CCLS Little Chargers 2016-2017: "A turkey tastes like chicken!"

Jesus Time: The Story of Moses Birth &

The Story of Moses and the Burning Bush

This week we spent time learning about turkeys and why they are important for your Thanksgiving dinners. As one child stated, "A turkey tastes like chicken, but I will not eat bacon because it comes from a pig and they eat mud."

Fine Motor Skills

We spend a great deal of our preschool time working on fine motor skills. These skills are the basic building block for so many other abilities. Fine motor skills use the smaller muscles in our hands which help with daily tasks such as doing buttons, opening plastic bags in lunches, using scissors, pencil skills (coloring, drawing and writing), building skills with Lego and such materials, and basic self-help skills such as tying shoes, and zippers.

We encourage these skills through their daily journal writing (pencil skills), monthly photo journals for their portfolios (writing and scissor skills), and a variety of games, use of model magic clay, foam dough, tweezers (pinching motion) for picking things up, buttoning their own pants, putting on their own shoes (we help with tying), and many other things.

These skills can also be developed at home by encouraging your child to dress themselves using clothing with zippers and buttons, allow them to help with dinner prep, playing simple games on paper like tic-tac-toe, cutting up the weekly store ads and gluing them to paper.

Dry Erase Marker Boards

Marker Boards are also a cheap and easy way to encourage fine motor skills. They can draw and write, then erase and start again.

Tracing Thanksgiving words and adding details to the pictures

Turkey Dice Game

This game can be played by yourself or with friends. All you have to do is roll the dice, count the spots, and determine which part of the turkey you need to draw. There are two different mats, 1-5 and 6-10. The children are not only working on their drawing skills, but counting and number recognition. Also, if they play with a friend they cam take turns and work as a team.

I am Thankful Turkeys had their hand-cut feathers added along with their "beak" and "waddle". The whole flock of turkeys are hanging out in the hallway at school.

The small Lego have been closed for awhile, but came out for the week. There was a lot of group team building along with showing other friends who were struggling, how to build different things.

Marble Works

What can you build to get the marble from one part of the structure to the other?

Block Building

Dot Painting

Using Bingo Dabbers to fill in different pictures.

Search and Find the Alphabet Letters

Working on letter recognition, the children searched and dug in two large bowls of letters to find and match the letters. They also worked on gluing skills, figuring out just the right amount of glue to make their letters stick. A few might have been glued on backwards, but they are continually learning.

As they found the matches we worked on the names of the letters and a few sounds of the letters.

Writing and Drawing Samples

Chapel with Mr. Hartmann

How do others see Jesus in us?

When we have a stinky day?

When Jesus wants us to act one way and we act the other, like oil and water?

Or do others see Jesus in us, through our actions and words?

Gym time!

Playing a little basketball like the big kids!

Calendar Helper

Calendar Helper is not only for learning numbers, days of the week and months, but to help children feel comfortable talking in front of their peers.

What is a pattern?

A pattern is a repeating design or action.

Learning patterns help with prediction skills and are located all around us. We worked on AB patterns to create feathers on turkeys. While making their pattern the also worked on their cutting skills by cutting the pieces for their patterns.

Some even figured our ABC patterns.

What shapes make up letters?

Lines and Curves

Using lines and curves students were able to see how many letters they could make. Some used the letter planning cards that told them how many curves and lines that they needed to make certain letters.