2012-2013+4K+What+Happened+Today?

=WELCOME TO WHAT HAPPENED TODAY?"= On this page you will find Mrs. Otten's blog of 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.

Boy, the week off of school got me out of the swing of things! I forgot to update the wiki! What reminded me was preparing for Friday and seeing our shoe graph. //**So cool!**// We made another pattern //the same way as last week!// We added one each to laces and slip on and then had to take two away from Velcro! So our new pattern was 4-7-4! **Wonder if we will have 5-5-5 on Friday; now, wouldn't that be something!!!** After our morning routines and songs, we had a story based on a verse in the Bible: Thy word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against thee. Then we "hid" Psalm 100 in our hearts. After our drink and brain gym, we did the wacky Wednesday song //Count by 5's//. We made some two digit numbers with a partner and then used all the numbers to make **one huge number: 828 trillion, 613 billion, 341 million, 472 thousand, 6 hundred 57!!!** We were able to play outside. Hooray! When we came back in we "wondered" about what we would do in summer and then read //Summer Wonders.// We compared the book to our wonders. Five things were the same. There were more things in the book than we thought of. The last page of the book had a recipe for ice pops. Mrs. Otten forgot to make them, but Alex brought popsicles for his treat! How cool is that!! After snack, we had to put away the box of things Mrs.Otten collected from the room (things we did not get put away after choice time the past 2 weeks). Then we had choice time and made our final page for our yearbooks. We talked about the last day and then got ready for home. Another rainy day that prevented us from having outdoor time :( We **did** go outside briefly in the morning so we could take a photograph of the whole class together. We did our morning routines. Our shoe graph made another cool pattern and we got to add and subtract. Our pattern was 3-9-3 today! Miss Roekle had us look at pictures of different tools that are used in jobs and we had to figure out the job. She read us a book that had a job for each letter of the alphabet and then we were able to do a think-pair-share about the job we would like to have someday. Our wacky Wednesday song was really wacky! It was called //Stuff it in the Closet.// We had center time and then were very ready for our snack. We enjoyed the colorful cupcakes and flavored milk that Aaron brought for us. After snack we had a suitcase surprise. We each got to pick something from the suitcase, predict whether it would sink or float, and then see if our prediction was correct by putting it in a bucket of water. Most of the items were easy to predict, but a few tricked us. The last thing Mrs. Otten put in the water was some wood. We thought it was going to sink, but it floated. That was an important observation for our Bible story about Paul and the shipwreck. Although the boat that was taking Paul to another city broke apart in the storm, not one person drowned. God had promised Paul that all would be safe, and God always keeps his promises! We had a short choice time and made the most of it, playing in the water buckets, making things at the writing center, and pretending with friends. We won't see each other for a week (7 simple days!) and then we will have one regular day of school and one special day. We counted only 4 days left of school! We were thankful that everyone was in school today and hope we can have perfect attendance for the last days of school. Our shoe graph had the pattern of 2-11-2. Aaron counted our calendar numbers (we counted by tens while we were waiting for him to choose his wand). Jonah did the weather. We had a book about jobs and a book about the different jobs that are needed to build a house. After our outdoor time and monkey Monday position, we learned about our new centers and had our center time. Addison brought our snack today. We had the Bible story of Paul being rescued. This time he was rescued because his nephew heard about the plan to kill Paul and could warn the guard. The guard and soldiers got Paul safely away on horses in the middle of the night. After our Bible story, we had our choice time. We had visitors during the first part of our day. (a 3K student for next year and her parents). We did our morning routines and then sang //Stand on the Rock.// MIss Roekle told us the story of Paul and Silas and we worked on learning Psalm 100 with Mrs. Otten. After our drink, we did the wacky Wednesday song //Dancin' Machine.// It was fun to dance all silly ways! We learned some more about clouds. Miss Roekle showed us how rain comes from cumulo-nimbus clouds by using a glass of water, shaving cream, and blue food coloring. If we have these things at home, we can show you! After learning about clouds we went outside to enjoy the beautiful day. We only saw a few cirrus clouds again! (Maybe that is the key to nice sunny days: try to teach about clouds!!) When we came in we had centers. Nathan brought one of our favorite snacks: crackers, sausage, and string cheese and juice. We had our choice time and then talked about our FIELD TRIP TO MAYWOOD! We are very excited about our field trip. Today we did our morning circle time with Miss Roekle and then Mrs. Otten reviewed our Bible words from grandparents day and we sang the songs he had done for our grandparents. Miss Roekle talked to us about the different kinds of clouds and read about the shapes that clouds can make. There was a pattern in the book and we shared the reading. After our outdoor time (Amara was watching the cirrus cloud move across the sky and make shapes!), we came in for center time. We listened for letter sounds, identified numerals, made a "cloud" picture, and began to work on our 4K "yearbook". We had Sam's birthday snack and then our day was nearly done, so we went right to choice time. Mrs. Otten did our morning circle time today. We saw that our laces and slip on shoes flip-flopped and that Velcro was one less because Jonah was not in school. Mrs. Roekle was able to do the calendar counting and then we learned the meaning of "kudos" and talked about the program last night. Then we had Kudos we could eat in the suitcase! Mrs. Otten talked about our Bible verse ("You are the light of the world"). We sang our program songs (correctly!) and //This Little Light of Mine//. Miss Roekle talked to us about running bases with kickball and then we had gym. We did our skipping song and almost all of us can skip now! We practiced our kicking and then did kicking and base running. After gym Miss Roekle read us a great story with not many words, called //Yo, Yes!// It was about a boy who had no friend and then had a friend. Jonathan brought //Moo Tubes// and vanilla wafers for snack. We were hungry and enjoyed our snack. Miss Roekle explained the free Friday project. Alex, Levi, and Addison chose to do the project today. We had show and tell early because some of our friends had to leave early. Several dads like fishing and baseball; some like to build, to play chess, soccer, or hockey, or go to their office. Our day ended with our choice time and hearing about the plans that Miss Roekle has for us next week. We switched up our schedule a bit today so we could include our program practice. So we started with our Bible story. We looked at different kinds of baskets and then had the story of when Paul went over the wall in a basket. We were able to go to church for our program practice without wearing coats because it was so nice outside! We practiced our songs and how we needed to walk up on the steps to sing. We are such good singers! We had our last adventure in Alphabet Town story and Boone was able to find the house that was shared by X, Y, and Z. We added yogurt and the yield sign to the box and then we were able to get outside to enjoy the nice weather. Our wacky Wednesday was very wacky! We made shapes with our body and then froze in that shape. We had our center time and then we were more than ready for snack! We enjoyed our cookies and milk from Levi and then went right into choice time. Miss Roekle reminded us that our show and tell on Friday is something that Dad likes to do. We are starting out the week with everyone in school! Yay! Today was our student teacher's first full day of teaching. She will be leading the class for the remainder of this week and for most of next week. She has had to learn a lot of names, personalities, routines, and strategies in a very short amount of time, and has stepped up to the challenge. We had our morning circle time and Mrs. Ballantine played our songs for us. Next time we will practice in the church. We did our letter of the week. There were 3 things in our box, but we also added the words of the things that were in the story. After our outdoor time we had our monkey Monday position (minus the tail!) and learned about our centers. After center time we had a snack that Lydia brought. Our Bible story was about Paul's experience with the bright light and how this experience changed his life. We had a short choice time and then finished our day with Jonah picking a lightning bolt hand stamp and Boone picking a high five for our goodbye. Miss Roekle began our day with our morning circle time. We welcomed Amara back and we noticed that there was really no pattern to our weather this week. We sang the song that went with our letter W verse and then we had a story about the miracle that happened when Peter's friends prayed for him. In gym we did a skipping song. We are getting more confident in our ability to skip. Today we tried all kinds of kicking with a ball. We also tried to kick a moving ball so that we can learn to play kickball. After gym we found out about our last letter of the week: Y. It can make many different sounds when it is found at the end of words (but only makes its sound when it is at the beginning of words). During snack we found out about our project. Watch for a guessing activity about our Moms that will be in the hall next week! Our day ended with our show and tell. Our moms like to do many different things. Some moms like to knit, or quilt, or read, or take photographs, or play the piano, or play with us. Next week we will find out about our dads! First day of our last month together! Well, my hope was not realized: Amara was out sick today! We worked really hard at listening during our listening times so that we would be sure to have as much time as possible for our outdoor time! We looked at the upcoming activities and special days for May and then practiced our songs with Mrs. Ballantine. We did our letter of the week activities and then did some really fun dancing as "dancing machines." We had center time and then went right to snack. We talked about how to hand the clean up "problem". Mrs. Otten is going to give 5 minutes for clean up and set the time timer. Things that don't get put away get taken away, so we will work hard to put things away and only take out the things we really need to play with. We had a great outdoor time and then had our Bible story about Peter and Dorcas. We had choice time //**and we got everything cleaned up in our five** **minutes!**// We talked about show and tell. We were all in school today! Hopefully we will stay healthy for the remainder of the year. The end of school is coming very quickly now. Next time we are together we will change our calendar month for the last time! Today Rachel counted the numbers of the calendar and Supria did the weather. It was cloudy, but thankfully, no rain! We practiced our songs for the program with the taped music and next time we get to practice with our real accompanist: Mrs. Ballentine. We did our letter of the week activities and then went outside to run and be loud. When we came in, we found out about our new centers and had center time. Supria brought a wonderful snack for us. We had a Bible story about two people who lied. We had our choice time. We had a problem with cleaning up from choice time today because so many things had been brought up to the castle. We had to take extra time to put them away. We tried to think of a solution to our "problem", but I think we may have to talk more about it next time. We began our day with prayers for our friends who were sick: Alex and Jonathan. We needed to change all the numbers on our shoe graph. Nathan counted the numbers with the rocket wand and Max did the weather. We had the same thing up for the weather all week! Sun and clouds. Now we just need some warmer weather! Mrs. Otten talked about how we are like a body with different parts. Each part has something important it can do. We read a story about a dog who was bragging that he was the best. He learned that each of his friends was better than him at something. We thought about the things that we are good at. After getting a drink and doing our brain gym, Miss Roekle had a suitcase surprise for us. We each got a set of blocks and she showed us how to make an addition number sentence with our blocks. Then we found out that our gym time was going for a walk and that we would end up at the new playground equipment at Vollrath Park. We were so excited! We really followed directions and stayed in a safe line, especially when we crossed the streets. We had a great time checking out and trying the playground equipment. We came back for a healthy apple snack provided by Jonah and learned about our free