12 days of Christmas

Check out the 12 Days of Christmas put together by Miss Limback's Kindergarten class.
Look for us singing "4 calling birds"

We had a lot of fun at our Christmas parties.

On Tuesday we got to make Christmas tree ornaments with colored rice and sequence, we had cookies and pretzels for snack, and we played "Hot-Potatoe, Rudolf"

On Wednesday we made Sanda Claus with our handprint, played Christmas bingo, made Reindeer food, and played pass the present.

On Thursday we got iced out. : (

Christmas Break... We will have an early dismissal on Tuesday at noon. We will still have lunch on Tuesday, but everyone must bring their own lunch. Classes will resume on January 4th. I hope everyone enjoys their Christmas Break.

This week some of us also got to paint candy canes. We read a book about the meaning of the candy cane.

Next week we will be voting on our favorite building block books. If your child misses out on the voting next week feel free to stop by your local St. Charles County Library and vote before December 31st. We have read the following books:

1. Put it on the List

2. I Can Do it Myself

3. Pout-Pout Fish

4. The Great Dog Wash

5. Duck Rabbit

6. Can you Make a Scary Face?

7. The Birthday Pet

8. The Princess Pig

Shhhh it's a secret!

This week we have been working very hard on a secret; however, I'm sure that some of you have found out. We are very excited about the presents we have made for Christmas.

We also had fun making Stars/Snowflakes to hang up in our classroom.

We worked very hard practicing for our Christmas service this Sunday. We have done a really good job learning our songs and did very well at our full practices on Wednesday and Thursday. Seeing the kids share the message of Jesus' birth will be wonderful.

In Jesus time we dressed up like angels and sheep as Mrs. Helmkamp (the shepherd) told the story of the Angels and the Shepherds. It was a lot of fun wearing costumes for Jesus time.

Christmas Service on Sunday
We will meet in the church basement at 3:40 for our Christmas Service. The preschool class will meet inside the glass doors in the basement. Remember that all preschoolers are asked to bring 3 dozen cookies for the reception following the service.

Christmas Parties
Next week we have our Christmas Parties on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 9:30-10:30. Parents are welcome to come and join us for our party on any of the days. Each party will be different.

Milk Money Project
Next week is the last week we will be collecting money for the school in Indonesia. We received and email with pictures this week from the missionary there, that I will share with the kids next week.

Last Day before Christmas Break
December 21st will be an early dismissal day which means we will dismiss at 12 PM. There is no after school care on this day. We will have lunch at school but all students will need to bring their lunch.

Advent is Here

I enjoy getting ready for Christmas so much. I love getting out my boxes of Christmas decorations and making everything festive.

The kids were very excited when they got to school this week and saw the Christmas tree in the classroom. We also have several nativity sets for the kids to play with.

This week we worked on several Christmas projects. We made a Christmas tree in which we had to sort the pieces by size. We also had a lot of fun blowing paint with a straw to decorate an ornament for a display in the gym.We started decorating our classroom Christmas tree by making candy cane ornaments.

Christmas Service December 12, 2010
Please don't forget the Early Childhood Christmas Service. This is a great opportunity for the children to be able to share the message of Jesus' birth in their own way. We would like all of the preschoolers to meet in the church basement at 3:40 so that we can get ready for our processional.

Scholastic Book Orders
The new book orders for December are now available online. The fliers went home this week. If you would like to order please go to www.scholastic.com/parentordering
If you have not ordered yet this year you will need the Class Activation Code: GPGJT

Winter Weather
Winter has very quickly come. Just last week we were having severe thunderstorms. When the weather is colder we don't spend as much time outside, but it is important for us to get outside and get some fresh air. Please make sure you send your child with a warm winter coat, hat, and gloves.

Preschool Thanksgiving Feast

I hope that everyone is enjoying their Thanksgiving Break.

Before Thanksgiving we enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving feast together at school. Both classes of preschoolers came together to have snack. Each preschooler decided whether they were going to be a Pilgrim or Wampanoag. We made our own skillet popped popcorn and had a pumpkin cream cheese dip.

Here are some pictures from Tuesday and Wednesday:

Excitement of the Day

We got the chance to witness something very exciting this week during lunch.

The kids were really surprised to see this track hoe pull into our playground.

Quiver River came out to pull out the light pole that doesn't work.

