Friday, December 9, 2016

Happy Friday from Mrs. Mudd's class!

We had a bit of a small group today, but it was still a great day...

Our friends not here Monday or Tuesday began their morning with a special check-in..."How Many Gingerbread Cookies Tall Are You?"  Each friend was measured in gingerbread cookies (using and understanding non-standard forms of measurement is an early math skill)!

Then each friend found that same number on our graph.  Once he/she found the number, he/she practiced writing his/her name on a vertical writing surface!  EVERYONE wrote without his/her name tag today!!!

SJ, Davis and Liam improved small motor control coloring a Charlie Brown Christmas paper.  

Laina, Brooke, and Claire were hard at work using their "iPads" to teach each other at their dramatic play "school" today! What a fun way to construct the world as they see it!

Reese and Jack decided to take a little time to "read" to each other this morning!  

We then finished up morning meeting with Wiggle Worm...he is back!!!  Today he brought with him uppercase letters on snowflakes.  If wiggle worm was picked from the bag...everybody WIGGLE, then stop!  Having to stop is tough, but it helps us learn self regulation!

  If a letter is picked, that friend told everyone the letter name and the letter sound!

We headed to the church for one last practice before our live Christmas service!!!

See you this Sunday, December 11 at 4:00 pm in Zion’s sanctuary (we will meet in Zion’s fellowship hall, lower level, at 3:45 pm). We will worship together and celebrate the birth of Jesus through songs, pictures, and words spoken by our Preschool and Kindergarten students!

Our guest reader for today, Charlotte R (a fourth grade student here at Zion) read to us a fun, cute Christmas book, "The Littlest Christmas Star".  Max learns that many times the smallest job is often the most important!  We sure do look up to the "big kids" at Zion, so it was awesome of Mrs. Ernstmeyer to let us try having a fellow student as a guest reader!  Charlotte did great and our friends LOVED it!

Surprise...Mrs. E's class then gave the book Charlotte read to the class as a gift!

Time for small groups (centers)!

With me, we built snowmen!  The bottom of the snowman had an uppercase letter, the middle had a lowercase letter, and the head (with hat) had a picture on it.  Our friends job was to build the snowmen by matching the uppercase letter, lowercase letter, and then finding the picture that started with that letter.  Recognizing/Identifying letters and words that begin with that letter sound are early literacy skills.

These Christmas trees were empty.  Our friends sorted ornaments by color or design to decorate each tree.  (Sorting is an early cognitive skill)

With Mrs. Dose we worked on "roll and color gingerbreads".  Each took a turn rolling dice, counting the number of dots, then finding the gingerbread man with that numeral on it to color.  (Quantifying and connecting numerals to their quantities are early math skills)

We love books and we love getting to "read" to friends.  We used pictures to give us clues what the story is about.  We used those clues to "read" the story to each other!

We loved our outside time, improving our large motor skills...even though it was still quite cold outside!!!

During Jesus Time today Zippy was so excited to tell everyone about his new baby sister.  He reminded us that with God's help we can tell everyone about Jesus, just by saying to others "Jesus loves you"!  So as you wake up each new day, remember...JESUS LOVES YOU!!!