Friday project. We had choice and project time and then got our show and tell. We were very respectful listeners and waited our turn to show. We each had something to show and talk about. Several of us brought things we had made. Finally, we got our new letter of the week: W and many of us thought of a word that starts with its sound. I wonder what will be in our letter box on Monday? Today we had a different schedule because we had our country visit with the 5K class. We started with our morning routines and Josh decided that the weather was the same as Monday and Tuesday: partly sunny. We practiced another of our program songs and then had the story of Philip explaining the words of the scroll to the Ethiopian man. We did our wacky Wednesday song and then had a story about another character with an outfit: Finklehopper Frog. We had a short time of outdoor play and then it was time for our visit to CHILE! We had 6 fun activities that taught us about the country and people of Chile. We learned about the stone statues on Easter Island and made our own from clay. We tried Empanada and made Cocadas. We learned that Chile has desert and very cold areas, earthquakes and volcanoes. We made our own volcano. We went down in the dark and looked for copper wearing head lamps like real miners. We made a necklace with our copper. We played a game and did a dance wearing the spurs we made. Today we welcomed back Sam and Levi and we welcomed Miss Roekle to our class. We have a different schedule this week with some special activities, so we did not have center time today. We started with our morning routines, reviewing one of our spring program songs and learning one new song (//If I Were a Butterfly)//. We then made pairs, and thought and shared about things we wait for. We had lots of ideas: Christmas, pizza to be delivered, our parents to be done with work so they can play with us, our turn to talk, visiting our cousins, and many other things. We learned that Jesus' helpers had to wait for the Holy Spirit to come. When the Spirit came, there was noise and fire and then they could talk in other languages so that the whole world could learn about Jesus. After our drink break and brain gym, we did our monkey Monday position and then had a story called //Zorro Gets an Outfit.// We were glad to be able to get some outdoor time after the weeks of rain! When we came in, we talked about staying safe in severe weather, specifically tornadoes. Tornadoes are pretty scary to think about and we saw some of the scary damage they do. We practiced our "duck and cover" in our room. After snack we had a story about a girl who learned that you can make art with dots and we made our own dot pictures, as well as having choice time. Next time we "go to" Chile with the 5K! We started our day with a surprise project and then had a short circle time and a short practice of the verses and songs we were going to present to our grandparents. We were sorry that Levi was sick and had to miss this special day. We were also missing Sam, but he was having fun in Wisconsin Dells. We took a drink break and then had a suitcase surprise. We had to guess what letter N thing was in the suitcase, and Aaron guessed it correctly: NICKELS! We first got a number line and counted to 20. Then we got a bag of 20 nickels! first we matched them to the numbers and then we counted them. Then we counted by 5's because a nickel is five cents. **We counted to 100!** Mrs. Otten explained that 100 cents is the same as one dollar. We are taking a number line home so we can collect and count nickels. Then it was time for the program. We sang very well and saw many happy faces on the grandparents. We enjoyed getting our coats on and getting some outdoor time. Rachel brought a wonderful healthy snack of grapes and cheese and milk. Then it was time for the grandparents to come! We had such fun doing projects, stacking cups, playing games, playing with scarves, reading books, and showing them the room. **We love our grandparents!**
 * May 29, 2013**
 * May 22, 2013**
 * May 20, 2013**
 * May 17, 2013 WORDLESS WHAT HAPPENED!**
 * May 15, 2013**
 * May 13, 2013**
 * May 10, 2013**
 * May 8, 2013**
 * May 6, 2013**
 * May 3, 2013**
 * May 1, 2013**
 * April 29, 2013**
 * April 26, 2013**
 * April 24, 2013**
 * April 22, 2013**
 * April 19, 2013 GRANDPARENTS DAY!**

After a shorter table time, we began our day with our morning routines and then headed right to church so we could practice our songs for Grandparents Day and get our bearings for standing in front of the church. **We sang very, very, very good!** We know our grandparents will enjoy our recitation of the first verses of Psalm 100 and our songs. We came back to our classroom for our letter of the week, our wacky Wednesday song (//Granny at the Fair!)// and our center time. We were more than ready for the wonderful snack bags that Addison brought. During our book time after snack, we had a fire drill! We remembered to walk in line and say our name when called. We are so used to putting our things away that we needed to be reminded that when there is a fire drill, we can just let our things lie! We had a story about about dirty and clean clothes and we said that when Jesus cleans our hearts from sin, we need to "put on" clean "clothes" too and not wear our "dirty clothes" anymore. After our story, we had our choice time. Today we practiced our grandparents day songs with Mrs. Ballantine. On Wednesday we will practice in the church. We did our letter of the week activities. **There's lots more room in our box! Send in those /n/ sounding things!** We practiced our sign language and verse and then we were able to get in some wonderful //**outdoor**// **time!** When we came in we did our monkey Monday position and learned about our centers. We had two projects to do for grandparents day. We learned about the symmetry of butterfly wings and practiced making matching wings with a partner. We did a graphing activity called "Last Man Standing" and threw bean bags at block towers. We did our letter page and looked for N's in the newspaper. After snack we had our Bible story about Jesus' return to heaven. After choice and clean up time, we found out about Miss Roekle (pronounced like reck-lee) coming to our classroom next week. After table time we did our shoe graph. Some of us were so used to the shoes we usually wear, that we put our pink slip in the wrong column! When we corrected it, we found out we had 2 friends with laces and 12 friends with Velcro! We sang to Boone and then did our morning routines. Because the rain "turned white" our weather today differed from the rest of the days this week. We practiced our Bible words and songs that we will sing for the grandparents and then we had the Bible story of how Jesus appeared to his disciples after Easter. In gym we warmed up with cup stacking and running. We are getting very fast at stacking and we tried to get faster each time we ran across the gym. After we were warmed up we did some parachute activities. When we got back to the room we read one of the books from the school auction donation; a book signed by the author/illustrator. It had a funny name: //Pig Kahuna// and told the story of two pigs named Fergus and Dink. We found out that our new letter of the week was N and we talked about coins because the **//nickel//** would go in our box. After the special snack from Boone (cookies with sprinkles and a ring to keep) we read books and then had our suitcase surprise. It was a sign about our flowers with the big new word we learned: **//embellish.//** We also looked at some art made by the artist Paul Klee and got directions for the "free" Friday project. Since choice time was shorter today, some friends will finish their projects next time. Finally we finished our day with show and tell. We were excited to be able to bring our own choice! We had a little bit longer table time as we were waiting for friends. We enjoyed playing games and building with blocks. Some of us worked on activities that we did not finish during center time on Monday. Boone was our bell person and chose the bell sound (it sounds like a train bell). We started our day thanking God for answering our prayers for Jonathan and Amara. Unfortunately our weather was the same as Monday and Tuesday: cloudy and rainy! So another day without outdoor time (but a longer indoor choice time is not something we complain about!) Supria found the letter K house in alphabet town and we had a story about a kind kangaroo who made some mistakes but also saved a kid who had sailed away with a kite. Our wacky Wednesday song was a clapping rhyme that we did with a partner. It was a silly song and we did pretty good keeping up with the clapping pattern. During our center time, Mrs. Planton came to help with our project. Nathan brought string cheese and crackers for our snack and we heard a story about grandparents day. Just like Arnie in the story, some of us will have "pretend" grandparents come for our grandparents day. During our choice time we had a visitor who was checking out our school. Some friends welcomed her and tried to include her in play (although she was pretty shy). At the end of the day we were reminded that we have show and tell next time and we get to choose what to bring. We prayed for our sick friends, Jonathan and Amara, and welcomed Alex back. We practiced our songs for grandparents day and then did our new letter of the week. The sign language for K is very tricky and we need to be able to make the K sign with both hands to sign our verse, //Keep your tongue from evil.// After our drink and monkey Monday position, we found our about our centers. Our letter page is exciting because we get to put a KitKat candy bar (or wrapper, if we eat the candy bar!) on it. We also have two exciting projects: we get to have our feet painted for a grandparents day project and we get to embellish the flowers we made with tissue paper last week. Our last center we get to use a lot of stickers to make different kinds of patterns. After our snack and a book about grandpas and grandmas, we had our Bible story. Since it was raining we did not get outdoor time, but we enjoyed our longer indoor choice time. Our friend, Alex, was still recovering from being sick, so we prayed for him and for Amara's sick brother. We practiced our songs for Grandparents' Day and then we had gym. After our //Exercise and Count by Fives// warm up, we did 15 different activities spread around the gym. We worked on balance, moving, ball skills, strength skills, and lots of hand-eye coordination activities. We used up all our energy and were so glad to enjoy Lydia's healthy, tasty birthday snack. Thank you, Lydia, for the glitter glue! What a special treat! After snack we did our alphabet town story about Victor the vet. We did our centers and then had a time of indoor choice time. We reviewed what happens for a fire drill and why it is important. Mrs. Otten told us about a real fire that occurred last week at the house in which she used to live. We began our day drawing something that we did during our spring break. After table time, we prayed for our friends who were sick: Max and Alex and we sang //Happy Birthday// to Levi, who turned 5 on this day! We looked at our new April calendar and did our morning routines. We emptied our coin banks for Uganda and passed around the heavy bag of coins to feel. We did our letter of the week and then had our wacky Wednesday song. We made "beaver teeth" and made our /v/ sound while acting out the //Beaver Call// chant. For centers today we got to do cupstacking with lots of cups and tried to beat the sand timer; we did our letter page, adding a Valentine to the page; we played "next number" with the Cariboo game; and we made an art project using vinegar and tissue paper. It was a very busy morning and before snack we also practiced our sequencing, so our snack time was not until after 10;30 today! We were very hungry and thirsty and appreciated Levi's birthday doughnuts with sprinkles and juice boxes. After snack we went outside and enjoyed the sunshine and the time to move and play together. We played outside until it was time to end our day. Next time we will have indoor choice time. Sorry for the late update, friends! Despite the cold weather, we had a great first day of spring because WE WERE ALL IN SCHOOL! Yay! We talked a little about how this day was the **astronomical** first day of spring. It was a big word, and a nebulous concept, but we talked a little about how the days were going to get longer now. After our morning routines, we talked about the songs we will learn for Grandparents Day. We added one word to our letter Z word list: zucchini. We sang our //Tooty-Ta// song with the Z sound and did its silly actions for our wacky Wednesday song. We did centers next and then had a delicious snack that Levi brought. It was so fun to use the straws to drink our yogurt smoothie and to hear the sound we made when we finished it off! After our book time, we had our Bible story. We talked about ways to show love to Jesus. Most of us already grasp that the way we treat //each other// shows our love for Jesus! We had the story of Martha, who showed her love by //doing// and Mary, who showed her love by //listening.