2016-2017+WHAT+HAPPENED+TODAY+IN+4K?

=WELCOME TO "WHAT HAPPENED TODAY?" = On this page you will find Mrs. Otten's blog of what happened in the classroom on a daily basis. Reading this blog will give you a snapshot of what your child experienced in school. Sometimes there will literally be snapshots (photographs) of things we did or made

May 31, 2017
Can I get through this last blog without tears....the answer is the title of the book we read at snack time...NOPE! So God blessed us with a beautiful day for our last "regular" day. He blessed us with good health so we could all be together. He blessed us with keen minds to remember our play parts as we had our dress rehearsal with the 4K audience. He blessed us with each other and we had such fun together building and drawing at table time, singing his praises with //Lord, I Lift Your Name on High//, doing our plays, listening to a story about promises, playing outdoors, reading about "short" minutes and "long" minutes, eating a yummy Lego brownie, and having choice time with friends. The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled to the top with joy!

May 24, 2017
This was one of those days when we could have used an extra hour! In the time we had, we had table time (some of us were challenged to see what we could make with our connecting cubes instead of a weapon!); our morning routines with Sadie using the star wand and twinkling as she pointed to the numbers; and singing a favorite song://Stand On the Rock.// We thought about many different Bible stories we have heard this year which showed God's amazing power. We remembered things He did at creation and through the stories of Moses, Elijah, Jonah, Paul, and Jesus. Then we heard about another amazing rescue: the story of Peter and the angel that rescued him from prison. He returned to his friends, who had been praying for him. We also talked about things we can pray about. We practiced Psalm 100 //without picture clues!// We even tried saying it all without Mrs. Otten's help and did almost all of it! We are hiding God's word in our hearts!! After our drink and wacky Wednesday //Dance around and play with sounds// echo song, we got instructions for a partner dice game before going to the gym for our moving time. We used balls and worked on foot and ball skills. When we got back to our room, we did a couple of the small group plays and did our dice game. During snack we talked about our dress rehearsal next week. Then we had choice time. After cleaning up, we colored one of the props we need for one of our plays. At the end of the day, we had a story about friends and the places that they like to be. See you in one week!

May 22, 2017
We welcomed James back and enjoyed some different table time activities. We did all our morning routines and then sang a song about loving, serving, and praising Jesus. We reviewed Psalm 100. We had the story of Peter and the miracle of Dorcas. After our drink break and a monkey Monday position, we went through several of our plays. We took a break for some outdoor time, and then finished the rest of the play practice. We did a drawing for our yearbook and then read books. We had a super snack from Kellin that his grandma had made: doughnuts with sprinkles!!! After snack, we had choice time.

May 19, 2017
"Flurry of activity" Friday!! After our initial table time and morning routines, we started in on a busy day. We celebrated an early birthday for Zachary, who turns 5 on June 9. We sang the new song we learned this week, complete with signs for some of the words. We reviewed our Psalm 100. Our Bible story was the story of Paul going to Rome. Along the way there was a shipwreck and a snake! But God protected him and he was able to tell many people about Jesus, including writing letters that are in our Bible today. After a "funny Friday" song (since we missed our wacky Wednesday song), we had two stories. During the first story we were looking for the clue that showed how Muddle the duck figured out that Mo was a goat and not a duck. The second story featured a boy who had to make a difficult choice. We came up with a solution to his problem...and it turned out to be the same solution that the boy came up with!! We took time to enjoy the brisk outdoors so we could use our "dog" voices and run, run, run. When we came in, we wrote all 26 letters of the alphabet! We had a delicious birthday snack from Zachary. Then we practiced three plays. When it was not our part, we had some book time or drawing time. Finally, we finished up with some choice time.

May 17, 2017 BOOKWORM GARDENS FIELD TRIP
     <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; line-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;">

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">May 15, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">We had a tremendous amount of energy this Monday! Guess "spring fever" has officially hit! We were happy to have Natalya back with us and we were able to share with her the "voices" that we use in school. We used mouse and cat for our hello song. Chase pointed with the soccer ball wand and we kicked 15 goals as we counted the calendar numbers. We learned a new song (that some of us already knew the words/tune to) with signs. It is a song we might sing with the rest of the kids when we do B-1 singing next year: //Lord, I Lift Your Name on High.// We added Psalm 100:4 and practiced just a couple times. Our Bible story was another way God saved Paul; this time God used Paul's friends who helped him escape in a basket. After our drink, we did our self portraits for our yearbooks and then had outdoor time. We worked on our two whole group plays and then had snack. After snack we had choice time and Mrs. Otten weighed, and measured, and photographed us.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">May 12, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">On this fabulous Friday, we reviewed our school voices and then sang our hello song with turtle and mouse voices. James chose the rose wand for pointing at the calendar numbers, so we counted with him and then we counted again, inserting a "buzz" for the numbers that had a bee on them. We sang the fun //Shake a Friend's Hand// song and then we practiced the words for Psalm 100:3. Our Bible story was about a ride in the night that Paul took to escape from those who wanted to harm him. Our moving time was really moving! We walked (and skipped and ran) to Vollrath Park and used the playground equipment to swing high, climb, hang, and spin. When we returned to school, we did our center time and our first walk-though of two of our plays. We had snack time without a story and then show and tell time. We saw a momma and baby fox, a Frozen sticker book, a Pinewood Derby car and medal, a cool animal book (we looked at the shark page), and a special purple panda. With our extra outdoor time today, we had a "one choice" choice time. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">May 10, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Another one of those days when we could have used another hour of 4K time! Our table time was a bit longer because we have some friends starting to work on making up letter pages that were missed for one reason or another. We did our hello song silly: sad voices and then happy voices. We reviewed Psalm 100 :1-2 and then sang a song that was made about those verses. Our Bible story was of a man whose life was changed when he met Philip and Philip explained the Isaiah scroll verses to him. After our Bible story we learned about the new way we are thinking about our voices in school (something that was explained to all the big kids on Monday). We learned about when and where we use the "turtle voice" which is silent; the "mouse voice", which is very quiet; the "cat voice" which is normal speaking; the "dog voice" which is our outdoor loud voices; and the "lion voice" which would only be used for an emergency like blood or danger. //**Most of the** **time**// we will be turtles in the hall. But when our grown ups come to pick us up, we can have mouse voices because we know that our grown ups are excited to see us and may need to tell us something or we might need to tell them something. Please join us in using mouse voices in the hall! We practiced our turtle-silent-voice when we got our drink before our wacky Wednesday song. We did a song that made silly sounds when we sang //Fee Fi Fiddly -I-O// and changed the beginning sound. We got our center assignments (after some Mrs. Otten confusion!) and then we again changed into turtles as we lined up for our outdoor (and dog voice) time. We had center time and then book time. Then we listened to Mrs. Otten explain about our last day plays and we read one of the new stories that we are going to act out. Athena brought "under the sea" crackers for snack and we listened to a book called //What James Likes Best.// It was fun to guess what the character might like best and to ask our James what he would like best. The blue cubby friends showed bead creations, Children's Museum project, a small Bible, and a glow-in-the-dark picture of a princess. After show and tell we had a bit of choice time.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">May 8, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">On this sunny Monday, we enjoyed the different things out at table time (including some animal remnants). We sang Hello with sunny smiles and looked at the schedule for the day. We counted while Rowan pointed with the rocket wand, counting up and back and blasting off. We sang our praise song with a pattern (Hallelu, Hallelujah). Then we started working on learning Psalm 100 which starts with talking about praise and worship and joy. Our changed life Bible story was about the jailer who became a believer after the earthquake that broke the jail that Paul and Silas were in. After our monkey Monday position, we had a story about a mothers' day surprise and got the instructions for our center time. We took a moving break outdoors before coming in for centers (and book time when we were done). During snack we had a story about all the places you can read. But we thought that maybe they should have put something in the book about NOT reading while you are driving or riding a bike! The green cubby friends enjoyed their last show and tell and we enjoyed seeing special pajamas, a toy cell phone, a completed letter page binder (we sang our abc song to be sure there were no missing pages!), and some special pink heart-shaped sunglasses. We had choice time and then, after we cleaned up, we played a picture guessing game.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">May 5, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Today we had to talk about remembering to sing respectfully when we have our prayer song. We took the opportunity to sing silly when we did our hello song! After a quick look at our schedule and jobs, we started with our center time. When our centers were done, we had outdoor time on our playground. After our drink break, we sang one of our favorite songs-//Stand on the Rock.// Our Bible lesson was about how when Jesus changes us on the inside(forgives our sins) then we want to show the change on the outside of us by putting on the "clean clothes" of kindness and obedience and not the dirty clothes of meanness. For snack our birthday girl, Gabi, brought us ice cream with chocolate sauce, sprinkles, and whipped cream. We certainly enjoyed it! We also listened to a story about being a friend. During show and tell we learned that Kellin likes to ride scooters with Dad; Henry and Ella likes to snuggle with Dad; Isabella likes to go mini-golfing with Dad; Chase likes to play catch with Dad; and Brooklyn likes to do make-up with Mom. We had choice time and then, after clean up time, we talked about next week's centers and show and tell.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">May 3, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Sadie returned to school and was able to catch up on the things she missed on Monday. We started our circle time with a welcome back to Sadie and a "happy birthday to you" to Ellie. We did our morning routines and then our letter of the week activities. We did our Bible words, and cow song, and then a couple poems from the book //Zig Zag// (after figuring out that the title said those words). We listened to the poems and filled in the missing rhymes, too. We took photographs of the bags we made for meals on wheels and then went outside for moving time (we are born to move!!!) When we came in we did our centers and then our wacky Wednesday song: the //Tooty-Ta// song with the /z/ sound instead. We had the Bible story of someone with a Z name and sang a song about our Bible story. During snack we heard an alphabet book with a Moose who was anxious to be included and ended up on the Z page as "Zebra's friend!" We had show and tell and learned that Zachary and Eli like to play basketball with their dads; Jordy likes to work on cars with his dad and helped change tires; James likes to hike in the woods with his dad; and Gabi likes to do miniature golf with her dad. After show and tell it was choice time. As we were leaving today, we got to meet Henry's new puppy. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">May 1, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Zachary told us that he got to go to the zoo on Friday! Sadie was out sick with a fever. We prayed that she will get well soon. We did some different games and activities at table time. We did a silent hello song and then talked about the special things hanging on the May calendar. We did our jobs and schedule and then did our letter of the week. We identified words with the /z/ sound and sang Zandy Zae Zoo and learned sign language and the meaning of our Bible words. After a drink and a zig-zaggy monkey position, we read a book about a fathers' day gift and we got directions for our centers. We were blessed with some sunshine and took time to get some moving time outdoors. We did our center time when we came in and most of us had time to look at books when we were done with centers. We sang two friend songs and then had the Bible story of why Saul became Paul. During snack we had a mothers' day story. We had three friends show what they like to do with Dad: Athena likes to play games like Go Fish and CandyLand with Dad; Rowan likes to build Lego guys with Dad; and Natalya likes to watch funny movies with Dad (and the whole family). We had choice time after show and tell and then our day was over.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">April 28, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Isabella was back! Zachary was gone with his family, so we had 7 boys and 7 girls today. After our morning routines, we did our center time. After our center was done, we had book reading time until everyone was finished with his/her center. Then we had gym time. After our warm up, we did some controlled foot and ball skills. We did some dribbling with both feet and we stopped our rolling balls with a foot. Then we learned about kicking "with the laces" and we practiced kicking at the wall and then stopping with our foot. Finally, we tried to kick with accuracy and knock down a plastic bowling pin or foam tube. After gym we had the Bible story of Daniel's faithfulness and God's protection in the lions' den. We sang two friend songs, including the song with the Bible words for this week. Then we learned about dandelions from a book. After learning interesting facts about the dandelion, we went outside to pick a dandelion so we could experience some of those facts. During snack we had a book called //Dandelion// but it was about a lion with that name. When he made himself look "dandy" his friend did not recognize him! After snack we had show and tell. Today's friends like to cuddle and read with mom' play War with mom; build a Lego castle with mom; do crafts like painting with mom; play catch with mitts with mom; and get a pedicure with mom. After show and tell we had a limited choice time: games, building, coloring/creating table; books or dancing. At the end of the day we talked about next week's show and tell.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">April 26, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Isabella was still out today. Sadie celebrated a one-day-early birthday and brought us ice cream sandwiches for our snack, which we were very excited about. We had an alphabet town adventure today of an ape who had her apple pie eaten while it cooled. After one of our favorite wacky Wednesday songs (//Apples and Bananas)// we learned about the term "abstract art" and looked at the projects that were done on Monday by the green cubby kids. Then we looked at more abstract art in a book. We took a break for some moving outdoors and then did our center time. After center time, we had our Bible time. Since our story had fire in it, we first had to guess what was in the suitcase that could make fire. We had the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego. During our delicious snack, we had a story about a triangle and a square who played tricks on each other. During show and tell, we learned that Ellie likes to cuddle with mom, Jordy likes to bake with mom, Eli likes to play UNO with mom, Gabi likes to play Skip-Bo with mom, and James likes to play catch with mom with his new easter bunny. After show and tell, we had choice time and then our day was over.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">April 24, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">We head into several weeks of a more normal schedule. Today our friend Isabella was out sick, but our friend Henry was back in school. We had table time and then looked over our schedule for the day, noting that we had many activities planned and that we needed to be sure to get ready each time there was a new activity so we would have enough time for choice time at the end of the day. We did pretty good with that! Our letter of the week has many sounds, and we listened for two of them-the sound at the beginning of angel and the sound at the beginning of apple. After our monkey Monday position, we listened to the story //The Straight Line Wonder// because it is the basis for one of our centers. Then we enjoyed our outdoor time. When we came in, we got instructions for our centers and then had center time, reading books as we finished our center. We looked at two plates of "food" and decided what we would like better to eat. Most of us chose the plate with eggs, bacon, toast and jam, muffin, and chocolate milk. The other plate just had lettuce and water. We had the Bible story about Daniel and his friends and how they chose to eat just water and vegetables instead of eating the foods that had been offered to idols. God blessed them and made them strong and wise. We sang the song that reminds us that obeying God makes us strong, too (//Stand on the Rock).// After our Bible time, we had our bathroom break and snack, listening to the book //Li////ttle Pea.// The green cubby friends showed what they like to do with mom: play games, go to the grocery story, get hair combed and read the Bible, go on beach walks and look for beach glass, and bake brownies. We had choice time to finish our day.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">April 21, 2017 Grandparents' Day
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">We started by putting the magnets we made for our grandparents in envelopes and putting our names on our activity sheets. We went to the gym to see how we would stand on the risers. Then we had some table time. We did our morning routines, learning about the different schedule for the day. We practiced our part for the program and then had a book about rocking with grandmother and a book about walking with grandfather. We enjoyed an hour of activities with our grandparents. Then we took a bathroom break before doing our part in the program. We did really well with our speaking parts and our song! We were really hungry by this point and enjoyed Rowan's delicious birthday cookies with frosting and the number 5. We listened to two stories during snack. We spent the last few minutes of the day enjoying the outdoors.