Having this light removed will make planning the playground improvements much easier.

The whole process probably only took about twenty minutes.

Thankfully they were done in time for us to go outside to play, but it did take us a lot longer to eat lunch since many of us stod to watch the excitement

Preparation

This week we have been very busy getting ready for our Thanksgiving Feast. We all made a Pilgrim costume and a Wampanoag Indian costume. The students especially had fun making colored noodles and stringing them to make necklaces.

Making our costumes gave us lots of practice in fine motor as we cut out feathers and put the noodles on the string.

Next week for our "feast" we will join together with Mrs. Masa's classes on Tuesday and Wednesday to have a special snack. Everyone will get to decide whether they want to be an Indian or a Pilgrim.

Building Block Picture Book Award

Please see the previous post to find out what books we will be reading and your child's oppertunity to vote on their favorite book.

Thanksgiving Break

Don't forget that we will have early dismissal on Wednesday at noon. We will eat lunch at school but there will be no school lunch available.

Early Childhood Christmas Program

Preschool will be learning a few new songs when we get back from Thanksgiving that we will be doing as part of our Christmas service on December 12 at 4 PM. All preschoolers are asked to bring 3 dozen cookies for the reception after the service.

Milk Money Project

Every year students at Zion participate in service projects around Christmas time as a way to help the students remember that Christmastime is more than just presents. Last year the early childhood department sponsored an orphange/school in Indonesia. We were able to help the orphange provide milk and other protiens to the children. We will be looking at some pictures sent to us from the school to help the students see who we are collecting money for. When kids bring in their milk carton you can let them bring it into the classroom and dump it into our big milk jug.

2010 Building Block Picturebook Award

Zion Lutheran School, in conjunction with the St. Charles County Library, wants to recognize excellence in Children’s Literature and encourage reading out loud to children. Research shows that when you read out loud to your child when he/she is little, it is the single most important activity you can do with him/her to ensure future success in school.

Our PDO program and our Preschool classes will be listening to books over the course of the next 6 weeks that have been nominated for the Building Block Award because they are considered excellent read aloud books. Children will then be given the opportunity to vote for their favorite book. The ballots will be taken to the St. Charles County Library by Friday, December, 31, 2010. The 2010 Missouri Building Block Award will be presented to the author and illustrator voted most popular by children under the age of 7.

All voters will be entered into a prize drawing to win a hardback copy of a Building Block nominee. If you have time you might want to check out one of the books at your local public library. Happy Reading!

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and we are very THANKFUL for lots of things at school. We were challenged using scissors this week as we cut out things we were thankful for from magazines.


We also got creative making some fun turkeys that line the hallway using watercolor paint and regular paint.

In Jesus time we learned about the First Thanksgiving and talked about why we celebrate Thanksgiving and what we are thankful for. We learned a sign language song about being thankful. Check out the video yourself:



Milk Money Collection This week your child will be taking home a milk carton. As a service project for the Early Childhood department, we will be raising money to help support a school in Indonesia. The Weider's are members at Zion and are currently serving as missionaries in Indonesia. We will be collecting "Milk Money" for the next few weeks. I encourage you to support your child in collecting money by helping them to earn money by doing extra chores or jobs around the house.

Early Childhood Christmas Service I know it seems early to talk about Christmas but soon we will be preparing for our Christmas Service which will be on Sunday, December 12 at 4 PM. This service is an opportunity for your child to lead in worship and share blessing of Jesus' birth. After the service we will have a small reception in the church basement. All of the preschool families are asked to bring three dozen cookies to share.

Canned/Boxed Food Drive
Don't forget next week is the last week for the food drive. The Student Council will put the food together into meals on Wednesday. Our offerings we collected will allow us to get 33 turkeys to complete the Thanksgiving meals.

November has really blown in this week. This week we had a fire drill on Tuesday, we got to experience what the alarm at school sounds like so that we are ready next week when the firemen come to observe our fire drill. We didn't really like having to go outside quickly without our coats but we did a great job lining up and listening when we got outside! We are ready for the firemen!