// We had our choice time inside because of the cold. We found out that our new letter of the week is letter V and we thought of many things that we could bring for the letter box after **V**acation! Today we had one friend out sick and one friend back! We did our morning routines and then our letter of the week. We learned how to make Z in sign language and learned a verse for Z. We sang "Zandy Zae Zoo" and then added an "s" to the word zebra because there were 2 zebras in the box. We added the word zipper and the name Zach to the word list. We looked for z on labels that were brought in. After our drink and monkey Monday (we had to balance on one foot today!) we learned about our centers. We did centers and then had snack. After snack, we had the Bible story of Zaccheus and sang a song about the story. We had a short choice time and then our day was done! We had two friends out sick today, and one friend home so we only had a dozen children in school. Our shoe graph had a pattern of numbers 2-8-2. After our morning routines and the singing of //Stand on the Rock,// we did a "think, pair, share" about what makes us afraid. Our Bible story was about Jesus's helpers being afraid when a storm came up suddenly on the lake they were crossing. We talked about how prayer and realizing that Jesus is with us can help us overcome our fears and then we had our suitcase surprise, which was a walk to the three prayer stations that are set up in school. We learned how to use each prayer station (they are the help stations, the hurts station, and the hallelujah station). The big kids used the prayer stations after recess or lunch. We can use the prayer stations when we come or leave with our grown up. The hallelujah station is in the gym hallway, so from there we went to gym. We did our //Exercise and Count by 5's// song to warm up. Then we practiced our ball skills of toss and catch; bounce and catch; and dribble. We divided into groups and then did a station with each skill. After gym we learned that our new letter of the week is the "sleeping sound" of ZZZZZ. We read //The Book of ZZZZs// which had photographs of animals and people sleeping for the illustrations. Aaron brought us a delicious rainbow snack of colorful fruits and vegetables and some green juice that we really enjoyed. We watched Mrs. Otten show the free friday project: an origami "praise picker". After choice and project time, we showed and talked about our favorite shoes. We saw dress-up shoes, boots, light-up shoes, soft shoes, warm shoes, shoes that help us run, summer shoes, and sparkly shoes. After choice time we had **one more story!** It was the story of Polly and her pink pajamas. It was a busy, fun day and we were so tired that we fell asleep and our grown-ups had to wake us up to go home! With Supria and Addison gone, we only had 3 girls today! Only 1 girl had a job! Our shoe graph showed 10 and 3 and Amara figured out that putting those together made "13". We practiced the new songs we are learning (starting early on our Spring program songs!) We got together with partners and did a "think-pair-share" about what we hope our moms will pack in our lunches when we go to 5K. We had a Bible Story about the miracle Jesus performed with the lunch of 5 little loaves and 2 little fish. After our drink, we did a monkey Monday position with our partners and then had a suitcase surprise. From Mrs. Otten's clue ("what is something we use to let you know it is your turn for project when we don't have centers?") we figured out our name cards were in the suitcase. We counted the letters in our names and then we sorted them by length into short (3 or less letters), medium (4,5 or 6 letters) and long (7 or more letters). Then we sorted a lot of other words in the same way. Some words are only 1 letter! We read a book made from the words we sorted called //Makes Goes Shopping.// Jonathan brought our snack and during snack we read a big book. On some of the pages we counted the words. The page with the most words had 15 words! After our own book time we read a book about people and animals making tracks. For our project we "made tracks" with shoes and paint. After choice and project time, we talked about pajama day! We were missing 2 friends today :( We found out that our jammie day is **next week Wednesday!** That was exciting news. After our morning routines and learning some sign language for our new songs, we did our letter of the week. Our wacky Wednesday song was //Make Any Shape and Freeze!// It was silly and fun to make different shapes with our bodies. We did our centers and then had a delicious, healthy snack from Lydia. During snack Mrs. Otten read a book about bones. Guess what I would look like if I had no bones? We had our Bible story of Jesus making a girl who had died come back to life! We thought about how we would live forever if we believe on Jesus. We had some indoor choice time and were excited to use the new store that Nathan's family gave us! We ended our day with some outdoor time. Most of us asked our parents if we could play //just a little bit longer.// We sure have enjoyed the snow this winter! Hooray! We were all in school today! That means 15 children were in school. Our shoe graph showed us 15 by 10 velcro shoes and 5 slip on shoes! We looked at our March calendar and saw the special days of Good Friday and Easter; lots of NO SCHOOL days (including this Friday); the first day of spring; and pajama days!! We did our letter of the week: learning our X in sign language and our new verse. We had just a short part of a story about x and then did our letter box and bag. Only Amara brought something in today! After our drink and monkey Monday, we had our suitcase surprise: real X-rays! We were good at figuring out what bones we were looking at. We did our centers and put a skeleton sticker on our X page for "x-ray"; we did the Mr. Mouth game (instead of cups) and a same/different graph, and did another project based on the art work of Jasper Johns. Jonah brought us fruit on a stick and Max figured out the pattern of the fruit. We looked at a picture of real skin with leprosy and then had the Bible story of Jesus healing the 10 men with leprosy. Only one was thankful! Jesus is happy when we are thankful and we spent some time thinking of all the things we could say "thank you" to Jesus for. The end of the day we had a nice time to play in the snow. It was fun **//and//** very good exercise! March DID come in like a lion this year with the 15" of snow on Wednesday and the cold wind today! We were glad to be back at school and have everyone in school today. It was fun to do our shoe graph and change "6" velcro shoes into "9" velcro shoes just by flipping the number card! Supria picked the pink crayon for the counting and we clapped one big clap for March 1. Jonah found the A house in alphabet town and we had the story of Ape and her apple pie. We had a wacky Wednesday song, even though it was Friday. It was our last time to sing the //Apples and Bananas// song with the different long vowel sounds. We read a book about germs and then did our centers. You will get to see our "GERMS" art gallery in the hall next week. Josh brought the snack and our keen eyes spied the letter A on our packages of Angry Birds Honey Grahams. After snack and a story about an alligator with a toothache, we read books and then practiced our numbers. We found out that next week's letter is X. Before our Bible story we tried to move **//without//** using out legs. We had the Bible story of the man with legs that did not move. His friends brought him to Jesus is a surprising way! After Bible, we did our closing routines and then got our backpacks and snow stuff. After doing our gentle or fierce show and tell, we got all suited up for playing outside. SURPRISE, Mrs. Otten, the hill was HUGE! We played safely and had fun, however! Today we welcomed back Nathan. He told us that one of his favorite things he did in Florida was to swim in the pool. After correcting the numbers on our shoe graph and doing our calendar and weather, we did our letter of the week. We learned our sign language for A and our verse, we learned a song with the words of our verse. We had our sound box book and counted the difference between the long a and the short a sound. We did our letter box and bag and then took a break for a drink and do our monkey Monday position.We read a book about germs and staying healthy and then did our centers. We got to do our letter page, play a game with opposites, play a Mr. Mouth game, and design our own germ. After centers we enjoyed Jonathan's half birthday snack. We had a suitcase surprise where we tried to guess what was hidden in a sock. We did a great job feeling and guessing. We thought about not being able to see and then had a Bible story about Jesus healing a blind man. We ended our day with some great outdoor play time in the snow and wam sun! Only 11 friends in schoo today! All week our velcro number has stayed at 7 and our laces and slip on have switched! Today we started learning a new song. We had stations in gym to show what we have learned with our throwing, catching, jumping, and balancing. Our Bible story was about a son who ran away from home and spent all his money. When he came back home, the father forgave him, just like God forgives us when we confess our sins. Amara was our line leader and our snack person. During snack we heard our new story book and had a rhyming book, too. After snack we helped read the book //Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother, Too?// We looked at the illustrations and then got to fingerpaint and make patterns in our fingerpaint with some different things. We reviewed numbers at the end of the day and found out that our letter of the week for next week is the first letter of the alphabet! Today we had another Bible story about something lost. We did our wacky Wednesday song called //Granny at the Fair.// We reviewed our rhyming words. During snack we had a big book of the story //Sheep in a Jeep//. There were lots of rhyming words in the story. After our own book time, we reviewed how adding "un" to a word means "not". We talked about the usual color for some things and what would be an UNusual color for the same thing. We read a book that had many unusual colors in it. We wrote our own book with unusual colors for our project today. We also reviewed our numbers, looking at those tricky teen numbers. We could not go outside because it was too cold, so we had a nice long choice time! We still had "heart" themed activities for our table time, our free Friday project, and our snack. Today three friends were missing. Our shoe graph was interesting. Laces and slip-on traded numbers, and so we realized that velcro would have to be a smaller number because some children were missing. (Mrs. Otten should have been thinking...we could have done a subtraction problem!) Mrs. Otten counted the numbers for Josh, who was gone and then Lydia hung up the first SUNNY weather for the week. We sang //This Little Light// and //Stand on the Rock// and then had our Bible story about the lost lamb. After our Bible story we talked about numbers and looked at the numbers we made with our Jasper Johns project. In gym we warmed up by counting and moving to 100. Our gym games had lots of good running: the mailbox relay and the tisket/tasket game. After gym we looked at numbers again, picking a heart with a number and that number was our "valentine". Rachel brought her snack in heart bags and Mrs. Otten did a finger puppet story about little L-O-V-E. After snack and book time, we had our suitcase surprise. The suitcase had examples of two projects we could do during choice time and a jellybean game that we could play. After choice and clean up time, we added the numbers on the calendar for the days we would be gone and we talked about next week. Sorry about the late post-had to head off to a dental appointment after school. Today we were ALL in school! Hooray! We all were able to pass out Valentines to our friends!! We sang our heart song again and our L-O-V-E song. Our Alphabet Town Adventure featured Jack and Jill and a silly show that they put on for their friends. Our wacky Wednesday song was //C////hicken Count//. We did our centers and then had snack. After snack we had a story about a boy who was painting and spilled the paint. It left a big stain and he needed help to clean up the stain. We talked about how sin was a "stain" in our life and how we cannot clean it up on our own-we need Jesus! During our choice time we passed out our Valentines. Today we were missing Levi and prayed for him to get better. Jonah and Josh were back! We did some math with our shoe graph and found out that if we added the laces and slip ons, the number was equal to the velcro! We sang a song about the shape that means love and replaced one letter with a clap each time we sang it. We did our letter of the week and learned our new Bible words for J (Jonathan and Nathan said they had the same verse at church yesterday!) Our monkey Monday position was a partner position. It was tricky, but we did it! We did our centers and then had a snack that Boone brought. We had a story about the verse in the Bible where Jesus talks about being the light of the world. Without Jesus and God's word, we cannot understand right and wrong. We had to stay inside for choice time because it was too wet on the wood chips and too icy on the the parking lot to play outside. At the end of the day, we were reminded to bring in our valentine's next time. We will not have outdoor time Wednesday or Friday because of Valentine's day and gym day. We packed a lot into this day! Our day started differently right from the start, as Mrs. Kiel was home with a sick child. We missed here, but Mrs. Balint was a wonderful substitute and helped us with all our activities. We waited for our half birthday girl to come (Supria) and then started our day. We were missing Josh, but happy to see Addison back.We did our new song //Stand on the Rock.