<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">April 19, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">After exploring some new table time activities, we had circle time. Our hello song was goofy: wiggly voices and "stiff" voices (like a robot). Brooklyn used the silver star wand to point to the numbers and we did the sign language for stars while we counted. We read the Easter story and then added another verse to our //Shout Hosanna// song. After our wacky Wednesday song (about "Granny") we practiced our parts for Grandparents' Day. We had outdoor time while it was still kind of warm! Then we worked on the "April Showers" side of the bags we are decorating for the Meals on Wheels clients. We had some book time when we were done and then went into the second grade room and sang our Grandparents" Day song with Mrs. A playing the piano for us. We had snack and listened to the book we wrote about grandparents. We had choice time. After cleaning up, we talked a little about the schedule for Friday. Then we looked at more tornado pictures and went down to the school basement to see where we would go if there was a tornado drill or emergency.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">April 12, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Yes, it is true: Mrs. Otten was on crutches or rolling around the room on her desk chair today. Unfortunately, I think it touched off a rash of injuries today! We had a swing to the head, a knee on a hand, and bumped noggins! The ice pack was out a lot today. Other than that, we had a great day. Our friends Brooklyn and Chase were back. We got to hear about Chase's fishing excursion. Sadie pointed at the calendar numbers with the rose wand. Many of us pretended to be growing flowers as we counted to 12. Our Bible story was about Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane and dying on the cross..FOR US! (but we know "the rest of the story" and are excited to talk about it next time). After Bible, we had our wacky Wednesday song and did the jungle animal moving and noise pattern. We practiced our grandparents' day poem and the song we will sing. We had a great moving time outdoors before enjoying book time. We talked about the things we like to do with grandparents and the special names we have for grandparents before reading a book about grandparents. We got instructions for finishing the magnets we are making for our grandparents. We also made a book page about why "grandparents are the greatest". We worked on our projects during choice time. During snack we heard a story of a farmer and some rabbits that always got into his garden. At the end of the day we got a treat from Athena in a carrot bag...looking just like the carrots in the story! See you in a week!

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">April 10, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Gabi returned today! But Chase was still gone and Brooklyn still out sick. We did have a few kids who were bothered with coughs today, but they did a good job of catching those coughs in their arms so I hope we did not pass on germs. After table time and our morning routines, we did our new letter of the week. We only have left the first and last letters of the alphabet! Today we looked at picture cards to identify the words with the /j/ sound. We saw many of the same pictures in our alphabet town book: //Jack and Jill's Adventure in Alphabet Town.// We went outside after our letter of the week and were able to take advantage of 5 minutes of really warm weather before the wind switched and many of us ran to get on jackets that we had taken off! Back inside, we sang //Shout Hosanna// and then had the story of the Last Supper. After our Monday monkey position and trying to do jumping jacks, we learned about what we will be preparing for the program for grandparents' day. We also talked about our letter page and a project we are doing for our grandparents. During snack we had a book that was two books in one! One side was about grandpas and one side was about grandmas. During choice time we did our letter page and our grandparent project.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">April 7, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">At table time, we did some number work with Mrs. Otten as well as explored the new things out for table time: magnets, Kid K'nex builders, construction vehicle puzzle, Wormy Apples game, line tracing sheets, and tack board. The play dough was also out today. We only had 12 children in school, but more boys than girls. We had 2 friends out sick: Brooklyn and Gabi. We started with our center time and then we had a circle time where we counted by 5's. We set out 20 nickels and counted them to 100. In gym we warmed up with a number echo song and them we did some parachute activities. Our Bible story was about Jesus riding into Jerusalem on the donkey, We sang the first verse of the song //Shout Hosanna.// During snack, we had a story called //Number 9 Dressed up to Dine.// The yellow cubbie friends did show and tell. We saw an __e__xtra soft bunny; a mickey mouse that came from the __h__ouse of a friend; a bottle of __k__etchup; and an island (Isabella picked something that was the same letter as her name since vowels can have more than one sound) After show and tell, it was choice time. At the end of the day we talked about our short week next week.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">April 5. 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Another long table time today, while we met in cubby groups to talk about books with Mrs. Otten. Another fast hello song! We had 7 boys and 7 girls today as Chase is on vacation with his family, and Gabi took Ellie's place and was home sick. We could not be tricked and were able to hear the /n/ sound at the beginning of words for our "thumbs up/thumbs down" activity. We did our Alphabet Town story, our Bible words, and our cow song. We switched up our schedule so we could be sure to get outdoor moving time today. So we went outdoors //before// centers today. After centers and some book time, we sang //My God Is So Big//. We remembered how God created the world and man and then had a story where Jesus demonstrated that he was God by stilling a sudden storm. During snack we had a story that had "notes" in it, like the notes we added to our letter pages. After snack we looked at the hundreds number chart and talked about counting by ones, tens, and fives. We did a wacky Wednesday song and tried to count our fives with the song while we moved (which takes lots of brain power and many of us could only concentrate on one thing but it was fun to try something new). We had show and tell from just 3 boys: someone showed a jaguar; someone showed an eagle; and someone showed a wolf with the name "JabGrab" (and it really could jab and grab on to things!) We had choice time and then we read our new classroom book, //we are OK.// Mrs. Otten also put all the monkey adventures into one BIG book, and now we will take turns taking home these new books.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">April 3, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">We start another new month and it is a busy one for us with the celebration of our Savior's sacrifice for us and His triumph over death as well as the excitement of Grandparents' Day! We started our new month with one sick friend, Ellie. Today we had a longer-than-normal table time while the green cubby friends added words to a new classroom book that we worked on last time. We celebrated Brooklyn's birthday and also heard about presents that Isabella received on her real birthday. Chase used the soccer ball wand to point to our calendar numbers and we "kicked 3 goals" as we counted. We listened for our new letter sound and identified its name and words that start with the sound. We sang //Nandy Nae Noo// and learned signs for //Nothing is too hard for God.// We had our drink break and did our monkey position, putting our hands on our knees, which was an example of our letter sound being bossy and telling the letter K to keep quiet. We got directions for our centers and then did center time. After center time, we did our moving time in the gym with running, throwing balls at bowling pins, and just playing with balls. When we got back to our room, we sang our program songs. Then we had the story of Elijah and God's demonstration of his power and how He is the one true God. During snack we heard a companion book to //Not a Box// called //Not a Stick.// We had show and tell for the green cubby kids. Can you guess who they are by their show and tell? (hint: the show and tell starts with the same sound as their names) We saw **a register; a soda; a zebra; a noodle necklace; and Aurora dolls.**We had a short choice time to end the day.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">March 22, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Nice to see everyone in school on this last 4K day before spring break. Hopefully this means that everyone will be healthy on their week off of school, too! We enjoyed activities of our choosing at table time before our group learning and activity time. We sang our birthday wishes to Isabella who will turn 5 in 5 days. We counted numbers with James. Since he chose the dinosaur wand, Henry suggested that we stomp while we say the numbers, which we had fun doing. We listened for the sound of K in words and correctly determined when we heard the /k/ sound. We had an alphabet town story of a kangaroo, who was making mistakes. Her mother kangaroo was very understanding and told her "It's O.K.- everyone makes mistakes." After doing our Bible words and our cow song, we took a drink break. With our wacky Wednesday song we clapped syllables and acted out sports. Our Bible story was the story of Jesus feeding over 5,000 people with just 5 loaves of bread and 2 little fish. We sang a song that went with our story. We bundled up and had some moving time outdoors. After book time, we looked again at //The OK Book// and re-read the story. Our project today was to make a page for our own book about things we are "OK" at doing. We had Isabella's birthday snack and listened to a new book from the library about a wolf with manners who gets tricked by his prey. We worked on our project during choice time.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">March 20, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Everyone here for this first day of spring! We had a chance to have some talking and listening time at the beginning of the day. Then we sang a fast hello and found out about our schedule and jobs. Henry pointed at our calendar numbers today so, of course, he chose the rocket wand! It is his favorite! We listened for the sound of our letter of the week and since one of our classmate's names starts with that sound, we knew the letter, too. But we did have to talk about how bossy N makes our letter K be quiet in words like knife and knot and knight. We did our Bible words and signs and then our cow song. We got our drink and then did movement with a book called //Spunky Little Monkey.// We sang two songs with standing: //Stand Up and Clap Your Hands// and //Stand on the Rock.// Then we reviewed stories of God's provision and review the story of Moses before having our story of God providing Manna in the wilderness. We had outdoor time on the playground. We had some book time and then read //The OK Book.// We talked about the different meanings for "O.K." During snack we listened to the //Book of Kisses.// We had choice time and did our letter page (which we were excited to do because we got to put a key and a KitKat bar...or its wrapper! on our sound box.)

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">March 17, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">It was nice to see some bright green in the room, considering the gloomy gray outdoors! Today we started with our suitcase surprise. It was a special treat from Kellin's grandma to remind us to keep growing as God's child! After going over our very different schedule and getting jobs, we talked about flashlights and being the light of the world so we could learn the meaning of our Y Bible words. We sang//This Little Light of Mine// with new and traditional verses. We divided in groups and went to the gym. After our warm up we got directions for our stations. Today we smashed bugs with balls, tried the big hula hoops, tried to catch a ball in a scoop,threw bean bags with power across the gym, tried to balance a foam noodle on our hands, tried to keep a balloon in the air, threw over the mat wall, and used the scooter boards. After cleaning up the gym, we went back to our room for show and tell. Then we learned a little about the person called St. Patrick and how he used the shamrock leaf to teach about God. Then it was time for Ireland! We constructed stone fences, made a shamrock hat, ate Dublin Coddle and Soda Bread, and made (and ate) a sheep.



<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">March 15, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">We had some extra table time today as there was new play dough to use and we were still enjoying the things that were out last time. So, of course, our hello song was super //fast**.**// We heard our last monkey adventure story today! We enjoyed how Rowan read his book and all the details he gave us about the monkey adventure. After spring break we will put all the little books into one BIG book so we can see all the monkey adventures. We listened for the /y/ sound and then had a story book about Yola the Yak and the /y/ sound things in her pasture. After our drink break we enjoyed doing the wacky Wednesday song //Booyah, Booyah.// Our Bible story was about the boy Josiah, who became king when he was only 8. We took home a picture of a broken temple with hidden pictures about things from the story. We had a story about how small things can be big things (meaning, that something small that we are afraid to do, can feel like a big thing when we actually do it.) We had show and tell for the blue cubby friends, and then we went over to the church to practice walking up and singing our songs with the piano. Our suitcase surprise was the book from one of our favorite stories from last Wednesday: //Pumpernickel Pickle and the Mean Green Cheese.// It was just as funny as the first time we heard it and we loved the silly rhymes in the story. With all we had already done, we did not have much time left in our day. We used it to have some book time before we did our closing activities and got dressed for our outdoor time. Then it was time for snow play!!

