Chilly but Silly- Room 5 is Back!

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.

Cooking for Christmas

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!

Snow Day!

It was SNOWING in the younger pod today! Teachers and children alike enjoyed some very entertaining snow-play “California-style” (no gloves needed and eco-conscious!).

PS- excuse the gurgling fish tank in the background…I caught this impromptu moment from my office 😉.

…And I Can Cook, Too!

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!

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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

Sensory and Seasonal Explorations

Room 5 has been acquainting itself with the season of autumn through sensory integrations in our classroom learning centers. We have pumpkin spice mixed in with our sensory bin, autumn jewels alongside our playdough, and today we did “No-Mess Fingerpainting” on paper leaves to decorate our classroom!

Some friends decided to imprint their playdough with the autumn jewels while others saw an opportunity to build a landscape of “trees” by sorting out and only using the leaf jewels to stick up straight in their playdough! When children take place in activities that build on their fine motor skills (like making prints in playdough) they are learning about basic concepts of physics like force, quantity conservation and other other components of cause and effect. They are also engaging in language development as we discuss and describe what happens to the playdough and gems while they work. For example, “The jewel sinks into the playdough when you push it down” is an observation we made which inspired a conversation about homonyms! Some words sound and are spelled exactly the same but can have very different meanings… which is a lot for a hard-working brain of only two years to make sense of! By talking through these fun quirks of language with their teachers, and a first-hand example, these abstract concepts are made much more concrete to our young friends!

Our mess-free fingerpainting activity had many scientific and sensory learning points as well! Our young friends were amazed as they ran their fingers all over the paint on their leaf and found absolutely none of it transferred to their hands! We covered the paint with a clear plastic bag and they got to smush and swirl it all around to their hearts content without getting any on their bodies- what a trip! We talked about the qualities of different materials and why their hands were not messy as they painted. Perhaps the best part for them was the unveiling of their beautiful work of art at the end as they peeled away the plastic from their leaf to reveal a vibrant mix of autumn colors.

Room 5 is learning so much every day in so many ways and we are exceptionally grateful to the loving and amazing families who bless us with their children each day. Room 5 parents contribute so much to our classroom to enrich their experience (and help their teachers out!) that we can’t help but gush at the awesome blessings we have before us. May peace be with you all as we enter this season of thankfulness and praise.

Room 5’s Fall Factory!

Room 5 is getting in spirit of autumn! We’ve incorporated the seasonal theme into our dramatic play center with a costume dress-up station, into our art projects with marbled leaf printing, and even into our sensory bin with orange corn kernels and black and white striped sunflower seed shells. Songs like “Five Little Pumpkins Sitting on a Vine” have been added into our morning meeting routine, and there’s much more to come!

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Check out our fantastic fall sensory bin!

We’re still enjoying our time in the outdoor classroom before the weather turns cold, and Team 6 has a big hit with their Western themed dramatic play center. Room 5 friends decided to put on their hats and ride the “tractor”…Yeehaw!

We know autumn is a rich time of year where family traditions and special customs bring us all closer together. We would love to hear about your own family’s traditions and what you like to do together as we enter this special season. Pictures, stories, special dishes that you like to make can all be incorporated into our curriculum to help build on the family values that make this time of year so special to us all.

Blessings from Room 5, and happy fall!!

Apples Everywhere!

Room 5 has done a lot of art exploration with our Apple theme! We mixed cinnamon paint with sparkles and oats last week to decorate our classroom, and this week we are getting bubbly with baking soda and colored vinegar! We worked on our pincer grasp by sprinkling baking soda onto our apple cut-outs and used fine tip brushes to paint our glittery colored vinegar over it. Then we watched the reaction fizz! The joys of art and science combined as we created our fizzy apple art this week.
lol

Room 5’s First Month!

Can you believe we have just finished our first month of preschool?! We have been working and playing so hard in Room 5 that the time has flown by. Our youngsters have been hard at work learning their new classroom routine, making friendships, and discovering all the excitement that their new school has to offer.

One of our themes this month is apples, so naturally we got to make art through apple stamping! Fine motor skills, visual arts, and messy fun abound in this activity. The good times and creativity never seem to stop flowing here!
It’s been an incredibly blessed first month in Room 5 and the teachers in here are incredibly grateful for the loving and enthusiastic families we get to work with each day.

Wild Weeks in Room 5!

Wow! We have been working hard at having fun this summer. Weeks 5 and 6 were a ton of fun. We learned about wild animals during our “Surfin’ Safari” week, complete with an exotic animal show! This week was called, “Surf’s Up” and we totally themed out for surfing! We learned surf lingo from our silly book, “Rhinos Who Surf” and painted paper surf boards to decorate our classroom. We’ve had a radical time getting totally tubular in every activity from the sensory bin to dramatic play. The ‘surfers’ in Room 5 are really having a blast!

Next week is our “Under the Sea” theme, and it is Room 5’s turn to lead Chapel! We are so excited for our final two weeks of summer camp!

A Petting Zoo for Preschool!

Today our preschoolers got to show their gentle side and meet some of God’s fluffiest little creatures. We had our own private petting zoo! Room 5 walked all the way up to the Big PCS Campus and gained some first hand experience on connecting with animals with the help of some trained experts and the loving care of their teachers. They had a magical time getting up close and personal with their furry friends!

As teachers, we are constantly being reminded the glory of God’s creation when we get to work so closely with your little ones. It was a real joy to provide your little guys with the opportunity to feel wonderment and protective over a life so much smaller than them! Today’s petting zoo was a wonderful experience which reinforced the truth that the Lord entrusted us all to take care of each other- not just humans but plants and animals as well. Each life is a precious gift here on Earth and at preschool we like to take time out of our busy days to acknowledge and marvel at that.