// We talked about some great gifts we had received and then heard the Bible story about the greatest gift: God's love through Jesus! We will talk more about that next week. We needed silly bands on our throwing hands today. We warmed up in gym with our snow song and a moving song called //Freeze.// We had five stations of throwing activities. We had to throw at targets, towers, over a mat wall, across the gym, and at the basketball hoop. After gym we heard the story called //Beatrice's Goat// about a girl in Uganda wanting to go to school and how having a goat helped her do that. We talked about the banks we will take home next Wednesday for "lunch money" for children in Uganda. We decorated our banks with stickers today. Supria brought us miniature hamburgers and fries for our snack! What a surprise! After snack we found out that our Friday project was not a "free" choice, but that we all had to make it: our Valentine bags!! After project and choice time, we had our show and tell of things we love. Lots of us love our stuffed animals and our families! Our new letter of the week starts the name of three boys in our class. Can you guess what it is? Wacky Wednesday! Our schedule was wacky, too, because we had special visitors from the Kohlers Arts Center do "readers' theatre" for us. So we started the day after just a short table time. We kept the graph number the same for velcro shoes and changed the other-one went down and one went up! We had a wacky Alphabet Town story, too, about an **u**mpire who was looking for his **u**niform while wearing his long **u**nderwear. Levi drew an umpire for our letter box but he **was** dressed in his uniform! After our letter of the week, we did our centers. Check out our group sculptures in the hall on top of the cubbies. We were "inspired' by looking at the sculptures that were made by the B-1 groups. After centers we did our wacky Wednesday song and remembered out 5 vowels for the //Apples and Bananas// song. We also had time to do a snowman rhyme. The readers had wonderful stories! The first was about how the animals at the zoo look at us. The second was called //Ornery Morning// about some farm animals who did not want to do what they were supposed to do. The third story was about a little mouse who wanted "another, Mother" (but his mother thought he wanted another mother!) The readers sang in silly animal voices for that one. The last story was about sharing and it had the characters from Sesame Street and a witch! Our snack today was popsicles brought in by Alex. MMM, they were good! After snack we had our Bible story, but not in our usual circle spot! That was UNusual! We had choice time and most of us were building with Legos or making things out of the materials left over from our group sculptures. No Sam and Jonah, but Addison was back. Soon she will get glasses! We looked at our February calendar. We saw that most of us got us early on February 2 when it was cloudy and did not see our shadow. That means the groundhog thinks it will be an early spring, but it was snowing today, so he does not really know! We had to only change one number in our shoe graph. Our letter of the week is U and we learned the sign language and the sign language for our Bible words. We had a story with short u and long u and short u found more things with his sound. We talked about "usual" and **"un**usual" We talked about the usual uses for some things in the suitcase and then we walked in the hallway and saw how the big kids used these things in unusual ways to make things. One of our centers was making our own sculpture by using the same materials. Our other centers were our letter page, our number graph, and putting story pictures in order. After our snack we had our Bible story about Jesus welcoming children and then we got to play out in the snow for our "choice" time. Busy, busy, busy day! Addison was at the doctor so we missed her. Velcro shoes stayed at 9 today, but we had to change the other numbers. Our Bible story was about Nicodemus visiting Jesus. He learned that he had to be born again. That does not mean he would be a baby again. It means that his heart would be made new and he would be able to do "God" things. We said "God" things are things like love and helping and sharing. We will talk more about how that happens next week. After our Bible story, we did a G thing in the gym: gymnastics! After warming up and stretching our muscles, we did activities to make us stronger, more flexible, and more able to balance. We did some running, jumping, rolling, pulling up, hanging, going upside down, balance beam, stretches, push ups and pulling on scooters. We are getting stronger every day! Our Alphabet Town story was about goat. She //was// greedy for gifts, but learned that it is great to //give// gifts, too. Our snack was sweet peppers and cookies with sprinkles and a ring to keep that Nathan brought for his half-birthday snack. Some of us liked the peppers so much we saved the seeds so we can grow more! After snack we learned about Groundhog Day and the groundhog named Phil. We found out about our HOMEWORK! We had choice time and did our letter G page, which has to dry because we used glitter glue on the letter. We also taped a German flag on the letter page because somethimes G borrows the /j/ sound. We got to try a real German cookie with a funny name: Russian Bread! So you see, we //**were**// very busy (and got out late again....sorry!) We were all in school for our field trip-HOORAY! We sang our hello song so funny-fast and then slow. Lydia helped us count all the way to 30 on the calendar. Nathan had to hang up three cards for the weather: cloudy, snowy, and windy. We sang Happy HALF birthday to Max and then it was time to get on our things for our trip to the library. Bus driver Nicki got us to the library safely. We walked up the stairs and looked at the collection of shells in the display case and the hamster before we went to the story garden. Our librarian, Susan, read us two great stories about snow and animals. We moved like snowflakes. She also did the snowman rhyme that we learned in school and made our new book about! We saw a wonderful movie about Ludovik the bear. (We actually saw this precious movie last year in 3K, but no one minded seeing it again. In fact, no one even mentioned it!) We made snowflakes out of a coffee filter (like the kindergarten project in our hallway at school) and our librarian hung them in the story garden. Mrs. Otten showed us the kinds of books in "our" area of the library and then we had book time. Some of us brought library cards and checked out our own books. We had another fun bus ride and then came back in time for Max's half birthday snack and our wacky Wednesday song (//Bubblegum//). We talked about next time and then picked up papers about a couple library programs. Today was a good day! We were all able to be at school!!! Our shoe graph showed no laces, 10 velcro (we added 2 to the 8 from last time), and 5 (we added 2 to the 3 from last time) slip on shoes. We had the Bible story of Jesus calling helpers using the words, "Follow me". We sang the song based on the story that some of us knew from church: //Fishers of Men.// Our monkey Monday position was hard! We did it with a partner. We did our new letter of the week and learned the sign language for the letter and for our Bible words. Since it was so sloppy outside, we stayed inside and did our //Tooty-Ta// song, changing the first sound to our /g/ sound. During snack we heard the story //Go, Pack, Go// about the Green Bay Packers. After snack we did some snowman rhymes and had the story //Sadie and the// Snowman. Our project is another classroom book (second-to-last one) where we changed the words to one of our snowman rhymes. After choice time we talked about our schedule next time when we will go on a trip to the library and celebrate Max's half birthday. Today we returned to our normal schedule but we still had some of the beach stuff out to enjoy. Our shoe graph changed back to the usual (velcro was the most) after having **10 slip on shoes on beach day!** Sam counted our numbers with the snowflake wand and Boone saw that we had snow for our weather, as well! We sang our song about creation; most of us remembering the words, even though we have not sung it in a long time. Yes, God's creation is very, very, very, very good! We had the story of Jesus getting baptized. In gym today we did a cup stacking relay for our warm up. Then we got to use the beach balls! It was so much fun and such good exercise after a week of being inside. After gym we had our Alphabet Town story (Lydia found the s house; it was made of stone and a squirrel lived there). We did our centers: sorting, counting (and eating!), making a shape picture, and doing our letter page. Jonathan brought our snack. After snack we had choice time. Many of us enjoyed the "water slide" again. Some of us played a shadow guessing game. Some of us used our power and a hand pump to inflate swim rings.After choice time, we had show and tell and SHARE! We sorted the food we brought for the food pantry many different ways. We found out that our new letter is letter G. Amara guessed it from the clue of the letter pieces: big curve, small line, small line. Two girl friends were missing today: Addison stayed home to take care of her sick mommy. We also missed Lilyanah, especially because we were going to help her celebrate turning 5! We hope to see them next time because we are having //beach day!// Today we had to stay inside because it was too cold to go outside. We even sang "I'm fine" in a cold, shivering voice when we sang our hello song. Our letter of the week is S and our story had s words with both the /s/ sound and the /sh/ sound. Our story took place at the beach! After our drink and monkey Monday position (laying down position...can you show your parents?) we found out about our centers. We used colored sand for our s page, did lots of sorting, made a shape picture, and played the same math game as last week, but we got to EAT the number that we rolled with the dice. After centers we had a suitcase surprise. The suitcase was empty, but we walked to the media center for the surprise: we got to watch the dvd recording of our part of the Christmas program. We even remembered the words we sang and said. During snack we learned about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. After snack we sat with a partner and told about something we lost. Our Bible story was about Jesus being "lost". By this time it was after 11:00, so we had a very short choice time. We talked about beach day at the end of the day. Sam wanted a lightning bolt for his hand stamp, so Mrs. Otten just drew one on our hands. Jonathan chose "high five" for our goodbye. Mrs. Otten picked sticks for Boone and Amara to take home classroom books. Sorry for the delayed update (time with grandson, Jakob, took precidence this week). We had another great day on January 16. We learned a song that went with our David and Goliath Bible story (some of us already knew the song from church). We had our Alphabet Town story about Quincy the quick quarterback and how he rescued the duck from the quicksand. We reviewed our verse and sign language for Q and added a few things to our letter box. Our wacky Wednesday song was a repeat: our fast food restaurant song. We did our center time and then had a birthday snack from Addison. Our Bible story was about King Josiah, who became king when he was only 8 years old-as old as some of our brothers or sisters. We had the story of how he found the scroll with God's words and how he showed how sorry he was for his sins. Our suitcase surprise was a picture with things from the story hidden in the picture. We found out that our new letter of the week is made with 2 little curves and then had our choice time. Improvement, but still had two friends missing today: we missed you, Jonathan and Josh! After our morning routines, we read our sound box book. Little Q found lots of quilts and dressed up like a queen. She bought a crown with her quarters. We folded a piece of paper into quarters for our letter page. We did a monkey Monday position with a partner today after our drink. Then we learned about our centers. We practiced upstacking and downstacking our cups again so we could play stackers and blasters. We did our best coloring on a quilt picture. We learned how to play clear the board, rolling dice and counting the dots. At snack time Alex observed that an unfolded napkin made quarters. Our story at snack was about Penguin Pete. After our book time, we had a Bible story about David again. Even though he was just a boy, he defeated the giant, Goliath, with the help of God and his slingshot. We measured ourselves against a paper Goliath. Because of the icy conditions, we stayed inside and just had choice time. Only 3 friends missing today...we are halfway there! Maybe we can get everyone healthy over the weekend and see everyone on Monday. So today our velcro shoes stayed the same; the 2 from slip on moved to laces; we added 3 