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">March 13, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">What happened today? Like: what HAPPENED today? Snow, snow and more SNOW! Yikes! We should have some good snow play next time! Today we stayed inside. Natalya was sick today so there were more boys than girls in school today. After table time with some different games, puzzles, coloring sheets, and activities, we started our day and sang our hello song as quietly as snowfall and as loudly as a snow plow. We got our jobs and did the calendar counting like falling snow. We listened for our new letter sound and talked about how our new letter (Y) sometimes makes a different sound, especially when it is the last letter in a word. We did our cow song and our Bible words. After our drink and brain gym, we did a monkey position and then spoke the words of our program songs. We had the Bible story of Ruth and God's provision through Boaz. We had some gym run around and ball time. We had book time and then went into the 2nd grade room to practice our songs with the piano. After snack, we had show and tell. During choice time, we worked on our letter page for Y.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">March 8, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">We had a wonderful Wednesday! Jordy had monkey home and shared his adventure with monkey. He played hide and seek with his brother, fed monkey chicken, corn, and bread and read a Lego adventure book to monkey. Our letter X book today was not an alphabet town book. Instead it was a book about an X-ray fish named Xavia. Our wacky Wednesday song had us making shapes with our bodies, starting with the shape of an X. We talked about the term "reader's theater" and then we had our outdoor time before the readers came. We listened to some great stories. Some of them had rhymes, some were funny, some were familiar, and all were enjoyed! During snack we read two books about using imagination with a box. During choice time, we also did our letter of the week page in our cubby groups. Mrs. Otten decided to save our Bible story until next time because it was a little longer and our day was nearing the end by the time we cleaned up from choice time. We only had time for a story book called //Mother Bruce.//

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">March 6, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Another day with everyone in school!! Before table time, we did a practice sheet for letter W and then we did some new activities for table time. After our prayer and hello song, Ella read her adventure with monkey. She also made a birthday crown for monkey, this time with a 3 on it! So we sang happy birthday again! Natalya counted our calendar numbers with the basketball wand, so we bounced like basketballs as we said each number. We listened for sounds for our letter of the week. Our letter this week sounds like a z if it comes at the beginning of a word and like a ks if it is in the middle or at the end of a word. For our cow song, we sang Xandy Xae Xoo (with the z sound). We learned our new Bible words: //Exalt the name of the Lord.// Our monkey position after our drink break was to do our body X's. Then we lined up to sing our program songs. Our Bible story was how God provided a wife for Isaac. After Bible we got a puzzle piece with a picture and lined up for our moving time when we heard Mrs. Otten make the sound that was the first sound of our puzzle pieces. In the gym we played "man from Mars" and did lots of running. After gym we had some book time before our suitcase surprise. Our suitcase had real x-rays! We looked at them with the light table and identified the bones that we saw. Then we read a book about our bones and how important they are. During snack, we got instructions for our project. Using special paint and a scraper, we made prints of our hands that look kind of like x-ray pictures. We did the project during choice time.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">March 3, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">After taking time to draw our own body, we had table time to start the day and were pleased to see James back at school! Natalaya has been making crowns during our choice time and so she made a crown for monkey when he went with her for his adventure. Of course, we had to sing to monkey. She put a number 2 on his crown so we thought that maybe he was 2 on March 2! After reading her adventure story, we did our morning routines. Then we had a suitcase surprise. We talked again about what "united" meant and talked about our school and the high school being "united". We read our school verse and then we got our surprise: a school T-shirt! It also had a U word on it and we talked a little about that. We practiced //The Growing Song// and then had the rest of the story of Jonah. (I just realized that we forgot our drink break today!) We had center time and some book time before lining up for bathroom and snack. Our snack stories both had titles with W words: //Whistle for Willie// and //Wemberley Worried.// After snack, it was show and tell time for the yellow cubbies and James. Then we had our choice time. We must have been excited by the prospect of our outdoor time because we cleaned up lickety-split and then finished our day before bundling up and heading outdoors.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">March 1, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">We took a few minutes this morning to talk about the saying "March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb". We certainly experienced the lion part today! (fyi...preschoolers' brains are not yet wired to think metaphorically, so they did not really grasp the concept. But we had fun singing our hello song like lions and lambs!) We also talked about the special days ahead on our March calendar. After getting up to move and sing with our cow, we listened for the w sound in words and we read the alphabet town adventure with the walrus as the main character. We also listened to monkey's adventure with Gabi. Our wacky Wednesday song was a wiggling song and then we had our center time. We have really been concentrating on making nice straight lines to make our letter W. We also have been using lots of hand and finger muscles as we make sculptures and weavings. After center time, we went over the words and motions for another of our spring program songs. We played the "opposite game": doing the opposite of what Mrs. Otten said to do. Our Bible story was about someone who went the opposite way from the way God told him to go: Jonah. We heard the story up until the point when the great fish spit him out on the shore. After Bible, we had snack and listened to //Woodpecker Wants a Waffle.// He was very persistant (and a little bit tricky) and finally got his waffle. We had some run around time in the gym and also had fun with hoops. After gym, we saw some more cool things made from wood that were brought by the kids with the blue cubbies for show and tell. We had a shorter choice time, but made some good choices and enjoyed the time.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">February 27, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">We heard that James still had a fever, so we prayed for him and hope he will be back next time. After table time, there was a new bell sound since the sound Sadie chose did not work on the big bell! We welcomed back Henry and heard about his skiing. We had Kellin read the adventure that monkey had with him. We sang to Natalya as she was celebrating a half birthday. We got our new letter of the week: learning its sound, and some Bible words, and singing the cow song. After our drink break we did a moving song for our monkey Monday called the Silly Willy Wiggle. We talked about our letter page and other centers and then had center time. We are doing a lot of finger work this week as we are making sculptures and weaving yarn in plastic canvas. After center time, we had show and tell time. Some of our friends showed things they had made out of wood or wood toys. During snack we had a story with the /w/ sound: //Walter's Wonderful Web.// After snack we had some wonderful outdoor time, running on the parking lot playground. We sang //The Butterfly Song// and then had the story of a lame man that was healed by Jesus through Peter. We acted out the story with a song, as well. Then we enjoyed our choice time.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">February 22, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Today we had 6 boys and 8 girls with Henry gone on a family trip and James home sick. We prayed that James would get better soon so he could enjoy this nice day! We had our alphabet town story today and it was the story of Victor the Vet. Our wacky Wednesday song had us moving like animals in the jungle and listening and echoing the pattern of the sounds they made. We had the fourth grade class come to our room and read us books that they had written in December. Most of the stories had a funny part. They had worked on writing dialogue, so all of the stories had the characters talking to each other, too. After snack we enjoyed some outdoor time on the playground. We had a different schedule today and Mrs. Otten did not pay attention to the schedule! Whoops! We came and and did our choice time and forgot all about our song and Bible time!

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">February 20, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">After welcoming back Chase and listening to his monkey adventure book, we did our morning routines and learned that our new letter of the week is V for this week. We did our cow song and new Bible words and made a V with our legs for our monkey position. We read books with information about President George Washington and President Abraham Lincoln. We enjoyed getting back to the wood chip playground for our outdoor time. We practiced //The Butterfly Song// before hearing the story of the lame man who was healed without having to go in the water of the Bethesda pool. During snack we had another story with fortunate and unfortunate events. During choice time, we did our letter of the week handwriting page, adding a valentine in the sound box. We also used violet chalk on the chalkboards when we wrote our V. At the end of the day we had the story of a quiet mother and a noisy boy.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">February 17, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Back to more of a usual day...with some unusual things as well. Table time and morning routines were the same, but then we had our Bible story first. We learned how Elisha helped a widow and a little oil became a lot. Then we had gym and did all of the gymnastic stations from last time, as well as some additional stations. When we got back to the room, we did our letter of the week activities. First we reviewed our Bible words (//Understand what is right)// and then we read a book called //Is It Right to Fight?// which talked about reasons we fight and ways to solve problems without fighting. Since everyone had a turn with alphabet town, we just looked at U house and talked about the character: umpire. Umpire could not find his uniform and left the house in just his long, red underwear! Since our letter page had a United States flag for the long u sound, we looked at a map and talked about how we are 50 states but 1 united country. We found different states on the map as we at our snack. During choice time, we did our letter U page and we also did a practice page for S.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">February 15, 2017 JAMMIE DAY!
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">We did some of our USUAL things in an UNUSUAL way today! Take a look:

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">February 13, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">It was nice to have everyone in school again since we were passing out our valentines. James had monkey over the weekend and read his book on the author chair after we opened our day with prayer. Eli reminded Mrs. Otten about our hello song, so we sang it and made hearts with our hands as we sang. Isabella counted with the flower wand and we acted like growing flowers as we counted. We listened for the sounds of our new letter and did our Bible words and song. After a drink break, we did our Apples and Bananas vowel song. Our suitcase surprise was our silhouettes. We were pretty good at guessing who's shadow we were looking at. We cut out hearts to add to our silhouettes. Then we played two running games in the gym: the mailbox relay and A-Tisket, A-Tasket. After gym we sang a couple songs and then we talked about usual and unusual (as a group, not with talking partners this time). We read about a day with unusual precipitation: //The Day It Rained Hearts.// We had two stories during snack as well. During choice time we got to pass out our valentines. Our bags got really full of valentines and treats! At the end of the day, we talked about Jammie Day!

