Thrilling Thursday!

Thursday November 06, 2014

People often ask me if I enjoy working with this age group and I honestly can say I love my job!  Your children make me smile, laugh and just make life that much more enjoyable.  I witnessed today some really great friends helping other friends.  From helping with getting lunch boxes out of cubbies to helping pick up a snack or cup that had fallen on the floor to making sure our friends are ok when they fall down.  We were introduced to the color brown, the shape of a cross, the number 4, the letter G and learned why we are so thankful for our Church.  We also started learning about Thanksgiving and becoming familiar with new words associated with Thanksgiving.  Please read what all we did below today. 

Jesus Time: Today we talked about how thankful we are for our church. We talked about how the church is a place we can always go to to feel welcomed and loved.  That Jesus is always there to listen to us.  We also learned how thankful we are for the two awesome pastors that we have at Zion, Pastor Mark Rouland and Pastor Jason Reitz, Zion has been so very blessed to have such great Pastors help us learn about the word of God. 

During our center time we painted a picture of a church with watercolors and talked about how much we enjoy coming to church.  My friends on Thursday love to water color they take their time and use lots of different colors. 

Number:  We started learning about the number 4 today. During our Morning Meeting we were introduced to what the number 4 looks like.  We then practice counting our 4 fingers, clapping 4 times, jumping up and down 4 times, stomping our feet 4 times, rubbing our tummies 4 times. 

Center time led us to using stickers to place on the number 4 on a maze of all different numbers.  It was tricky at times to find the number 4 but we all did a great job finding it.  Using stickers helps us work on our pincer grasp, as we have to peel the sticker from the sheet to the paper. 

Shape:  We started our study of the shape of a cross today at Morning Meeting as well.  We learned that we can make a cross with our fingers and that it is made with two lines.  We talked about places we might see a cross.  Hopefully we will be able to make trip to the church this month to find some crosses on the wall in the church.

Letter: The letter “G” is the letter we are working on the next week or so.  Today we looked at what the letter G looks like and sounds like.  We heard some words that start with G as well such as, Giraffe, Goofy, and GO GO!!  Gorilla, gorgeous and guitar to name a few more.

We had the opportunity during center time to color a picture of a Gorilla playing the guitar.  We practiced saying the letter G and the “G” sound.  Your child’s letter G coloring page should have come home in their red folder today.      We also used a brown bingo dauber to find the dots on the letter G. 

Color:  Brown is the color for November.  During Morning Meeting we looked at what the color brown looks like and identified some brown objects on our color board for the month of November. 

We painted with the brown paint today to make a squirrel that will be hung up with our fall tree in the classroom. 

Music and Movement: I love dancing with this class we have so much fun, we laugh, sing, dance and just have a great time.  We did a variety of songs today Jumping and Counting, Silly Dance Contest, Shaking our bodies down, Head shoulders, knees and toes our ABC’s, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Jesus Loves me. . We practiced a new finger play call the Five Little Turkeys

Outside Time:  It was too windy outside today so we headed for the commons to play and run and burn off that energy we keep stored up.  After our commons time we took a small walk around the school in search of crosses.  We found some along with some other really neat stuff.  Be sure to check out in our pictures what we found. 

Patterning:  We started a new pattern for the month of November it was introduced during Morning Meeting of orange and brown leaves.  We practiced saying the pattern and counting to 10.

Science and Sensory:  We have had lots of fun fall things in our sensory table this past month and it will be in the sensory table next month.

Cutting:  Today we cut a pilgrim or and Indian and then we had to match the pieces up to make our person.  Be sure to check our wall for our thanksgiving pictures!

Enjoy the pictures from our day!

Today we listened to a variety of classical music that had an autumn theme to it.  It was great to see how well the students played with each other and just moved around the room exploring and playing.  We had fun playing with new and different toys as well as checking out some of the new furniture in our classroom. 

New table allows us to work on our block building.  Today we had out bristle blocks that we are learning how to connect together.  

 Airport saw a lot of action again today. 

Trying our hand at a little artwork on the easel. 

Playing with some new and different animals. 

We had new puzzles to try out and play with 

Some new cars as well to roll around the room 

We had fun lacing big buttons on a string 

  The cash register was another hot item in our classroom 

Painting a Squirrel Brown for our tree

Morning Meeting

Ready to sing our morning song.  We are doing really well at coming over when everything is cleaned up in the room. 

We practiced counting the 6 squares on our calendar today.  

Mr. Weather Frog was dressed for this very windy day in the STL

Our new number and shape for the month.  We also counted out four turkeys while we talked about the number 4. 

We are jumping up and down 4 times! 

During Jesus Time we talked about how we are thankful for our church and pastors. 

New pattern for the month.  We practiced saying it together and then counting out the 10 leaves 

We read a favorite today!  They did a great job listening to the story and helping me say all the animals and colors at the end 

Transition Time

Today we had to put a red or yellow leaf on our turkey.  We had to match our leaf to the correct color feather.  This activity is helping us with following directions, listening for our name, color identification, matching, and name and letter recognition.  

Snack Time

Circle Time

We decided to do a little jumping and dancing before we sat down! 

Holding our breath as we Jump, Turn Around, Clap our hands and stomp our feet! 

To get ready for our walk to the main school we had to put a Fall Magnet on our magnet board.  

We are doing great at standing in line on our Mickey Mouse Ears! 

Common Times 

This is where we get to run, play and be free with our other friends from PDO!  

Our Walk Through the Main School

We found some scarecrows as we came through the lobby 

Someone spotted and Angry Bird that one of the 5th graders had colored to go along with their ANGRY VERBS project 

 Ella spotted a big orange pumpkin 

Nicholas found a tree with red yellow and orange leaves on it.  

Ahh and we had to stop a check out the school bus in front of the office.  Today we counted 5 square windows on our bus.  I am not sure of what the attraction to the school bus is but they all love it! 

Sarah found a big Cross on the wall by the front doors.  They noticed that Jesus feet were hurt at the bottom of the cross.  

We found a cross made out of hands in front of Mrs. Bernhardt's door

We stop through out the school to count how many friends we have in our class.  Today our magic number is 9! 

Walking in the hallway.  We have to practice using our walking feet and our quiet inside voices and not touch the walls

Julija found a cross  on the all outside Mrs. Burgess 5th grade class 

Sarah found a cross outside the commons door. 

Mrs. Linneman stopped in the kitchen as we had walked around.  The kiddos spotted her in there and they thought it was so neat that she all of a sudden appeared in the Kitchen.  So we met the Lunch Ladies today! 

Sarah said this looked like a gingerbread man 

We spotted an orange pumpkin outside Mrs. Stangelin's preschool classroom 

We found a cross on Mrs. Lail's Kindergarten bulletin board 

Sophia spotted a cupcake on Mrs. Helmkamps preschool wall

Emma and Carson looking in to see what is going on in a preschool classroom 

Nicholas spotted a cross above Mrs. Hoehenr our half day preschool teacher's classroom door. 

One more cross we found in the early childhood wing! 

We found a colored circle to stand on and then we headed back inside for center time! 

Center Time 

Water coloring a Church to remind us how thankful we are of the church we attended. 

Letter G

We had a great day in our classroom so much fun that my IPOD used up the whole battery while we were in the middle of center work.  I apologize for not having pictures of the end of our day.  We had a blast at music and movement.  Have a wonderful weekend!