THE GOOD SHEPHERD

  This week, our lesson theme is "The Good Shepherd" and how he leaves the flock to search for the lost sheep.  We plan to decorate a sheep stick puppet with cotton balls and "Psalm 100:3--I am God's little Lamb" written on the stick.  We have five paper plates decorated with sheep who are happy, excited, blue, angry, and sad.  During circle time, we plan to turn the plates face down and allow the children to pick a sheep and say "Jesus loves child's name when he/she is feeling ________."  Afterward, we will sing "If you're happy and you know it," "Praise Him," and "ABC Song."  We will also sing "For the Beauty of the Earth" with a "Jesus Songs" picture book that plays the melody and has a large picture of Jesus carrying a lamb on His shoulders.  Snack time will include vanilla wafers.
  During opening time, we are starting to prepare for Valentine's Day and will paint a heart using heart sponges on half of the heart.  Then, a teacher will fold the painted area together and then unfold the heart to show symmetry, which is fun for the kids to see.  These hearts will be the insert of our special Valentine cards we are making.
  Before lunch time, we have a group activity, and this week we will hand out eight different colored felt hearts to the children.  We will say a rhyme as follows:
  "Use your eyes, use your eyes.
    You can look and see.
    If you have a big color heart.
    Please give it to me."
The children will look at their color heart to see if we called their color or not.
  Storytime this week includes "Over in the Meadow" by Olive A. Wadsworth, a fun counting rhyme with lots of animals.  Our second book is "I Love You as Big as the World" about Big Bear and Little Bear's special love for each other that stretches high up the mountains, far away to the stars, and down deep to the bottom of the sea--big enough to fill the whole world.

Have a blessed week,
Mrs. Shelly

LIONS AND CLOCKS--IT'S TIME TO PRAY

  This week, we will talk about clocks and lions and prayer which reminds us of the Bible story of Daniel in the Lion's Den from Daniel 6.  After we listen to the Daniel story, we have a cube the children can roll with colorful pictures of Daniel and all the times and places he prayed.  We will use the child's name along with the picture on the top of the cube and say:

1.  "(name) prayed in his/her house."
2.  "(name) prayed on his/her knees."
3.  "(name) prayed morning, noon, and night."
4.  "(name) prayed 3x a day."
5.  "(name) gave thanks to God."
6.  "The Bible says "At all times, pray!"

Snack time will include Teddy Grahams and raisins.  Special songs sung during circle time include: "My God is so Big," "Whisper a Prayer," "God is so Good," " Hickory, Dickory Dock," and "I'm a Lion" (which I will sing wearing a lion mask, words as follows):

I'M A LION
(Sung to: "Three Blind Mice")
I'm a lion, I'm a lion
Hear me roar, hear me roar
I love to sleep out in the sun
And chase other animals just for fun
In all the jungle I'm Number one, I'm a lion.

During opening time, we will decorate a paper lion by gluing orange felt pieces on his mane at the blue table.  We will also enjoy pictures of real lions taped to the blue table this week.
  We will also enjoy music time with bubbles and shakers.  Bubbles seem to never get old to the children.  Many of the children can now blow their own bubbles, and they try to pop the bubbles using one finger, clapping their hands, and catching bubbles in their cups.  We also have fun when the teacher can blow a really large bubble which sometimes produces a really large splash.
  For our craft time, we will make a take-home, paper plate clock which will have moving hands.  The children will color and glue triangle pictures of six different times when they can pray.  We will also talk about the clock being a circle and showing and counting the numbers from 1 to 12.
  I also have a clock with a moving hour hand to teach the Hickory, Dickory Dock" rhyme.  This rhyme has 12 different animals (which we will show as pictures on sticks) playing their funny antics each hour of the day.
  Storytime this week includes "We're Going on a Lion Hunt" (similar to a "Bear Hunt") by Margery Cuyler, so put on your safari hats and get ready to slog through the mud, snap through the sticks, climb through the trees, splash through the river, and swish through the grass to find a lion in the cave.  "Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?" written by Nancy White Carlstrom, is our second story told in lilting verse about Jesse the Bear going through his day.
Have a wonderful week!
Mrs. Shelly

This week our theme is "The Garden of Eden--Choose What's Right."  Our Bible story will be Adam and Eve disobeying God by giving in to the "sneaky snake's" temptation.  During our opening time at the blue table, we will ice paint a spiral snake by sprinkling red and yellow Kool-Aid on the picture and then painting with an ice cube on a stick.  After these dry, we will cut them out, and the children should be able to take home their springy, spiral snake.  For our snack, we will have apple slices and animal crackers.  Our songs will be "I'm in the Lord's Army," "Peace Like a River," "5 Little Ducks," and "Jesus Loves Me."  We will also play "Which Cup Hides the Stone?" where we will have red, blue, and yellow cups to hide a stone under.  The children will take turns guessing which color cup the stone is under.  We plan to play our shape bean bag toss where the children take turns tossing bean bags into four cups that are surrounded by a square, circle, star, and triangle.
  For our art time, we will make a winter scene with a bare tree and a winter rabbit.  The kids will use cotton balls attached to clothes pins to paint snow on the winter scene using puff paint.
  Storytime this week is "Adam, Adam, What Do You See?" written by Bill Martin, Jr. and Michael Sampson about Bible characters (such as Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Ruth, Samson, David, etc.) and the significant events that occurred in their lives.  Our second story/song is "All Things Bright and Beautiful" by Ashley Bryan which highlights vibrant pages as I will try to sing this beloved hymn written by Cecil Frances Alexander.
Have a Great Week!
Mrs. Shelly