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">February 10, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Friday is gym day, so we spend a little less time at our table time activities so we can get our morning routines and centers done before gym. We listened to Monkey's Adventure with Eli and saw the pictures he drew for his book. Well, the rocket wand seems to be the "go-to" wand for most of us. I think it was used every day this week. We like being able to count up and then back and then blast off when we get back to zero. As we finished our center activities, we enjoyed book time. For gym today we warmed up with the wacky Wednesday song that we enjoyed this week. Then we got out the parachute. We got to take turns crawling on it. We made a mountain and a tent. We played a game with balls. Finally, we did the giant POP! and made the balls go up to the ceiling. It worked really well because we concentrated on working together and listening for our cues. Our song was//The Growing Song.// Our Bible story was the second part of the story of Elisha and the family from Shunem. In today's story, the prayed-for boy got very, very, sick and so he was prayed-for again and God healed him as Elisha laid on him and prayed. They knew he was better when he sneezed...7 times! During snack we had a story of a boy named Wyatt. Everyone thought he was too little to do things and they told him to BE QUIET! He decided he would be quiet until he needed to use his voice to save a puppy, which made everyone realize he was not too little. Today our yellow cubby friends showed the things they like to do that are quiet, which were play with dolls, make Lego guys, play ponies, draw and make books, color, play Barbies, and put on make up. We had choice time and then finished our day singing the <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">H-E-A-R-T song and a reminder to bring valentines on Monday.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">February 8, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Athena was back, so we were all present today! Today was our alphabet town story for our letter of the week. Natalya finally had her turn to find the letter on the chart and the alphabet town house for Q. That means we have done 16 letters and have 10 to go! Our story was about a quarterback named Quincy and a duck that could talk and lay eggs containing quarters. After reading our story and singing our song, we took a drink break and did a wacky Wednesday song that got us moving and laughing. We did our center time and then had some time to run and play with bean bags in the gym. We learned a new song about friends and then had the Bible story of the kind thing that friends of Elisha did for him and the kindness that God blessed them with in return. Mrs. Otten brought the snack today so we could divide it into quarters by laying parts of it on the 4 parts of our napkin. During snack we listened to //The Quiet Book// about all kinds of ways and reasons to be quiet. Our show and tell friends showed these quiet activities: puzzles, Legos, coloring and writing, fixing hair with special clips, and an activity book with cars. Then we enjoyed choice time.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">February 6, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">We were sorry to be missing Athena and prayed for her to get well soon. We had different table time things out today and enjoyed cups and cubes, coloring and games. Isabella told about monkey's adventure and then we each had a chance to talk about our art work from last week that we made with shapes. Look for those to be in the hallway next time you come into school. We went over our schedule and jobs (and Henry got to count with his favorite wand: the rocket!). Kellin was able to say the whole date by himself. We were introduced to our letter of the week. Our letter (Q) is shy and usually takes a friend (U) with him. Each of them also borrow a sound from another letter! The Q sounds like K and the U sounds like W! So we identified the words that went with pictures of a queen, a quilt, and a quarter. We went over our Bible words and our cow song before getting instructions four our centers. We saw a demonstration of what "quarter" means and will be folding a paper in quarters for our sound box. We also will have one center to work on decorating our bags for collecting valentines. The last center was a follow-up of last week, when we learned about putting pictures in a "sequence" or putting in order. After center time, we took a break and did our monkey position. We sang 2 songs before settling down for our Bible story about the healing of Naaman. During snack we heard a silly story about a monster that did not want to be called a monster, even though, technically, he was a monster! (He wanted to be called by his name.) After snack we had the green cubby friends show some quiet things to play with: a doll, a book, playdough, and a stethoscope. We enjoyed choice time and then did our end of the day routines before getting dressed for some outdoor fun.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">February 3, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Today Athena read her monkey adventure. She even read a monkey book to monkey (//Curious George)//. After going over our schedule and getting our jobs, we got right to center time. After center time, we headed to the gym for some gymnastic-type stations. We had nine stations that we did with a partner, so we only made it to each stations once. We will have more opportunities to do the stations another gym class. After gym we did some "joyful" songs so that we could do our Bible words (//Sing joyfully to the Lord).// Our Bible story was about Jesus healing a lame man after he also forgave the man's sins. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">During snack we had our suitcase surprise that took 4 clues to guess. In it were the stacking cups. We went into the first grade room to watch a couple short video clips of stacking races and world championship stacking. When we got back to the room, we grabbed our ground hog puppets and did our ground hog song with them. We then looked at our homework papers and saw that everyone thought the ground hog saw his shadow yesterday, so that means the ground hog went back in his burrow and we are going to have more winter! Our yellow friends did show and tell and then we had a quick choice time.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">February 1, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Another new month! We were excited to see that we will have Jammie Day this month! We also talked about Presidents' Day and Ground Hog Day. We have homework!! Will the ground hog see his shadow tomorrow?? We had a visitor join us for the first part of the morning. Her older sister is in 5th grade, so she and her dad were checking out our classroom for her. When our table time was done, we sang our hello song //as quietly as falling snow!// Then we looked at our calendar and counted just 1 with Ella. Henry read his monkey adventure book to us. Monkey had quite a healthy meal of meat and vegetables and enjoyed having Henry read the Bob books to him. For our letter of the week, we first listened to beginning sounds to hear the difference between /s/ and other sounds. Then we listened for /s/ and /sh/ sounds, making a wiggly snake (or rolling sea) motion with our arm if we heard /s/ and using our finger to say SH! if we heard /sh/. We did our cow sound and then Athena found the letter s for our Alphabet town story of a squirrel and her sister and their Saturday trip to the seashore. We reviewed our Bible words before getting a drink. Our wacky Wednesday song had us doing actions for //A Sailor Went to Sea, Sea, Sea.// Next came center time. Our schedule changed for the rest of the day. First, we had snack and then we had Bible today. During snack, we heard another story where the author took the story of Little Red Riding Hood and changed it. In today's story "little red" was a scooter and the "wolf" was a mean monster truck. But all's well that ends well, as the monster truck transformed into a traffic robot at the end. Today's Bible story told of Jesus' miracle in the raising of the daughter of Jairus. After our show and tell time, we reviewed the sequence we needed to follow to get ready for outdoor time. Athena was chosen to take Monkey home and two other friends had their sticks picked and were chosen to take home one of our snowman books. Then we got ready to go and enjoyed a nice long time of outdoor play.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">January 30, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Good to be together will all 16 of us today! We still had some beach things out to explore at table time and choice time. We started with prayer and our hello song ("hot" and "cold") and then went over our schedule and jobs. We made three stacks of 10 cubes and counted to 30 for our calendar number and Ellie chose the rocket wand so we could count up and down (and blast off!). Our new letter sound was /s/ and we identified words with that sound. We learned our Bible words and sang our cow song before taking a drink break, monkey position, and "Step in Time" song. We got instructions for our new centers and did center time. We did a snowman sequence on our letter page, a shape picture, and followed directions for a ground hog puppet. Some of us remembered making the same puppet last year (unfortunately Mrs. Otten did not remember that!) but we were happy to make another one. After centers we played a running/acting out game in the gym called "Ship to Shore". When we got back to our room, we sang one song and then used careful listening to discern if two sounds that Mrs. Otten made were the same or different. We talked about our sense of hearing and what it would be like to be deaf. We learned that Jesus healed a deaf man one day. Our suitcase surprise was **MONKEY!** We learned that we each were going to get a turn to take home monkey and do some fun things with him and make a book about our adventures. Henry was the first one to take monkey home. When everyone has had a turn, we will have one big book with all of monkey's adventures to then take turns taking home and reading. During snack we had a story of a monkey that was lost. After snack we had show and tell and then choice time.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">January 25, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">We were just missing Sadie, who was with her family in the Dells (having lots of fun in a bubble tub!) <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">We had another long table time as the green cubby friends finished their snowman projects, which are now hanging in the hallway. Our schedule was different today since we did not have a letter of the week or centers. So we started with a new counting song and then we got with a talking partner. Each of us had a CLEAN old sock and we stuck only our hand in the sock to feel what was inside. We told our partner some things about what we felt. Then we traded socks and told our partner what was in "our" sock and they took it out to see if we guessed what it was. We discovered that the one thing we could not tell about our thing by feeling with our fingers was its color! We needed our eyes for that. So that helped us experience what it might be like to be blind and not be able to see. Our Bible story was about a man born blind, that Jesus healed, giving him the gift of sight. After our drink and brain gym break, we did a wacky Wednesday song about //Granny at the Fair.// We talked about what we could do to change a scary story (like Little Red Riding Hood) into a not-scary story. Then we read a book where there author did just that. The author made the big bad wolf into a sweet little wolf! With the unexpected snow (that is, Mrs. Otten did not look at the forecast!) we did our moving time in the gym, playing a running game. When we got back to our room, we talked about why monkey was driving a car today with a bag on the back. Ella figured out that he was bringing a meal on wheels! It was our clue for our project-decorating bags with hearts for Valentines Day for Meals on Wheels. During snack we had another Red Riding Hood variation: //Very Little Red Riding Hood.// After snack we had some book time and then we had choice time. During choice time we decorated our heart bags in cubby groups. At the end of the day, we talked about beach days!

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">January 20, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">We had a longer table time again as the yellow cubby friends worked on their snowman projects. But we heeded the advice to get cleaned up and ready to listen and were able to get our morning routines done quickly. We stayed focused during our center time and then we got to the gym with enough time to do a song warm up, a cup warm up, and two cup games. (It also helped that the rain stopped so the middle schoolers could go outside for their break and we could stay longer in the gym!) We did our //Just Say Thanks// song before talking about the difference between the opposites greedy and generous. We talked about how generous God is with us, even sharing His own Son for us and how God wants us to be generous and loving with others. We sang our //L-O-V-E// song as well. Then it was time for our suitcase surprise:MONKEY! He returned from his vacation at the beach and brought a shell for each of us. During snack we had two stories and then our yellow cubby friends showed their show and tell. We had choice time and then talked about having a no school day on Monday.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">January 18, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">We had a longer table time today so Mrs. Otten could meet with the blue cubby friends to complete a couple snowman projects. We were happy to see Ella and Henry back at school, too! Ella was wearing two souvenirs from her trip to Disney World: a necklace and Minnie Mouse ears. During circle time, we looked at a postcard sent by monkey, who is also in Florida. Kellin chose the rocket wand for our numbers since he knows we like to count backwards and "blast off!" We listened for the /g/ sound at the beginning of words and could really tell when we heard it. Our "thumbs up" list was longer than our "thumbs down" list. James found the letter G in the room and alphabet town, even though the alphabet town one was tricky because the inside G house was a different color from the cover G house! Goat had an adventure where she learned that giving gifts is as great as getting gifts. We reviewed our center work and then did centers and book time. For gym we played a guessing and running game. Our Bible story was a story Jesus told about what it means to love a neighbor and who is a neighbor. During snack we read a book that told about where germs are found and how to get rid of them. We had show and tell time and then a short choice time with limited choices.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">January 16, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Surprises today! Mrs. Otten's grandson, Jakob, came to spend the morning with us. Monkey left us a message: he was tired of winter and went on vacation. We don't know where, but we guessed that it might be California, Florida, Puerto Rico, or somewhere else warm. He did not say when he would be back! We welcomed back Kellin and prayed for a different friend home sick: Henry. So we did a sad and happy hello song before getting our jobs. Since Ella was still in Florida, Jakob got to be our line leader and we took turns being the caboose for Henry. Our new letter has two sounds and we learned our Bible words and cow song. After our drink break we learned how germs can get in our bodies to make us sick and how we can try to keep them away. We will get to imagine what a germ looks like for one of our centers this week. We did center time and then did running and ball time in the gym. We sang a new song with numbers and then had a Bible story with numbers: 12 helpers that Jesus chose to help people learn about him. During snack we read one of our new classroom books. We will dedicate our page and then be able to check it out. Kellin got to show us his snowman face (since he missed his chance on Friday) and then the green cubby friends got to show and tell. We had stayed on schedule today and had a good amount of choice time.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">January 13, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Ella was gone to sunny Florida and Kellin was home sick today. We did our hello song with right and left hands (in preparation for using both of our hands for gym). We looked at the pattern that our weather cards made this week-just cloudy/cloudy with rain/just cloudy/cloudy with snow/just cloudy. We learned a big word for rain and snow: precipitation! We reviewed the centers and did center time. We reviewed cup stacking and then had time for one cup stacking relay after our warm up song. We had a story with our Bible words that reminded us the the importance of stopping to "just say thanks" and we got to make three links for a chain of thankfulness. During snack, we read the little words on every page of the octopus story and learned how the story told true facts about the common octopus. After snack we saw 4 more very creative snowman faces. We can't wait to see the photographs of our snowmen! We had a short choice time and then talked about show and tell for next week.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">January 11, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">We were without our friend and helper, Mrs. Kiel, today as she was home caring for a sick Brody :( Mrs. Stopar stepped in and responded to our need and offered to stay and help us. Thank you, Mrs. Stopar!!! It was fun to play with you (especially in the gym) and to have you read books with us! We sang our hello song stiffly frozen like the ice outside and then we sang in a melty voice. Sadie did the calendar job and then we did our letter of the week activities. Isabella found the O in alphabet town. We heard words with many different sounds for o. Owl had the adventure of trying to put on a opera with his friends, but it turned out so bad that they just made oatmeal cookies and listened to opera. After doing our cow song (in opera voices) and reviewing our Bible words, we took our drink break and did our wacky Wednesday song which was the Apples and Bananas song, of course. We reviewed shapes and centers and then did our center activities. Since we could not yet get into the gym, we did our Bible time. We first sang some moving praise songs (//Hallelu, Hallelujah, Praise Ye the Lord// and //Shake a Friend's Hand//) then we had the story of Jesus' baptism, read from the storybook Bible! We went to the gym and ran and played with scarves. Then we had snack and heard a story about an octopus and all the ways he escaped. It actually gave us some important facts about the octopus, which we will talk about more next time. Our blue cubby friends and Ella made their snowman faces and we photographed them. Then it was choice time!! (Yay!)

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">January 9, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">All 16 of us together! Since it was Monday, we had some new activities out at table time. Our BELL sound was chosen by Isa BELLa and she chose the train BELL sound! When we got to our circle Jordy told us some things about his trip to Puerto Rico. Then we did hello song with one hand and then alternating hands. Eli added three cubes to the stack to make 9 and counted with the rocket wand so we could count up and down (and blast off!) We listened for the sound of our new letter and identified pictures with the two O sounds we are learning. We did our Bible words and our cow song before taking our drink break. We did some "opposite" moving and then settled down to find out about our centers. We had center time and a little book time when we were done. Mrs. Steenwyk enjoyed book time with us. For our moving time, we went to the gym and used the scooter boards! For our Bible time, we sang the //Growing Song// and then had the story of how Jesus grew as a boy.During snack we had a story with opposites. We were excited to make our snow man faces for show and tell. Our green cubby friends found some really good stuff for the faces. We can't wait to see the photographs and the book we will make from them. We had enough time for choice time before our day was over.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">January 6, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Today the girls had the chance to learn the "upstack" during table time. When we got to the circle, we saw that monkey was sitting on the author's chair because he had started a book called //Monkeys to the Rescue!// (He must have been inspired by our snack time stories this week: //Cows to the Rescue// and //Chickens to the Rescue//) We gave monkey some ideas for other pages he could add. After a quick hello song, we went over our schedule and did calendar. We broke up into our cubby groups and did our center time. After center time, we reviewed the cup upstack (starting with our band hand). We headed off to the gym and had just enough time for a warm up song and one stacking "race". When we got back to the room, we learned the "downstack" so that we can add more races and activities to gym next Friday. We started learning a new song called //The Growing Song// which talked about planting things that will help us grow as children of God. Our devotion about our Bible words was about a boy who spilled paint and needed chemicals to clean it up. We talked about how we need help to get our hearts "clean" too. During snack, the friends with the blue and yellow cubbies talked about their creations that they made during center time. We have put all our creations on top of the cubbies. Come take a look! It is so cool how so many **different** things were made with similar materials. We also got instructions for making snowflakes at the writing center (only Ella and Brooklyn decided to try them). We saw some cool things at show and tell time: soft, snuggly bear and owl; //Frozen// Lego castle and princesses; remote control car; and a doll that looked a lot like Ella! After show and tell time, we had choice time. We were very excited about choice time and enjoyed playing and building and pretending together. At the end of the day, we listened to the story //Snowballs// and talked about how the faces were made with some interesting things (no carrot noses!) We got instructions for next week's show and tell and will be looking for some interesting things that we could use for a snowperson's face!



