A few more things . . . .

I forgot to mention that the fellowship hall will be used tomorrow for a morning meeting, so the children will not go in there at all until lunchtime. Just plan to bring your child directly into the classroom.

The Two Year Olds will be doing an All About Me unit in September. They are asking that each child bring a poster that is "All About Them!" Pictures are great. You can tell about family, favorites, anything that is an interest for your child. These are favorites for the kids to have up for quite some time. Please try to send those in within the next week.

On that note, the Three and Four Year old celebrates a different child each week, with our Student of the Week! During the week that your child is the SOTW, he or she enjoys many special privileges at school. He can also bring something to show and share EVERY DAY of the week. I'd love it if they were things that tell us more about the child, but, it can be anything that is not dangerous. He can also send a special snack one day during the week to share with the class. I have a poster that I will send home the week before your child's week. It can be filled in with words, drawings, photos or anything you'd like. You can do more if you'd like, but I hope that you will all help your child to complete this poster to bring in on Monday of their week.

Thanks so much for helping make school a great place for your child!!

We had a pretty good Monday!!

Well, the concensus is that there is no way to send updates when I update the blog, but I am going to try to remember to send a quick email to let you know when updates are made.
Things went well today. We are beginning our unit called, I am special. We started circle time asking each child to tell us something about them that was special. This was kind of tricky for them. They all wanted to tell us something that they HAVE that is special. I hope that, by the end of the week, they will be able to verbalize that they are special just because they are who they are!
We also started talking about the letter F. The kids did different things to work on the letter F. Some wrote it, some circled it, to recognize it, and some played games with the letter F and the sound that F makes. Our "Pre-K" kids worked on the "an" family today - fan, can, van, pan, etc. They also are learning to answer questions as a sentence, rather than just a word. It was exciting to me that they could do that.
We welcomed Brooks back today. He was a little late starting because he has a new baby brother. We were all glad to see him!

I went to visit the two year olds today. It was such fun!! They are learning the color yellow and the circle shape. When I went, they were painting yellow with sponge circles. They were having a ball!! Most every one of them found it nexessary to try it on their lips! They are so funny!!


If you have not paid your registration fee yet, please do that as soon as possible. Also, I will order t-shirts this week. Shirts are $6 for kids and $7 for adults. PLEASE let me know as soon as possible what sizes you will need for your child, as well as for yourself if you want ont.

Thanks! Have a great night!

Olympic Day

Catching up!!

Hello all!
Sorry there was no post Friday. We were so busy with Olympic Day, that, once I got the notes out, I was DONE! Anyway, we had a great time!! I am going to post pics and maybe, if I can figure out how, some of the video for the day! I loved that the kids were all cheering for each other! They wanted everybody to win, and they never worried about who got the points or anything else. They had such fun!!

I have to tell you this before you see the picture - Anna Grace fought a nap really hard. She sat up, nodding off, for about 15 minutes. She snuck over to her cubby to get her purse, which had cookies in it. She would nod off, take a bite of her cookie, then nod off again. So, finally, Casey laid her down, put her cookie on her purse, and patted her back. A few minutes later, they came to get me, and there she was - sound asleep with her cookie in her mouth!! It was precious!! After we took pictures, we DID remove the cookie from her mouth, but we had to get our pictures first!!

I need to ask your help with a couple of things.
1. Your kids really don't use sippy cups at school. If possible, please leave them in the car. IF YOU HAVE TO SEND THEM, they must be marked with the child's name and the date each day. Please help us with this, since we'll have to toss cups that aren't labeled every couple of days.
2. Please keep in mind that our hours are 7:00 am - 5:30 pm. The teachers are not paid to be there after that time. As listed in the handbook, there will be a fee assessed for any time that your child is there after 5:30. We will allow a five minute grace period, but after 5:35, the fee is $5 per 5 minutes that you are late. This needs to be paid directly to the teacher that is still there with your child. I don't want this to sound like I am being harsh, but my teachers plan their days around the schedule that I provide them, and it's not fair to them to have to stay late without pay. If you are not going to be there by 5:30, please try to find someone that can get your child. If not, please call Devon and let her know what time you will be there. Please be prepared to pay when you pick up your child.