for slip on shoes. We saw again that our calendar pictures are following a pattern fo 2 mittens, 2 snowflakes, but our weather graph did not agree: we had NO snow for weather this week. Even if the snow stays away, please send boots on Mondays and Wednesdays because the playgrounds will still be wet.We started with our Bible story. It was the story of God's people asking for a king. It was the story of God choosing the king after King Saul. Since the story was about Jesse and his 8 sons, and we had 8 boys in school, we were able to act out the story! Guess who was our "David"? If you remember, answer the question of the day! After Bible, we had our suitcase surprise. Our suitcase surprise was white paper that we crumpled to make "snowballs" for our gym warm up song. After warming up we practiced our "opposite" throwing and then played a fun game. We pretended that we were neighbors having a snowball fight! We had to throw our snowballs in our neighbor's yard. We played two times. Each team "won" one time.After gym we found out that our new letter of the week is made with two big curves and a little line. It does not have it's own sound, and it is usually lonely and takes its friend U with it. U also borrows a different sound. We had to combine the /k/ sound and the /w/ sound. We had two friends bring snack. We ate Aaron's "O" snack (oreos and orange juice) and then chose one of Supria's snack to eat and one to take home.Mrs. Kiel had to leave before snack because her son, Jackson, was feeling sick. Mrs. Planton came in the room to help us for a while. Since it was Friday we had a "free" project We could choose to marble paint, make a Penguin Pete origami (or the origami from this week's center), or do no project. After our choice and project time, we had our "opposites" show and tell and had some really great examples of opposites. Be sure to check out the question of the day! Today we each had a job. Lydia chose the ticking clock for our bell sound. We sang our //If You're Happy and You Know It////"// song with many opposites and though of ways to demonstrate the opposites. We read about Owl's adventure in Alphabet Town and learned what an "opera" is. We listed things for which we "give thanks to the LORD", and then sang our wacky Wednesday song with the long vowel sounds://Apples and Bananas//. We put sounds together, like /b/ and /o/(long o sound) ; /n/ and /o/; /s/ and /o/. After centers we had a snack that demonstrated the opposites of crunchy and soft; square and round; heavy and light (Nathan thought of this one!) During snack, Mrs. Otten read //Our Book of Opposites// which she wrote and we illustrated. We will be able to check it out as soon as everyone in the class gets to see it. We had a Bible story about David protecting his lambs with the help of God and the weapons he had. We sang //When I Am Afraid.// We had choice time in the room and then we got to have outdoor time! We were even more efficient than last time and got to play outside twice as long! Our friend, Jonathan, was back in school but Boone and Supria were not at school (and Alex left early). So our shoe graph had to change! When we did the helper chart we tried to guess who had a job by counting the parts in the names. We were pretty good guessers! Lilyanah is our only friend with 4 parts to her name! After our morning routines and some singing, we did our letter of the week. We reviewed the long and short sounds for O and we make the long sound for a very looooong time. We read //Short O and Long O Play a Game// and then did our letter box and bag. After our drink, brain gym, and monkey position, we learned about our new centers. For our O page, we will trace an oval and an octagon with an orange marker or pencil. We are also continuing to work on our pencil grip and control when writing by doing our names in boxes. For our math center this week, we are counting and coloring with a partner. We are also doing opposite puzzles with a partner. In our art center we are learning about paper folding called origami. We will make a tallking dog and a cup. After centers we had snack and Jonah brought ORANGES! They were delcious and healthy and perfect for our letter of the week. Our Bible story was the story of Samuel hearing God and his sad message for Eli. After our Bible story, we had indoor choice time only because there was not enough time to get in all our winter gear. We **will** get outdoor play time next time, so send those boots and snowpants again! Thanks! Two friends got to take home classroom books today. Next time we will have a new book to check out: //Our Book of Opposites!// Today we started by cutting out the marble painting we did. We cut on traced lines to make "snow" covered evergreen trees. Since it was our second time cutting this pattern, it was much easier for us this time! We were sorry that Jonathan was sick again. We looked at out shoe graph and thought it predicted a Packer victory. After all the velcro shoes had number **12** and the laces and slip on put together was also **1-2 (12)**. Aaron was even wearing number **12!** We sang two songs with opposites: //Hallelu, Hallelujah// : jumping __**up**__ for the hallelujah and squating __**down**__ for the praise ye the Lord; and //Father Abraham// moving our __**right**__ and __**left**__ sides.We had another Bible story about waiting. Hannah had to wait for her baby. She named him "I asked God for you" and it was the same name as one of our classmates-SAMUEL! After our Bible story we had gym and learned to thrown far by using opposites. We threw with our writing hand and stepped with the opposite foot. After gym we had a story with photographs of opposite faces. We found out that our letter of the week will be O and we named the two shapes that begin with the two O sounds. After snack we had a suitcase surprise: boots and a boot jack. We saw how to use the boot jack that will be in the hallway. Our project was to demonstrate an opposite and Mrs. Otten took our photograph. The photographs will become the illustrations of a new class book to check out. After our choice and project time, we got to show our new things! Back to school! We took some time to talk about our time apart. We looked at our shoe graph and discovered that if //everyone// would wear velcro shoes, we would not have enough slots in our graph for our pink slips! We had a Bible story about waiting. Simeon and Anna had to wait a long time for baby Jesus to be born. After our drink and brain gym, we used our rhythm sticks to demonstrate some opposites. Then we did opposite puzzles and found different partners 3 times. We had snack and read another book about opposites. After our wacky Wednesday song, we found out about our project. We all did the project during choice time. Then we had our first opportunity to play in the snow. We did a fine job of getting ready, but still only had about 5 minutes to play outside. We will get more efficient and have more time for outdoor play in the future, I'm sure. We were very excited for this day! After our table time, we looked at the shoe graph from Wednesday and then made changes for today's shoe graph. We did our calendar counting and saw that there were only 4 days left until Christmas! We heard the story //This is the Stable// and noticed a repeating pattern in the book and heard some rhymes, too. We then had a short choice time in the room followed by making our own snack bags of "c" things-crackers, craisins, and lots of different kinds of cereal. We got to choose a colorful candy cane to save and we ate carrots and celery while waiting for everyone to make up their snack bags. We had chocolate milk to drink, as well. After snack, we did some Christmas relays in the gym. We found Christmas bows, did the mailbox relay, and did a wiseman and camel relay. After our gym games we returned to our room to open the presents of classroom gifts. We got some great things for our projects! Today we forgot to do our shoe graph! No one even reminded Mrs. Otten! I think we were too excited by Jonah's birthday and by counting the days left until Christmas! We will look at it next time! After doing our morning routines, minus the shoe graph, we did our letter of the week. We added a chevy corvette and a cowboys cup to the box. We added another cat, making "cat**s"** and another candle, making "candle**s."** After our drink and brain gym, we did the wacky Wednesday song, //Chicken Count//. It sure was silly making all those chicken noises! We did our centers next and then had a very special snack from our birthday boy...ICE CREAM! We heard the story //Mrs. Wishy Washy Christmas.// Max said it was a very nice story, and it was so nice of Mrs. Wishy Washy to be gracious and forgiving to her animals. The rest of the day was choice time. We could not go outside because several friends were missing boots or snow pants and because we really did not have enough time for both choice and outdoor time. Today we were missing **//three//** friends! We missed you, Amara, Addison, and Sam! We counted the days of the calendar AND we counted the days left until Christmas ("It is the same number as the number of friends with velcro shoes," observed Aaron) Levi put up cloudy for our weather. We sang our program songs again and then did our letter of the week activities ("The Newsboys have a song like our verse," said Jonathan). We all could name one of the words that started with a c making the /k/ sound. When we sang our song (Candy Cae Coo), Mrs. Otten told us that in the German language "cow" is pronounced "coo". We played outside and then did a funny monkey Monday position where we had to bend over very far and raise our arms behind us! We did our centers and then had a cookie snack from Jonathan.During snack, Mrs. Ballantine brought us a special gift that Nathan's family bought for our classroom: some really cool tongs and tools for picking up things. We couldn't wait to try them out! We had the story of the three wise men who came to see Jesus by following a star. In the story, they were called kings. They followed the star because it was a new star that appeared because a new king had been born: our king, Jesus! After our Bible story, we had choice time. During choice time, the rest of us learned how to do the cup stacking. Today we had a very long table time while we took turns shopping at the Children Only Shop. During this time we also got to read our books called //The Bug// to Mrs. Otten. After table time, we did our morning routines and saw that our weather graph made a pattern this week: partly sunny, partly sunny, sunny, partly sunny, partly sunny. We sang songs while shaking bells and then we had a story that was a parable. It was the story of a poor little girls who was given the gift of a perfect Christmas tree. The author wrote the story to remind us about God's perfect gift at Christmas: Jesus! We learned that our new letter of the week does not have its own sound but uses the sound of k or s or has a sound made by bossy h. The letter is just a big curve. Can you guess what letter it is? We enjoyed time playing outside and then came in for a cupcake snack from Alex. After snack we learned that our suitcase surprise was a set of cups for stacking. We are going to learn how to stack, try to stack fast, and play games with the cups in our room and, eventually, the gym. Some of us learned the way to stack, and some of us will learn next week. We will also get to practice in centers next week. After choice time, we had our show and tell time.
 * April 17. 2013**
 * April 15, 2013**
 * April 12, 2013**
 * April 10, 2013**
 * April 8, 2013**
 * April 5, 2013**
 * April 3, 2013**
 * March 20, 2013**
 * March 18, 2013**
 * March 15, 2013**
 * March 13, 2013**
 * PAJAMA PARTY!** Today is one of our most-anticipated days of the year: the day we get to come to school in our pajamas and make our own pancakes for snack! kAfter our table time (and most of us were way too excited to really settle down with a table time activity!), we had circle time. Our weather person, Supria, was sick, so Mrs. Otten did the weather. She put up the MOON! We had lots of good stories today! We started with //Bedtime for Frances//. Frances could not fall asleep and was always getting out of bed. Then we had another story of someone who would not sleep-Mortimer- and we helped sing his loud song and made clanging noises with spoons. Our wacky Wednesday song was about falling asleep and getting different shoes on. We moved a different way for every different kind of shoe. Our next story, //Good Night, Gorilla,// had very few words so we had to look carefully at the illustrations to see what was happening in the story. Nathan showed us that we could also see what happened to the balloon on each page! We acted out a couple of our stories: //Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed// and //There Were Ten in Bed.// We learned about counting by 5's, did a moving song with counting by 5's, and then did "I have, Who has" with 5's. Next we read //Pancakes, Pancakes//. This story had many interesting words in it, and we used the pictures to figure out what they were. In the story Jack had to get everything for making pancakes, but it was not as simple as going to the grocery store! Our suitcase surprise were the things we needed to make our own pancakes. We watched a demonstration of how we would do this and then we had choice time. During choice time, we took turns making our own pancakes.
