PAJAMA DAY

Once again, Pajama Day was a success. Let me assure you, there is no napping on this particular day! We did read stories about naps and we decorated cut outs of pajamas. Our snack consisted of cereal and milk. To tell the truth, we did lay around with our blankies and bed time buddies but there was NO NAPPING ALOUD! It was a really fun day and we thought we would share a few pictures with you!

Wonder and Mystery

SALEM PRE SCHOOL NEWS

March is the in-between month. It’s can be very wintery or rather springy. It is also the month of our spring break, March 15 - 19. Our goal this month is to find some exciting topics to learn about. Dinosaurs are certainly exciting! Big (at least many of them,) and mysterious, these guys really get our imaginations going. If there really were no people alive when the dinosaurs were on Earth, how do we learn about them. That, too, is a mystery.

Air and space travel is our second unit for the month of March. It is another frontier with many unanswered questions. That qualifies it for being both mysterious and exciting. Sorting out fact from fiction (sci-fi) is sometimes hard. Are there really aliens out there?

Last, but certainly not least, we will celebrate Easter! Again, wonder and mystery are a part of the story! The assurance that Jesus loves us so much that he was willing to die for us, and then, amazing as it seems, he rose from the dead and went to live with God in heaven, where he is waiting to welcome us some day, is almost too hard to imagine!! Children love to hear the story and are more accepting of the wonder than many adults.

March is considered by many to be a very boring time of year. At Pre School it is going to be very mysterious and exciting!

With Valentine's Day almost here, we at Pre School needed to know how the postal system worked (just in case we wanted to mail a Valentine!) The teachers covered the basics, like put your Grandma's name and address on the outside of the envelope, put the stamp in the upper right hand corner of the envelope and don't forget to put your Valentine inside the envelope. Then, to get the full lowdown, we had postal worker, Karol Johnson, come to our classes to explain how our Valentines actually get from the big blue mailboxes, through the post office, to the mail carrier and finally, to Grandma and Grandpa's house! Karol also had some safety tips to share. She wore a real mail person's uniform so we could learn how to identify a postal worker. We were reminded that only postal workers can put anything in our mail boxes. It was also suggested that we keep our dogs in the house or on a short leash during the expected delivery time so the mail person doesn't need to worry about our pets.

We want to thank Karol for visiting our classes to teach us about the US Post Office. Happy Valentine's Day to all of you!

SALEM PRE SCHOOL NEWS

February is a busy month at Pre School! On Thursday, February 4, our three year olds in the Orange and Green classes give a program for their family and friends! It begins at 7:00 pm in the Fellowship Hall (parents, have your children in the church nursery by 6:45.) The musical talents of the children will shine that night. We will sing some favorite songs, play our instruments and share some very silly finger plays. You won’t want to miss it!

Of course, February is Valentine’s month! At our parties we will share Valentines with our friends and we will make some really cute ones for the people we love. Since we will be mailing some of our Valentines, we need to know how our mail gets from our houses to Grandma’s and Grandpa’s house. Karol Johnson will be paying us visit to explain how the postal system works. She’s been here before and she brings a lot of postal “stuff” for us to look at.

This is also the time of year when we learn a bit about our country, its presidents and our flag. We want to learn to be good citizens! Parent - Teacher Conference will be held the last week of the month and the grand finale will be PAJAMA DAY on February 25 and 26. We love Pajama Day and it’s not because love naps! Everyone wears their pajamas to school!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

What a wonderful Christmas season we had at Pre School. The snowstorm in early December threatened to slow us down but we got past that safely. Our main emphasis this month was the story of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem. Children can relate to the smells, sights and wonder of the stable where Jesus was born. The Heavenly Host of angels that appeared to the shepherds and the star that shone down on the stable are easy for them to imagine. What a blessing God chose such a familiar setting to introduce his love to mankind! After hearing the story our classes acted out the story for themselves and their friends.

Of course, on party day, Santa came to read us a story, "The Night Before Christmas," and give us a bell necklace and a hug (if we wanted one .) He said the bell was from the reindeers' harness and that made them special!

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

The Pre School Staff

THANKS FOR THANKSGIVING

Wow! A whole month has flown by and I haven't had time to blog about what's going on at Pre School. I hope your month of November was a good one. One of the big events of the month was the Fall Program put on by the Blue, Purple, Red and Yellow classes. The children did a marvelous job singing and dancing! Thank you all for joining us and making our evening so special. I intended to take a few pictures to post for you but, one, you parents seemed to be taking a ton of pictures yourselves and, two, it takes a lot of concentration for me to run the music and the slideshow :)

Our second big event in November was the Thanksgiving Feast that we had a school. Each child made his or her own pizza for the lunch we ate together. The teachers added apple slices, milk and a Rice Krispie bar. The four year old classes came to the feast as pilgrim men and women and the three year olds came as turkeys, as you can see by the photos. (Although our pilgrims and turkeys look very serious in the pictures, we did have a good time eating together.)By the end of the day the teachers were busy making the transition to Christmas. There is never a dull moment at school.

Are you are needing a fun project to do with your children during the Christmas season? Making play dough together can be lots of fun. Using cookie cutters to make Christmas shapes and letting them dry for a few days (or putting them in a slow oven for an hour or two) can be the start of some cute ornaments. They can be painted, colored with markers or left plain. When making the dough you can add food coloring of choice, glitter or a fragrance such as peppermint or almond. Here is the recipe if this sounds like a project for your household.

Mix together: 3 cups of flour

1 1/2 cups salt

3 tablespoons powdered alum

Add 3 T. oil and food coloring, if desired, to 2 1/4 c. BOILING water. Pour water mixture over dry mixture and mix quickly. Use rubber gloves so you can knead the dough while hot; knead quickly and thoroughly. Store in a plastic baggie once the dough is cooled to room temperature.

Have fun!

Before I go, I want to encourage all of you to consider donating a "Birthday Bag" for the Ralph Reeder Food Shelf between now and December 12. Just fill a shopping bag with the fixings for a birthday party; napkins, plates, cups, small favors, a little candy, cake mix, frosting, candles, etc., whatever would make a child's party fun. On the outside of the bag write the age and sex that the party items would be most appropriate for, for example, "Four year old girl." Drop the bag off at school. We will see that it gets to Ralph Reeder Food Shelf. The bags will be distributed in the coming months to children who would not otherwise be able to have a birthday party. Thanks for your help with this project!

IT WAS A HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Our Halloween parties were a great success! The costumes you people put together were fantastic! Our costume parade took us upstairs to visit the church staff and they had treats for all of us. Some of you brought us treats also and for that we say, "Thanks!" It all added to the festivities. Each class carved a pumpkin during the party. Some were scary, some happy and some just plain cute. We hope you all had a great Halloween. Thought I would share some pictures of the kids!