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