miss Jean). While one group played in the gym, the other group stayed in the classroom to look at books and hear some stories. Here are some of the other things that have been going on in our Tuesday-Thursday class:

For art, we used big ABC stamps with orange paint and we made alphabet collages on orange paper. We also played with playdough and pretended to make acorns with some acorn caps.
For our pre-writing and fine motor practice, we played with alphabet puzzles, and practiced learning and writing the first letter of our first name.
For math, we brought out some different sized plastic circles, and used big pencils to trace around them (also great for developing our fine motor skills and hand strength). We also worked on learning numbers 1-10 by hearing a rhyme about a hungry little squirrel. It went like this...

Ten little acorns, sitting in a tree
Teasing Mr. Squirrel, "You can't catch me!"
When along came the wind
And shook that tree, then
SNAP! Went the squirrel,
Happy as can be!

Everyone had a squirrel at our rainbow rug with a different number on it. When the acorn with the matching number "fell" out of the tree, that child got to SNAP the acorn away! (Miss Jean was inspired this week to write that little rhyme. It was based on the original rhyme about the monkeys in the tree who were teasing Mr. Alligator)
For science, we explored real antlers at our Exploration Station. Many of the children were excited to learn that they grew out of the head of a deer. The antlers were given to us by a forest preserve employee who saves them for education purposes.
For dramatic play, we continued playing with the doctor kits. The children love to role play and work through some of their "fears" about going to the doctor. We also had a chance to play with our workshop bench and tools in the hallway by the steps.


Dear MWF Parents,

Once again we are very pleased to announce that we have another new student in the classroom! He is a wonderful addition to our class! Our M-W-F class is now at full capacity. Hip, hip, hooray!

Miss Lori was very thankful to have Miss Lacy from our 3’s Class and Miss Jean help out in Monday’s class (Miss Lori was at home recovering from a foot injury). And we are always thankful for Miss Donna and Miss Pat too!

This week we learned about the letters of the alphabet, focusing on letter A for letter A week. We brought in antlers to explore, with supervision, of course. The children really enjoyed looking at them. Also Miss Lori brought in her friend Allie the Alligator for Show and Share, and taught the children an Alligator Rap Rhyme. And we explored the insides of an apple. We also celebrated another birthday this week, and played outside on our playground both days.

Here are some of the other things we’ve done this week at school…

We used ink pads and stamps and stamped letters on the letter A.
We made Apple prints by pressing halves of apples into red and yellow paint on painting paper. We made two huge paintings as a group.
At Greeting Time we looked at ABC books and worked on puzzles.
In small groups, we played with our workbench and tools by the steps for dramatic play. We took turns picking out our tools and learned that we can "trade" a tool if someone had one that we wanted. One group had a fabulous time "fixing the sink" on their house. There was some great role playing going on!
We practiced writing letters of the alphabet. we are especially encouraging the children to start their name with an upper case letter, and using lower case letters for the remaining letters.
We practiced counting and number recognition with apple cut-outs that had matching "worms."
We listened to part of the book ABC by Heather Amery and Stephen Cartwright.
We heard the book AA Is For Aardvark by Mark Shulman. This book was from the local library and it had words in it with double letters! (Aardvark for AA, puddle for DD, kitten for TT, etc.). A very clever bOOk!

Enjoy the long weekend, and we will see you back at school on Wednesday!