  This week, our emphasis is "Help my Friends--Jesus Helps the Fisherman."  We will read the Bible story of Jesus' disciples who had caught nothing after fishing all night when Jesus called to them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat.  Their nets were then bursting with fish.  We will sing "I Will Make You Fishers of Men," "2 Little Eyes," "Jesus Loves Me," "ABC Song," and "Old McDonald" (with our felt board animals).  Our craft activity will be sponge painting three different fishes using red and purple paint.  When painting is complete, we will attach a net on the painting and count the number of fish caught in the net.  For snack, we will have Goldfish and a special snack of bananas.  Music and movement will be with our rice shakers (which were all repaired over the Christmas break) and bubbles.  The children seemed so happy last week to have the shakers back.  We also plan to have board puzzle time.
  We will also paint another fish, the goldfish from our "Brown Bear" book.  We will paint it gold using foam stampers shaped like fish scales.  This is our final animal for our book.  After this week, we will be binding the books and using them for a class activity for a few weeks before sending them home with you.  Please bring in your family picture to add to your child's book if you haven't yet.
  We will also play our magnetic fishing game with about ten different colors of fish.  The children take turns with a fishing pole to catch a fish and identify the color.
  Storytime this week is "One Lonely Seahorse" written by Saxton Freymann and Joost Elffers about a lonely seahorse who realizes he has friends all around him.  All the sea creatures and underwater scenes in this story have been make out of 27 different types of fruits and vegetables.  Our second story is "Hush, Little Baby (don't say a word, Papa's gonna buy you a mockingbird)," a story/song by Brian Pinkney.

Reminders: 1) Please bring in a family picture for your child's "Brown Bear" book, if you haven't yet.
2) We will continue to play outside on our playground.  Please remember hats and mittens and coats.  Our playground does not catch the morning sun and can be still quite chilly at 10:30 am when we go out.
3) I am looking to borrow the toddler's board book, "Rainbow Fish."  If you or anyone you know has it, I would like to borrow it for a short time.  Thanks so much.  The library has only the older child version.

Have a blessed week,
Mrs. Shelly

HAPPY NEW YEAR

  Welcome back, and I hope everyone had a very blessed Christmas season.  We will start the new year with our emphasis of "Share with Friends--Jesus Feeds the 5,000" as our Bible story.  We will tell the story using a basket with 5 loaf shapes and 2 fish shapes that show the pictures and words of our story.  We will also practice our counting skills by counting the bread and fish.  Our songs this week include "My God is So Big," "I've Got the Joy," "This Little Light of Mine," "Itsy, Bitsy Spider," and a fingerplay with felt snowmen written below called "5 Little Snowmen."
  For our craft, we will make a paperplate snowman with eyes, nose, buttons, hat, boots, and Christmas wrap mittens.  We also have a felt board activity called "Dear Old Frosty" (words also below) where we will add the hat, eyes, nose, broom, scarf, mittens, and boots to Frosty as we sing.
  For storytime, we have "Dear Daisy, Get Well Soon" by Maggie Smith about how Peter shared and was a good friend to Daisy who had chicken pox.  It reinforces the days of the week and counting as each day Peter sends over a different number of items each day to cheer Daisy up.  Our second story is a Mercer Mayer story called "Just For You" about Little Critter who tries very hard to be helpful to his Mommy.
  We will also continue painting our "Brown Bear" animals this week with "white dog."  We will paint him with white fur attached to clothes pins.  Next week, we will paint "goldfish," and that will be the final animal.  We would like a family picture to add to your child's last page.  If you haven't brought one in yet, please plan to soon.  Once we bind the books, we plan to use them in our room for a few weeks before we send them home with your child.

Have a great week!
Mrs. Shelly

5 LITTLE SNOWMEN
Five little snowmen standing round my door.
This one melted, and then there were four.
Four little snowmen beneath a green pine tree.
This one melted, and then there were three.
Three little snowmen with caps and mittens blue.
This one melted and then there were two.
Two little snowmen standing in the sun.
This one melted, and then there was one.
One little snowman started to run.
But he melted away, and then there was none.

DEAR OLD FROSTY
(tune: Mary Had a Little Lamb)
Guess who wears a special hat, special hat, special hat.
Guess who wears a special hat?
Dear Old Frosty.
Guess who has two eyes of coal. . . (touch eyes)
Guess who has a carrot nose. . . (touch nose)
Guess who carries a big yellow broom. . . (sweep)
Guess who wears a big red scarf. . . (tie scarf)
Guess who wears big green mittens. . . (hold up hands)
Guess who wears big black boots. . . (march feet)