We finished our Clifford Magazine for October where we learned fire safety. We also colored feather patterns. Mrs. Stewart (8th grade and science teacher) was kind enough to let us borrow a microscope so that we could see a bird feather up close. See our comments below:We also used oil pastels to color birds in the style of Benson Seto with many colors and lots of lines of different sizes and designs. Soon to be updated on Artsonia

Chapel Offerings This month we will be having a food drive so that our Student Council can put together boxes of Thanksgiving meals for students at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. The men at the seminary are preparing to be pastors in the Lutheran church. Many of them are from out of town and are unable to spend Thanksgiving with their families. Our offerings this month will go to buy turkeys for the meals.

Muffins for Moms (repeat) Don't forget that next week is Muffins for Moms, sponsored by the PTL. You can get breakfast in the school gym with your child from 7 AM-7:55 AM. We will then start school like normal but we will go to chapel with the rest of the school at 8:10 AM. Moms are welcome to join us for chapel.

Scholastic Orders You have until Monday to submit a book order for November. The books should arrive in time for Thanksgiving. To order visit: www.scholastic.com/parentordering If you have not ordered yet you will need to register with this code: GPGJT

Thanks Giving Food Drive

Each year during the month of November, the students and families of Zion Lutheran School have a wonderful opportunity to give to others. Down in the Sonshine Center, we will be hosting a canned food drive. All of the food donated will be given to the adult students who attend Concordia Seminary. Concordia Seminary is where men go to train and study to become Lutheran pastors. Some of these men and their families are unable to travel home for the holidays and stay on campus; the food donated from our school will be given to them so that they may enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving meal. The food that is not used to fill out those meals for the families will be donated to the Seminary food bank.
In the lobby of the Sonshine Center will be two wagons. You may drop off any canned food items in those wagons during Nov. 8th-18th. On the 18th, our Student Council Junior High students will collect all of the canned food and travel over to the Seminary to drop it off.
During the month of November, our chapel offerings will go to purchasing turkeys for the Seminarians Thanksgiving meal.

Thank you for your support!

Harvest Parties

I hope everyone as a great weekend and enjoys their Halloween. We had some really great Harvest Parties this week!




On Tuesday we decorated cookies and made a fun pumpkin plate craft. We also had some fun dancing to some fun music.







On Wednesday we made some very cute scarecrow crafts and played some games, pin the nose on the pumpkin and bean bag toss.






On Thursday we made a spider web craft, painted pumpkins, decorated cookies, and played a pumpkin bean bag toss game.





This week some of us also got to do the Clifford Magazine about pumpkins.

Chapel Offerings We are very excited that we met and exceeded our goal for chapel offerings for the month. We were also able to bring in extra money for the Eisold family who will be missionaries in Peru. Next month our chapel offerings will go to buy Turkeys for the Thanksgiving meals for students at the St. Louis Seminary.

Scholastic Book Orders New book orders for November are going home today. It is hard to believe it is already November. Orders will be due Sunday, November 7th. See Link on the side to order.


Muffins for Moms Wednesday, November 10th Zion PTL is hosting Muffins for Moms. A chance for Moms to come to school earlier with their children and enjoy breakfast together. Breakfast will begin at 7:00 AM, join us anytime from 7-7:45 in the school gym. Class will begin as normal and then we will go to chapel with the rest of the school at 8:10. Moms are welcome to join us for chapel.

Stuffed Animals (Birds) If you have any bird stuffed animals it would be great to have them in the classroom. We would like to have our own bird sanctuary in our dramatic play center.

A short week, but we still stayed busy. We had fun walking around campus and finding places to put our bird feeders. Hopefully in a few weeks we can walk around and see if the birds have enjoyed our treats.

We have started to notice that the birds are eating from the feeder that is hanging in our tree, but we haven't seen them come any closer.

In one of our books that we read the kids were curious about the peacock. We searched in on Google to find a picture of a peacock with its feathers down. The kids were interested in how different the peacock looks. We practiced writing our names using the SMARTboard. We also made some leaf rubbings.

Kindergarten Buddies
Kindergarten will be our buddies this year. Throughout the year we will get together with them several times with them to build relationships with each other. On Wednesday, the kindergartners came down to our classroom to sing with us. We sang a couple of songs that we both knew and they helped us learn a new song "Daniel and the Lions Den" which went along with our Bible story.
Check out the video of us singing together:



Harvest Party Next week Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we will have our Harvest Parties. Each day we will have a different party lead by a different room parent. The parties will take place from 9:30-10:30 each day. Parents are welcome to come help and enjoy the parties along with your child.

