From festive fun to memory making moments, we have really enjoyed the month of December with our little ones!

We have been working hard, and by that I mean playing our cozy Christmas socks off! Playing isn’t only fun for the tiny humans, it is also the means by which they improve language, navigate social interactions, become critical thinkers and so much more! Take a look at some of the fun we’ve been having in Room 3…

This is Armen sorting by color, building with imagination, classifying each lego dinosaur with detail, and using words to vividly communicate his thoughts about his creations.

What may look like a simple moment of play is actually so much more! This sweet interaction between Jordyn and Harper is an example of our little ones practicing how to be cooperative and how to respect each other’s words—all while smiling and having fun together!

Performing arts isn’t defined by the stage you have or the costumes you wear, sometimes inspiration strikes while you’re walking through the garden with your tissue box guitar. This is Paloma, Zachary, Elijah, and Harper performing Jesus Loves Me, with a strong finish! 

Here is just a glimpse of some of the Christmas activities we enjoyed doing together…

 

Mr. Tim, Max, and The Grinch visited our classroom for holiday story time!

 

Who doesn’t love a Christmas ornament decorated by their little one? Check out the Christmas gift to our Room 3 parents with love from your little angels and shepherds…

What a joy it is to celebrate the birth of our Savior! Our prayer is that amidst all the festive fun, our little ones know and share the true meaning of Christmas.

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year with so much love from Room 3!

 

Welcome to Room 3! We are off to an exciting start!

Our classroom is the final stop before reaching Pre-K A or Pre-K B. What is our focus, you ask? Play is our focus! Embedded in all our fun, are so many valuable skills, concepts, and values which are fundamental to becoming a little learner. While we play, we socialize, use language, solve problems, make decisions, expand our understanding of the world around us, and learn how to let our light shine for Jesus.

Above all else, we pray that every little heart connects to Christ. As we worship, pray, and read God’s word daily, we confidently expect those seeds that are being planted to take root. John 15:5 says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit…”

The Fruit of the Spirit so completely encompasses the “good” attributes we hope to instill in our children. Thankfully, God gives us (YES, even 3 year-olds!) The Holy Spirit— to help us, comfort us, and guide us so we are able to possess His attributes (love, patience, kindness, and self-control, just to name a few).

3 year-olds are AMAZING! Everyday new friendships sprout, curiosity grows, independence asserts itself, and imagination is taken to new heights. As educators, it’s our duty to ignite that curiosity, provide opportunities for independence, offer safe/appropriate choices and create an environment that builds confidence while learning. Here are some ways we strive to do that and more in Room 3!

We explore the Outdoor Classroom and Enrichment Patio!

We enjoy free choice play in our classroom!

At morning meeting, we sing songs, choose weekly helpers, discuss the calendar, count together, and pray over our day.

We enjoy family style snack! Our responsible “littles” bring their cups and napkins to the table, pray together, count the pictures on our snack board, serve themselves, pour their water, and practice table etiquette such as, taking turns talking and cleaning up after themselves! Serving and counting snack promotes autonomy, fine motor skills, eye-hand coordination and one-to-one correspondence.

We love Bible time! The Rhyme Bible Storybook is one of the children’s Bibles that we read from. It’s short, colorful and captivating—PERFECT for our growing attention span! To keep Bible fun and engaging, we implement visual aids, interactive skits, and so much more!

At small groups, we explore: Literacy, Writing, and Math/Science. We plan fun, age-appropriate games, activities, and projects to target an objective and practice a skill.

Art is critical for neural development, representation, expression and more! We have a creative God who made us in His image. Therefore, we have an amazing capacity to create!

 

We explore important concepts–like lines and colors through art.

Print is fascinating to us. We love to promote print awareness starting with the ability to recognize letters. We are seeing ALOT of self-directed exploration of letters and print in our environment.

At Big Field we exercise, practice gross motor movements, coordination, cooperation in a large group game, and listening skills. Our first fun pursuit was Red Light, Green Light! 

PetCo Where the Pet Lovers Go! 

Puppies have been the talk of the town, therefore we have changed our dramatic play house into a Room 3 PetSmart pet shop. 

Remember our daily recap is available on our white board. This is a fantastic way to prompt your Room 3 friend to share more about their day.

We are looking forward to all the good things God has in store for us this year! More fun to come!

