We Are Going Into Space

This is our two week unit on space. We started this unit with a trip to the "space lounge" for moon pie snack and completed an "astronaut" fitness test. The children were surprised to learn that it takes more than getting on the space shuttle to get to space. You have to study a lot and be in top physical shape to work for NASA.

The boys and girls are so excited to be learning what space means and started by painting stars in the galaxy. The colors of space are just as beautiful as the colors around us on Earth. Creation is a wonderful story and we are amazed by God's beauty all around. Out of darkness came God's light and we are sharing it with our friends in our class. This trio of friends worked together to complete our alphabet matching game. They were able to match the lowercase letter to the uppercase of all 26 letters of the alphabet. What a great job to work together and show others in our class that this game is not too hard. We call that using our "brain power."

Chinese New Year

On Monday we celebrated Chinese New Year. The children were excited to have a second "new year's" celebration and had fun eating fortune cookies and making "good luck" dragons. It seems that every day the children are learning about God's goodness. God made so many beautiful people on this Earth with so many wonderful traditions. The class continues to broaden its horizons be learning about those around us.

Polar Bears

We completed our unit on polar bears and penguins. It was lots of fun to study cold climate animals while our weather cooperated. If your children didn't share our fun snack with you, they really enjoyed eating it at school. These are our yummy polar bear biscuits. We also made some textured polar bear art complete with winter snow.
We also went ice skating in the gym (on paper plates) and used our imagination to enjoy the cold weather a little bit longer. I think the children were surprised about how much fun they really had using their imaginations to skate around.

Early Valentine's Day Cards

Our class continues to support our armed forces by making seasonal artwork for the men and women stationed in Afghanistan. We were getting in the mood for Valentine's Day by making some "Love Bugs." The children did a great job and even wrote in their own hand "BEE MINE" on the valentine card. They certainly will bring a smile to a lonely friend abroad. Please continue to pray for our armed forces.

Elmer In The Snow & Winter Words

Here are just few examples of some of our work. We read Elmer in the Snow by David McKee and created some fun art work. Have you ever seen an elephant in the snow? The boys and girls took their time with fun colors and painted a snowy background. You can stop by our room to see more of our work.

We also practiced writing skills with a winter word project. The children are getting excited about kindergarten and are eager to practice all of the "big school" skills that they are learning. Here are some examples of our good work.

We Can Make Letters

We can find letters everywhere. We can even make them with our snack. The children were so excited to make letters and words with their snack. Our letter this week is X, however, you can see that we know many more. This is something fun to practice at home or anywhere. We are so proud of the things that we are learning.

A Gift For Baby Jesus

Hi parents - I just had to share the response to one of our memory book pages. As you know, last week was Epiphany in the Lutheran church year. This is a most important time as the wise men finally reach baby Jesus to bestow their gifts upon him. We did an art/writing project based on this special day and shared our best gift for Jesus. They are as follows:

Ann would give baby Jesus a little baby pig.
Ashley would give him Mrs. Julie.
Cannon would give him a candle and some gold.
Cohan said that he would give baby Jesus a prayer.
Colin would give him gold and diamonds.
Jackson would give Jesus to everybody.
James and Kylie would give baby Jesus some gold.
Lauren would give him a doll.
Mya would give baby Jesus love.
Noah said that he would give him anything that he wanted.
Preston and Rishi would give him a toy.
Reid would give baby Jesus gold, frankincense and myrhh.
Shane would give him frankincense.
Trapp would give baby Jesus a transformer and some money.

We Are Wild About Reading

Last week, we read Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. It was wild to look for all of the letter W's in the book. Here are just a few pictures of our class "wild things." Look for a new class book to visit your home soon. The title of our new book is We Feel Wild. This was great fun for the boys and girls and they totally love their "wild thing" pictures.

Polar Bears

This is a short week in our class. (Parent's don't forget our holidays on 1/15 & 1/19.) We will be learning about polar bears, winter climates and hibernation. It will be a "jampacked" 3 day week when we also learn about the letter X. We will also be changing our morning check in to our phone number. Please help your child learn this important information.

G Is For More Grandparents

Here are some pictures of grandparents that we missed during our "G is for Grandparents" week. We are so fortunate to have such wonderful families in our classroom this year. Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to drop by our class and say hello. I apologize for not getting these pictures up sooner.

Winter Is Here

We returned today from our holidays to begin our unit on winter and snow. You can see that our weather is not cooperating, but we are using our imagination to pretend we have cold weather. We made snowy faces for our door and imagined what it would feel like to catch a snowflake on our tongue. We also made "snowfriends" and shared our thoughts on what they would say to us if they could talk. (Take a few minutes to read your child's ideas when you visit our classroom. They are posted outside.)
We also talked about our fun days on break and the best part of the holiday. It was surprising to see how many of the boys and girls said they really missed their friends while they were away. See some of our smiling faces from the playground on our very "imaginary" winter day.

Our Class "Blog" is Back

After much chaos and excitement during the pre-holiday and post-holiday season, the blog is back. Many of our class activities during the holidays were surprises for home and any photographs would have jeopardized our secret Santa art projects. I hope that everyone enjoyed the goodies that your child brought home. The children really did work hard on making the ornaments and handprint calendar. These will be treasured "momentos" in the years to come. (I hear the teenage years can be difficult. These little trinkets will remind you of the "sweet" years with your child.) I have two boys who are growing up entirely too fast and I truly miss the innocence of childhood. It has gotten lost in the shuffle of today's society and educational system. Letting children be children is getting harder for parents, because they are expected to be doing so much at such young age. So - with that said - love your children and treasure every single moment that you have with them. Life only gets faster and faster.