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!

T-Th Preschool News - Week of Dec 13

Hello Tuesday-Thursday Families,

We've been so busy all month long preparing for Christmas! We've been busy making paper chains so we can "Deck the Halls"...


We've been painting with red and green paints...


But most importantly, we've been preparing to celebrate the birth of Jesus!


Here are some of the other things we've been doing lately...
Developing our fine motor skills while we painted, played with play dough and made paper chains (you'd think it was really letter P week here!)
Decorated Christmas trees to put over our cubbies
Traced our hands onto brown paper so we could make reindeer antlers
Worked on our pre-math skills using our peg boards and colorful pegs


Listened to some wonderful Christmas stories including...
The Stable Where Jesus Was Born by Rhonda Gowler Greene
My Christmas Alphabet by Claudia Kunin
This is the Stable by Cynthia Cotten
Who Was Born This Special Day by Eve Bunting
The Night Before Christmas by Clement C. Moore

And of course, we celebrated Christmas in Fellowship Hall with many of you! It was so wonderful to see you there. Enjoy your time away from school, have a wonderful Christmas, and we'll see you back at preschool in 2010 (January 5th, to be exact!)

Christmas Blessings to you and your family!
Miss Jean, Miss Lacy and Miss Pat

MWF Preschool News - Week of Dec 6

Dear MWF Families,

We have had so much fun celebrating Christmas and the birth of baby Jesus this week. For our Letter I week, our student brought in her favorite polar bear whose name is Icy. (How fitting for this time of year!) We have had some very cold and slippery days this week, so we have stayed indoors for our large motor play. Monday was extremely special because we had a special guest, one of our preschool parents who specializes in Kindermusik came in to sing many fun Christmas songs, and we played a variety of instruments too! She also had puppets! The children really enjoyed this activity! Many thanks to our special parent helper! Wednesday we had the Bookmobile arrive and each student had the opportunity to pick two books! Friday was a great day which started in the Chapel with our two pastors who shared the Christmas story with us! And later that day we went on a Jingle Bell Caroling Parade and shared some Christmas songs with our seniors at their day program. You should have seen the smiles on everyone’s faces…and the seniors joined along! We will see you at our Christmas Party on December 18th @ 10:30 a.m. We wish you peace this Christmas!

Here are some other highlights of our week…

Painted red and green at the Easels
Used stamps on Christmas Trees
Created a fun igloo/ice sculpture with sugar cubes and icing (for display only.)
Explored a variety of musical instruments during our small group time.
Read the story Ten Little Christmas Presents by Jean Marzolla
Looked at I Spy Christmas Books by Walter Wick
Played a favorite group game “Where Is Your Cookie Little Mouse?”
Heard the story Cock-A Doodle Christmas! By Will Hillenbrand
Enjoyed playing with our Christmas Manger Cloth Figurines
Explored a variety of insect replicas
Most of all we really enjoyed celebrating Christmas!!!

MWF Preschool News - Week of Nov 29

Dear MWF Families,

Brrr…as I write this newsletter it is cold outside. How quickly the winter and Christmas season are approaching! This week our theme was signs of winter and Letter H week. For Show and Share one of our students brought in a Rescue Heroes Helicopter. The children really enjoyed its working propeller. On Monday and Wednesday we were able to play outside on the playground. On Friday we opted to stay in because of the slippery sidewalks and icy areas on our playground. We played “Red Light Green Light” in the gym. How fitting for the colors of our month! The students really enjoyed this game, and it is a great game to learn how to listen carefully and follow directions. They learned very quickly green means go and red means stop! We are just beginning to celebrate Christmas in our classroom, especially with the emphasis on the birth of baby Jesus and the importance of giving. Looking forward to seeing all of you at our Christmas Celebration, on December 18th at 10:30 a.m.! Peace and Joy to you this Christmas!

Here are some other highlights of our week.
We used scissors, glue and crayons to make lovely Homes
Painted coffee filters with watercolors and cut them into snowflakes.



Used tape to make Christmas Hoops, (like a paper chain.)
For our fine motor skills, we practiced using paper punchers with paper strips.
Played Hopscotch, Rescue Heroes, and Hands Down


Read Highlights High Five Magazines.
Listened to a squirrel fingerplay and talked about Hibernation
At our Storytimes we listened to Merry Christmas Big Hungry Bear by Don and Audrey Wood and Hurry! Hurry! Have You Heard?, which is a nativity story by Laura Krauss Melmed

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