This morning during Jesus time, we reviewed the story of creation.  God saw all that He had made was good! 

Zippy, our Jesus time puppet came to visit during Jesus time.  He told us about the house that his dad built, and how his dad made some mistakes.  We learned that when God created the world, He did not make any mistakes because God is perfect! 

During small group time we observed the color of our eyes.

We then graphed our eye color.  This activity promotes one to one correspondence, counting, and comparing.  

With Mrs. Helmkamp we practiced writing our names.  We learned that we always start our letters at the top! 

With Mrs. Zwettler, we painted pictures of something that God made.  We will add these to our creation mural at the end of the week! 

We went to the gym today!  We learned our gym routines and played a fun game. 

We were then able to run and play! 

Free choice time 

Some friends were interested in measuring! They practiced ensuring that the number one was equal with the item that they were measuring.  They then practiced identifying numbers.  They even wrote some of the numbers! 

This friend helped her friend put on one of the items from the dramatic play!

Great job showing God's love! 

Creating and building with blocks lays a strong foundation for future math learning.  It also provides opportunities for collaboration, problem solving, and persistence. 

Some of the friends made patterns in the blocks!  

Some of the friends worked to read one of the bible verses in the classroom.  They tracked the print left to right and "read" the words on the page.  Although the friends are unable to read conventionally, this shows us that they understand some very important foundational reading concepts.

It shows us that they understand that print has meaning.

It shows us that understand some print concepts as they track left to right. 

It shows us that they are interested in reading.  (This is the most important one!  :) ) 

During morning meeting we played a game to increase phonemic awareness.  Phonemic awareness is the ability to play with the sounds of language.  (Rhyming, isolating beginning sounds, segmenting, etc.)  Research shows that children with strong phonemic awareness skills tend to be more successful at reading than those who do not have strong phonemic awareness skills.

You can play this game at home!  

Isolate the beginning sound of a word and add the rest of the word after a pause.  For example: 

"What word am I saying?   H (h sound) -  at."  (Hat) 

Outside time

One of the friends fell and got hurt on the way back inside.  Many kind friends were there to help! 

During small group time, the friends worked to identify and stamp number stamps.

We also worked to strengthen our fine motor skills as we put pipe cleaners in play doh and string beads on them.  Fine motor skills are important for small movements such as writing! 

We also worked on our pencil grip and pressure. :) 

Free choice time