Happy Holiday Day! 

We love our chapel buddies!  

Morning announcements together in the chapel before devotions. 

We were updated on the penny war total.  Our class was in first place! Bring all of your change and dollar bills to keep our class in the lead!

During devotions Mr. Mark Borcherding talked to us about the holidays that we celebrate in the church and ones that the world celebrates. The most important is that we celebrate the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ! 

After devotions we sang various holiday songs together!

Back in the classroom we had a dance party! 

One of the friends donated this book to our class for the Car Project! 

Thank you! 

The friends who brought pennies and change for the penny wars into the jars. 

Back in the classroom, we played the game to practice composing and decomposing numbers.  The friends closed their eyes and a cup "ate" some of the cars.  The kids worked to figure out how many cars were eaten based on the cars that were left. 

We have such a great class!  :) 

(We miss you Ella! We hope you feel better soon!)

Free choice time

We have a very knowledgeable paper airplane maker in our class!  He has been teaching everyone else how to make them too.  This collaboration is a great social skill! 

Our mechanics work hard! 

Exploring properties of weight, motion, and force. 

"Hello! Yes we can fix your broken car." 

For a portion of free choice time, I worked with the friends individually on some assessments. 

Working together in the block area

"I wrote P for penguin!" 

"I sorted these in layers by color!" 

Explore on the floor

Creation station 

We worked to identify the spaced between the words in the morning message! This is a valuable concept of print.  When you read books with your children at home, you can point out the spaces too! 

We used an app called EPIC during morning meeting.  Check it out HERE.  Look for an email with more information how you can use this app at home.

This app has a library full of books that can be read to your child.  One of the things I like about this app is that when selecting the Read to Me books, the words pop out as they are read.  This strengthens one to one correspondence with words, which is an important pre-reading skill.

Screens and apps have a lot of educational value.  However, I do want to strongly caution the over-use of screens.  The American Academy of Pediatrics states, "For children ages 2 to 5 years, limit screen use to 1 hour per day of high-quality programs. Parents should co-view media with children to help them understand what they are seeing and apply it to the world around them."  (Read more HERE)  If you child spends an hour in front of a screen, be sure that he/she has an hour of completely social, screen free time as well.  

During second free choice we explored ramps! 

"If you lift it up - it stops!"

Some of the friends made "coats" with the animal pelts in the science area.  :) 

During small group time we explored license plates.  We observed the pictures, letters, and numbers on the license plates too! 

We explored keys.  We compared the keys length, weight, and size. 

We also read books together. 

With me, we continued to explore ramps. The friends worked to problem solve and work together to make the ramp work.  :) 

During good-bye time we read a book about ramps and simple machines.