The recording studio is alive and well in Room 5. We’ve had a blast extending our learning with guest visitors and an expanded play space! We read “Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin” by Lloyd Moss last week during circle time and were given a special concert and demonstration of the violin by the lovely and talented Mrs. Sarah from all the way up in Room 1! The kids and teachers were thrilled! One of our featured artists on the recording studio walls is Lindsey Stirling who plays violin and dances beautifully! Check out her videos on YouTube with your child and see how cool a traditional instrument like the violin can be!

We also expanded our practice space into the circle time and blocks area with the addition of microphones and a drum set! Now we have been having rocking jam sessions every morning. 

 (We love to break out the scarves and free dance to Lindsey Stirling!)
As usual we are also getting a great education in the outdoor classroom. Our bodies, minds, and social skills gain a hot of exercise outside! 

We are so grateful that some of our musically inclined parents have volunteered to give our little guys some immersive experiences with music and in our studio! Check back for updates on these exciting adventures in creativity and if you would like to donate your time/experience/old equipment or instruments to Room 5’s studio please let us know! Family involvement is one of the things that makes our school incredibly special. Until next time, rock on and peace out! ✌🏼 

The children in Room 5 are extremely musically inclined. All year they have turned activities with alternate focuses into musical ones. They see guitars and drum sets where their teachers put out wood blocks or tinker toys, and they are constantly making up songs together and requesting music to be played. We took the hint and turned our dramatic play center into a recording studio for our budding artists. 

The studio is a work in progress. Ms. Maggie is using all her resources to try and collect real working instruments for the studio. We are teaching the children about physics like how guitars and drums make their distinct sounds, why we tune our guitars, what force and speed do to our instruments. We are learning math through rhythm and tempo. The children are also learning to care for and respect instruments- we never leave them on the floor and we always put them back in their stands or cases when we are done. This will be an ongoing project for as long as our little ones continue to participate and show interest. If you have any old equipment (speakers, sound boards, headphones, instruments, etc.) you would like to donate to our studio please be our guest! These little guys love to make music and Ms. Maggie is very excited to teach them how to record themselves making their music. 21st century skills are in full effect in this new center! We will keep updating with our new additions and components to this multi-faceted learning center in our classroom. Stay tuned… Room 5’s album is dropping soon! 😊🎶

Room 5 is saying goodbye to its dramatic play pizzeria this week. As we wrap up this month and its themes we are also having a great time looking back at what we did and how much we learned! 

We counted out the pieces of our pizza and used our math skills to set the table. We practiced letter recognition reading our menus as we ordered food at the “restaurant” and learned many new names of different Italian foods like tortellini, bruschetta, and fettuccine! Everyone took turns baking in our “pizza oven” and serving it up hot to their friends. Our enthusiasm took us one step further into a real life cooking lesson when we got to make real personal pizzas in class! The parents of Room 5 quickly donated our long list of supplies to make sure we had a complete pizza party! The class had a lot of fun counting their toppings, spreading the sauce, and even watching an old Reading Rainbow episode on how to make pizza! 

We read many different pizza and Italian themed books like Strega Nona, Barney Bear’s Pizza Shop, and Pete’s a Pizza. It was a delicious theme and we really appreciate all the parent support in making it such a memorable experience! 

Room 5 has had a very full February! We began our spiritual and social/emotional focus on the Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) and memorized them with a very fun song by Steve Green, aptly titled; “The Fruit of the Spirit”. Here is a link to the video on YouTube: The Fruit of the Spirit by Steve Green 😊 

We dove right in to the seasonal festivities surrounding Valentine’s Day, flooding the classroom with hearts and Valentine card-making stations. We set up a romantic Italian Trattoria in our dramatic play center, and filled our class library with books about the meaning of love and how to share it. 