 * March 11, 2013**
 * March 6, 2013**
 * March 4, 2013**
 * March 1, 2013**
 * February 27, 2013**
 * SNOW DAY!**
 * February 25, 2013**
 * February 22, 2013**
 * February 20, 2013**
 * February 15, 2013**
 * February 13, 2013**
 * February 11, 2013**
 * February 8, 2013**
 * February 6, 2013**
 * February 4, 2013**
 * February 1, 2013**
 * January 30, 2013**
 * January 28, 2013**
 * January 25, 2013**
 * January 23, 2013 BEACH DAY!!**
 * January 21, 2013**
 * January 16, 2013**
 * January 14, 2013**
 * January 11, 2013**
 * January 9, 2013**
 * January 7, 2013**
 * January 4, 2013**
 * January 2, 2013**
 * December 21, 2012**
 * December 19, 2012**
 * December 17, 2012**
 * December 14, 2012**

At our circle today we notice all kinds of 12s! There were 12 people with velcro shoes. There was 1 with slip on and 2 with laces (that looks like a 12). Our day of the week was 12 and our year was 20**12.** We also learned that December is the 12th month.Rachel wore a shirt with a 12 on it. Today we sang some songs with bells. We played a new game called "I have....who has" with our numbers. We put sounds together and made rhyming words. We had the story of the angels and shepherds. We went outside to play. We had a star snack from Max and a star cookie to take home from Mrs. Otten. We learned that the word "star" has more than one meaning. We had a suitcase surprise: new things at the writing center for making Christmas cards and pictures, and the ingredients for making cloud dough. We all had to help scoop the flour and mix up the cloud dough. We had a project during choice time and then talked about Children's Only shop on Friday. It seems to be that time of year when //someone// is absent every day! Today was Sam's day to be gone:( We are praying for everyone to be healthy for our program tomorrow night! Today we practiced at the church and we took a look at the room where we will get on our costumes. We practiced some rhyming after hearing the story //Hop on Pop//. We played outside on the parking lot and then had a snack from Lydia (that started out in the shape of a christmas tree!). We heard a silly story of a moose who wanted everything to be perfectly perfect for Christmas, so he made a list and checked off each thing he did to get ready. He forgot one important thing though! We made a project during choice time today since we are not doing centers this week. Oops! So busy cleaning up from our great Make and Take workshop that I forgot all about the wiki! It was a wonderful day! Thanks, parents, for being good sports and joining us in our gym activities! It was so fun to have you there, as well as for all the activities in our room. I saw so many creative touches to the simple projects that we prepared for you. We hope that Make and Take workshop helped to add joy to your advent celebrations. One friend back and another gone! We missed Jonathan today as we welcomed back Sam. Today we started by practicing for the Christmas program. I sure could tell that many of us had practiced at home! We sang in nice big voices and knew the words well. It was so nice to have Alex's mom playing the music for us, too. We did our letter of the week. There were only 3 things in our R box this week! We had an Alphabet Town story about a raccoon who was a rascal! Before we went outside to play, we had a suitcase surprise. It was ornaments for our tree and we each got to pick out two ornaments to hang on the tree. When we came in we had our wacky Wednesday song about a red wagon and then we did our center time. We had a special snack from Nathan and we each got a gold (chocolate) coin in our snack! Our Bible story was about the angels who came to tell Mary and Joseph about the baby Jesus that would be born. One teacher back; the other teacher gone! We were missing Mrs. Kiel today, as she had to stay home to take care of a sick husband. We prayed for her and hope to see her back on Wednesday. Mrs. Balint was a great helper for us today. We started the day looking at our December calendar and all the special events that will happen this month. We practiced our parts for the Christmas program. We need a lot of practice in singing in our big voices. We hope to practice with Alex's mom on Wednesday. Our new letter of the week is R and we did all our letter of the week activities. We only had ONE "R" thing in our box! Amara brought a stuffed rabbit. We had to play outside on the blacktop because of the wet weather. We did get to practice our fire drill first.When we came back inside, we did our centers. We had a snack and listened to a story about pirates looking for letters of the alphabet. Pirates like to make the /r/ sound. We finished our story of Jonah and then had choice time. Today we prayed for our friend, Alex, who was not feeling well. We hope to see him back at school on Friday. Aaron counted the numbers on our calendar and we saw that there are only 2 days left in November. It is getting close to the time we will get to do our countdown to Christmas by cutting links off of our paper chain. We learned some sign language for one of our program songs and practiced our poem again.We had a silly story with all /b/sound words and then did our letter of the week activities. After our drink and brain gym, we did our wacky Wednesday song about bubblegum. We sang it faster and faster. We had center time and then snack time. Lilyanah brought peanut butter cookies that she had made with her mom. After snack, we had a suitcase surprise. It was the costumes we will wear for the program. Lydia and Supria each modelled a costume. At the end of the day, we were able to choose the costume we want to wear. We went outside to play in the nice weather and we stayed warm because we remembered hats and gloves or mittens! When we came in we had the Bible story of Ruth and Naomi and then had our choice time. We tried hard to be good listeners today and that gave us more minutes of choice time :) Busy day! We were glad to have Boone back at school and were glad to celebrate Josh's birthday. We started learning our part for the Christmas program and then did our new letter of the week activities. We went outside to play. When we came back in we did our new centers: we worked on a room decoration, a new book, our B page, and a number game called the Math Mat. After centers we had Josh's birthday snack. We got to save our cupcake decorations! Our story was about our new Bible words: Be kind to each other and it was about a boy named Charlie. He had a "be kind" day and did many kind things. We had a very short choice time. We had a busy day for our last day before Thanksgiving break. In fact, we forgot to do our shoe graph. No one remembered! (Jonah was still at school when we discovered it and so he changed the numbers. You will have to wait until Monday to see what they were. (it was a pattern!) After our morning routines, we had a story about giving thanks for Thanksgiving and we learned to say "happy Thanksgiving" in sign language. Our wacky Wednesday song was a song of fast food restaurants with funny hand motions. We then had a story that we helped read. We read the words, "NO! Run, Turkey, Run!" We also experimented with making word families with sounds. We enjoyed some nice outdoor time and then came in for snack. Our suitcase surprise was our Christmas countdown chain. We learned how to make it and then we made it with Mrs. Otten, Mrs. Kiel, Alex's grandma, and Addison's mom getting the tape ready for us. Now we need to wait until December for our Christmas countdown! We had choice time and then were excited to show what we found for show and tell that we put in our pockets.At the end of the day we learned our new letter. It is made like our /p/ sound, but it has a sound and is not just air. We prayed for Boone, who is visiting Grandpa and Grandma far away. We learned that Alex got a laptop for his birthday. Lydia chose a new sound for the bell: the chimes. We learned a thank you song and then passed a pumpkin around the circle and took out something that began with the /p/ sound. We had our Alphabet Town story of penguin and her parade. After our drink and monkey position, we had a story called //Peter's Pocket// and our suitcase surprise were pockets we are going to use to hold our show and tell (and then we get to keep). Thank you, Mrs. Burton, for sewing them for us! After we had our outdoor time, we had our centers. We worked on P page, placemats, pattern-making, or picking up corn. Jonathan helped make the snack he brought. During snack we looked at pictures of a Pilgrim and a turkey to see if we could figure out what was missing in each picture. Our Bible story was about Esther and how she saved her people. We then had choice time. Some of us tried to "stuff the turkey" with bean bags. Jonathan reminded Mrs. Otten about the shoe graph. When we realized that laces and velcro were MORE, we new that slip ons needed to be //less.// We had the story of Esther and learned that she became queen and that her cousin helped her to warn the king that some bad men wanted to hurt him. We will find out more about God's plan for Esther and his people next time. In gym we enjoyed using the parachute: making waves, crawling on the parachute, making mountains, and popping balls. After gym we read a book about shapes and then found shapes in the room. We had Alex's birthday snack and could cut out the label because we saw P. We made the sound /p/ when we said POPSICLES! During snack, we played a "What's Missing" game with shapes and after snack, Mrs. Otten picked sticks and we got a partner and played the same game with our partner. Our free Friday project was making a picture or design using shapes. Five of us chose to do the project, and the completed projects are hanging up in our room. After choice time, we had show and tell and enjoyed showing what we brought. Mrs. Otten //completely forgot// to have us point out a shape on our show and tell! We learned that we can still bring in our P things next week and we reviewed our sign language and Bible words. Hooray for Aaron today! He enjoyed being the birthday boy. Tomorrow he //really// is 5.We had a lot of things in our letter box and bag today! Our cow has a pretty silly name. We had some excitement during our outdoor time, watching the city workers mulch a stump and vacuum the wood chips.After outdooor time, we had a looooong center time because the placemat project was pretty time-consuming. Aaron's birthday snack was **green** popcorn! We never had that before! During snack we learned some more about the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving and then we finished our day with choice time. Our /s/ sound friends returned to school today! We had to change all the numbers on our shoe graph. Sam chose the rocket sound for our bell. So far everyone has chosen a different sound.After our morning routines we reviewed our Bible words and looked at a drawing to see if we could find people treating others like we want to be treated and being good friends. We had our Bible story about Daniel's friends, the golden statue, and the fiery furnace. After we warmed up our muscles with dancing we got to use beach balls in the gym. It was a lot of fun!. After gym and getting a drink, we did our alphabet town story about the daydreaming dinosaur.We talked a little about our field trip on Monday and then learned that our new letter of the week was P and it makes a sound with just air. Be sure to let us check those labels before you throw them out or recycle them. We will be looking for letter P. We had our snack and an alphabet book about Thanksgiving. We had indian corn in our suitcase and some of us chose to decorate and indian corn shape with the dot markers. At the end of the day we had show and tell.Nathan chose a frog for our hand stamp and Addison chose high five for our good bye. Today two friends were out sick, so we knew our shoe graph needed to change. Laces stayed the same, but velcro and slip on each went down one number. Lilyanah got to choose the bell sound and she chose the ringing alarm clock. During our circle time today we listened for the sound of /d/ (like dog and down) at the beginning of words. Then we listened for rhymes at the end of words. We added new things to our letter box. Our wacky Wednesday song was a rap about the days of the week. After our song we did our centers. We had snack before we went outside, and we got to play on the wood chip playground today. Our Bible story was about Daniel and his friends and how they obeyed God and did not eat the food offered to idols. Even though they only drank water and ate vegetables, God blessed them with strength and wisdom. After our Bible story we had our choice time and we worked really had to get things cleaned up quickly to show that we like having extra choice time! Hurray! Levi was back in school, so we were all here. But Mandy Mae Moo was missing, so we did her song without her, singing our new sound: Dandy Dae Doo. We had to add "s" to most of our letter box words because we had more than one dog, doll, and diaper for the box. We read a book called //Ten Black Dots// and will be making our own book of dots. In centers we also learned that a dozen is 12 and are using the dot markers to make a dozen dots on our letter pages (//if we remember to count!)// We also did counting and coloring with a partner and played the Bug in a Rug game. Our Bible story was about Moses and Aaron going to talk to the king of Egypt and tell him to let God's people go. Ten bad things had to happen before he let them go, and then he tried to follow them, but God saved his people. After our Bible story we had choice time. We did our morning routines and then learned about a new surprise job! Starting on Monday, someone will have a bell picture on the back of their shoe name tag. The person with the bell picture gets to choose the sound that the bell will make (we have a big bell that makes seven different sounds). Wonder who it will be? After this surprise, we had our Bible story about Moses running away from Egypt and God asking him to go back to Egypt to tell the King to let God's people leave. Moses did not want to do that job, but God showed his power and told him that his brother, Aaron, could help. Then it was time for gym. We got in groups and there were six stations: balance beam, running races, hula hoops, bean bag bucket toss, curvy path, and jumping. After gym we had our alphabet town story of Ichabod the iceman. We learned that our new letter for next week was D and we spent some time thinking of things that start with its sound. We had a healthy snack from Supria and then we learned what our free Friday project would be. We also got to dedicate the books we illustrated and we also read them to Mrs. Otten. Our time for show and tell was very short, but we all were able to show the game we brought and tell one of the rules. We were missing our friend, Levi, today :( We reviewed our song, //That's Good!