It's for the Birds

This week we made special treats for the birds. We used the following recipe

1 package Knox unflavored gelatin

1/4 cup water

1 cup Bird seed

First we had to carefully pour the gelatin into our bowl. Then Mrs. Helmkamp added the hot water. We stirred carefully so the water didn't spill and the gelatin dissolved.

Then we added 1 cup of birdseed and mixed it up so that it all looked wet.

After picking out the shapes that we wanted to make. We filled 2 molds with our birdseed mix, one for at home and one for at school.

Once dried they can be hung up for the birds to enjoy!

Next week we will walk around campus to distribute the ones we made for school. Please make sure that you do not store them with the bag closed, it may not be completely dry yet. We don't want them to mold.



Fall Fun
Festival
Don't forget the Fall Fun Festival is this Saturday in the Sonshine Center from 9:00 -10:30 AM. Wear your costume and have fun playing some games in the classrooms as well as a fun parade to collect candy.

Outerwear
As we start wearing jackets and get ready for hats and gloves season to approach, please help us out at school by labeling your child's things with their initials. That way when a glove falls on the floor or coat falls on the floor we know who it belongs to.

Parent Teacher Conferences
You will receive a letter in your child's folder about your scheduled conference time. If this time does not work for you please let me know as soon as possible so that we can work out another time. I will post my schedule outside first door in the hall so that you can make adjustments if needed. You can also send me an email.

Remember there is no school on Thursday or Friday next week to allow teachers time to complete conferences. We will take time during the conference to discuss the Dial-3 screenings, your child's day, and questions or concerns. Please keep all the teachers and parents in your prayers as we approach conferences.

Jesus Time

This week in Jesus time we learned the story of Naaman. Naaman was a soldier who had leprosy, he did not believe in God. A little girl who worked in his house told him about God and told him to go to Elisha. Elisha told Naaman about God and that he should wash in the river 7 times. Namaan did what Elisha said and he was healed. God healed him and made him better.

God does amazing things for us. We learned a new song that we are singing in chapel this month called, "My God is so Great." There is nothing that God can't do!

Parent Teacher Conferences

Sorry for not posting this in the last few weeks.

There is NO school Thursday, Oct 21 and Friday, Oct 22 for Parent Teacher Conferences.

PDO and K through 8th grade will have early dismissal on Thursday. Since there are so many preschoolers we have all of Thursday to try to fit in as many of our conferences as possible.

Blessings,

Mrs. Helmkamp

Busy Week

It has been a very busy week in preschool trying to get all of the Dial Screenings done. The students have really enjoyed doing the screening and getting to spend some extra time with the teachers and Mrs. Kuhlmann. Even though it is a very long process to every child screened it has been very rewarding and I think that you will find it helpful. Please keep all the teachers in your prayers as we score the screenings and prepare for Parent Teacher Conferences.

This week we enjoyed something new to explore in our sand table. The sand is gone and we have replaced it with a lot of bird seed. We are even working on being helpers by cleaning up our own messes we make in the bird seed.

We were also excited to get some new bird feeders out in out on our playground. One out on a pole and a suet feeder out on our fence.

In Jesus time this week we learned a story two good friends in the Bible, David and Jonathan. We also talked about to be a good friend to others and how Jesus in our friend.

Chapel on Thursday was very exciting. Pastor Rouland brought Elmo with him to share the story about the 10 lepers. Poor Elmo was confused and thought it was the story of the 10 leopards. But the kids and Pastor helped him realize that the word is lepers. They also learned that after Jesus healed the lepers only 1 came back to say thank you. Elmo shared with us things that he likes to say thank you for.

Scholastic Order
I will submit the orders on Saturday. If you haven't had a chance to order for October you still have one more chance. If you need the order information please check an older post.

Fundraiser Pick up
Don't forget that fundraiser pick up is Wednesday after school. You will be able to pick up orders in the school gym.

Fall Fun Festival
The early childhood fall fun festival will be on October 16th from 9:00-10:30 in the Sonshine Center. Kids are welcome to wear their costumes and have some fun with some great fall activities. At the end students will parade through the building to get candy.

Parent Teacher Conferences
Conferences will take place Thursday, morning, afternoon and evening and Friday morning. If there is a time that works better for you. Please email me by Tuesday, Oct 12. Teachers will schedule conferences and let you know by the end of the week what your time is.