I hope you all will plan to be at church with us on Sunday, Sept. 20. The kids will perform a couple of songs, and you will have the opportunity to meet our new pastor, Stephen Soulen.
I look forward to seeing you in the morning!

Countdown to Friday - WACKY OLYMPICS!

We spent today getting "pumped up" for tomorrow! Our Red Runners and Blue Bears are excited about our activities for tomorrow!! Before making signs and Olympic rings, we did have time for some of our normal routine. In calendar time today, we continued talking about the months, days, and seasons. The younger kids are beginning to understand how calendar time works. The older kids are ramping it up a bit with discussion of ordinal numbers, patterns, and looking for clues. The younger kids are working on gripping their pencils and recognizing their names. I was really excited to day that the older kids were able to write sentences today! They used some word cards to help with some spelling, but the sentences the 3 older ones that were there today came up with were: "I see a box." "I eat a donut." and "I lock things with a key." Not bad for four year olds!!

In small groups, the kids painted Olympic rings, decorated Olympic banners and worked with shapes to make patterns. Prepare yourself - your children may use words like hexagon, rhombus and trapezoid!! Cool, huh? I hope I can figure out how to post videos to the blog. I took some CUTE ones today!

We are excited about our fun day tomorrow!!

The two's are getting adjusted to their routines as well. They really love the bean bags and paint! I brought a prospective grandparent (for next year) in today, and I think she would have stayed all day. The kids were SO SWEET!!

Well, I'm tired, and I have a few more things to do!

Have a great Friday!!

Olympic Day is coming!

Go Red Runners! Go Blue Bears!
Friday, we will have Wacky Olympic Day, and the teams are ready!! The Red Runners are Jahnvi, BethAnn, Charlie, Emma, Ben, Katelyn, Braden, Harrison. The Blue Bears are Aashvi, Asa, Drew, Landen, Christal, Chris, Zach. The Two's will have some fun olympic games too, but they will not be divided into teams. Parents of 3 & 4's, get into the action and send your child to school in their "team colors." Don't go buy something for this, but anything they have that is either blue or red will be great. We will be running, jumping, hopping, etc. so, if possible, send them in tennis shoes or some shoes that they are comfortable running in. We want them all to be safe.

Today, I was really excited that our kids are taking us seriously about the handwashing routine. I had taken the soap dispenser out of the bathroom to refill it, when one of my BOYS went to the bathroom. (I'm sure you know that boys are not famous for clean hands.) Well, he came back in and told me that there was no soap in the bathroom, and he needed it to wash his hands. I was thrilled that he realized it! Then, before I got it filled up, another BOY went to the bathroom, and he came out telling ne he heeded soap! Yay! I am just trying really hard to be sure that we do as much as we can to prevent the spread of germs. Please help us out by keeping your children home if they are sick, as well. So far, we don't have any of the really cruddy stuff that I keep hearing about, so that is good, so let's keep it that way.

I have got to go get kids. I'll post more later.
Thanks!
Alicia

We are learning how preschool works!

