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| Do you ever feel like life is just too busy and you have more things on your “to do” list than hours in the day? Does it seem you never have enough time or energy to spend an unhurried, quality moment with your family? We probably have all been there but we don’t have to stay there. I recently read an insightful book that addresses these issues. It’s called, Ditch the Joneses Discover Your Family How to Thrive on less Than Two Incomes! The author is our very own Cathi Brese Doebler, a member of First Trinity and an alumni parent of our preschool. She shares creative, practical, common sense ideas to simplify and prioritize your life so you can happily live on less of the material stuff and enjoy more of what is really important; your relationships. She provides many obtainable alternatives, from shortening your work hours, to finding ways to make money at home so you can be a stay at home parent, to learning to live on less and to saying “no” to some of the outside activities that bombard our families time and energy.
We don’t have to follow the cultural trends that keep us striving for more. My hope is that as our children will grow up remembering the unhurried time we gave them to talk and share and play together. Cathi offers testimonies of real life people who have successfully chosen to step off the cultural treadmill that leaves us breathless, stressed and tired to lead a more balanced and family friendly life. I recommend this book to anyone who struggles with the challenges of raising a family.
You can check out the book and author at www.ditchthe.com. |
We made 6 spiders and 7 frogs with our fingerprints to add to our number book. To reinforce the numbers we say special number finger plays, holding up the correct number of fingers and doing the actions:
- 1, 1, this is 1. Come on one let’s have some fun.
- 2, 2, this is 2, hopping, hopping me and you.
- 3, 3, this is 3. Wave your branches like a tree.
- 4, 4, this is 4. Can you make us sweep the floor.
- 5, 5, this is 5. Squeeze them tight and take a dive.
- 6, 6, this is 6. Come with me and pick up sticks.
- 7, 7, this is 7. Come on 7 let’s go to heaven.
I’m sure you all saw the frogs we made. The children loved blowing their tongues out to catch a bug. If you look real carefully you might see the bug sticker at the end of the tongue.
We used the parachute for the first time and had a blast. We held onto the handles and sang songs while we walked around in a circle, shook it, and even hid underneath it. The next rainy day we will try it again and hopefully get some pictures.
We learned about a boy named Timothy who lived with his mother and grandmother, who taught him about God’s love. When he grew up he found out that God had sent the promised Messiah, Jesus. He was so thankful for what Jesus did he decided to become a pastor and go all over the country to tell others about the love of Jesus. The children shared what they wanted to be when they grew up. A poster is up in the hallway to share their future goals. Jelly, our Bible puppet, gave each child a card that said “Jesus loves you.” They were asked to keep it to remind them of Jesus love or give it to someone else to tell someone else about His love.
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| Monday 2010-05-01 |
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| Tues Thurs 2010-05-13 |
You all should have gotten information regarding our annual end of the year field trip to Kelkenberg Farms. It’s a fun day to pet, ride, feed and milk the animals as well as go on a hay ride. We end the day with a picnic lunch.
We like to all wear special farm tee-shirts on our trip. Could you bring in a plain white tee-shirt for your child by this Wednesday/Thursday, May 12/13? We will decorate them and return them to you so they can wear them to the farm.
What a great week. Both classes had a chance to get out onto the playground again. We all loved getting some fresh air and we all came in a little tired with all the running around we did.
We made our 4 bumble bees page by making four yellow fingerprints and our 5 fish page by making five orange fingerprints. It is so refreshing to talk about spring with the sun shining and windows open. We made four summer flowers using thread spools dipped in paint and 5 sticks of pussy willows using our fingertips dipped in paint.
Our Bible story was about a man named Philip who faithfully shared with others what Jesus has done for all of us. We talked about what we could tell our friends about Jesus who don’t Him. The children came up with some great answers. They said Jesus helps us when we are sick, sad or lonely. Jesus prays for us. He is making a house for us in heaven. Jesus loves us so much He died on the cross to take away all of our sins. Great answers!
Happy Mother’s Day to all our moms.
We’ve been busy making our numbers book. This week we made two blue butterflies and three red ladybugs with our fingerprints. You will be able to see the finished product at the end of the year. Just like our color book we are the illustrators of our number books.
We’ve also been working very hard on our Mother’s Day surprise. We hope you will be blessed by it.
We learned how happy a crippled man was when Peter healed him in the name of Jesus. He was so excited that he went “walking and leaping and praising God.” You can read the true story in the Bible in Acts 3:1-16. We praised God for our hands and feet and shared with each other all the things God made our hands and feet to do. The children came up with hands that can clap, wave, draw, punch and eat and feet that can walk, run, jump, dance, and kick. We sang a song using these ideas to the tune of London Bridges: Look at how our feet/hands can _______, feet/hands can _____, feet/hands can ______. Look at how our feet/hands can______. Thank you God for feet/hands. We finished with each child thanking God for one thing their feet or hands could do. Their individual prayers are posted on the hallway prayer wall.We got to leap for joy across the room to show how thankful we are for all that God has given us.