// and then had our letter of the week. Short I and Long I played a game and Long I found the most words with his sound. We looked at pictures of people making apple pies, and then we got to walk through the gym to see the apple pie production first hand. Some of us saw our parents working hard! We saw lots of lights on the board! We had our outdoor time and then came in to do our Monkey Monday position and learn about our new centers. We learned about insects and made one at the project center. We did our letter page, added pages to our "The Book", and counted dice dots and stamped apples on a tree. After centers we had a snack from Josh that had gummy worms in it. We finished our story of Joseph and it ended good....very, very, good! We had a short choice time and some of us played the Don't Break the Ice game. We were missing our friend, Alex, today. We started learning a new song today; but it was very fast! We continued our Bible story of Joseph. The brothers came to get corn, but did not recognize Joseph. The youngest brother was not with them, so Joseph put Simeon in jail and told them to bring back their youngest brother. We wondered what would happen next, and will find out on Monday. After our Bible story, we did gym in our room! We watched a DVD and did followed along, doing waving arms, tapping arms, "box" arms, and other fun moves. After our drink, we Max found the letter E house in alphabet town and we read about Elfin's adventure with his friend elephant and how they were helpers for the easter bunny.We practiced putting two short words together to make a long word. Then we got to walk to the gym to see why we could not have gym class in the gym. We learned about how the grown ups were going to make the apple pies. I wonder how many red lights will be shining when we walk through again on Monday? When we got back to our room we learned about our free Friday project: using paint but //**not**// using paint brushes. Mrs. Otten called it "experimental" painting.We all wanted a chance to try it. After choice and project time, we did show and tell. It was fun to show things that we like to do.Finally, we found out that our letter of the week next week is another vowel: this time it is letter I. We were glad that Addison was back with us. We are getting very good at our sign language and did our song, //L-O-V-E, Love, That's Why.// Mrs. Otten talked about our Bible words and what it means that a child is known by his actions. She told us stories of children and how they acted and we thought about what their actions told us about them, whether they were kind or respectful or selfish or impatient. We had a story of a little squirrel and his animal friends: the mouse, the bird, the frog, the cas, and the dog.We helped make the animal sounds and we also read 4 words about why the squirrel could not play with any of his friends(if you remember, post it on the question of the day!) Our Wacky Wednesday song was very, very, silly and fun. We used our vowel names to change the words and sing //Apples and Bananas//. We had center time and snack time and then we went on the blacktop playground to run, run, run! When we came back in we heard the Bible story of how Joseph's brothers "got rid" of him and how God watched over Joseph and helped him know the King's dream. God gave him a plan and the King put Joseph in charge of the plan. After Bible we had another very short choice time. We talked about bringing show and tell next time. It was our first full day back in our classroom in a week! It was the first time ever that our velcro shoes and slip on shoes were the same and only Levi had laces today! We started our day with the story and suitcase surprise that we were not able to do after our field trip because we ran out of time. We talked about words with two parts made of other words, like "book-worm" and "base-ball" and "hair-brush" and others. We also were introduced to our letter of the week and two of its many sounds. We were happy to get outside and when we came in, we did our Monkey Monday position. We learned about our new centers and then had center time. After center time, we had our snack of apples and dip that Max brought. It was a perfect snack for our story, //Up, Up, Up, It's Apple Picking Time.// After snack there was only about 15 minutes left in our day so we had a very short choice time. We will start Wednesday with our Bible story! We could have used 3 extra hours today! After a short circle time, we used the bathroom in preparation for our field trip. We did our Wacky Wednesday song and then got on our coats and name tags and boarded the yellow school bus that was waiting for us. We were soooo excited! When we got to Bookworm Gardens, Ms. Beth told us some things about the gardens and how we could be a friend to the gardens. Then we split into two groups: the books and the worms! Mrs. Otten taught us about leaves and Ms. Beth taught us about Twitch. We had a short time to explore the gardens on our own, but there were many gardens we did not get to see. We would love to explore them with YOU! (Bookworm Gardens is open every day from 10-4 and is free (but donations are gladly accepted:) They will be open until the end of October and then close until May, 2013) We also had our snack in the barn and were very concerned about a bird who had flown into the barn and could not find her way out! We left the gardens a little late, so we did not come back into school for our new letter of the week and our suitcase surprise. Since there is no school on Friday, we will have a busy day on Monday! Enjoy your extra familly time. See you Monday! Our schedule was different today because we did not have centers or letter of the week. We had our Bible story about Joseph and his dreams. We thought the dreams sounded silly, but Joseph's brothers were angry about the dreams. After our drink, brain gym, and monkey position, we clapped the parts to our names. We also counted 21 parts in the name of the older brother in the story //Tikki Tikki Tembo.// For outside play we went on the blacktop. We started with a game, but had a couple tumbles (that //hurts// on the blacktop), so we just decided to run. After snack we heard a story about leaves and then we actually sang the story to the tune of //The Wheels on the Bus.// Our project was making another beautiful autumn tree. This time we traced our arms for the trunk and we used paint and our hands. But we did not get paint //on// our hands! Guess why? At the end of the day we talked about our field trip. Be ready for the weather on Wednesday! First of all, I apologize for getting out late again. There was a lot of silly behavior today, so all of our transitions seemed to take a long time. Hopefully we will all get outside and use up all that silly energy over the weekend! We learned two new songs that went with our Bible stories this week: //All Night, All Day// and //When I am Afraid.// We learned that Esau forgave Jacob and God kept his promise and Jacob returned to his land. During gym we moved around the "track" to warm up and then we used bean bags.We were introduced to throwing with opposition by using a silly band on our throwing hand and tape on our opposite toe. After gym and snack, we had our book time and then did our alphabet town story and listened for the letter t sound when we pulled a picture out of the tissue box. Our free Friday project was making autumn trees with "bleeding" paper. We finished our day with show and tell. No letter of the week next week, but there is a field trip. For our shoe graph today, the velcro number stayed the same. Laces had one more; slip on had one less! Our suitcase surprise was our letter T letter pieces. We used them to do a song called, //Tap, Tap, Tap.// After we added new things to our list of T words, we learned how to do a "pretzel stand" after we do our "X"s for brain gym. After our drink, we did a very wacky Wacky Wednesday song, //Tooty-Ta.// We reviewed our centers and then had center time. We had popsicles for snack and listened to the story //Tikki, Tikki, Tembo// (see if I can remember what happened to the little boys in the story).We had our outdoor time and our indoor choice time. Then we had our Bible story about Jacob. God forgave him and promised to be with him and watch over him wherever he went and would someday bring him back to his land. Aaron got to take home our class book, and we talked about our kid's choice show and tell. Today when Addison went to do her calendar job, the number 8 was missing! We had to borrow it from the shoe graph (Mrs. Otten found it later under the cart). After songs we did our letter of the week activities. We did a great job identifying the /t/ sound words in the sound box book. We passed around Tandy Tae Too and both times she stopped in hands of boys so we said, "Daddy said, No more mess, Miss Tandy Tae Too". After our drink and monkey position, we got directions for our new centers and did center time. Jonathan brought our snack today. It was sweet and salty! We were ready to go outside and had fun running and sliding and swinging and hanging upside down, and climbing, and being loud. When we came in we had choice time. Then we had another story about Jacob and Esau. Jacob did another bad trick and he had to run away because Esau was so mad at him. Mrs. Otten said that God was going to make something good come out of this bad thing, but we will have to wait to see what that is. Two of our friends were on trips, so we had 14 friends in school today. On our shoe graph, we had to change the number for laces and for velcro, but slip on shoes stayed the same. We looked at our family handprint paintings and told who was in our family. (Mrs. Otten put plastic on these paintings so we can use them as a placemat when we eat!)Then Mrs. Otten asked us to make some choices; we had to move to the left or to the right to show our choice. We had to choose between an apple and a banana; toast or soft bread; swings or the slide; using glue or using paint; listening to music or looking at a book; ice cream or cookies. We had a Bible story about a family with twin boys-Jacob and Esau. Although they were both boys, they liked very different things. Esau was older, so he was supposed to get the father's land, but he made a very unwise choice! After our Bible story, we made a wise choise of lining up quietly and ready for gym! In the gym we used hula hoops! We had so much fun with them! Levi brought a great snack for after all our exercise! During snack we made guesses from clues in the riddle book. We had our alphabet town story of the hippo with hiccups! What a funny story! Some of us chose to do the "free Friday" project of melting crayons to color in a leaf. We will hang them in the room. We were excited to do our "hidden" show and tell. We had great clues and listened to other children give their clues. Sometimes we even guessed what was in the bag! After show and tell, we found out about our new letter of the week and its sound. Then we learned that "bossy H" changes the sound! So we will be looking to put things in our letter box that start with the sound like turtle and the sound like thumb. Finally, we got our portraits to take home! It was a busy day! We were glad to have Aaron and Addison back in school today. After our morning circle time,we sang a Wacky Wednesday song about exploding hot dogs and then we had centers. During centers we had a vision screening from the Lion's Club volunteers. During centers we enjoyed painting, finding H in words around our room, rolling dice to fill in our matching paper, and doing our letter of the week page. We are getting very good at our big and little lines, and most of us are remembering to start our letters at the top. Some of us are still working on getting a good pinch with a bent thumb on our crayons and markers. During snack we listened to Mrs. Otten play instruments. Using just our ears we had to decide if she played the same one or two different ones. After snack we were eager to get outside and run and play. When we came back in, we got to use four different rhythm instruments, learning how to pass them to the left. We had a short choice time. Some of us tried out other instruments during choice time. We had a Bible story about Abraham's servant going to find a wife for Isaac. We wasn't sure what to do, but he asked God for help and God answered his prayers! As we dismissed, Addison's mom reminded Mrs.Otten about the paper bags for show and tell. If you didn't get one, ask for one on Friday morning. Remember to think of clues about your show and tell, so we can try to guess what is hidden in your bag. We begin a new month! This month contains a couple birthdays, a NO school day, a couple field trips, and apple pie days. Today we were introduced to our new letter, the sign language for H, its sound, and the Bible words for H. Our Monkey Monday position was very funny. We had to put our toes and knees together and put one hand up and one hand down. Our centers were fun. We did our letter page, a dice game, an H hunt, and used watercolors. We celebrated Amara's birthday and enjoyed her snack of yogurt and Hello Kitty cookies. We enjoyed the nice weather outside and then some choice time inside. We had a short Bible story, and we found out that God kept his promise to Abraham and Sarah. They were so happy that they named him Isaac, which means laughter. We learned that when we believe God the way Abraham believed God, then we are a "child" of Abraham, so Abraham really did get as many children as stars in the sky. After looking at our shoe graph and finding out our jobs, we had to put pictures of people in order from youngest to oldest. We then heard the story of God's promise to Abraham to give him as many children as the stars in the sky. But Abraham and Sarah had NO children, even when they were very, very old. Some visitors came to tell Abraham that Sarah would have a baby, even though he was 100 years old. Sarah laughed. Will God keep his promise? We will find out next time. In gym we did a circuit of balance stations, staying with our group and moving to each new station. At snack we read our class book (Jonathan got to be the first one to take it home). We sorted the m sound and f sound cards and then did our alphabet town book. The little lady lost her locket! We watched Mrs. Otten'show how to do the "free Friday" project. About half of us chose to do the project. After choice and project we did show and tell and found out our next week"s letter and its sound. Today we sang our //Rise and Shine// song about Noah and the Ark and then we did a song with a pattern: //Hallelu, Hallelujah.