<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">January 4, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">We had a little longer table time today while Mrs. Otten taught the boys about cup stacking. On Friday the girls will have their turn to learn and then we will do cup stacking activities in the gym. Between our later start to the day and our abundant energy and talkativeness, and the time we needed for show and tell, we ended up not getting in our choice time today. It was disappointing, but we did enjoy some book time and conversation time instead. We did our hello song in a new way again: substituting Spanish words for the "hello" and the "thank you". We listened for the three sounds of the letter c and did our alphabet town book. After our drink break, we did the //Chicken Count// for our wacky Wednesday song (and it is very wacky!). After the yellow cubbie kids talked about their projects from Monday, we divided into our center groups and had center time. We switched up the schedule and did bathroom and snack so that we could enjoy some time in the gym after the bigger kids since it was an indoor recess day for everyone at school. When we came back we were ready for our Bible story of the visit of the wise men to baby Jesus. Then we had show and tell and saw these new things: doll with a cast on it's leg; remote control Wall-E; remote control bumper car; Lego Batman in a scuba outfit; another remote control bumper car; and a nutcracker.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">January 2, 2017
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Welcome to the new year! We had one friend sick and two friends still with family today. We connected with each other again during table time and then we started our day with our morning routines and we looked at the special days on our January calendar. We counted with Gabi and did the ABC song with Kellin. We learned that our new letter of the week does not have its own sound. It borrows from S and K and also has a "bossy H" sound. We learned our new Bible words and sang our new cow song before taking a drink break and trying some arm circle. We had center time. One of our centers is a "construction station". We each had our own ideas of what to make and we will have them on display in the hallway above our coat hooks. We got in our moving time in the gym and we got to use playground balls for dribbling, kicking, bouncing, catching, and tossing. We had Bible time, singing first about Jesus' love for us and our love for Jesus. We talked about waiting and then had the story of Anna and Simeon and how they waited for Jesus to be born. During snack we had a silly story called //Cows to the Rescue!// We tried a sitting monkey position while we waited for the show and tell friends to get their backpacks. We saw a new Barbie, a new Lego police helicopter, new Lego people with interchangeable parts; and a new remote control police monster car. We had choice time to finish our day.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">December 21, 2016
James was back at school, but we were missing Ellie with a fever and Ella who was getting her tonsils removed. Today we learned how the candy cane can remind us some things about Jesus. We had an echo song for our wacky Wednesday song and we played games in the gym. We divided in groups for some of our games and Mrs. H. helped with the blue cubby group. Our surprise was getting to watch our Christmas program performance in Mrs. A.'s room! We had stories about giving gifts. During snack we had a "What's Missing" picture. We each got to open a gift of things for the MOPS mart and then we delivered them to the office.We had a short choice time and then we finished our day! Have a blessed Christmas!

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">December 19, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">James has been fighting a cold and we think it got the better of him since he was out sick today. We had a longer table time today and then we did our morning routines. Since Henry chose the rocket wand, we counted the numbers up and down. Then we sang some songs with bells before having our story about the angel announcement of Jesus's birth. After the story we looked at several story books and how each illustrator had their own ideas of how the angels looked. We wondered about what angels really look like. After a drink break and a monkey Monday SONG, we got to go to the gym for our moving time. (We had been very wiggly and talkative up to this point in the day, but we really showed self control and cooperation with our straight, quiet line when we walked to the gym!) We did more parachute activities. We crawled UNDER the parachute, make the mountain and tent again, and then played boys vs. girls with the bouncing balls. We had a circle time and looked at the numbers sentences and pattern that they make when we make "10" with our number cubes. Then we had some book time. We also read a book with numbers and pictures that started with the same sound as the numbers. We had snack and a story about Morris and his disappearing bag. Then we got our directions for the project and worked on the project during choice time.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">December 16, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">WHOOPS! Guess I forgot to update when I got the good news that my daughter and her family were going to brave the weather and come up for our family Christmas! We had a great Friday! We did our centers and then had a suitcase surprise: snow! Well, actually, it was pretend snow. It was white paper that we made into "snowballs". We used the snowballs for one of our gym warm up songs and even had a pretend snow ball fight. Then we used lots of cooperation to enjoy parachute activities. We got to crawl on top of the parachute, make a mountain and a tent, and bounce a ball in the parachute and bounce little balls out of the parachute. For our Bible time, we sang "//Away in a Manger"// with a story book. Then we had a story about a man who learned the real reason for Christmas gifts: remembering and celebrating the greatest gift of all: Jesus. During snack we heard a silly story of a moose who made himself into a Christmas tree. We had show and tell. Our time was very quickly passing, so we did not have a choice time. Instead we had another story and then we finished our day.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">December 14, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Shame! Two girls out sick today: Sadie and Athena. After our table time, we started our day with our circle time routines. Ella chose the snowflake wand for counting our calendar numbers, so instead of clapping as we counted, we make quiet gently falling snow. We listened for the /r/ sound in words and then sang "Randy Rae Roo". Zachary found the letter R on the charts and in alphabet town. The house belonged to a raccoon, and it was a tree house. In our story the raccoon was a rascal.We did several songs for our wacky Wednesday. We did two songs with pretend candy canes and we did a counting down song called //Roll Over.// We reviewed our center activities and did center time. After some book time, we changed our schedule because every one in school needed the gym for recess time because it was too cold to go outside. Se we took our snack break and had our Bible story before our moving time. We sang one of our program songs and then read a story book that told the story of Jesus' birth. During our gym run around time, we were in "teams" and we did different kinds of moving in a line of hoops laid on the floor. When we got back to our room, we looked at and listened to our friends who had show and tell today. We had choice time. After cleaning up, we had one of the most familiar stories with "red": Little Red Riding Hood. For most of the story we just listened and made up pictures in our heads.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">December 12, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">The snow hindered Chase's return from "up north", but the rest of us enjoyed playing in it at the end of the day! We had a little longer table time this morning as a couple friends completed a project from last week. We were excited to be together and excited by the prospect of outdoor play, so we needed reminders to help us stay focused so we could get everything done in a timely manner. After our morning routines, we listened for the sound of the new letter of the week. Since one of the words we listened to was a classmate's name (Rowen) most of us knew the letter name, as well. We identified pictures with that beginning sound and learned our Bible words before doing our cow song. After a drink break, brain gym, and some running in place, we got directions for our centers. We are working on a couple projects and our letter R page. When centers were done, we did some singing with bells before our Bible story about the birth of John and how he helped people to get ready for Jesus by confessing their sins and being baptized. During snack we had a couple stories with color: //The Wolf Who Wanted to Change His Color// and //Red Is Best.// We got to see some red with the show and tell that the green cubby friends brought. We had our choice time and worked diligently to clean up afterwards. We finished our day with prayer and our goodbye and then went over the steps to get ready for outdoors. A great first time getting ready!!

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">December 7, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">SO SORRY faithful wiki readers! Mrs. Otten has Make and Take on the brain and forgot to update the wiki after school! We were glad to have everyone back at school today. We got to celebrate Athena's HALF birthday! We enjoyed her treats of yogurt tubes, rainbow cake, and puppy chow! Today we started with our Bible time. We reviewed our letter B verse and then had a story that demonstrated that verse. It was also a "parable". The farmer's wife sacrificed her perfect tree like God the Father gave perfect Jesus as a sacrifice for us. After our break, we had a wacky Wednesday song about bubblegum. Then we did some math work with our counting cubes, making groups and making different number sentences for 10. We had some outdoor time after getting bundled up in coats, hats, and mittens. We then walked over to the church to practice for tomorrow night's program. I think most of us are pretty excited about the program and know the songs pretty well. Hopefully we won't experience stage fright during the actual program! During snack we had a demonstration of our project and then we did our project during choice time. We talked briefly at the end of the day about make and take day.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">December 5, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Some good, some "bad"--we celebrated James' birthday but we had two friends out sick. With the beginning of a new week, there were new games, activities, and coloring pages out for table time. We did our morning routines, and also sang to James and we got to hear about one of his special presents. We remembered the stories from a couple books that we read. We noted the similar story: an animal trying to be another animal and talked about the reasons. We read two more books with the same story. After an indoor time of moving around in the gym (which also gave us lots of practice with our overhand throwing form), we had our own book reading time. We then read a story about feeling good about who your are. We talked about how God made each of us different from each other and we should be glad about who God made us to be. We had a suitcase surprise: ornaments for our classroom tree, which we helped to decorate after our bathroom break. During snack we had one more animal story. We were excited by the gift book that we received from James, as well. We worked on a NOISY project during choice time and then we finished our day with review, prayer, and our goodbye.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">December 2, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Another day with lots of activity! With the extra practicing for our Christmas program (today we got our line places and used the bells) and with some extra time in the gym as we enjoyed all the things we can do with a beach ball, we actually ran out of time for our project! Since we don't have letter of the week activities next week, we will be able to get to our project then. Today we first had to look at our December calendar and learn about what all the special cards meant. After prayer, our quiet/loud hello song, and our calendar, we made our circle for Bandy Bae Boo, our Bible words, and a bucket of /b/ sound word cards. We talked about three kinds of books that we have read: information books, list books, and story books. We then read a list book about buttons. We predicted some of the words that Mrs. Otten covered by making the first letter sound. There were also opposites and rhyming word clues. After this book time, we had gym. We warmed up and then we each had our own beach ball to use. We did some things that we watched Mrs. Otten demonstrate and then we had time to play with the beach balls and to try these things or do our own thing. After gym, we practiced our program songs. Then we had snack. Gabi and Ellie brought cheese and crackers, so we talked about using crackers to make a sandwich. We learned the name for a sandwich with only a bottom and middle. We talked about other things besides bread or crackers that can make a sandwich. We also took some time to talk about things we are grateful for. After snack we had show and tell. As the day was almost over, we just did our Bible story and then had choice time. We will be doing our painting next time. In our Bible story today, we learned how Mary visited Elizabeth after she got the news from the angel that she was to be the mother of Jesus.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">November 30, 2016
Busy day! A couple things needed to be "worked through" this morning, so we were just a little behind schedule all day. We are also probably feeling the effects of more time indoors...we have lots of physical energy! And, for better or worse, we really like each other and love to socialize! So we enjoyed making creations with the bristle blocks at table time, making beaded necklaces, drawing with friends, and playing games. Our calendar number had us thinking about changing to 3 tens. Kellin chose the rocket wand (which made several classmates happy) and so we counted up to 30 and then down again so we could blast off! We really honed into the /b/ sound and identified our "thumbs up" words. Rowan even suggested one we did not have a picture card for, so Mrs. Otten had to try to draw a "booby trap"! Since we were on letter B, we let Brooklyn find the B house in alphabet town. The story was about a bear and a bad bird. After our drink and brain gym, we sang a song with bees that had them crawling up and down our bodies and made our voices go higher and lower, too. We did some word-part-clapping with animal names and our names and then we had a suitcase surprise of rhythm sticks for clapping word parts and for doing listen-and-do songs. After our outdoor time, we went in Mrs. A.'s room and she played the piano for us while we sang our program songs. Our Bible time story was about another baby. This was the baby promised to Mary (and to all of God's people!). During snack we had a story about how to share with a bear. Our blue cubby friends did their show and tell and then we had choice time and did our letter page. Today we got to take home our advent activity to help us count the days until Christmas (but wait until December 1 to start!)

