Mrs. Horn's ELP Classroom Ministering to families in Jesus' love while embracing and enhacing each : Turkey Thursday

Thursday November 20, 2014

Welcome to the last Thursday of PDO in Mrs. Horn’s Classroom for the month of November. This time next week we will be with family, friends and loved ones as we give thanks for the many wonderful things God has bestowed upon us. We spent our day having fun playing with friends and a new friend that has joined our class. I am always so amazed at how loving, kind and supportive my little friends are when someone new comes to our class! We welcomed Reese to our class today and helped her become comfortable and learn the routines of what we do and when we do it.

We had a lot of fun playing with a new item that was donated to us. It allowed us the opportunity to really work on our sharing skills with our friends. WE/I love donations if you are doing some purging before Christmas and are thinking of taking things to Goodwill, please talk to me about donations you might have. We love books and our books are always well loved so those are always a great donation as well!

WE spent time today talking about Thanksgiving and certain things we may see, hear, taste or smell. We talked about whom we may see at Thanksgiving and what we do. Hopefully they will remember some of what we talked about and be able to relate to Thanksgiving a little more!

We are really working on using our listening ears we have had a few who have decided that running is the new “walking” in the classroom as well as jumping off the stage. We remind them that we need to use our walking feet and the stage is not for running and jumping but rather to sit on. This is all part of PDO helping them learn the boundaries and what is ok and not ok to do in a classroom setting. Enjoy reading about our day and looking at all of our pictures!

Jesus Time: Today we talked about how thankful we are for our church our home and our family. We reviewed 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. We talked also about how thankful we are for the house we live in that keeps us safe, warm and dry. We talked about how thankful we are that when we walk inside the door of our home there is always someone there that loves us. We talked about the important people in our family and we looked at a picture of my family today and I told them how important my family is to me.

During our center time we glued a picture of a house on a piece of paper and then we drew our family in the house to help us remember how thankful we are for our family. Be sure to look for these in the lobby through out the week.

Number: We continued 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 making a turkey with 4 FEATHERS!! We played a game to make our turkey we had a die that had different colors on it and when we rolled the die whatever color it landed on that was the color of feather we put on our turkey. We only rolled the die and put 4 feathers on our turkey. This was a great way for us to work on the number four taking turns, color matching and color identification. These beautiful turkeys will be displayed in our hallway through out the week. Some of my friends already did this project earlier this week and did not do it today.

Shape: We continued 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.

WE had fun using brown paint and stamping lots of brown crosses on a piece of brown paper today during our center time.

Letter: The letter “h” is the letter we are working on the next week or so. Today we looked at what the letter H looks like and sounds like. We heard some words that start with H as well such as, Happy, hello, high, hungry, ham, and hippo.

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.

Music and Movement: We had another great day dancing and singing. We also sang our ABCs, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Jesus loves Me. We really love Jumping, Counting and Holding our Breath! We also practiced our Five Finger Play about some silly Thanksgiving Turkeys! We are getting really good at singing Jesus Loves me and will start learning Away in the Manger in the next couple of weeks.

Outside Time: It was chilly and downright cold, but we braved it anyway for about 15 minutes. We had a lot of fun playing outside it has been awhile since we have been out so it was very nice change of pace. PLEASE BE SURE TO PACK HAT AND GLOVES WITH YOUR CHILD FROM NOW ON. ALSO, IF YOUR CHILD HAS MITTENS THOSE ARE MUCH EASIER AND FASTER FOR US TO PUT ON THEN GLOVES THANK YOU!

Patterning: We continue our pattern for the month of November. It is a little tricky at times but we are doing a great job with it. We practiced saying the pattern and counting to 10.

During our Center Time we practiced saying two new Thanksgiving words Pumpkin Pie and Cornucopia as we made our pattern. Some of us did a pattern of turkey and pumpkins as well.

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

Enjoy the pictures from our day!

.Free Choice Play

We started our day with some puzzles and playing with toys. During this time we continued to listen to some Autumn and Thanksgiving music.

.My friends found my letter puzzles and had a lot of fun playing with them. Not only were they connecting them together but they were being exposed the different letters of the alphabet and working on their colors as well.

.I am not sure what all was going on over here but it was a collaborative effort of coloring something on the dry erase board. I love to watch them work together and hear the conversations that take place. They were talking about things in their homes.

.Carson and Ella were very busy with the letter puzzle pieces. They made a very long road with them. It is important to have things at their disposal and let them see what they do. I have been waiting since the beginning of the school year for these to be discovered and they have and to watch them play and use them was great! This is what Free choice play is all about and every child needs to have that so they can explore, learn and play. (These were donated to me last year and the kiddos love them!)

.Our new toy that was donated to us we love playing with the school bus and we are really learning how to play and work together to be able to enjoy this new toy!

.Morning Meeting

This is the time of the day that we come together and sing our welcome song to see who all is here and then we do the calendar, dress Mr. Weather Frog, learn about the number and shape of the month. We then move onto our color board that we identify different objects that are in the color we are learning about for the month. This also a great way we introduce new words into our vocabulary. WE then have Jesus time and practice singing Jesus Loves Me. Ask your child if they know the song you might be quite surprised how well they can sing it! We then practice a pattern for the month and practice counting to 10. We then will read a book and pray for snack.

.Sitting for Morning Meeting the sun was so bright this morning we had to close the shade to see

.We practiced counting 3 purple squares on our calendar and we talked about how it was the month of November and the 20th day.

.Mr. Weather Frog was dressed for the STL today we talked alot about how important it is to wear a coat, hat and mittens when it is cold outside.

.After Jesus time we read a book about Grandmas that was so silly and in the end we discovered that Grandmas can do a lot and not matter what they can or can not do they love us a lot and give us lots of hugs and kisses.

.Today we talked about how important family is during Jesus time and I showed the students a picture of my family and talked to them about how important my family is to me and who all the different people in my family are.

.Transition Time

This is the time we get ready to wash hands for snack. Each child was given a leaf with their name on it and they had to wait for their name to be called so that they could come match their red or yellow leaf to the feathers on my turkey. This helps us with using our listening ears, following directions, waiting our turn, identification of colors, color matching, letter and name recognition.

.When all our leaves are on our turkey we find a Mickey Mouse to stand on and we wait in line to go wash our hands.

.We have lots of friends that are potty training which is awesome. When we are washing our hands we stand on the wall till it is our turn to go to the bathroom and wash hands. When we are done we sit down and wait for Mrs. Horn or Mrs. Linneman to tell us it is time to stand up and walk into the classroom for snack.

Circle Time

We spend the time after snack doing a few songs and dancing, singing our ABC's, talking about the current letter "H" and reviewing our letter sounds. We then read a book and then work on our colors and Mrs. Horn draws a picture of something that pertains to our current theme and the children help identify the colors. WE also work on a finger play for the month.

.Jumping and counting

.Holding our breath as we jump and turn around! I love to see the kiddos do this one!

.We read this book all the wonderful things God has created and how thankful we are for all he has done and given us.

.Our color identification board we also worked on counting how many eyes, feet and feathers Mr. Turkey has.

.Our letter sounds book.

.Group Activity

Today we all glued a house and drew a picture of our family using markers. Be sure to check the lobby for your family portrait.

.Outside Time

.Center Time

This is the time of day that we work on different things we are studying and learning about. As we work on these centers they are done in small groups of 1 or 2 students at a time. Usually 2 centers at a time are taking place and the children are allowed to explore the classroom and play.

Sponge Painting a Cross