To capstone our exploration of community helpers, Room 1 visited Los Angeles Fire Station 82 this past week. As we drove up to the station, ALL three emergency vehicles pulled out of the garage, sirens blaring! Our little ones were captivated while our adults were a little nervous that our tour would be canceled. But OH YEAH, that was just God’s favor…AN EXCITING look at a REAL response to a call. The firefighters returned within a few short minutes, skillfully backed the engines into the garage and our tour began! They showed us their fire gear, equipment on the truck, their kitchen and their gym. They even let us hold and spray a firehose! Check it out!

 

Thank you to our wonderful parents and grandparents who chaperoned, drove, and made this field trip possible and so much fun! And a HUGE thank you to the amazing firefighters at Station 82!

 

Check out just a few other fun things we’ve been up to in Room 1:

 

Welcome to Room 1! Our year is well underway and we are having so much fun together! Our little ones have been hard at work and play and we’re so excited to see how well they have acclimated to our classroom routine, are meeting classroom expectations of being loving toward one another, and are learning to work together as a family unit!

Check out some highlights of our day-to-day activities!

Our day begins with “Morning Meeting!” This is a fun, focused 25 minutes of learning. Engaging Bible Memory Verse songs help us learn God’s word. We select daily job helpers, review calendar, share news, and pray for our day. This is a fabulous time for us to practice taking turns, public speaking, self-regulation, counting, and one-to-one correspondence. We also build print and phonological awareness by writing words and emphasizing sounds together. What an exciting way to put to work all our pre-kindergarten/kindergarten readiness skills!

Our favorite part of the day is BIBLE time! We love to open God’s word everyday and HEAR His word so we can DO His words. His word guides us, teaches us, corrects us, and strengthens us. This year we will be reading the greatest, most exciting rescue story of all time! The Jesus Storybook Bible will take us, chronologically, through the story of creation, detail the ministry of Jesus Christ, and end with the Resurrection and arrival of the Holy Spirit (God Himself, loving and helping us everyday). Our Bible time includes, micro-dramatic visual demonstrations, skits, dramatic audio stories, interactive visual animations on the Bible App for Kids and so much more!

Our small group rotations are 10-12 minutes of fun! With four small groups, three teacher directed groups and one independent group–We explore Language/Literacy, Math/Science, Manipulatives, and Daily Writing Journals.

Play, play, play! We’re developing social, emotional, cognitive and physical skills as we engage with others and our environment.

We’re so thrilled that we get to grow together this year! We truly have no greater joy than to hear and see all our kiddos walking in the truth (3 John 1:4). We love you and are praying that your families have a wonderful school year!

Love,

Ms. Kristen, Mrs. Jen, and Mrs. Sarah (Left to Right)

 

Why is emergent curriculum so great? Engagement! Engagement! Engagement! When children are engaged they are productive and productive play is essential to a successful learning environment.

Our Room 1 friends have been productively exploring their interests in everything Medieval! Our “Almost Kindergartners” began showing interest in princesses and knights, a popular area of interest for 5 year olds. So naturally, and with their help, we transformed our classroom into a medieval kingdom. We have been exploring their interests in dynamic and multifaceted ways–ways that have not only kept their interests alive for MONTHS but have absolutely propelled them forward as critical thinkers, scientists, mathematicians, engineers, artists, writers, and thespians!

Room 1 loves to start exploring an area of interest with literature! Books and pictures inspire us, peek curiosity, provoke questions and brainstorming…

We built.

We measured.

We catapulted.

We melted and molded.

We designed.

We wrote.

We patterned.

We micro-dramatic played.

We painted royal self portraits.

We became knights, princesses, servants, and jesters.

We built castle walls and colored stain glass windows.

We created.

We declared ourselves children of the King.

We put on the full armor of God!

“Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.” Ephesians 6:11

We know there is a war going on for our hearts. God wants us to obey His word and the enemy doesn’t. When conflict arises in our classroom we remind our kids: “Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.” Romans 12:21

It is our prayer that our kids learn to fight this spiritual battle. We want them to put on their helmet of salvation and believe in Jesus. We want them to gird themselves with honesty, fairness and righteousness. We want them to use God’s word to separate right thoughts and actions from wrong ones. We want their faith to extinguish the lies–lies that they don’t have to be obedient or share their toys or love their classmates. We want the truth of God’s word to hold everything in place. We want them to walk out the Gospel with peace. We pray our little ones make Jesus the Lord of their life because He is the King of ALL kings and the Lord of all lords!