Field trip and our rapidly approaching end of the school year!

I can hardly believe we only have 5 more weeks left of our school year! It's a very bittersweet time of year because we can tell the kids are almost ready for pre-k but we will miss them so much! First of all, I want to thank all of the parents who made Teacher Appreciation week at HFYH so amazing. We really have the best families ♥

After learning about the letter "R" this week, we will only have 4 more letters to squeeze in before summer. Along with finishing the uppercase alphabet we will be working on skills they will need to succeed in pre-k in the fall.

Here are a few:
-Independence = proper use of bathroom breaks, packing up backpacks, putting on and zipping jackets, cleaning up craft supplies and messes, following simple directions that involve leadership and working together.

-Fine Motor Skills = proper grip and usage of  writing utensils, glueing, cutting

Did you know that we have been learning the pledge of allegiance, the songs "days of the week" and "months of the year", and the HFYH school song? We are also working hard on our graduation songs, God is so Good, God Created and Father Abraham. Ask your child to sing them "loud and proud" to you :)

We will be going on a field trip to the dairy farm on Tuesday, April 15th. Parents are encouraged to attend and must pay $5 (before field trip day) to attend. Students will be riding the bus and are $8. If you have not returned their permission slip and money please do so ASAP! For safety reasons, the dairy farm does not allow any children under the age of 3. Please see a teacher for any questions :)

We LOVE to play outside for recess any chance we get! However, due to crazy mother nature our playground has been too muddy to use. On pretty days we head outside to the pavement to draw and write with chalk. We would REALLY appreciate any sidewalk chalk donations :) With 15 students we go through a LOT of chalk!!

You will be receiving more information about our graduation ceremony and end of school festivities after Easter!

Important Reminders:
~We have our last snow make up day on Monday, April 21st.
~Preschool dismissal is at 11:30am. Please make every effort to be on time so that your child isn't waiting and so that you do not get stuck in the pre-k pick up line. You can help our dismissal go quickly by using the outer line :) Thank you!!!
~The weather has been CrAzY this year. Don't forget to have a weather appropriate change of clothes and underwear in your child's backpack. Accidents happen and we want to be prepared.
~Illness reminder- If your child has a fever, vomiting or diarrhea they must be symptom free for 24 hours before returning to school. This is to help us prevent spreading more germs to the class.

As always, thank you for sharing your children with us!

Welcome Back!

We hope everyone had a wonderful and blessed Christmas break. It was nice to spend extra time with our family, friends and our own kiddos during the craziness of the holidays but we are ready to get back into our school routines! We have so much fun planned for the second semester.

First, let's recap what we are currently working on!

We are almost finished learning about uppercase letters that only consist of straight lines.

Letter "F" fish.

Letter "L" lions.

Practicing on the dry erase boards.

This week we will be learning, singing and crafting about the letter "Y". After this week we will have covered the following letters: A, E, F, H, I, K, L, M, N, T, V, W, X, Y, Z. 

We also had lots of fun during our "mittens" theme unit! Perfect timing with all of the very cold weather we have had :) We practiced our fine motor skills with mitten crafts that required a lot of following directions! 

Mitten marble painting.

Another center the kids really worked hard on was a mitten counting graph! So proud of them!!

We have been challenging them with new and a bit more complex centers this semester. One of my favorite things about our students is their determination to succeed!

         Seeing their accomplishments in their smiles is so rewarding :)

♥ ♥ ♥

Next week will be our review week for letters "F, L, Y" and we will also be having a SNOWMAN unit that we are SUPER excited about!!! 

Important infomation:

• Accidents sometimes happen :) please make sure your child has a change of clothes in their backpack that is season appropriate. 
• EVERY student needs to practice putting their coats/hoodies on by themselves. They also should practice packing their binder into their backpack, zipping their backpack and putting on their backpacks without assistance. This will help our dismissal routine go a bit more smoothly and is great practice for pre-k next year when they will be required to do these things without assistance :)
• Please clean out your child's binder EVERYDAY! Thank you!! 
• Library books are coming home every Thursday again! Please take good care of our books and enjoy your time reading with your child. Please return library books on WEDNESDAYS.
• We will be having a Valentine's Day party on February 13th. More information, a sign up sheet and a family project will be coming home soon ♥

 As always, please feel free to contact us if you have any questions! Thank you for sharing your children with us ♥

Christmas Week Info ♥

It's the most wonderful time of the year!! This week will be a super fun and very exciting week for our preschoolers. Here is an outline of what our week looks like:

Tuesday, December 17th ~ We will be practicing for our Christmas program, working on Christmas crafts and having a Polar Express party (day one). Students may wear their PAJAMAS to school! :) Please no slippers since we will be walking outside to practice across the street at the main church campus.

Wednesday, December 18th ~ We will be practicing for our Christmas program, working on Christmas crafts and having a Polar Express party (day two). Students may wear their PAJAMAS to school! :) Please no slippers since we will be walking outside to practice across the street at the main church campus.

