Monday, November 13, 2023

 It's great to be back today! 

Two quick reminders...

Thanksgiving Food Drive 2023...Zion's Student Council is organizing the annual Thanksgiving Food Drive for Seminarians and their families. Each grade is assigned certain items, preschool is asked to bring in canned fruits (all varieties) & canned vegetables (french green beans, corn, and beans: baked, kidney, and black). Items will be collected thru Wednesday, November 15 (there is a basket outside the classroom to place donations).

There is NO school Monday, 11/20 - Friday, 11/24…enjoy your Thanksgiving break!

Here we go...

Many friends improved writing/drawing skills as they painted with watercolors...

Just when we thought we had created it all...more new magnatile creations!!!

Silas and Baylor created the world as they see it when playing in the bakery!

A few friends plan and work together as they complete a puzzle!

Excitement was in the air as Tricky Mouse arrived with upper and lower case letters on squirrels and acorns!  Where was he hiding, he couldn't fool us...we knew each letter and found him every time!

Time for a little SCIENCE!!!

There was a tub of water in the classroom and then a pumpkin appeared!  Did you know a pumpkin is a fruit? 

First, each child took a turn inspecting/observing the pumpkin...we decided it was pretty heavy!

Then, each child predicted "Will the pumpkin sink or float?"

We decided that more friends think the pumpkin will sink rather than float.  We knew this because the line of names for "sink" was longer! But, we double checked by counting how many names we had for each...yep...8 is more than 3!  The ability to compare using more, less, and the same is an early math skill!

Everyone was SUPER excited to find out what would happen!

We counted down from 10...9...

The pumpkin FLOATS!!!

We HAD to check out what a pumpkin looks like inside...

We learned:

The orange, outside of the pumpkin is the skin

The "thing" that sticks out of the top is the stem (where it is attached to the vine while it is growing)

The "goo" on the inside is the pulp

And...there are seeds for planting to grow more pumpkins (or to eat!!!)

Off to another wonderful day to get our bodies moving outside...

Time for small groups (centers)!

With Mrs. Mudd we improved our patterning skills!  Each friend had a chance to finish to patterns already started for them, and create one pattern on their own.  Success for some was getting some guidance, while success for others was completing all the patterns by themself.

We wrote our new fall words (from our word wall) in our journals.  We improved our writing skills and are beginning to understand that strings of letters make up words!

We improved hand eye coordination as we weaved shoestrings in and out of Thanksgiving lacing cards!

We improved small motor control and eye-hand coordination as we worked with the pumpkin "guts" and pulled out all the seeds.  (Mrs. Mudd plans to bake the seeds for us to try tomorrow!)

We then enjoyed some time playing with friends on the parking lot playground...

During Jesus time today Zippy visited, so excited about a superhero toy. He wished that people could have specials powers too. But, we reminded him that God had awesome powers to do great things...taking care of us is one of them!

Have a great night...