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">November 28, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Prayers were answered and we were all safely back together at school. Some of us (including Mrs. Otten) are still fighting off the effects of a cold virus but we have plenty of tissues to help with that! There were some new things out that we enjoyed experiencing at table time today: letter sound game, bristle blocks, games with bones, I spy books, bingo games, and balls to squeeze. After prayer and our //windy// hello song, Athena added to our cube stacks and found 28 to add to the calendar. James pointed at the letters and led us in the ABC song. We listened for the letter of the week sound and identified words that begin with that sound. We learned our Bible words and then did our cow song with the name Bandy Bae Boo. After our drink break we did brain gym and a monkey position with bent knees. We got talking partners and took turns telling our partner about how we decorate our homes for Christmas. We listened to a book that listed 24 things to do to get ready for Christmas. Mrs. Otten explained that our project would also help us count the days until Christmas. We had our outdoor time on the parking lot playground and enjoyed running. When we came in, we practiced our songs for the Christmas program. Next time we get to practice with the piano accompaniment. We had another Bible story with a promise of a baby. This time it was the baby promised to Zachariah and Elizabeth. During our yogurt-apple-granola snack we heard the story //The Big Bad Bullybug.// After snack we got to see the show and tell that the green cubby kids brought. Then we had choice and project time.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">November 23, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Today two were gone and one was sick so we had 13 children today. Some of us had fun making turkeys out out play dough at table time, while others worked on handwriting, puzzles, coloring, or counting games. We started with a book that reminded us that each day is a gift and that we need to open our eyes and see and be grateful. We took turns saying things that we were thankful for and then had our prayer, thanking God for another day. After going over our schedule and jobs, we practiced two more songs that will be part of our program. We had a devotion story about our Bible words //Trust in the Lord.// We learned that trusting in God is knowing that he loves us and wants good for us. Our story was about a boy who learned that he could trust God just like he trusted that his grandma would send him a good cookie recipe. Our suitcase surprise was cookies made by Mrs. Otten. We thought we could trust her, too, and so we ate the cookies! After a drink break, we did our wacky Wednesday song, acting and sounding like chickens. We did a sorting activity with our food for the food pantry. Some of the ways we grouped the food: macaroni and cheese group; box group; can group; sweet group; and things that did not need to be cooked group. Since it was wet outside, we did a gym run around before playing a Hot Potato game in our room. We had some book time and then we learned about our project: coloring bags for people who get meals on wheels. During snack we listened to //Run, Turkey, Run!// Then we had project and choice time.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">November 21, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Fourteen children in school today-one on a family trip and one getting over a fever. We had play dough and pegs and games and puzzles out for table time. There was also some dot-to-dot and coloring pictures as well as name cards. When our day began, I think we forgot our hello song! We did get job assignments and went over our schedule. We had a Bible story about another mom who did not have a baby. When God answered her prayer, she named him Samuel. After our drink break, we tried adding pretzel stand to our brain gym. Then we practiced a couple of the songs for the Christmas program. In our suitcase were the costumes we will wear. Ella modeled the angel costume and Kellin modeled the shepherd costume. We got to choose which we want to wear for the program. We learned a turkey rhyme and then we had a book about the reason that we celebrate thanksgiving. We learned about the pilgrims who came to America. We bundled up and went outside. No one took off coats today!! When we came in we had some book time and we talked about our project. During snack we had a story about a little brother who snuck into his sister's Thanksgiving play. During choice time we used the heat tray for a melted crayon project.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">November 18, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">It was a filled-up Friday, complete with our November Fire Drill! So today our hello song was done "stiff" and "wiggly". Eli added red cubes to our cube stack so we could make a stack that represented 18.He chose the wrench for counting. We did our super silly cow song and then listened for the /p/ sound at the beginning of words. It was a pretty easy sound for most of us to hear! Henry got to find the alphabet town house and we had a story of a parade planned by Penguin with the help of his friend, Pig. When the story was done, we had our FIRE DRILL! We made it out and in safely! When we came in, we each got to hold a letter P. Then we put them in a bag. We passed the bag chanting, "Pick out a P, pick out a P, put your hand in the bag and pick out a P" and NO PEEKING! We had to find a P with just our fingers. We had to be careful because there were some other letters in there to try to trick us! We reviewed our Bible words and then we had OUTDOOR time to take advantage of the weather (good thing we did, because as I type this it is starting to rain!). After outdoor time, we read again the story of Abraham and Sarah, with the story told in the words of an author. We listened for the three promises God made to them and how God kept his promises. Then Mrs. Otten introduced us to the songs that we will be singing at the Christmas program. We will have only 7 times to practice! Some of them have repeating phrases, so we should be able to be ready. During snack we had a story about Peter and his pockets. We added food to our food pantry pile with the show and tell that was brought in and then we had choice time. During choice time, each cubby group came to do our letter page. We made a pattern of paper punches in the sound box. At the end of the day, we prayed for Henry, who will be in Puerto Rico next week instead of with us.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">November 16, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">FIELD TRIP DAY! We did table time and our morning routines. We reviewed proper bus behavior and talked about arts center behavior. Then the blue cubbie friends brought in their show and share food. Our wacky Wednesday song was all about fast food restaurants. Then we talked about different kinds of landscapes and imagined what a planet might have on its landscape. During snack we heard a story about travelling to the moon and we noticed the moon landscape. After snack we got our name tags and partner assignments and it was off to the arts center! We made our own planet landscapes out of clay and many cool materials. We looked at parts of an exhibition called Escape Routes. We used our eyes to make many observations about the art we saw. We looked at a couple other pieces as well: a coyote whose body parts were not touching, but held together on the wall; a boat that would not float; and some oil drilling platforms, partly made from trash. We also listened to a story about travelling to the moon. When we got back to school we enjoyed some outdoor time, as well!



<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">November 11, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Natalya was back at school for this fabulous Friday. We did our hello song with speaking and then whispering voices (with one loud shout of "Hurray!") We heard more authors read their Dots books. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">We did our center time and then got a dot on our throwing hand for gym. We reviewed our overhand throwing form and threw bean bags over the mat wall today. We also threw bean bags at a bug target. Then we threw them as hard as we could and some of them made it across the gym! We then did three throwing stations. For one station we threw balls over a wall and hoped our ball would land in a bucket. When we were done, we checked and found only 2 yellow balls made it into a bucket. After cleaning up from gym, we went back to our room for some songs and a book about feeling what other people feel since our Bible words tell us to "Do to others as you would have them do to you." During snack we heard a story about an owl who stayed awake during the day and was amazed at all the colors. We had 6 friends do their show and tell and 3 of them all started with the /h/ sound like the sound at the beginning of Henry's name. Ella's gallops and eats hay; Henry's was an animal and was soft; and Brooklyn's makes noise and moves. Isabella's sound was /p/ and was something you can squish and mold; Kellin's sound was /d/ and it was something that lived a long time ago but is dead; and Chase's was black and green and started with the /r/ sound. After show and tell we had choice time. When our clean up was done, the last group of children read their books on the author's chair. We were so excited about our books that we wanted to take them home today. We found out that Mrs. Otten would be gone on Monday, but we will see Mrs. Kiel and Mrs. Stopar in our room.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">November 9, 2016
Today we were missing Natalya. We did our usual table time followed by our circle time. Our hello song was done with singing and speaking voices. We listened for our letter of the week and showed thumbs up when we heard its sound. We had a story of a dinosaur that daydreamed and dilly-dallied. After doing our Dancing Machine wacky Wednesday song, the friends that had already made dot books during center time got to sit on the author's chair and read their books to us. We had center time and some book time before our snack time. After snack we went outside so we could get in some good moving time. Our Bible story was about God's promises to Abraham: to bring him to a new land and to give him many children and grandchildren. Our story ended with Abraham still waiting for one of those promises to come true; but Abraham believed God. Friends who had show and tell today gave us these clues- "It lives in water and on land and starts with /h/ sound" (Jordy's hippo); "It is purple and blue and makes your voice when you press the button and starts with /m/ sound" (Gabi's microphone); "It lives in a nest and flies and starts with the /b/ sound." (Eli's bird); "It goes with my Batman sweatshirt and it makes the /b/ sound/" (James' batterang); "It had paper faces and it is plastic and it makes sound and it starts with the /k/ sound" (Ellie's kazoo) After show and tell we had choice time.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">November 7, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">A little extra table time today while we did some number work with Mrs. Otten. So we had to do a fast and then faster hello song. Henry counted our calendar numbers and added cubes to our stack to make 7 for today's number. We made our new letter sound and used it to identify duck, doll, dice. We learned the name for the coin that starts with our sound: dime. We got our new Bible words and signs and did our cow song. After a drink break we did some dancing before we got a partner for a double monkey position. We talked about things we know that are circles and then to to look in books for more things that are circles that we did not think of. We will make our own book with circles called Dots as one of our centers this week. After outdoor time, we talked about our letter page with its dozen dots in the sound box and our counting activity with the dot markers. After center time, we sang two songs and then had the Bible story about God's promise with the rainbow. During snack, we listened to a song about our Bible story. After snack, we had show and tell. The children with green cubbies told these clues: Sadie: "It is round. It is flat. It is smooth. You use it to buy something. It starts with /k/ sound." Zachary: "It is green. It holds money. It starts with /w/ sound" Rowan: "It is red and blue. It flies in the sky. It starts with /h/ sound." Athena: "We went to the door to get it at Halloween. It starts with /k/ sound." Natalya: "It squeaks when you squeeze it. It is an animal in the water. It starts with /t/ sound." Can YOU guess what each friend showed us? After show and tell is was a 6 minute choice time so we did not do dress up or take food out of the kitchen. But we had fun with dinosaurs, A Noah's ark building toy, money, crowns, drawing, cutting, and the castle.

November 4, 2016
Today we listened for the /t/ sound at the beginning of words and we are starting to good at hearing that beginning sound. We will use that knowledge to prepare for our show and tell for next week. We also learned that our letter of the week doesn't always make the /t/ sound! We looked at how the word "thumbs" is written and also how the name of our friend Athena is written. We learned that the sound changes if "bossy H" is the next letter. After centers today, we got to put on a temporary tattoo on our writing hand in preparation for gym. After warming up by counting to 100 and moving a different way each time we did a "10" we got a piece of tape on the toe of the foot opposite our temporary tattoo hand. We put our tape toe on a black square, made a body X, put a pretend ball in our temporary tattoo hand and made a muscle. We pointed at a bug on the mat wall, lifted up our tape toe, then did a power step and three that ball at the bug. We threw snowballs, mud balls, and rice krispies!. Then we got real balls and did the same thing, except that we tried to get our balls OVER the wall! After gym and our drink break, we learned the chorus for Trust and Obey. Some of us recognized the song from church. Our Bible story was about David and Goliath. The Bible says that Goliath had a spear with a point that weighed 15 pounds and we tried to lift a heavy metal weight so we could see what that felt like. We learned how God helped David defeat the giant. We also saw how big Goliath was by seeing a traced body on a BIG piece of paper that hung from the top of our wall. HUGE! We sang Only a Boy Named David. During snack we had a story about a boy with a long name and a boy with a short name. We had some people bring show and tell that was heavy and some bring show and tell that was light. Some show and tell was soft and some bounced. Then we had a short choice time because we also had a suitcase surprise to learn about show and tell for next week.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">November 2, 2016
A wacky Wednesday! We had to write our own initials on the monkey tummies for our name tags again today. Jordy picked the trumpet, so we stood at attention when we heard the bell. When we did our morning routines, we only had to count to 2 so Ella pointed at the numbers slow and fast and we counted with her slow and fast. She showed us 2 with the number cubes. For our letter of the week we passed a tissue box and took out a picture of something that begins with T. We also sang our cow song. Ellie reminded us that we forgot to talk about the new calendar! We looked at the name for the new month and saw that it started with the word NO. On our calendar were two days that also had NO written on them: the NO school days for Thanksgiving. We also noticed that we are going on a field trip and that Chase will have a birthday in 9 days. After our drink break, things got even more wacky! We had the song Tooty-Ta for our Wednesday song. And wacky Mrs. Otten had forgotten all about alphabet town! Kellin found letter T and then we had the story of turtle and his trip to tiger. After our story we reviewed our centers and then (wacky again) we went outside before centers today. After outdoor and center time, we had our snack and a wacky story about a cow who climbed a tree. We did our show and tell but are saving our Bible story until next time because we had reached our limit of sitting for the day! It was time for choice time! Before we finished our day with prayer and our goodbye, we had a suitcase surprise to learn about our homework. We need to trace the hands of our family on paper that we are taking home. The paper is rolled around a tube to keep it from getting smushed.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">October 31, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">We had a surprise when we got to school...the name tag monkeys did not have our names on them! We had to add our own initials! Then we did not really have a "table time" because we were doing our "homework". We drew something that we did or a place that we went during our time off of school. We had book time when we finished drawing. When we started our day, we made some "brain bridges" by crossing our hands when we did our hello song. After going over our schedule and learning goals and jobs for today, we talked about how to make the number for today's date and what it means. Then James counted all our numbers with the wrench wand. We did our ABC song with our body X's while Chase pointed at the letters. We made the sound for this week while we identified pictures of things that start with the sound /t/. Jordy figured out that our cow's name would be Tandy Tae Too. After our drink break we did some walking on our tip toes and then learned about our new centers. We had forgotten about our monkey position, so we tried that before we went to our centers.Mrs. Otten also needed to add new batteries to our bell because it was not making the sound that Natalya chose for today: the chimes. After centers we had outdoor time. We did a lot of running while waiting for Mrs. Otten to wipe the moisture off of the swings. Then most of us just did more running! We sang two songs before our Bible story about David the shepherd boy and the dangers he faced. We talked about how God is our shepherd and about some of the people that God gives us to care for us as well. During snack we had a book about trees and what they can be. The first group did their show and tell and then we had a short choice time. We were excited to see a treat that looked like a pumpkin in our cubbies. Thank you, Zachary and family!