Thursday, December 19th ~ School begins at normal time. The students will be finishing up Christmas crafts, reading Christmas stories about the true meaning of Christmas ~ Jesus is the reason for the season! We will also be having our all school Christmas program! The Christmas program will start at 10:30am at the main church campus across the street. Everyone is welcome to attend! Following the Christmas program you will need to pick up your child in our designated room. A small reception will be held in the Hospitality room and cafe. Students should wear Christmasy clothes :)

Thursday, December 19th is our last day of school for our first semester. School resumes on Tuesday, January 7th for preschoolers.

Halloween Week Recap!

We had so much fun last week celebrating Halloween, learning about the letter "H" and pumpkins!

Happy Halloween!!

Counting with pumpkin seeds.

Halloween sensory table.

We use several methods to help teach our students each letter. Sometimes we may use bingo dobbers to fill in a letter's shape, dry erase markers to connect dotted letters on our easel, letter crafts to tie the shape of a letter to an object starting with our current letter, etc. However, each week we also keep it a bit old school and practice writing the old fashioned way, with pencil and paper. :) As moms of kindergartners, we know just how many worksheets and writing activities are completed EVERYDAY. We hope by introducing paper and pencil, proper pencil holding techniques and letter recognition early that they will be comfortable as they progress into more challenging writing.

Important Information:

• Parent Teacher Conferences will be held on November 25th. Each conference will last approximately 15 minutes. A sign-up sheet will be posted this week next to our classroom door.
• Reminder~We do not have school November 26th-November 28th.
• Each year our school collects food for the needy in our community. Preschool has been assigned canned YAMS! Please send in your canned yams donations before November 15th.
• All three preschool classes will be celebrating Thanksgiving together with a Thanksgiving feast! More information coming soon :)
• November tuition is due!

Thank you to all of the parents who helped with donations and extra helping hands for our Halloween party! We appreciate you. Thank you for helping to make our party super fun! :)

Recap, Review and lots of New!

Hello!! I am happy to say that our blog is back! Mrs. Lynn and her family are FINALLY moved into their new house and let me say it is SO good to have high speed internet again. Yay!! We have lots to share and many pictures from the past couple of weeks.

We had lots of fun celebrating with party hats and special snacks a double birthday on the same day!

 

 One of our favorite ways to teach about the current seasons and upcoming holidays is to make coordinating crafts! It's a fun way to review colors, shapes and themes.

Candy Corn Shapes

Pumpkins

 Before review week we learned all about the letter "Z".

Making "Z"s with dobbers.

"Z" worksheets

Check out our ZEBRA craft :)

Fall is here!! We made some BEAUTIFUL fall trees!

This was a BIG project. We are so proud of how hard our students worked on their trees. 

Review week:

Practicing "M", "N", and "Z".

Our dinosaur herd ♥

dinosaur match-up

letter hunt

shape sorting

New this week:

This week we introduced the letter "X", began our new SPACE unit, sang songs about pumpkin in music class and learned about the Garden of Eden and temptation during Chapel.

Name rockets were a fun way to practice spelling our names.

Our "X" craft, Xylophones.

Important information:

• Our Zoo field trip is quickly approaching (October 23rd)! Please return permission slips AND money ASAP! If you would like to join us please meet us at the zoo and wait inside the admission gates. Please let us know if you would like to be a chaperone. :)
• Library books are due WEDNESDAYS and should be brought into the classroom with your child's binder. 
• Please clean out your child's binder EVERY day. Thank you!!
• We are busy planning our Halloween party! More information coming soon :)

Week 6 ♥ Noodles, Necklaces, Night

Our 6th week of school has been full of fun with activites, crafts and songs about the letter "N"!

We had a lot of fun with NOODLES!!

We painted noodles!

We made noodle necklaces!

We even played with noodles at our sensory table!

 Our craft tomorrow will be a letter "N" with nighttime decorations. Don't forget to wear BLUE tomorrow! :)

The Home for Your Heart "Give-Back" event will be on October 3rd at Roca Bar North ALL DAY! Feel free to make copies of the coupon flyer sent home in your child's binder earlier this week to share with your friends and family. By presenting the coupon flyer anytime October 3rd when placing a take-out order or dining in HFYH will receive 10% back.

A few reminders:

• We LOVE to spend our recess time on the playground! Please send a light jacket or hoodie to school if the weather is a bit chilly. :)
• Please return library books INSIDE the classroom on WEDNESDAYS so that we can check them in and your child can check out a new book on Thursdays!
• Wear BLUE to school tomorrow! :)

NEXT WEEK:

• We will be learning about the letter "Z", the number "6" and the color YELLOW.
• Our DINOSAUR unit begins!!!!
• Our bible verse will be: "Zion hears and rejoices and the villages of Judah are glad because of your judgments, O Lord." Psalm 97:8
• Wear YELLOW to school next Thursday.
• Our Happy Camper of the Week will be Ty Pohl. :)