We had fun reading Eileen Christelow’s books about monkeys, Five Little Monkeys Sitting in a Tree and Five Little Monkeys with Nothing to Do. Five little monkeys sure can get into a lot of trouble!
See you next week.
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| Monday Wednesday 2010-04-26 |
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| Wednesday 2010-04-28 |
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| Tuesday 2010-04-26 |
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| Thursday 2010-04-30 |
Sunbeam Sunday was a great success. The children sang beautifully and it was such a treat for me to worship with so many of my preschool friends and their families. Thank you for coming out. My friend, Paul, who is a talented photographer volunteered to take some pictures:
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| Sunbeam Sunday 2010-04-24 |
What a great time we had with Miss Lucy at the Audubon Library. Thanks for making it so much fun. Enjoy the photos.
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| Library Field Trip Monday Wednesday |
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| Library Tuesday Thursday |
Congratulation Tuesday Thursday class. We won a special ice cream treat for bringing in the most Campbell’s soup labels! We are having one more contest so save those labels!
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| Tu Th April 13, 2010 |
On our party day, we reviewed our Bible story by using special Easter eggs with an object in each egg to help retell the events of the very first Easter. Although some parts of the story were very sad we were reminded that it has a great ending!! On that first Easter morning, the tomb where Jesus’ body had been placed was empty! He was not there! He had risen from the dead! By believing in Him we too can have victory over death. I often pray that the Truth of Jesus’ love that I share with the children every day will grow deep in their hearts throughout their whole life.
Thank you to all who brought in items to help us celebrate. We had a wonderful party, eating all the delicious snacks and dying eggs. A special thank you to all the moms and dad who stayed and helped prepare the party for us. You were a blessing.
I hope that all of you make an opportunity to worship our risen Savior with a fellowship of believers during this Easter season. What joy filled my heart as I joined others with one voice, singing praises to the God who sacrificed His only Son, Jesus, so that I could have abundant life now and eternal life in heaven. I am so grateful to Him who raised me up out of a pit to give me a life of hope, joy and purpose.
“Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Halleluiah!
We made Jellybean pictures frames to show us how some of the goodies we focus on at Easter time remind us of the real reason we celebrate Easter. The children glued foam jellybeans onto a frame that held the poem: “5 or 6 or just a few, pop them in your mouth and chew. Yellow, purple, orange and blue, just remember it is true Jesus died for me and you.”
After decorating paper Easter eggs, we glued Easter grass and the eggs to our favorite colored Easter basket. We read The Easter Basket which begins with, “The colors in this basket are my own special way for me to tell the story of that first Easter Day.” By using the many colors commonly found in Easter baskets, the author takes us through the entire Easter story, from the green palm leaves, to the purple wine, the red blood, the brown cave, the white angel, and the yellow sun.
We also made bunny bags that will be saved for our party next week. We will be sending home a special Easter card for our parents. The children who have prayer partners also made a card for them.
The Easter story was told to the children using a dozen plastic Easter eggs. Each egg contained an object that helped us understand part of the story. Even though there were some sad parts we were reminded of the miraculous ending to the story when Jesus rose from the dead and went into heaven to prepare a house for us! He sure must love us a whole bunch!
Sue Steege, First Trinity‘s Director of Transformation Ministries shared the story of Palm Sunday in chapel this week. We lined up on either side of the center aisle, ready to wave real palm branches when Jesus arrived riding on a donkey. When Sue said, “Here comes Jesus!” the double doors opened and we imagined Jesus walking down the road. When we turned and looked toward the direction He was going we realized that He was headed for the cross.
Each day ended with some silly Easter Bunny songs that the children enjoyed. We put two fingers up, pretending they were bunny ears, while doing the motions and singing:
- Here is a bunny with ears so funny and here is a hole in the ground. (Make hole with other hand.) When a noise he hears, he pricks up his ears, (straighten two fingers) and he jumps in his hole in the ground. (Put 2 fingers jump into hole.)
- Funny little bunny sat on a stump. (Set two fingers on top of fist.) Flicked his floppy ears (wiggle 2 fingers) and then he gave a jump. (Pop 2 fingers off fist.)
- Tune: Itsy, Bitsy Spider – (Hops hand from foot to knee to shoulder and ear.) The hippity, hoppity Easter bunny is coming straight at me. Closer and closer he hops up on my knee. Up to my shoulder the bunny’s much too near. “Happy Easter!” he whispers in my ear.
We also practiced our two Sunbeam Sunday songs. Please sign up on the bulletin board to let us know if you plan on attending April 11.
Our classroom Easter party is Tuesday and Wednesday next week. Please remember to check ingredients of all items brought in for the party. No nuts or possibility of nuts. School is closed for Easter vacation Thursday, 4/1 and Monday, 4/5.
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| Monday Wednesday |
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| Tuesday Thursday |