We have had another great day at His Kids! It's AMAZING to watch the difference between the classes. It's hard (but encouraging) to believe that most of my class was just starting out in the two year old class this time last year! As one parent left this morning, with her child crying, she said, "I'm ready for that stage!! That's so much better than crying!" I hope it's a little encouragement that most of the ones she saw sitting at the table this morning working away were the same ones whose moms were leaving last year with them screaming. So, the morning was still a little different, since Casey took one more day to fully recover, and Ms. Devon had to run to the doctor this morning too. Thankfully, Wanda and I have worked together so long that I can stop midsentence, and she just picks up where I left off. We had a few that were upset this morning, so I went over to help out on that side for a while. Ms. Paige, Ms. Heidi and I got out the thing that almost always works to make kids forget they were sad - SHAVING CREAM! Sure enough - it worked!! Everybody was happy!! The little guys liked Bean Bag Boogie too!!
Over in the older kids' class, they were talking about these wacky olympics! How exciting. We are also working on the Pledge and God Bless America. We were so excited that Emma was able to tell us right off the bat, what day it was today. This gets to be a challenge sometimes with the kids. As we talk about months, days, years, seasons, etc, they seem to jumble them all up, so we start early talking about what day it is today, what day it was yesterday, and what day it will be tomorrow.
During small group time today, my older kids reviewed all of their letter sounds, and then we moved on to play a game, where the kids tried to match words with pictures. They got them all - donut, vacuum, key, zipper, mitten, box, and rope! I was so pleased! They were too! We are beginning to see how to use clues, along with the beginning letter to figure out words. Then we went onto the hundreds chart. After we remembered the counting by tens song from last year, we were able to count all the way to 100, with just a little help!!
When our younger kids had small groups, they impressed me too! First we sang our letter song, and used our Hooked On Phonics flash cards to review the letter names. We will definitely get there!! Then we went to the table to see how we would do with another M paper. They did fantastic!! All I did today was to show them what I wanted them to do, which was to find and circle all of the M's or m's. They all did it!! Some may have needed a little more help than others, but they were all able to do it. Yay!!
Time to go pick up kids!! Have a great afternoon!!

Happy Monday!!

We have had a great day at His Kids today. Unfortunately, Ms. Casey is out with Strep throat. She started antibiotics yesterday, so keep your fingers crossed! Once in a while, it is good for me to be able to be here at 7, so I can see those EARLY parents that I don't get to see as often.
In the 3 & 4 year old class today, we started on our theme of the Wacky Olympics. They weren't really interested in the Olympic Rings or the Olympic torch, but they LOVED the wacky Purple Pickle song we sang!! Go figure!! We also began talking about the letter M. The younger kids began to identify the letter and to write the letter, and the older kids cut and pasted pictures of words that start with M, and they wrote some M words as well. I was really excited that all of the "Pre-K" kids were able to cut squares along lines with very little if any, assistance. It's so great to see the gains they make during a year! We introduced the Sand table today. It was a hit!! The kids loved it. Landen especially loved the mini broom and dustpan, and he made sure to sweep up every grain he saw!! Aashvi said something cute today. She raised her hand to get my attention during circle time. I called on her, and she asked if I liked her shoes. I told her I liked them a lot. She asked me if she could show them to her friends. "Sure," I told her. She looked at me like I had lost my mind and said, "Ms. Alicia, no I can't! Show and Share is on Fridays!" I guess she was testing me to see if I knew the rule!!
The two's met a new friend and classmate today. AnnaGrace joined us today, and we are so excited to have her. They began their focus on the color Red today. They had a ball painting with Puffy Paint! It seems that the general concensus is, "the messier, the better!!"
Have a great afternoon!!

August!

Still Learning

Noelle came to the preschool yesterday and gave me a quick lesson in Blogging! I am getting there, but I don't know why I keep posting the slideshow over and over. Maybe she will see this and help!! I am adding some things to the page that I think you will find useful. If you think of something that you'd like to see, let me know. I may be able to do it! Have a great weekend!

Giving it a try!

Hello all!!
I've been told that parents really like the notes that I have been sending. Funny how I got that feedback the same day I said I wouldn't be doing daily notes anymore!! I had already gotten the suggestion that I try a blog, so maybe I can do this and keep everyone informed and happy. I will still send paper newsletters home on Friday. I am hoping this will be a quick way to let you know all about the things that happen during the day. Let me know what you think.

So far, school is going great!! Our first day, we had a bit of a surprise. One of the 2 year olds pulled the fire alarm!! Fortunately, we let the fire dept know BEFORE they all came screaming in (like they did the first week we had the alarms and one got pulled!) It was a great fire drill! Our morning snack plan is working really well! The kids are eating great, and the mornings seem to be really smooth. We are leaving the fellowship hall around 7:45 to go to classrooms, and the older kids are able to start circle time around 8:20. It seems like we are able to get a lot more done this way.

I am going to try to figure out how to post my pics that I have taken so far here. Maybe my sweet parent who suggested this might be able to help.

Looking forward to a great year!!
Alicia