Welcome back to school! I pray that you all had a blessed Christmas!
We are happy to welcome Ms. Emma as our new Wednesday and Friday aide!
Ms. Emma is the daughter of Jeri Derrington-a teacher in PDO. Emma is twenty years old, and she has been a part of the Zion community since she began attending school here in the first grade. Emma is currently studying at Saint Charles community college where she spent her first two years on a softball scholarship. After this semester, Emma plans to transfer to UMSEL's Early Childhood program to complete her degree.
Emma says: "I am very excited to be a part of Mrs. Douglas' class for the rest of the year! For those of you I don't already know, I look forward to meeting you!"
We are thankful for Emma! Please be sure to welcome her to our Full Day class when you get the chance.
We checked in this morning using the estimation jars. The children refined their comparing skills as they predicted which jar had more bears. They then wrote their name and prediction. At good-bye time we counted to see if our predictions were correct! This activity not only helps comparing and counting skills, but it also helps practice writing and recognizing numbers! This is the new way we will check in each day!
We enjoyed playing office in our new dramatic play area. Dramatic play provides an opportunity for language development as well as social/emotional development. For example, today I walked into the office and called one of our friends. Here is how the conversation went:
Bella: "Hello ma'am. How can I help you today?"
Mrs. Douglas: "Hello! I am looking for a job-do you have any jobs here?"
Bella: "Well my job is to answer phones. Would you like to do that job with me?"
Mrs. Douglas: "Sure! Can you describe to me how to do this job?"
Bella: "Well, when the phone rings, you pick up the phone and push some numbers. Then you write down a message."
This conversation was an opportunity to ask a friend to practice descriptive language as she described how to do the job. Encourage your child to describe things to you at home!
We really loved reading the new winter books in the book area.
During small group time, we worked with Ms. Emma making patterns. We made the patterns with beads that we put on raw spaghetti noodles in play dough. (This is another way to refine fine motor strength as well!)
We used chalk and blue paper to express creativity through our artwork.
We sorted mittens by letter or number. This activity provides an opportunity to practice recognizing letters and numbers as well as begin to notice some differences between the two.
Megan's mom stopped by for a bit to play too!
One of the friends wondered if the A was upper case or lower case. We went over to the alphabet to check. She decided that it was upper case because it was the big letter on the chart.
We also webbed what we know about weather. This weeks begins our weather project. We will use the project approach throughout our investigation of weather just like we used the project approach during our car project. If you want to learn more about the project approach, click HERE.
At the end of small group time we all played a rhyming game together. Rhyming is a skill that increases phonemic awareness! Strong phonemic awareness tends to lead to strong reading skills.
We enjoyed some indoor recess time with Mrs. Mudd's class!
During Jesus time we learned about King Herod who tried to kill baby Jesus. We learned that God protected Jesus. God also protects us as He provided the greatest protection for us! Through Jesus' death and resurrection we are protected from death and the power of the devil!
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