Next week
I hope to finish our birds (we didn't get much done with screening this week) and to make our own bird feeders. I finally found a recipe that doesn't require peanut butter!

Please keep bringing in bird books. A few people founds some great ones at the library. The kids love seeing the pictures of the birds.

Birds

We finally have other birds using our bird feeder. We started seeing 3 little birds at our feeder this week. They must be hungry because they have eaten about 5 inches worth of seed from the feeder. I was finally able to get a picture at the end of the week, so next week we are going to try to figure out what kind of bird it is.






We will use our new iPad (thanks to donations from our Technology Launch Party) and the iBird app for each student to look up what kind of bird they think it is. We also got 2 more iPod Touches so we will be sharing them with the other preschool classroom and more students will get time to practice letter formations, patterns, one to one correspondence and more.

We also created our own birds this week using our shoe print and hand prints! It involved a lot of cutting to it was some great practice. They are really cute, not everyone got a chance to finish so we will finish next week.

We learned 4 things about birds.
1. They lay eggs
2. They have wings
3. They have skeletons or bones
4. Most importantly they are the only animals that have Feathers!

Then we sorted animals in to 2 groups: birds and other animals

Mrs. Masa, Mrs. Kuhlmann, and myself worked on the Dial-3 testing. We got through most of Mrs. Masa's classes and a few of our class this week. We will continue testing. The assessment is time consuming but it is a great evaluation of where your child is at this point.

At parent teacher conferences in a few weeks we will sit down and view the results together. All of the teachers at Zion will get together on October 13th to schedule conferences. If you have multiple children at Zion we will work the schedule out for you. Preschool will hold conferences all day Thursday and also on Friday. If there is a time frame that works better for you please let me know by Tuesday, October 12th.

No School-- Friday, October 8 Teachers will be attending the Lutheran Elementary School Association of St. Louis in-service at St. John's Ellisville.

Bird Resources
We need more resources for our birds project! If you have any collections at home such as feathers, eggs, or pictures please bring them in to share with the class. If they are delicate we will do our best to take special care of them. We also need more books about birds. Please check out your local library we could use story books or just books that have some great pictures of birds including guide books or information books.

Email
I forgot to email last week so please make sure you check the post from last week to find the resources about book orders.

Working Hard

This week we have been working hard.

We got to do our Clifford magazine where we learned about apples, practiced patterns, counting, and letters. We also practiced the correct way to write the first letter of our name.

In the weeks to come we will work on the other letters in each person's name, some using capital letters and some using lowercase letters.

We also searched online to find pictures of birds. Each person decided what kind of bird they were going to search for ex. (hummingbird, large, pink red, small). In the search box I typed the the description and each student typed "bird." When they found the picture they wanted, they helped to drag it to a file and rename it.

We also had a lot of fun painting pictures with fall colors.

Fire Drill in preparation for the Fire Department to come next month and observe our fire drill, we started practicing this week. We had a really great practice on Thursday and we will practice a few other times to make sure that everyone knows what to do. For fire drills at school our class exits out the front door and proceeds across the parking lot and stands on the grass between our parking lot and the Collier building lot.

Picture Retakes (repeat)
Picture retakes will take place on Monday, September 27th. If your child didn't have pictures taken on final registration day on July 29th, please have their picture taken on retake day. For students who have school on this day, we will make sure to take them to get their picture taken. For those who are not at school this day you can bring your child to the church basement anytime from 9AM- 11AM. These pictures will be used for the class picture and the school yearbook!

Scholastic Book Orders
New book orders went home this week. Please remember that orders can be placed online with Scholastic at www.scholastic.com/parentordering Class Activation Code: GPGJT

Scholastic Classrooms Care
Your child should have received a bookmark this week with their Scholastic Book Orders for the Scholastic Classrooms Care Project. Each year Scholastic asks kids across America to read books. When our class has read 100 books, Scholastic will donate books to kids in need. To find out more visit Scholastic's website and search for Classrooms Care.

Dial-3 Testing
A few changes in Dial-3 testing. We post-poned testing to this coming week. Mrs. Masa, Mrs. Helmkamp, and Mrs. Kuhlmann will all be helping administer the testing so that we can get through all of the student quickly. Mrs. Helmkamp and Mrs. Masa will both have subs on Wednesday and Thursday morning so that we can do the testing.