For Valentine’s Day we made a “Friendship Fruit Salad” with fresh fruit and a dollop of cool-whip. Each child brought a piece of fruit from home to share with their classmates. We took turns chopping them up and adding them to our fruit salad bowl. At the end, Mrs. Erin topped it off with a bit of whipped cream for flair, and everyone enjoyed their healthy Valentine’s Day snack! 

It’s been marvelous to witness our little ones growing up and growing together this year. We’ve been able to make some amazing collaborative works of art, have extended morning meetings together for learning units of time, and some good old fashioned friendship forming on the playground. We deeply love each and every child in our care here at PCPS. Watching them learn to love and play together fills our hearts with joy every day. The beauty of God’s love shines so brightly through their diligent and faithful hearts… it is a daily reminder of how blessed we all are to be here. ❤ 

“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”  – 1 John 4:8 (NIV) 

Last week Room 5 had a rockin’ hot cocoa bar with our morning snack and got a yummy lesson in applied math and graphing at the same time! One by one everyone came up to customize their own hot cocoa cup, and afterwards we voted on our favorite topping. We learned new vocabulary, made scientific observations about which items melted and at what speed (marshmallows take longer to melt than whipped cream!), and each friend cast their vote for favorite topping on our bar graph! Whipped cream and chocolate syrup tied for first place with marshmallows just one vote behind. This might be one of our favorite ways to introduce graphing to preschoolers. What do you think? 

We had a long and restful break for Christmas but now we’re back at school with brand new friends and brand new stories to share! 

Our two-year-olds jumped right back in to the cozy routine of their classroom and warmly welcomed all our new friends to the Room 5 family! They have been eagerly awaiting their return to the big playground and we all know that two-year-olds are nothing if not tenacious negotiators… these toddlers were NOT going to let a little rain keep them from a good time! So, we layered and buttoned up and headed outside! 

The teachers of Room 5 enjoyed their break but we sure missed these little guys!! Everyone is looking forward to a fantastic rest of the year in 2017…. Happy New Year and God Bless. 

Today in Room 5 we baked gingerbread cookies! We practiced literacy skills as we read the recipe together, math skills as we measured and counted our ingredients, and learned important lessons about science and nature as we manipulated those ingredients to see them transform into gingerbread dough! We counted using one-to-one correspondence as we laid our cookies out on their baking sheet and enjoyed listening to a reading of “The Gingerbread Man” as we gobbled them up with our snack. Yum!

Autumn brings with it one of our favorite celebrations at Pasadena Christian Preschool- Stone Soup! Each classroom celebrates the spirit of Thanksgiving by sharing our blessings with one another on these special days. Each child picks out one item to bring to the celebration to contribute to our “Stone Soup” on the week of Thanksgiving.

Now even though Room 5 is the youngest of all the preschool classrooms- we can still cook up a storm! Our 2-year-olds have been busy in the Room 5 kitchen.

Last week we baked delicious and healthy lemon-poppy seed muffins with veggies (zucchini and corn bake very well in almost any recipe!) and everyone participated masterfully!

(Click on the images to view them larger!)

We have also been acting out social situations and role-playing in the kitchen/dramatic play center! We watch as our students set the table, “pour coffee”, mix in bowls, bake in the oven, serve each other, and eventually sit around the table and chat! It fills our hearts to know that they are reenacting and repeating the pro-social behaviors and family values that they see at home. It is so important to remember that we are always modeling for our young children whether we like it or not! The loving attitudes and considerate manners we see the friends in Room 5 act out in dramatic play come from their loving home environments, and that is such a blessing to behold!

The Teachers are Pasadena Christian are very blessed as well by these loving families! We all enjoyed a beautiful spread from the PTF this afternoon. Thank you to all the amazing, hard-working parents who never cease to amaze and bless us at this school.

In this time of great abundance and bounty- that is the celebration of Thanksgiving- we are called to remember the true spirit of abundance and brotherhood. The Bible tells us how to truly be rich and share God’s gifts with others.

 “Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help.”

–Isaiah 58:7