June 15, 2009

Voices

This week in preschool, we are learning about our God-given uniqueness. Today we recorded the children one-by-one saying part of our memory verse: "You made my whole being." They listened to one another's recordings and tried to pick out which voice was whose. Then we mixed all the tracks together and the children tried to pick out their own voices. It wasn't easy. We then marveled together at how God can hear each one of us when we pray. (Psalm 116:1-2)

Click here
to hear all the children's voices at once. Can you pick any out?

June 08, 2009

I is for Ice Cream

The letter of the week in preschool was "I." The children colored some delicious-looking ice cream cones.




They made inchworms from toilet paper tubes. (There's a fun Sesame Street version of the "Inchworm Song" on Youtube.)


And although we don't encourage playing with food, I couldn't help being delighted when this boy put a skewer between two sausages and said, "Look! I! I!"


Hmmmm

Recently after free choice time I told the children to clean up. I could see that everyone was cooperating except one girl who stayed at the dollhouse and appeared to continue playing. I approached her and said, "Did you hear me ask everyone to clean up?"

"Yes," she replied and showed me that she was using the dollhouse's toy vacuum cleaner to "clean up" the dollhouse.

Select Shots

Rather than writing up details of the week, I thought I'd just post a few photos with comments.

First is our Mothers' English class. Mrs. Ellen has a weekly class for parents where they discuss, in English, what we are teaching the children that week in preschool. It helps parents reinforce the week's lessons with their children and also work on their own English. As you can see from the photo, they have a lot of fun.


Music Class: Mrs. Naomi teaches music to the children every Wednesday. They work on everything from singing and recognizing notes to rhythm, from handbells to sign dance, from piano to percussion.


We read stories every day. This helps children with prereading skills, concentration, imagination, and building vocabulary beyond what they would normally hear in the classroom. We encourage parents to read to their children. We have a few hundred books in our library corner that families may borrow. For parents who have a hard time reading in English, we have a section of books that come with CDs or tapes.

June 05, 2009

I Guess It Makes Sense

The preschool children are often reminded when we take attendance to say "present" when they hear their own name called, to say "absent" if they hear the name of an absent classmate, and to say nothing if they hear the name of a classmate who is present (to let the classmate announce his own presence). The other day when one student was slow to say "present," a helpful classmate shouted out, "Nothing!"

E is for Elephant

Last week's letter of the week in preschool was E. As always, the children loved writing the letter with their bodies.


And they colored elephant puzzles, cut them out, and glued them onto other paper. Then they traced the letters to spell elephant. (ht)