ADVENT

Advent is a season of waiting and at Pre School, we are waiting, sometimes patiently and sometimes not so patiently. We are waiting for Santa's arrival, the Christmas parties and family gatherings. The four year olds made Advent chains to help them wait. Taking off one ring each day helps them visualize how many days are left until Christmas! As we wait we are busy as elves making Christmas surprises for our parents and decoration for our homes. Glitter is our favorite art material in December. Have you noticed? We love to use bells when we sing many of our Christmas songs like "Jingle Bells," "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," and "Ring, Ring, Ring Your Bells."

During Advent the most important thing we are waiting for is the birth of Jesus. He is the reason for Christmas. In the book, "Santa's Favorite Story," Santa reminds us that Christmas would come without packages. It is God's gift of love, Jesus, that brings Christmas. Songs like "Twinkle, Twinkle Christmas Star," "Mary Had a Little Boy," and "Away in a Manger" help us remember the story. We are thankful for you, Baby Jesus!

HOW TO BAKE A TURKEY

HOW TO FIX A TURKEY

by the Yellow Class

• Cut the turkey with a knife.
• Take feathers off.
• Chop his face off, pull the feet off.
• Take out the bones.
• Take guck out of his back.
• Rub with oils, ketchup, salt, pepper, chopped up celery
• Put tinfoil around it
• Put it in a REAL oven. Should be middle hot, about 6 to 100 degrees.
• Bake for 3 minutes or 60 or 100 minutes.
• It's done when it goes beep, beep.
• If it's not done (warm) put it back in for more hours.
• Cut it up into little pieces.
• Put on a "huge" colorful plate.
• Serve with salad, noodles, pizza, meatballs, tomato sauce, or yams.

Hope your Thanksgiving turkey worked out fine. If not, try this recipe for your Christmas dinner!

Johnny Appleseed Prayer

Several of you have asked for the words to our Pre School prayers. This seems like an appropriate time to post them. Perhaps you can use one at your Thanksgiving meal.

Johnny Appleseed Prayer

Oh, the Lord is good to me,

And so I thank the Lord

For giving me the things I need,

The sun, the rain and the appleseed.

The Lord is good to me!

Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen

A-B-C

A, B, C, D, E, G

Thank you God for feeding me!

Thank You, Thank You

(tune, "Happy Birthday")

Thank you, thank you dear God.

Thank you, thank you dear God.

Thank you for all you have given me.

Thank you, thank you dear God!

God is Great

God is great.

God is good.

Let us thank him for our food!

Amen

Thank you to all of you who came to our Fall Program. I thought the children did a wonderful job. Hope you enjoyed it.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

HALLOWEEN PARTIES

Unfortunately, I didn't make it to all of our Halloween parties but the two I did attend were nothing but fun! It always takes a few minutes of standing around staring at the others in the class before the children are ready to start the day. Costumes are a little intimidating sometimes but once we get used to the idea of dressing goofy (even the teachers) we all love it. Each class took a break from playing early in the class session to do a costume parade. We carried our trick-or-treat bags upstairs and marched through the Hermanslie Lounge where many of our church staff were awaiting our parade with treats in their buckets. They dropped surprises, from pencils to Starburt, into our bags and we tried to remember to say "Thank you." Then it was back to our playing followed by Halloween stories, pumpkin carving, games and snack. By the end of the day we were` hot and itchy from our costumes. We do love the excitement of a party though and we are looking forward to putting on our adorable costumes again on Halloween night to entertain our neighbors and friends.

There will be more pictures of our parties in the slideshow at our four year old program on Nov. 11. :)

Signs of Fall

This month the students at Salem Pre School have been learning about the signs of fall. The apple harvest, which began in late summer, continues into fall. We enjoyed a trip to Aamodt's Apple Farm and we loved the applesauce we made at school as a part of our apple unit.

As we look around our Pre School area we are noticing other signs of fall. The leaves on the trees are changing to beautiful colors are drifting softly to the ground. When we walk through the woods to the park we sometimes find dog stickers and other seeds stuck to our clothing! Picking them off can be time consuming! Our Pre School garden is ready to be harvested. The carrots, which have been in the ground since last May, have become "gianormous" as the kids would say. We'll be eating them for snack and as a part of our Thanksgiving Feast.

Halloween is coming soon and we hope to decorate some of the pumpkins at our parties. I'm sure costume plans are being made in many home these days. Visit our blog again at the end of the month for some examples of these beauties!

HARVEST

School has begun! This week we have been talking about families and what some of the chores are that mommies, daddies and children do around the house. If we lived on a farm or if your family has a garden, there are many garden chores to do in the fall. This week some of our classes went on a potato and carrot hunt. Using a garden fork we loosened the soil and pulled up potatoes and some really big carrots! Oooh! Ahhh! The pumpkins are looking good too, perfect for Halloween!

PRE SCHOOL GARDEN

While our staff and students have been at home enjoying their summer vacation our garden has been growing like crazy! The sunflowers are much taller then an adult. The pumpkins vines are EVERYWHERE! Pumpkins are beginning to develope and the zinnias are going nuts. If you look closely at the picture of Kai you can see two carrots that we picked just to see how they are doing. Can't wait for the children to see what they planted last spring!