Wonderful Wednesday on a ROLL!

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

We had another awesome Wednesday we have turned the corner and we are doing great.  We had a lot of fun today making things to help us learn about Thanksgiving and the season of fall.  It was a little tricky when we dressed Mr. Weather Frog even though it felt like winter it is still fall.  We had a new fun toy in our classroom today that was so graciously donated to us by a parent.

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 continue to work on our life skills in PDO this is something that we do everyday. Something you can do at home with your child since we are entering the frigid winter months is helping children learn how to put on their own coat.  Other things you can do to help your child become more independent are by having them clean up after they play with toys or after they have a snack or lunch.  When we are done with snack and lunch at school we ask our friends to put their things away we may have to help but we are trying to teach them how to put their things back in their lunch boxes and to put their lunch boxes away in their cubbies.  A lot of times during these times of the day you may hear myself or Mrs. Linneman say to a friend …”What do you need to do now?  Where does it need to go? “  Have your child help you in the morning pack their backpack for school have them put their lunch box and folder in their backpacks, and put their coat on. Just these small things will not only help your child learn independence, it will also help prepare them for preschool as well as help you out!   Please be sure to read all about what we did today and enjoy the 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.   

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.

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.

Today we were able to paint a leaf the color brown that will be cut out and displayed in our classroom proudly

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 too cold outside today so we stayed down at the Sonshine center and played in another PDO classroom

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.

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

Today we continued to listen to musical selections of Autumn and Thanksgiving Music most of it was classical.  But set a great tone for our class as we move about the classroom learning, playing, exploring, laughing and talking.

.Check out our new toy it will be with us for a while and then we will share it with our other PDO Friends and possibly Preschool Friends.  We had so much fun playing with this that we forgot all about some of the other toys in the classroom. 

.Morning Meeting

We are working really hard at sitting for morning meeting and using our listening ears to hear what Mrs. Horn has to say.  Our Morning Meeting lasts for about 15-20 minutes 

.We talk about the number and shape of the month

.We do the calendar we say the month, day and date.  We talk about the number(date) and what color the square is for the day and then we count all those squares that are the same color.  

.WE talk about our color of the month and identify different objects of that color.  This is not only to help your child recognize the color but to also expand their vocabulary

.We dress Mr. Weather Frog which can be a challenge at times like today.  We are getting really good at identifying the different things he may or may not need. 

.WE sing our Bible Song and then talk about Jesus today we talked about how we are thankful for our homes and the things inside and then we talked about ...

.The most important thing in our homes is our families.  I had a picture of my family and we talked about all the different types of people in our family.  I come from a big family as you can see and I am truly thankful  and blessed for all of them! 

.We also work on a pattern for the month I start the pattern and then go around the class asking what comes next.  They are really good at this. We then count how many things we have in our pattern it will always be 10

.We end our circle time with a book.  Today we read a book about the Leaf Man and how he goes wherever the wind blows him.  The pictures were a little tricky at times but it was a great tie into our Fall/Thanksgiving theme. 

Transition Time

We then pray for snack and listen for our name to be called to attach our leaf to the same color of feather on our Turkey.  This activity is designed to help us move from one activity to another as well as work on self regulation, listening, following directions, color identification, color matching, letter and name recognition.  After our leaf is on our Turkey we need to find a pink or purple Mickey Mouse to stand on so we can walk to wash our hands for SNACK! 

.Snack Time

While we eat snack we work on sitting in our chairs with our feet in front of us and facing the table.  When we are done with our snack we ask our friends to put their drinks and anything else left over from Snack in the tub.  We do not do this for them if they have not done this we ask them to go back and take care of their things.  This is helping them to be independent and responsible for their things and self. 

.Circle Time

This is a time where we sing a few songs read a story, practice our ABC's and learn about the letter we are studying and practice our letter sounds.  We also spend time working on color identification as a draw something that pertains to what we are learning and studying about. 

.This book was great it talked about all different types of families! 

.Group Center

Before we headed off to play in another PDO Room we did a center all together.  We glued a house and drew our family in the house be on the look out for these in the Lobby! 

.Waiting Patiently in the hallway on the "Cloud Wall" to play in Mrs. Schenk's PDO ROOM. 

.I LOVE THESE LITTLE FRIENDS OF MINE AND AM SO THANKFUL THEY SPEND EVERY WEDNESDAY WITH ME! 

.Building a Turkey 

.Center Time

We used bingo daubers to decorate and Indian and to work on our color matching and pattern skills.

.Painting with Brown Paint

.Making Indian Corn

Using orange, yellow and brown paint and a q-tip we had a lot of fun making Indian Corn.  It was a great activity to work on our self control! 

.Patterning

.Special Thanksgiving Gift

Be on the look out next week for a special Thanksgiving gift from your little Turkey! 

.Music and Movement

This class has come really far in this area of the day!  They have finally caught on that it is okay to look silly and goofy and it makes Mrs. Horn feel so much better when she has her friends dancing with her! 

.Claire is closing her eyes and Jumping, turning around, clapping her hands and stomping her feet.  WE love this song!

Taking our Leaves off our Turkey

 WE are just about done with the day we transition to listening for our name and pulling our leaf on our Turkey and finding a Mickey Mouse on our floor so that we can go wash our hands for Lunch! 

.One final book for the day about Daddies and how special and unique they are to all of us.  We are all very lucky to have such wonderful Daddies in our lives and we are thankful for all they do for us big and small!  

Whew!  We had a lot of fun today as you can see by our pictures.  I hope you all have a wonderful evening and blessed weekend.  I look forward to seeing you all next Wednesday as we will finish up our studies on the number 4, the shape of a Cross, the letter H,what we are thankful for the color brown and the holiday of Thanksgiving!