Fall Fun Festival
Please don't forget about our fall fun festival coming up on October 16th at 9 AM. More information to come out next week.

Noah, Noah. Noah built the ark. 2 by 2. Floating zoo, just as God said to do.

This week we had a lot of fun learning about Noah. We got to dress up and act out the story as well as work together to make a collage. We also love the new song we learned about Noah!










We also read a fun story about Robins. We learned how they make their nest and take care of their eggs, and the baby birds. We had fun exploring painting with feathers. The feathers make a wispy stroke compared to the paint brush. We also drew pictures of birds and we made "Wordles" (www.wordle.net) of everything we know about birds. You can see the these in the hallway.

Next week we will start doing some research on birds. Each student will get to find a picture of some kind of bird online and will learn something about the bird. We will also be practicing how to form letters.

Mrs. Kuhlmann will be starting our DIAL-3 assessment next week. Students will be pulled out of class and go through the assessment with her. If you have any questions about the assessment please talk with Mrs. Kuhlmann.

Book Orders

Book Orders came in this week. I hope that everyone enjoys their books. Thanks to all the parents who placed orders this month, we will have $18 to spend on books for the class next month! Book Orders for October will go out next week.

Early Childhood Blog

Please don't forget to check out Mrs. Kuhlmann's blog to find out the great things that are happening in the other Early Childhood Classes at Zion.

Parent Teacher Conferences

Parent Teacher Conferences will take place on October 21 and 22. Please take note that Preschool will not have school on either day to give us time to meet with all of our parents. As we get close to conferences, I will ask you to let me know if there is a time frame that works better for you. Each conferences is 15 minutes long and all of the teachers at Zion work together to make our schedule for families with multiple children at Zion. We will take time during the conference to review the DIAL-3 screenings.

Picture Retakes

Picture retakes will take place on Monday, September 27th. If your child didn't have pictures taken on final registration day on July 29th, please have their picture taken on retake day. For student who have school on this day, we will make sure to take them to get their picture taken. For those who are not at school this day you can bring your child to the church basement anytime from 9AM- 11AM. These pictures will be used for the class picture and the school yearbook!

Highlights Playground

I know we just did this a few weeks ago, but Highlights has sent us new forms to fill out for a different magazine. This magazine is probably more suitable for younger children, it is their Playground magazine. This magazine is filled with lots of games like hidden pictures, writing and finding shapes. Even if you aren't interested, please fill out the form and send it back in. We get free things for the classroom for every form that is returned, "yes" or "no."

Please return by September 24th.

What we do in preschool

Bird Project Begins

If you would like to know how to attract birds to your bird feeders at home ask your kids. They have some great ideas about how we can get birds to our seed feeders. Some of them include:

Gabi- Put nests out.
Ali- Hang the feeders in the trees.
Katelyn- Hang up different feeders
Kenzie- Put bird toys outside
Elaina- Find out what kind of food
Grace M.- Put flowers out for them
Jack- Tweet for the birds to come
Gracyn- Get squeaky toys

Next Week we will research and test some of these ideas!

We finally finished our VoiceThread about what we do at school. You can see it in the next post. However I did realize that I am missing a few things, (we don't have a picture of us eating lunch or at Jesus Time sorry). Not everyone did a recording but everyone participated making comments. Please make your own recording to your students or ask them questions that we could go back and answer. Please feel free to send the VoiceThread link to other relatives for them to make comments.

Launch Party Tonight!
I hope to see a few of you at the launch party tonight. Please remember that you needed to RSVP to attend and that it is an adults only party. We are very excited to showcase the technology at Zion. If you aren't attending you can check out the new Zion website at about 8 PM on Friday! Or follow us on Twitter @zionbobcats

Hummingbirds! Hummingbirds!

Yes our hummingbird feeder has been very busy and we are excited when we see them. God's creation is wonderful. Next week we will start our project on Birds! We will start with the hummingbird since those are the only birds we have seen at our feeders. We will have to figure out a way to get the birds to notice our other feeders. (Sounds like a good investigation to start off our project!)

This week we had a lot of fun discovering texture with paint. We painted with some funny painting tools: a circle stamper, hair, string, a scrapper, and a few others too hard to describe.

Soon I will get our artwork loaded on Artsonia.com for parents and other family to view.