// We stood in a boy-girl pattern while we passed around Landy Lae Loo. We reviewed our L Bible words and sign language and learned how to show "I LOVE YOU" in sign language. We got an L stamp on our left hands so we could do our Wacky Wednesday song: //Loopty Loo//. After centers, we had just 5 minutes on the playground, but then we took a hike around the block to look for leaves for our letter L page and our Friday project. During snack we figured out what shape or color was needed to keep Mrs. Otten's pattern repeating. After choice time, we made pair groups for sharing and thought about what we would need to take with us if we moved to a new house. We had the story of Abraham having to leave and go to a new place that God would show him. We found out that the suitcase surprise was a book that we will be able to take home like a library book. We will read it next time and then start "checking it out". After table time and our shoe graph, we prayed for our friends who were not in school today-one out with a cough and one one a trip to Pennsylvania. We did our morning routines and then learned our new letter sound, sign language, and verse. We added things to our letter box and bag and then had our drink break. We had center time. After Wednesday, our projects with cut paper will hang in the hallway and our shoes will go home. After our snack from Nathan and some time to read books, we got to play outside and inside. We reviewed our Noah's ark story by learning a new song. We ran out of time for the suitcase surprise :( It was a quiet start to the morning because four of our friends were gone (Amara joined us later). So our shoe graph needed some changes, but slip on shoes stayed the same. After our circle time, we finished the story of Noah's Ark. Then it was time for gym. We warmed up fast and slow and then did lots of moving around the gym until the whistle blew. We had to choose a corner to run to and the chosen corner got to cheer. During snack, Mrs. Otten read a story that was one of her favorites as a little girl, //Sam and the Firefly.// It was a long story, but we enjoyed it. After snack we did our letter of the week. We read our alphabet town story about four foolish fish at the fair. Then we got to "fish" for letter f words. Some of us had to do our letter page during our choice time. We showed many interesting favourite things during show and tell. We ended our day with the suitcase surprise: HOMEWORK! We also learned our new letter of the week: L. We started our day with a looooong table time and photographs. At circle time we checked out the shoe graph and made the changes and put the helper hands on the job chart. We sang our new song again and then did our letter of the week activities. We had some duplicates in the letter box, so we learned about adding an "s" at the end of the word to mean more than one thing. Mrs.Otten also showed us the silly (long) word //**photograph**// which starts and ends with the "f" sound, but made with letters ph. Our Wacky Wednesday song was //Make Any Shape and Freeze.// We moved our bodies to look like different things and were really good at freezing in position. We did our centers. We had a healthy snack from Lydia and heard another Pete the Cat story. It was time to get outside and run and play! We took extra time outside for all that built up energy we had accumulated with all the sitting and working in the classroom. When we got back inside we had a Bible story about God sending a lot of rain, but saving Noah, his family, and the animals on a big boat. We had a suitcase surprise to end the day. Mrs. Otten finished out class books! We will read them next time and then can start checking them out to go home. Mrs. Otten also had another surprise: we can **come to school tomorrow night and show you our room and hear stories read by Mrs. Otten.** Shoe report for today: 1 laces, 10 velcro, and 5 slip on.(By the way, Mrs. Otten did not plan for the shoe photographs, so that will happen on Wednesday after our portrait photograph). Today we started learning a new song about creation called, //That's Good.// We had our new letter of the week sound box story, learned "f" in sign language, learned new Bible words ("Forgive like God forgives you"), and learned that the cow in our letter box has a new name! Our list for "F" already has 10 words on it. We had to sit and stretch our legs to do our Monkey Monday position today. Then we did our new centers: letter page, French Fry count, Fill 'er up card cutting, and fingerpaint. We had our snack before outdoor time today. After our choice time, we had a Bible story about a very sad day when Eve and Adam did the one thing that God had asked them not to do. After our goodbye song, we showed our best smile, practicing for our school pictures on Wednesday. When we compared our shoe graph to last time, we found that the number of velcro shoes was the same (still the most), but we had a tie between laces and slip on shoes. We started our day reviewing the 7 days of creation. Each of us got to put a picture card on the number day that it was created. We learned that on day 7 God did not create anything new (He rested). But God does not sleep when he rests! He is still busy taking care of us and the world. We got instructions for gym and then Mrs. Otten set up our gym game while we waited in the hall with Mrs. Kiel and we each added a dot to the kindergarten dot poster. In gym we moved around the circle and then moved around the track. Then we played a dot game! (Mrs. Otten didn't even realize it was dot day when she planned it!) We did a relay race to see if our team could find shoes under the dots. After bathroom and snack, we had our letter of the week time. We had our first alphabet town story about Mouse and Mole. (Rachel got to find the M house in alphabet town). Then we remembered and sang, //Where Do You Start Your Letters?// and learned how we were going to do our letter page. If you think all of the above took a long time...you are right! So only half of us actually got to do the letter page today. The rest of us will do it on Monday. We needed to save time for show and tell (and we did not even save enough time because we got out late //**again**// today (sorry, parents!) Well, our show and tell was "made of metal" but not many of us had the metal that sticks to the magnet. Only 5 of our show and tell things actually stuck. After show and tell we learned that our new letter of the week was **F** To make the sound we have to put our teeth on our bottom lip and //**just blow** **air.**// Aaron chose a new goodbye for us-the hand shake! Mrs. Otten changing things again! Today our hands were not on the helper chart. We had to wait to see what job we would have. We put numbers on our shoe graph today. (wish I had stock in Velcro!) We reviewed how to make an "M" in sign language and our "M" Bible words. We sang the Mandy Mae Moo song and added items to our box and bag. Then we learned about how to do a fire drill in school and had our first fire drill. We also talked about what to do if we are in a room with smoke or if the fire gets on us. Since it was **W**ednesday, we had a **w**acky **W**ednesday song before we did our centers. After time outdoors, we had our snack, looked at books, and then had our choice time. We reviewed the first 4 days of creation and then learned about days 5 and 6. God did something very different when he made man and woman! We reviewed our show and tell theme and then it was time to have prayer, song, and end of day routines. Here's some pictures of us doing our centers:
 * December 12, 2012**
 * December 10, 2012**
 * December 7, 2012**
 * December 5, 2012**
 * December 3, 2012**
 * November 28, 2012**
 * November 26, 2012**
 * November 21, 2012**
 * November 19, 2012**
 * November 16, 2012**
 * November 14, 2012**
 * November 12, 2012**
 * FIELD TRIP DAY TO JOHN MICHAEL KOHLER ARTS CENTER!** We had our usual table time and circle time. We had our Bible story of Daniel and the new king, Darius, who did not know about the true God. But God showed his power and protection by keeping Daniel safe from the hungry lions. After our Bible story we went outside in the brisk air for some running around and swinging. When we came back in, we had a special bear snack from Sam and then got on our name tags and coats and got ready to board the bus for our field trip. We had a wonderful time at the arts center. The art was amazing and we had so much fun making our own sculptures. We have them in our hallway "gallery" for a few days.
 * November 9, 2012**
 * November 7, 2012**
 * November 5, 2012**
 * November 2, 2012**
 * October 31, 2012**
 * WHOOPS! FORGOT TO UPDATE :(** On Wednesday, we first sang our ABC song and then we sang a song just about the vowels and each time we sang it, we left off one more vowel and clapped instead. We reveiwed what makes and insect and looked at some drawings and decided if it was a drawing of an insect or not. After our drink break, we sang the wacky Wednesday song called //Pepperoni Pizza//. It was like our //Apples and Bananas// song, and it was so silly changing the vowels sounds! We did center time and then had snack. We went outside and then came in for our Bible story about the birth of Moses. At the end of the day we had our choice time.
 * October 29, 2012**
 * October 26, 2012**
 * October 24, 2012**
 * October 22, 2012**
 * October 17, 2012**
 * October 15, 2012**
 * October 12, 2012**
 * October 10, 2012**
 * October 8, 2012**
 * October 5, 2012**
 * October 3, 2012**
 * October 1, 2012**
 * September 28, 2012**
 * September 26, 2012**
 * September 24, 2012**
 * September 21, 2012**
 * September 19, 2012**
 * September 17, 2012**
 * September 14, 2012**
 * September** 12, **2012**

Where does the time go? We packed a lot into our day today! We came into a different looking room. Mrs. Otten had moved the 3K cubbies to make more room for us when we all sit at the tables at snack and at the end of the day. So our shoes for our name tags also moved. There were some new things out for table time, including playdough, which we enjoy. After doing table time and opening with prayer, we checked out our shoe graph. We counted one person with laces, ten with velcro, and five with slip on shoes. We did our other morning routines and then did our letter of the week. We tried "m" in sign language; learned Bible words for m; learned a new song for a cow that we passed around the circle; looked at what was in the box and bag; and had a story about "little m". After a drink and brain gym, we did our first "monkey monday" position. We then divided in groups and had center learning time. We each did two centers. With all this busyness, we had to have our bathroom break and snack before our outdoor time. We were definitely ready for running after snack. We came in from outdoors for a short choice time. We reviewed our Bible story from last week and then it was time to end our day**.** After our table time, we heard the bell and remembered what to do (STOP! LOOK! LISTEN!) We had our circle time. Lydia chose the heart want for counting the numbers on the calendar. We looked at the covers of some books and decided which ones told real stories and which ones were just a story. We had a real story from the Bible, because all of the Bible is real and true. We learned what God created on the first four days. Each thing he created was very good (we learned how to say very good with our hands). We had our first time in the gym, so we needed to learn where to stand for our warm up activity. We also practiced moving in the same direction, and then moving in all different directions. We learned to find our own spot and how to go back to our own spot safely when Mrs. Otten blew the whistle. We were sweaty and thirsty after all that moving, so we enjoyed Addison's healthy snack of pretzels, celery, peanut butter, and juice. After snack we learned about "letter of the week" and we learned the names of our letter pieces and did the Letter Pieces Hokey Pokey song. In our suitcase was a scale and a growth chart so Mrs. Otten could weigh and measure us during our choice time. (some of us will have to wait until Monday to get weighed and measured since we needed to end our choice time early for show and tell). After cleaning up, we got our backpacks and did our first show and tell. We found great things to show that had letters on them. Our day started with table time. We were reminded about what to do when a teacher rings the bell (STOP! LOOK! LISTEN). We had our picture taken by the footprints so we can see how tall we are now and compare to our pictures next May. During our first circle time, friends from last year's 3K helped to explain the jobs. We spent some time comparing boys/girls; those who have a brother and those who don't; those who wore clothes with pockets and those that didn't. We then looked at our shoes and graphed those wearing shoes with laces, those wearing shoes with velcro, and those wearing slip on shoes. Most children wore shoes with velcro. We took a drink break and learned how to turn on our brain buttons and make "X" with our bodies. We had a story about Pete the Cat and his white shoes. We were excited to be able to play out doors on the wood chip playground. Jonah provided a delicious snack of chocolate chip muffins, bananas, and juice. During snack, we heard a recording of the Pete the Cat story. We also learned a new prayer for snack (well, some of us already knew it!) We had waited long enough! We were ready to play in the room. First we had to find out about our project and then we got to play. At the end of the day we sang our prayer (last year's snack prayer is now our end of the day prayer!) We talked about bringing a show and tell from home on Friday. Thanks, parents for being understanding of our late dismissal today. I hope that it will not be a pattern. ;D
 * S**
 * September 10, 2012**
 * September 7, 2012**
 * September 5, 2012 FIRST DAY OF 4K!**