WINDY WEDNESDAY!

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

I hope everyone got to enjoy the three-day weekend and had a wonderful Valentines Day.  We had lots of friends out today due to illness please read below about our rule on when you can return to school if your child has been out sick. 

Today we continued along our journey of the number 7, the color pink, the shape of the heart, learning about Zacchaeus and about our letters.  We are learning and doing so much in the classroom it is amazing to watch and see how much all of my little friends are learning and doing.

We are really concentrating on sitting during our morning meeting and making sure that we are keeping our hands to ourselves and not bothering our friends around us. We are continuing to work on our new prayer the Superman Prayer see if your child can help you recite it. 

Thank you, God for giving us food

Thank you, God for giving us food

For the friends that we meet,

For the food that we eat,

Thank you, God, for giving us food

Amen!

Many of our friends have been fighting colds, coughs, fevers and snotty noses.  As a reminder your child needs to be fever free for a complete 24 HOURS before returning to school.  With that being said we are really enforcing hand washing, covering our mouths when we cough or sneeze and using a tissue to wipe our noses. 

Enjoy reading about our day and viewing the pictures. 

Jesus Time: This week's Bible story comes from Luke 19:1-10

A Very Short Man

Everywhere Jesus went there were crowds of people.  In one crown there was a very short man named Zacchaeus.  He wanted to see Jesus, but he couldn’t’ see over the crowd so he climbed a tree.  Jesus said, “Zacchaeus, come down so we can go to your house today.”   Zacchaeus hurried down and took Jesus to his home.  Zacchaeus wanted to do good things.  He told Jesus that, he’d give half of his money to the poor. 

Today during our center time we made a tree for Zacchaeus and glued him in the tree and Jesus at the bottom of the tree.  While we worked on this project we practiced singing the song about Zacchaeus.  Ask your child if they remember any of the song.  Below are the lyrics to the song. 

Zacchaeus was a wee little man; a wee little man was he. 
(Using both hands, make it look like you are showing the size of a very small man.)
He climbed up in the sycamore tree, the Savior for to see. 
(Using both hands act as though you are climbing up a tree)

And when the Savior passed that way, He looked up in the tree, 
(using you fingers, make it look as though someone is walking.)
And he said, "Zacchaeus, you come down from there; 
For I'm going to your house today, for I'm going to your house today."
(Start clapping your hands when singing this verse.)

Number:  We continued learning how to count to the number 7 I was pretty impressed by how well some of my friends are doing counting to 7 all on their own.  We practiced counting 7 fingers, jumping up and down 7 times, counting 7 hearts and clapping 7 times.

During our center time we had to place heart shaped stickers on a large number 7 we had to place stickers on each little seven inside the big 7.  Using stickers is a great fine motor skill it helps us work on our pincer grasp and transferring from one sheet to the next.  We started this activity by counting the how many little number 7 we had this is where I watched to see who could count all on their own. 

Shape:  It’s all about the Heart this month so we continued to work on recognizing the shape of a heart

We focused during our center time cutting out a heart that was folded in half.  Some of my friends were able to do this on their own, others needed help holding and maneuvering the paper and others need help holding the paper and cutting with scissors.  No matter where your child falls in cutting with scissors they all cut their own hearts out.  They got to choose the color red, purple or pink.  This allowed us to work on color identification.  Once the color was chosen we cut out our heart and then we painted it with pink paint. 

Color:  Pink is our color for the month we had fun placing different pictures on our board.  Ask your child what pictures were put on our color board.

During center time we painted our hearts that we had cut out with pink paint.  These will be displayed in our classroom be sure to check them out. 

Music and Movement: We sang Jesus Loves Me, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. We had fun learning the Zacchaeus song as well The Wheels on the Bus, I’m Bringing Home a Baby Bumble Bee and Five Little Ducks.

Outside Time: With the ground covered in snow we did not get to go outside today but we did walk to the commons to play with the balls, tunnels and some funny rubber animals and our other friends from the PDO classes. 

Patterning:  We continued working on our pattern today of pink and purple hearts.

We are continuing along our letter journey today we learned about the letter H and made a heart print with our hands for our letter Alphabet book.  . 

We are doing lots of exploring, learning and discovering all types of things through out the day in our classroom.  Everyday is an adventure and everyday is different.  Which is the beauty of working with this age group. 

Enjoy the pictures from our day!

Free Choice Time

With such a small class today our Free Choice Time was a little longer than usual. We enjoyed listening to some Christian Rock Music during this time of the day.  

Play Dough 

We enjoyed playing with the pink play dough today.  We worked on rolling out the play dough and smashing down the play dough so we can make heart cut outs.  Play dough is a great way for us to work on our sensory and fine motor skills.  

. Puzzles

We did lots of puzzles today.  Big puzzles, little puzzles, three d puzzles, puzzles on the floor and puzzles on the table.  Puzzles are a great way to foster problem solving skills, fine motor skills and self control and today a little bit of team work!

. Morning Meeting

We counted four colors that each had 3 squares.  Calendar time is a great way to foster a sense of time.  We are exposing them to the day, the month as well as working on color and number recognition.  

. We read this book today about Froggy getting a pet.  Froggy got a dog that he named Doggy and how he had to go about taking care of him.  

Transition &Snack Time

. Commons Time

We braved the cold and ran as fast as we could to get in the main building.  

. Circle Time

We came back from the Commons and practiced singing our ABC's, talking about the letter H, reading a book and playing a shape matching game on the magnet board.  

. My friends really liked this book about Dogs building a tall building.  We thought it was funny to see the dogs swimming in big pool on top of the big building they built at the end of the book.  

. Shape Matching

I gave each student a shape and when I put up a shape on the magnetic board I asked which friends had the same shape and then they brought their shape up to match to my shape.  This activity allows us to work on many different areas, color and shape identification, following directions, listening skills and self control in learning to wait our turn.  

. Center Time

We spent time exploring the classroom and working on our key themes for the month.  

Art Easel

We had lots of coloring going on today on the art easel.  

. Jack working on matching the color to the picture.  We love puzzles. 

. The girls had fun playing with the cylinder blocks.  They had fun talking to each other through them.  Imaginative play is exploding in our classroom it is so neat to observe what they are doing.  

. H is for Heart

. Number SEVEN

. Coloring

. Tracing some Hearts

.Bingo Daubers

Not only were we working on our fine motor, pre-writing and self control skills.  But we also worked on our patterning skills and color identification.  

. Bible Story Center

. Cutting and Painting a Heart

. Music and Movement 

After we sang some songs we read this book about what we do when it starts to snow.  We talked about what we did on our snow day Monday.  

. Transition & Lunch Time

Today as we got ready for lunch we took turns throwing a bean bag through our big red Valentine heart.  This helped us with our gross motor and throwing skills.  

. We missed many of our friends today at school and pray that they feel better soon and they are able to join us next week at school.  Don't forget to wear something PINK if you have it in your wardrobe as we finish up the month of February.  Have a great weekend and don't forget to take time to worship our lord and savior Jesus.  STAY WARM!!