We also finished a few projects from last week and started making a VoiceThread about Preschool ( a few technology glitches but it is working now).

We started a cutting and gluing art project to test our skills with scissors and a glue bottle! Those projects will also be loaded onto Artsonia



We also got a new piece of technology in our classroom this week. We have an iPod Touch for the kids to use! So far we have only tried one application called, ABC Tracer. The app helps us practice how to make our letters as well as letter recognition and letter sounds.


Next week we are going to finish our VoiceThread, start our birds project, and work on some drawings about ourselves and our families.

Don't Forget: No School on Monday for Labor Day

Jesus Time

This week in Jesus Time we continued to talk about creation focusing on the animals God created. We also talked about how God wants us to take care of His creatures.

Scholastic Book Order (repeat)

Orders are due September 10th
Ordering Information
Web address: scholastic.com/bookclubs
Class Activation Code: GPGJT

For every dollar that is spent earns points for our classroom that I can spend on books or other supplies for the classroom.

Technology Launch Party

Don't forget about the Launch Party at the Stegton September 10th. Our new school website will be unveiled! Please remember that this is an adults only event.

Check out our new bracelets!

These bracelets (or anklets since they are kind of big) are a great reminder of our theme for this school year.

Act.Love.Walk

Act Justly
Love Mercy
Walk humbly with the Lord

First full week of school! We had a great week this week. We are starting to get used to the schedule. We had a lot of fun making play dough this week. See recipe below. We used the play dough to cut out the letters of our name. We also worked on writing our names for the first time this year. We finished up our "All About Me" posters, you can check them out in the hallway next week. We also started drawing pictures of what we do at school

This week in Jesus time we started learning about God's creation. We talked about how God created the world. We learned that God created everything even us. We have also been practicing some new songs. This year during the school year we are going to be learning songs from our church liturgy so that when our students go to church they can feel like part of the service. These songs are also part of our own chapel service. This week chapel was on Thursday. Next week Chapel will be on Wednesday.

Scholastic Book Orders

Our first Scholastic Book Order went out this week. You can place your order online.

Ordering Information
Web address: scholastic.com/bookclubs
Class Activation Code: GPGJT

For every dollar that is spent earns points for our classroom that I can spend on books or other supplies for the classroom.

Highlights Magazine

I am sure many of you have heard of Highlights Magazine. Every year Highlights asks teachers to send our forms to get new people to subscribe. For every response we receive back we earn points to get fun things for our room. You do not have to sign up for the magazine. Simply check "No" and sign the form and send it back to school.

Fundraiser Packets

Fundraisers Packets are going home today. Fundraiser sales end September 7.

We made it through our first few days of full day preschool! It was a lot of fun to meet everyone and get the year started. Learning the schedule and the procedures of a new classroom are difficult and will take a little bit of time. In the next few weeks your child will learn the expectations of school and they will be more comfortable in the classroom.

Act.Love.Walk

Our school theme this year is based on Micah 6:8 "He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

In preschool we are focusing on the theme in the following ways:
Act: What did Jesus do for us? He died on the cross for us Love: Jesus loves us so much he died on the cross for us so we should also love everyone else Walk: We walk with Jesus and the things we do for others show Jesus' love

This week as we got used to our schedule we had fun getting to know each other, check out our "All About Me" posters in the hallway. We also got to make some paintings that will decorate our classroom all year.

Back to School Night

On Tuesday night at 7 PM is the PTL Back to School Night. The evening starts with an opening devotion and information about the school fundraiser in the church. Then parents have the chance meet with their child's teachers. Since preschool had parent orientation night the preschool teachers will only be available at the first session for parents. You do not need to come. If you have any questions please let me know.

Nap Time
We are still adjusting to the schedule. I know it has been hard for some and that nap time seems a little long but right now I am not letting the kids get or look at books during nap. As the year goes on and we have all adjusted to what nap time means, I will make adjustments for the children who do not nap.

Welcome

I am so excited to get the year started and to try a new way of sharing the classroom with you. I will be using this blog this year instead of doing a weekly letter. You can subscribe to the blog and receive the updates in your email program or you may have your own way of keeping up with blogs you read. I will also send an email every week with the link as a reminder to check the blog. You will also be able to get there from the school website.

I have tried to include some great links, upcoming events, and a calendar to help you stay up to date on what is going on in our classroom. If you have any questions please let me know.