We had a great day in preschool!
First, 3 reminders...
Muffins for Moms…is tomorrow morning, Wednesday, November 4th. Moms meet in the church basement between 7:00 and 7:45 AM to enjoy a donut and some coffee or juice with your child(ren). Everyone is invited to stay for chapel if you can. What a great time to spend time with the kids before they go off to school! Mom can’t make it? We would still love for your child to be able to enjoy the time with a special friend, grandma, or aunt! If your child doesn’t attend on Wednesdays, you can still come and enjoy the morning in the church basement and sit with the class during chapel!
Tomorrow, Wednesday, November 4 is a half day (school dismisses at 12:00 this day) for teacher in-service. Please make arrangements to have your child picked up at 12:00 this day. We will not be eating lunch at preschool, but we will have morning snack. If you pre-registered your child to attend half day care in the afternoon, he/she will need a cold lunch with a drink, a snack with a drink, and his/her nap bag (we will send down with him/her) while at half day care!
Thanksgiving Food Drive…11/9 - 11/18. Student Council is collecting Thanksgiving food donations for Concordia Seminary families (here in St. Louis). They have decided to try something new and assign specific food items for each grade in order to receive enough items of each kind. The goal is to pack 20 Thanksgiving boxes as well as stock the Seminary Food Bank (food, bathroom supplies, cleaning supplies, etc.) Preschool has been asked to donate canned fruit and canned vegetables. Bring in your donation anytime between 11/9 and 11/18!
And...here's our day...
Many changes to the classroom since we were here last week! The post office is closed and a puppet theater has opened! A great way to role-play real life situations.
The easel is back with plain white paper to create however we choose! And...it gives us a chance to improve small motor control.
Then there were magnatiles...squares and triangles of different sizes with magnets inside each edge! Not only are we improving knowledge of 2D shapes, we get to create up and or out to learn about 3D shapes! Understanding and recognizing shapes is an early math skill!
We had a special check-in today..."November My Name" (for those not here yesterday)! While each friend wrote his/her name I took note of pencil grip, copying name or writing name from memory, letter knowledge, etc.
It's been awhile since we've had fog during our first morning outside time! Our friends were excited that we were going to get to mark "foggy" on our November weather tally sheet! Activity of choice this morning was run...run...run!!!
We noticed that our weather tally sheet was new with only one mark on it from yesterday. And, the October pie graph was filled in! We studied more, less, and the same (equal) as we compared the 3 months we've filled in so far this school year! Understanding more, less, and the same is an early math skill!
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!
Today we introduced the letter "C"!
We remembered start your letter "at the top" then BIG curve to write a "C"! Then we came up with words that start with "C"!
Anytime one of our friends thinks of a word that starts with "C" we can add it to our big letter. Or, if at home, your child sees a small picture or item that starts with an "C", bring it in and he/she can glue it to our big letter!
Then we practiced writing "C" with our special handwriting without tears crayons (nice and short to reinforce proper grip)!
Time for small groups (centers)!
Our final step to our community helper project..."What do you know now about community helpers?" I took dictation as each friend told me what he/she knows now about community helpers!
On our own we improved patterning skills! Each friend had a paper with different apple items or fruit items on it. His/her job was to figure out the pattern and complete it with the correct picture!
With Mrs. Dose we expressed creativity and thought about what each of us is thankful for. We began working on Thanksgiving placemats to use at school the week before Thanksgiving break!
We improved our writing/story telling skills today as we wrote in our journals! The "assignment" was to write a story or draw about what he/she did for Halloween! The ability to write/draw to convey meaning is an early literacy skill.
After all that hard work in the classroom...off to the playground to get the wiggles out!
During Jesus Time today we learned of God sending snakes to the Israelites camp because they were complaining to God too much. The snakes bit people, some even died. But, God told Moses to put a bronze snake on a pole. God told Moses that if the people had faith in His promises, when they looked at the snake, they would be saved! We remembered that God saves us too! If we look to Jesus in faith, believing He is our Savior, He will take away our sins!