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">October 26, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Today when we reviewed our letter of the week we sang a song about our Bible words for I. Our Bible words tell us that if we love God, we will obey his commands. Our song told us that his command is that we love one another! Our alphabet town story was about an iceman named Ichabod and his adventure when he went to chop ice. Our wacky Wednesday song was a different version of the //Apples and Bananas// song. We talked about the difference between the informational book, //What Is An Insect?// and the story book //Inch By Inch.// After trying to move like inchworms, we spent some time learning about an "inch" and then we got to measure some things with an inch ruler. We took a short break to do some running in the gym because it was too wet to go outside. When we got back to our room, we had a surprise of other I sound things that we could do during choice time: play a "guess the hidden insect" game, write invitations, and play Don't Break the Ice game. After reviewing our Bible words, we had a devotional story about how important it is to follow rules and we talked about how important it is to follow God's rules (commands). Sadie brought oranges, apples and bananas for our snack(or were they eeples and beneenees?). During snack we heard a new story written by the author of //Pete the Cat// called //Groovy Joe: Ice cream and Dinosaurs.// After reading the story, Mrs. Otten found the story on a website and we listened again (and joined in on the words and the song). After cleaning up from snack, we sat back at the tables to talk about our letter page: how to make letter I and the things we would add to the sound boxes-and icicle for the long or name sound and our **initials** for the short I sound. After our choice and letter page time, we had a quick clean up. We talked about show and tell for next week. We also talked about our "homework". Well, actually, it is something we are going to do at table time next time-draw a picture of something we did on our days off of school.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">October 24, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Today we finally put the finishing touch on our embellished hats at table time. Look for them in the hall next time. We had some different things out to do during table time and then we heard the ticking clock with the big BUZZ that Kellin chose and we stopped! We looked! We listened to directions to clean up. We cleaned up and then gathered on the blue carpet for prayer, schedule, and jobs. After calendar and weather, we sang the vowel song because our new letter was another vowel. We said words with its long sound in ice cream, iron, and iris (learning that iris is the name for the colored part of our eye) and its short sound in itch, igloo, iguauna, inside, and inch. We learned from an information book what all insects have in common. We sang a song with the insect parts. After our drink, we did our ABC song with our body X's so that we could make some "bridges" between the two parts of our brain. We looked at numerals and talked a little about ones and tens. We counted by 10's to 100. After outdoor time, we sang two songs about God's BIGness. We heard how God used his power to break the walls of Jericho and how God's people had to obey his commands (walking around 6 days just one time with trumpets and walking around 7 times on the 7th day and waiting for the trumpets to SHOUT! Then we acted out the story with brick blocks and tube trumpets. During snack we talked about our project and read the book //Inch by Inch.// Right when snack ended we had a surprise fire drill. When we came in, we did project and choice time.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">October 19, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">A busy day! After table time, we started our day with our prayer (remembering our change from "Keep us always in your sight" to WE ARE always in your sight"!) We did a fast hello and then Mrs. Otten put up the cards as we went over our schedule. We got our jobs and then did our letter of the week activities. We sang our vowel song and the different way to do our cow's name with the vowel e: Endy E E. Ella found the alphabet town house and we had a story of an elf, an elephant, an eagle, and some Easter eggs. Our wacky Wednesday song used different vowels sounds to change the words apples and bananas. Then we reviewed "equal" and we play a game with a partner. (Mrs. Otten forgot to send home the graphs we did). After some outdoor time, we had our Bible story about how God helped his people cross the Jordon River and how Rahab helped the spies. When we lined up to wash our hands, we lined up by short sleeves, long sleeves, and "sleeveless". During snack we talked about other words with the -less suffix and what they meant. We also made up a word: petless. After snack we heard the story of //Edwina the Emu//. We talked about our handwriting page and we did that during choice time (which was why we got out late today!)

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">October 17, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">On this balmy October day we enjoyed being all together again in 4K! We celebrated Kellin's birthday. We learned that there are 5 special letters called "vowels" and we sang a song about them. Our letter of the week is a vowel so we talked about two of its many sounds. We listened to a story that had both sounds in the title: //Edward the Emu.// We learned a very long word: embellished! We each got to tell how we //embellished// our hats in the project we did last week. We did a new monkey position and then we used some cubes to make equal and not equal towers. After going outside (and sharing our wood chip playground with the BIG kids for a while), we learned how God provided water for his people in the desert. We did an action rhyme about two red apples and then we had a suitcase surprise: apples! The apples in the suitcase were red, green, and yellow. We got to taste each kind of apple and choose our favorite for our project during choice time. At the end of the day we got to go to the gym and see all the workers and the jobs they were doing to make the apple pies.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">October 14, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Our last Friday together for the month of October, and we had a different kind of Friday because we did not have gym but we DID make our own snack! After table time and a quick circle time, we did our centers. We enjoyed decorating hats, putting the hard hat sticker on our letter pages, and seeing how many things we could fit in our hands. We enjoyed wonderful outdoor time. We sang our creation song when we came in and then had a story about our Bible words: //Holy, holy, holy is the Lord.// We learned that even God's NAME is holy and we should only use God's name when we are talking about God or talking or singing to God. After a fun song that had us shaking hands and squeezing knees and scratching backs, we had a story about an apple tree. Then we found out that our snack was making our own apple pies! While the pies were baking, we did our show and tell and choice time. Today there were no bike helmets! Today we saw animal hats and an animal mask, headbands, and a hoodie. After our choice time, it was time for pie!!! We listened to //The Apple Pie Tree// while we at our apple pies..





<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">October 12, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Everyone in school today! We had a full schedule and pretty much accomplished all of it. Table time, morning routines, letter of the week, and centers all by 9:45! We were glad that we had changed the schedule to do gym today since there was thunder rumbling and lots of rain this morning. In the gym we enjoyed trying to do different things with the Hula Hoops and then we really enjoyed our free play time. After a quick drink and time to settle down we sang two songs before our Bible story. Both were about praising the Lord and both had our letter of the week sound: //Hallelu, Hallelujah// and //Ho, Ho, Ho, Hosanna.// Our Bible story was about what happened when God's people left Egypt with Moses. We learned how God led them and what happened when they came to the sea. During snack we heard another story about hats; only some of the hats were not really hats! We had show and tell and the things that friends brought that they wear on their heads were fire helmets, a bike helmet, hair band, hair tie, and a baseball cap. We had choice time for a while and then we had one more story to end the day. It was about a hat that kept blowing away and landing on different animals.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Here are some pictures from center time today: **



<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">October 10, 2016
Isabella returned today. Kellin and Rowan were gone with a fever. There were new table time things out to do so we played new games and made towers, did animal home puzzles, picked up spider rings, and sorted plastic bugs. Zachary chose the train bell sound and we stopped, looked, and listened when we heard the sound. After cleaning up from table time, we headed to the blue carpet for our circle time (eagerly looking for where our monkey might be hiding today. We found him by the calendar today!). We started our day and went over our schedule and jobs and what we were going to learn today. Then we looked at how the calendar numbers would continue past 9 and how the numerals are in a pattern. Sadie counted our numbers today and then Natalya pointed to the alphabet letters for our ABC song. We listened to the sound of our new letter and identified pictures with the sound. We learned that the letter making the sound was the beginning of Henry's name. After going over our Bible words, we sang //Handy Hae Hoo Made a Mess in the Morniing.// After our drink break, our brain gym body X's, and some hopping, we talked about the letter pieces needed to make H. We got instruction for our centers and then had center time. After our centers were done, we had some book time before we went outdoors. Most of us found it warm enough to be outside without our jackets and sweatshirts. When we came in, we had a suitcase surprise for a word in a new song: //HInges.// James knew the word "hinge" and we looked at a real hinge and talked about how our body has parts that work kind of like a hinge to help us bend and move. We also sang the song with 2 parts: //Hallelu, Hallelujah, Praise Ye the Lord.// Our Bible story was about the 10 plagues that God sent to show Pharoah his power and to convince him to let God's people go. We helped say Pharoah's part, //No, No, You Can't Go!// After Bible we had our snack and heard two stories about hats-one with opposites and rhymes and one with a bully problem. We had show and tell and three friends showed something that can be worn on the head. We had our choice time. After cleaning up, we read our book about the Maywood field trip. Athena got to take it home first.



<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">October 7, 2016
Whew! It was a flurry of activity Friday! We always have a lot to say and play with our 4K friends!We were sorry to be missing Isabella on this Friday.We started with table time creations, coloring, puzzles and games. After settling down and having our morning prayer, we enjoyed the opposites of quiet and LOUD for our Hello song. Eli used the flip flop wand to count us to 7 on the calendar and then Jordy pointed at the alphabet letters while we sang them. We passed around our cow and sang the Landy Lae Loo song one more time. Some friends had fun trying to change all the words in the song to the /l/ sound! We had our center time so that everyone could do the activity that they had not yet done. This week's centers will add a new decoration to our room and a new class book to check out. In gym we warmed up with different kinds of locomotor movements and then we did some stretching. Our gym class was a circuit of line (balance beam), jumping, balancing, and locomotor movements. We got to do the circuit 4 times. Mrs. Kaat came in and took a few photographs. You will have to check out the facebook page to see them. After gym we sang our new L-O-V-E song again and then did one of our favorites from last year: //Jesus, I Love You.//We had to guess what was in the suitcase from the clue: "things to make a fire". Then we had the story of the fire that did NOT burn up a bush. It was the story of God choosing Moses to go to talk to the pharoah so he could lead God's people away from Egypt. During snack we heard a story of how to be a lion. We listened to some more exciting sounds for show and tell and did our best to guess what was making the sounds. We enjoyed seeing what our yellow cubby friends brought. Finally, we finished our day with a flurry of play at choice time.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">October 5, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">HOORAY! Our friend, Chase, was back at school. Brooklyn was able to finally tell us that her brother was born! Welcome to Carson Chase who was born on Monday: a special time for the Kraemer family, to be sure! After our table time and some sharing time in our circle, we started our day with our morning routines. For our letter of the week activities today, we showed "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" while listening for the /l/ sound at the beginning of words. Then we reviewed our Bible words and sang the song for our cow. Chase found the L on the poster and wall chart and the L house in alphabet town. Our story was about a Little Lady who lost her locket. Our wacky Wednesday song was the Loop d'Loo. We walked in a loop and stopped to move either our left or right sides. Then we had our center time. We were blessed to be able to get outside before the day's rain, even though our outdoor time was pretty short today. We sang one song about God's love that we knew (//Jesus Loves Me//) and learned some signs for a new song about God's love //(L-O-V-E, Love, That's Why//). Mrs. Otten pulled sticks for talking partners. We told each other about different rules that we have: rules for our line, or a fire drill, or being on the bus, or a rule from our family. Then Mrs. Otten said, "What IF I told you to do something that was against one of God's rules? What IF I told you to steal money from your parents and give it to me?" Our Bible story was about a king (Pharoah) that had a rule that was against God's rules. He told his soldiers to kill the boy babies of the Hebrew people. Our Bible story was about God's good plan to save one of the Hebrew boys. After Bible we had our snack time. We listened to a story of a shy mouse who wanted to have a lion's roar. Our blue cubby friends made sounds with their show and tell and we guessed what they brought. We enjoyed seeing what we had heard. We had our choice time to end the day.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">October 3, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Chase was still home recuperating and will see the doctor tomorrow. We prayed that he will get the thumbs up to come back to school on Wednesday! We had a longer table time today since we did not get much table time on Friday. We were efficient in cleaning up from table time and then we started the day with prayer and our hello song. We looked at the new month's calendar and talked about the special days that were on the calendar. We got our jobs and then Isabella counted the numbers for us. We listened to the sound of our new letter of the week and made that sound as we looked at pictures that begin with that sound. We identified the letter: L. We got our Bible words and the signs that help us remember those words. Jordy correctly guessed the cow's name: Landy Lae Loo. We sang her song and then took our drink break. After our monkey position, we talked about the letter pieces that make the L. We did the ABC song with Gabi. Then we learned about our new centers and did center time. When we got outside we needed to dry off some of the equipment. Even though the clouds had covered the sun by this point, we still enjoyed our outdoor time. We sang a song with our Bible words and we sang //This Little Light of Mine.// Then we finished the story of Joseph and his brothers. It was a long story, but it was exciting to hear how Joseph treated his brothers and how God had a good plan even though there had been some sad parts to the story. During snack today we did a listening activity to prepare us to listen during show and tell. At show and tell time, the green cubby people hid behind the books to have their show and tell make its sound and we tried to guess what it was. After show and tell we had our choice time.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">September 30, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">We got to experience Maywood, dripping skies, notwithstanding! We had a fun bus ride and enjoyed looking, learning, and touching! Here's some of the highlights of our day:

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">September 28, 2016
Only our friend, Chase, was gone today as he was resting and recuperating. Eli told us that he got lots of specials things, so that should make his time at home fun. After morning routines, we did our letter of the week activities, including our adventure in Alphabet Town. Ellie found the F house that belonged to the fox. We found many things in his house that start with the /f/ sound. Fox and his friends went to the fair, but some foolish fish nearly spoiled the fun. Guess what they did? We switched up our schedule so we could get in our outdoor time. Since the wood chips and playground equipment was wet, we got our exercise and fresh air on the parking lot playground (so we had to take our turn before the big kids). When we came in, we did our center time. Our wacky Wednesday song was so much fun! We got to move and dance any way we please, but when the music stopped we had to FREEZE!. Then we settled down for the second part of the story of Joseph. We learned that there still was a sad part-being sold //again// and having to be a slave. Then being lied about and being thrown in prison! But the good part was how God was always with Joseph and he did good things and God helped him tell what the king's dream meant and come up with a plan to help the king. We sang our Bible songs and then had snack. During snack we heard a story by a house fly. We had choice time after cleaning up our chocolate pudding faces :p At the end of the day we had time for one more story book that told us about the job that a leaf has and what it uses to do that job. We finished our day with prayer, reminders about Maywood, and our good bye.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">September 26, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">WOOHOO! We were happy to welcome back Isabella! Zachary and Jordy were also back. We look forward to seeing Sadie on Wednesday and Friday this week. We prayed for Chase, who was at the doctor today and hope to have good news from him soon. We had new things out for our table time today. We has some farm friends, colorful leaves, fire truck puzzles, Connect Four game, and some "fuzzy" foam balls. Ella picked the chimes bell to start our day. We were missing our line leader and our caboose today. Athena was picked to be the line leader. (She also got to do some other special things....more about that later!) We were introduced to our new letter sound and letter name: the air sound of /f/ and the letter F. We identified the /f/ sound pictures: 5, fan, and fox. We learned signs for our Bible words: //Forgive like God forgives you.// After our drink break and brain gym, we did o silly monkey position and learned about this week's centers. We split up and did our center time. We enjoyed outdoor time next. When we came in, we sang two songs and Mrs. Otten made Athena the special helper again. Then, she got a treat!! We were all feeling a little sad about that. We talked about how it made us feel. Well, that was just like our Bible story when Jacob gave a special coat to Joseph but not to his brothers. We heard the story of how the brothers were so angry that they sold Joseph and then told a lie to their dad. (oh, Mrs. Otten DID have a treat for each of us because we are each special!!) During snack we heard a story with two /f/ characters: the big wide-mouthed frog and a little fly. We had choice time. After clean up, we read about the changes that happen in autumn and then our suitcase surprise was (pretend) colorful leaves that we used for action rhymes. Henry got to take the first class book home. Zachary shook the number 3 on the cube so we shook hands for our good bye.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">September 23, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Here's one letter M thing I don't like:Missing friends! We had friends who were sick and sad. Hope Monday will bring many of them back! We had table time with some new activities today. James picked the spaceship sound for our bell (I think it is becoming a favorite sound!) We started with our morning routines. We did our letter of the week activities and then did our center time. After center time, we went to get our school pictures taken and then we headed straight to gym (in our nice straight line!) After a body moving warm-up song, Mrs. Otten demonstrated our 7 stations. We each had a partner and did all 7 activities. We did some jumping, some balancing, some tossing and catching, some scooting, some animals walks and some jumping jacks. After doing all the stations we worked together to pack up the gym. We had Bible time by singing about and talking about how God is always with us, always sees us, and always loves us. Right before snack our friend Zachary got sick, so he missed the rest of the day. Athena was our snack person today. During snack we listened to the story //Madeline.// Then it was time for the yellow cubby friends to show and tell. We had things made of plastic, cloth, metal and clay today. We finished our day with choice time, cleaning up, and talking about next week's activities.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">September 21, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">We received news that our friend, Isabella, would be spending a day in the hospital while the doctors figure out how to help her to breathe better. We prayed for her and her family. Please remember them in your family prayers, too. Last day for some of the table time activities we have been doing. It will be fun to have different things to explore next time. One new thing today was the //Mouse About the House// books to read with a mouse that slips through the pages. After our morning routines, we did some new letter of the week activities in addition to our Bible words and Mandy Mae Moo song. We listened for the beginning /m/ sound in words (giving it a "thumbs up") Jordy found the letter M on the poster and on the wall cards and he also found the M house in Alphabet Town. Today's story was about a friend that moved away. After our drink break we did a wacky Wednesday song, acting out some "machines in motion". Then we had a story about a girl who was having a hard time making a smile for her school picture. She got to help the photographer make the other kids smile and then all her friends helped make //**her**// smile. We reviewed our centers and then had our center time. Since it was still too wet on the wood chips and the big kids were on the parking lot playground, we did our moving time in the gym. We ran and galloped and hopped and skipped around the gym, moving to a color corner when the music stopped. If Mrs. Otten rolled our color or the color purple we could cheer as the "winners". For Bible time, we sang our creation song and talked about how the creation teaches us what God is like. We sang //My God Is So Big// and had a story book that reminded us that God knows everything. During snack we listened to our class book. We can't take it home yet because we have to wait for Isabella to draw her body for the book. For show and tell we again saw things made of cloth and plastic and some of them made sounds, too! We had a short choice time to end the day.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">September 19, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">God answered our prayers and our sick friends were back in school! We had table time with many of the same things to explore and pretend with. Natalya picked the spaceship sound for our bell. We started with routines and then did our letter of the weeks activities. Sadie pointed to the letters as we sang the ABC song. We listened to a sound /m/ and some of us knew that it was the sound that the letter M makes. We got our letter M Bible words. We learned the Miss Mandy Mae Moo song and passed her around the circle. After our drink and mmmmonkey MMMMonday, we talked about the letter page center, the dot-dot-not-a-lot center and the magnet center. We divided up and did center time. We enjoyed our outside time. When we came in Mrs. Steenwyk joined us for Bible time. We had the sad story of how Adam and Eve disobeyed God and were sent out of the garden. During snack we read a book that has a mouse that goes through the pages. Then we had show and tell! Our green cubby friends brought in things made of plastic and cloth and rubbery plastic. Then we had our choice time and our day was over!

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">September 16, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">A "mostly" Fabulous Friday! What was not great about our day was missing two friends who were sick, Athena and Isabella. We also had a very mean winged creature who stung Kellin while he waited in our bathroom line. With a little cold pack and some hugs he felt better. The rest of the day was great, though! We had some great table time. There were some finger puppets out that were fun to play with. Mrs. Otten chose the clapping hands bell sound since our bell person was sick. We did a quiet/loud hello song and then Mrs. Otten went over our schedule and put up job hands. UH-OH! She grabbed the wrong hands! Everyone makes mistakes, even grown ups! So we had to switch the hands because we needed to give jobs to the friends who did not have jobs last time! Rowan got to point at the alphabet letters while we sang and then we found the big curve letters. We did our center time. Then we got instructions for our gym relay game. First in gym we reviewed moving in a circle. All of us can walk and run. Most of us remember to keep two feet together for jumping. Some of us can hop a long time and some can hop a short time. A few of us are skipping using both sides of our body. These skills will continue to develop with practice and as we grow up during the year. We did our relay game, looking for markers under cones. Then we practiced moving straight across the gym. We challenged ourselves to gallop, side slide, walk on toes, walk on heels, and "robot walk". When we got back to our room, we sang //That's Good!// once without music and once with the music. We talked about what the Bible tells us about Adam naming the animals, how Eve was created, and what it was like in the garden. We talked about the food that God gave to Adam and Eve. Then it was time for our food! We were hungry and thirsty and enjoyed Chase's snack of Chex mix and apple juice. We finished the ABC book about animals and learned more interesting things about the animals God created. We had a great choice time (games, play dough, making animal pictures for a book, lite brite, dress up, pretending with the small castle and fire truck, and making designs on the light table. After a quick clean up, we talked about the theme for show and tell for next week. We also picked something (man-made) out of the suitcase and sorted them by what they were made of. There were things made of wood, metal, cloth, paper, foam, and plastic.



<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">September 14, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">It is that great time of year when the sickness germs are not being passed around and we are all in school! Today a few more of us answered some questions about our favorite things during table time. Kellin chose a new sound for our bell-the alarm clock bell. After a fast Hello song, we did our morning routines. Then Ellie stick was chosen so she was the first one in our class to point to the letters while we sang the ABC song. We reviewed our letter pieces names and the we went through the alphabet and put "thumbs up" if the letter had a BIG LINE in it and "thumbs down" if it did not. We sang the song about starting our letters at the top and then we did some sky writing with our fingers. After our drink break we did a wacky Wednesday song that had us moving like lots of different animals. We reviewed our centers and did a different center from Monday. We sure were ready for outdoors! Our minds had gotten a learning work out and our bodies were ready for their work out too! Most of us spent at least part of our outdoor time RUNNING! We are thankful for these days when we can have great weather for outdoors. When we came it, we had an opportunity to talk about the creation world we had made with paint and paper. Our suitcase surprise was the thing that God used to create people. Natalya guessed it: dirt! Mrs. Otten told the story using pretend dirt (play dough) and reminded us that God did not just //say// let there be man, but he formed man with his own hands and put his breath in the man. And then he took a part of man and made a woman with his God hands and his God breath. We added one more verse to our song about creation. During our snack today, we had part of an animal ABC book that helped us learn about the amazing way God created the different animals.We enjoyed choice time and some of us were excited to use the play dough, too. At the end of the day we learned about the open house on Thursday!

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">September 12, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">A marvelous Monday! We were all in school and started the day by drawing and doing table time. We had a new bell sound today: Chase chose the space ship sound! We had a lot of things on our schedule! After our morning routines, we did some letter work. We sang our ABC song and learned the names of our letter pieces. We did a moving song with our letter pieces. After our drink break and brain gym, we also did a monkey Monday position-it was a big body X with straight legs. In our suitcase we had the pieces for Mat Man and we made Mat Man and then we drew Mat Man on the white board. We learned about center time and separated ourselves into our cubby color groups and did one of three activities. After some much needed outdoor time, we sang our song //That's Good!// and then we learned how God created all the animals: birds and fish on day 5 and land animals on day 6. We tried "talking and listening" partners. During snack we heard the story //Sad, the Dog.// (one of our friends was sad and we wanted to make him feel better). Then we had our choice time. We reviewed our day after clean up time (which took a little longer today).



<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">September 9, 2016
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">It was a activity-full Friday! We enjoyed table time with each other until the tick-tick-tick **BUZZ!** of the bell sound that Brooklyn chose. We were excited to see our fish! Natalya was the first helper to feed the fish. Kellin counted our calendar numbers today with the walking stick wand. We tried our creation song and then learned that God created the sun and moon and stars on day 4. Very good! After taking a drink break and doing our brain buttons and body X's, we had book time. Today was our first "real" gym day. We reviewed moving around the circle; moving safely across the gym by running straight and looking up; and we tried a relay race. We needed another drink break after all that exercise! We heard a story called //Things I Like// and we talked about two new words in the story:" acrobatics" and "wade". During snack we got directions for our project. We added plants and sky things to the paintings that we made last time. We worked on our project during choice time. We had the light box and the Lite Brite out at choice time today.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">September 7, 2016
We survived a very warm day in our room! Most of us will need a bath tonight...we got really sweaty in school. We started our day with table time: coloring, playing Go Fish, building towers, doing an I Spy book, playing with pretend bugs, and doing puzzles. Sadie chose the trumpet sound for our bell sound again today. After our morning routines, Chase counted the calendar numbers with the parrot wand. We moved hands and then feet, making up verses for //If You're Happy and You Know It.// Our Bible story was the 3 things God created on day 3: water, land, and plants. Today at choice time we had water and land (sand) to play with as well. We learned about our "brain buttons" and "body X's" and we did those after our drink break. We listened to a story about pre-K. We had a reading choice time. Since the playground was all wet from rain, we played a running game in the gym for our moving time. We had a suitcase surprise: our paint shirts. Zachary and Kellin showed us how to put on the paint shirts. During snack time, we listened to a story about all different kinds of water in the world. For our project during choice time, we painted land and water, using blue and brown paint. We also mixed in some white to make lighter colors. Jordy shook number 2 for our goodbye, so we gave hugs today.



<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">August 31, 2016 FIRST DAY OF 4K!
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">With so many friends returning from 3K, it was almost as if we had never left...except that everyone is a bit bigger and and a bit more talkative and quite a bit more familiar with all our routines! It was a great day and we enjoyed meeting our new friends: James, Ellie, Gabi, and Eli. Today we were introduced to our new bell with 7 different sounds. Picking the bell sound will be one of our jobs this year, and Eli chose the first sound: the trumpet sound. After our table time, we did our morning routines: prayer and hello song; looking at our schedule our learning focus; getting our job assignments; and doing the calendar and weather. After a moving song, we talked about what applesauce "used to be". Then we talked about what our world "used to be": DARK! But God began to make our wonderful world and he started by making LIGHT! (and he said it was very good!) We reviewed walking in a line. This year we are going to try to remember to walk with our hands behind our backs. We took a drink break and did a wacky Wednesday song. We reviewed the meaning of "fire drill" and read a book called //Fire Drill.// We then did our own fire drill and we remembered everything! We made a nice line; we walked; we were quiet; and we said "here I am" when our names were called. Then it was time for outdoor play! We sure enjoy (and need) this special time of day! We reviewed our handwashing and bathroom routine and then did our bathroom break and had a snack. During snack we heard the story //Wow! School!// After cleaning up from snack, we guessed what was in the suitcase. During choice time, we had our pictures taken and we were measured and weighed. Mrs. Steenwyk came to visit us and saw us do a super job getting our room cleaned up after choice time. She also stayed to see our end of the day routines and then our first day was finished! <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">