Welcome to 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)

Promotion

Dear Room 2 Friends☺️,

We want to take a moment to say THANK YOU, from the bottom of our hearts! We have had the most incredible year, and we really believe that was due to the teamwork and family environment that we built amongst each other throughout the year! Jesus’ heart has shined so bright in our classroom, and His love has been ever so evident in everything we’ve done. It’s impossible to not see how God is on the move among this generation of tiny humans, and we are confident that He has such an amazing call for each of their lives. We pray that as they go and grow, they will remain in His love and truth for their lives.

It’s the sweetest honor for us to have been given the opportunity to walk along side each of them, in this tiny season of their lives that is preschool! It’s been our deepest joy to love them, teach them, and serve them. As we say goodbye, we leave you with this beautiful slideshow of our year together, along with our Room 1 neighbors. We hope that, like us, you’ll always remember our time together learning, growing, and worshiping God as a family each day, for all He has done, for all He is doing, and all He will do.❤
All our deepest love,

Ms. Wendy💗, Ms. Daisy💛, and Ms. Kira💚.

Children of the King

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!

Chapel with Mary Rice Hopkins

PCS elementary students, along with preschool students in Rooms 1 & 2 thoroughly enjoyed a fun concert by none other than Mary Rice Hopkins! Check out the fun!

Creatives

If we had to use one word to describe the children of Room 1 it would be: CREATIVES! We have grown and continue to grow in our ability to create things. In September, when we first put markers in these little hands we saw LOTS of the early stages of emergent writing (random marks and scribbles, sometimes not even on paper… YIKES!). It is an incredible process we get to help children through! And as Early Childhood Educators, we always remember how important every stage is to the process of becoming a proficient writer. Now it’s February and we see each child making leaps and strides toward becoming great writers through representational drawing, drawing distinct from writing, symbols, and partial phonetics. It is so exciting!

Our Writing Center features a variety of materials such as: markers, crayons, letter stamps, number stamps, letter punches, word cards, white boards, glue, scissors, and our favorite this year…TAPE!

In January, we said goodbye to plain white paper at small groups and now we journal on lined kindergarten paper!

Cards, lists, and books are just a few of our favorite things to create.

We enjoy white boards for a different tactile writing experience, especially on those days we don’t fall asleep at nap time!

Imagination, here in Room 1, is never in short supply. Check out some of our more elaborate pieces…

“And I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to design artistic works, I have put wisdom in the hearts of all the gifted artisans, that they may make all that I have commanded…” Exodus 31:1-4

Just as God called the artisans to create a place for His presence, we pray our little ones use their time and gifts to fellowship with the most spectacular creator, Father God! The One who deposits all of these gifts and skills into us for His glory, and as a reflection of Himself.

Rainy Days and Dance Parties!

Welcome Back! Our Room 1 friends had a great first week back to school after our nice long Christmas break! The rain gave us a chance to explore wet soil, discover some interesting earthworms, pill bugs and insects all around our outdoor classroom! Consider our interests officially sparked!

Inside, we kept the learning going with games like Four Corners and The Freeze Dance! Think of all the areas of development games give children the opportunity to grow in: social, emotional, physical, and cognitive! They learn how to cooperate with a large group, develop the emotional capacity to be “out,” learn to coordinate big body movements to the rhythm of music, spacial reasoning, memory and so much more! Games are a fantastic way to foster desirable character traits such as perseverance, fairness, and our favorite–FUN!

We even had a dance party in the dark…

Pre-kindergarteners at Work

Our littles in Room 1 have been hard at work (and by work, we mean PLAY!). It’s been an extremely busy start to the school year but rest assured our friends are settling into their classroom, their new friendships, and the rhythms of Pre-K quite nicely. Here is what we’ve been up to:

Developing imagination, demonstrating conceptual knowledge, and practicing book handling skills…