Letter of the Day: Xx

On this new day of a new week

I decided to introduce my little ones to

counting bears!

First they were asked to sort all the teddy bears by color.

It looked alittle bit like the game "Twister" at times,

but they were really working hard to give a helping hand!

Tah-dah!

They did it!

Next, they were asked to choose a color teddy bear to work with.

They then had to sort them by little bear and by big bear.

In this task they worked alone and
 took their time to sort them properly.

After sorting their teddy bears they needed to
count the little bears

and then to count  the big bears.

We talked about which group had more!

And finally, I gave them an 'addition' sheet
 to go along with the teddy bears.

We talked about 1+1=? and 1+2=? and so on.

This was fun!

Watching them think about how to add new numbers was great!

Today, we had a special helper! My oldest daughter!

After watching me teach Joy School for years and years

 it was neat to see how well she could teach 'Circle Time' concepts.

She did great!

Our Bible lesson today was taken from the New Testament~ the book of Acts.

The story of Peter and John healing a lame man.

I love this scripture story because we see
 a healing of a lame man

created by the touch of the apostles

not the physical touch by Jesus.

Early in the year, Ll week, we studied
 how Jesus touched a lame man

and healed him. Today we studied
 how the apostles created the same miracle!

With Christ in us we can perform the same miracle!

After our lesson we went back to the table to make our Bible craft.

We painted today!

They all work so hard to create beautiful work!

Today we showed how the lame man became excited about his own healing.

"He went walking and leaping and praising God."

I cut a slit, using a craft knife, in their work sheet.

                          Then I attached their lame/healed man to a pop-sickle stick using tape.

                                             Next, I put the pop-sickle stick into the hole.

Finally, allow the children to play with the man by manipulating the pop-sickle stick

 to go up and down. As he healed man jumps up and down you can sing the song, 

"He went walking and leaping and praising God!" 

After all our work was done we moved into our Bible songs time.

I taught them the song that goes along with our Bible story and as we sang

they acted it out!

"Peter and John went to pray...

"...they met a lame man on the way..."

"He asked for alms,

and held out his palms,

but this is what Peter did say."

"Silver and gold have I none,

but what I have give I thee,

In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth

RISE UP and walk."

"He went walking and leaping and praising God."

Walking and leaping and praising God.

In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth RISE UP and walk!"

We sang and reenacted the song many times!

The Joy was full in the house today!

Letter of the Day: Ww

I thought about what we could do today as our opening play time.
I realized that we had not yet played with "Thomas the Tank Engine" tracks and trains!
I love keeping all the tracks in a big Rubbermaid container
so that each play time the children can discover new ways of setting up their tracks.

It's so interesting to me how many times we've played with these tracks

and how few times we've repeated the assembly of them!

I was asked, as I always am, "Can you dump out all the tracks?"

Although to a mom it looks like a complete mess,

 to a child it's just easier to explore!

Let the experiments begin!

I asked them all to try and make one oval and one circle and see compare them.

An oval, they discovered, requires straight tracks and curved tracks,

 but a circle requires only curved tracks.

(So smart!)



Once they made one circle, the challenge was to make as many as they could.
Every time they made a new circle I had them count them!

When they had just about finished I showed them a track that could connect them all.
That was fun!

When we were done we left everything right where it was for later.

(I could not ask them to clean-up).

We had our Circle Time with a special helper today.

We are working harder and harder as Joy School is coming to an end.

Just a few more weeks and my little ones will have graduated!

In our Bible time and for the letter of the week, Ww, 

  we studied the story of Jesus' first miracle-'Water into Wine'.

We talked about how Mary, Jesus' mother, told the servants,

"Do whatever He tells you."

I shared with them how Jesus asked them to fill six jars

that could hold between 20-30 gallons of water each!

It took alot of energy to obey Jesus.

It took alot of self-control not to question Him.

But they obeyed and they were blessed to be a part of His first miracle.

We talked about how we need to learn to obey our mommy and daddy

quickly and obey with excellence

because one day God is going to ask us to do something for Him

and we need to be ready to obey quickly and do it with excellence.

Here, pinned the colored circle behind the pitcher and

it appears as if water is being poured into the cup.

 As they continue to spin the circle

the 'water' turns into 'wine!'

After a morning of hard work they always look forward to the prize box!



Letter of the Day: Vv

We are back from our Easter break

and I couldn't wait to start the day

by reading to them!

We read

The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle.

We talked about the four different stages of a caterpillars life and ...

marveled at how beautiful the butterfly is!

So, what better plan could we have than to make a beautiful

butterfly of our own?!

I taught them about "marble" painting.

They were all very curious.

"But Ms. Ellen, How are we going to paint with marbles?

Don't we need paintbrushes?"

(They are TOOO CUTE!)



Each child received a box, a butterfly print, paint and five marbles.

Then they got to paining!

They were so quiet as they concentrated on getting the marbles just

where they wanted them to go.

They did great!

When they were finished,

we put our painted butterflies outside to dry.

While we waited, we had our circle time, snack, and moved into our Bible time.

Today we focused on the story of Samuel.

They thought it was funny that every time Samuel heard his name being called that

he ran to Eli. They laughed when Eli said, "No, I didn't call you. Go back to bed."

Three times this happened, but then...

                                                 Samuel waited in his bed for God's voice.

He sat up in bed and said,

Speak Lord, for your servant is listening."

I asked them, "Does God talk to us today?"

They said, "Yes."

I asked, "Can we hear God's voice too?"

They said, "Yes."

I than said isn't it exciting to know that God hears our prayers

and He wants to talk to us?

"YES!"

After we finished our Bible time and Bible craft we found that our

butterflies were dry.

They came out just as beautiful as I had hoped!



Today they went home with homework-

butterfly homework of course!

When all our work and worship time was done,

we went outside to play while we waited for the mommies to come =)

Thank you Lord for the blessing of these children in my life!

I love them all so very much.