I am special!

All week we've been learning about the fact that God made us special and unique. We've been learning about the creation story while also pointing out each others' differences on the inside and out as a way of illustrating how great a creator is our God!

One of our favorite activities is to let the children look into their own mirrors and then draw what they see. You never know what kind of "art" you'll get with 3-year-olds, but this group took their work very seriously! They'd look studiously into their mirrors and then immediately draw a pair of eyes, then look again and draw a mouth--I think we're going to have a lot of talented artists!

After a little self-study, it was time to draw!

Earlier this week we traced our physical shapes onto large white paper. Today we cut each child's out and let them go to down decorating their bodies. Some were really into the unique format (or maybe it was just the fact that the gym floor was our venue--changing the scenery is always fun!), others not so much. But we think we ended up with a lot of nice--and unique!--paper dolls!

Some of our kiddos were so into this activity, they even volunteered to help their friends!

We even had one bright little lady practice drawing her letter of the week: A. We are always learning in K-3!

Remember, no school on Monday! Happy Labor Day to our precious families!

Favorite crafts

Here are some of our favorite craft projects so far this year ...

Inspired by the book "If You Take a Mouse to School."

First-day handprint puzzle--a hit with parents!

We LOVE this one!

Special Friends

Last Thursday, we had visits from some special friends from home! Our K-3 students were allowed to bring their favorite doll or stuffed animal to cuddle with as we read the book "Wemberly Worried." The story is is about a little mouse who's nervous on her first day of school, and she uses her special doll Petal to feel better. We loved introducing our home friends to our new school friends! 

 

On Friday we had a special surprise as Mrs. Libby, the HVCS art teacher and K-4 aide, brought us this new Dora house. We don't have any Dora figurines, but that didn't stop our creative kiddos from playing with the house. They used counting bears instead, and they had a great time with it!



Thank you, Mrs. Libby!

Feelings and outtakes

As we began our first full week of school, we introduced the concept of feelings. Mrs. Connie used a poster to show the differences between happy, sad, scared, excited, and nervous, then we polled the children to see how they had felt on their first day of school.

We made this happy face/sad face hand puppet to illustrate different feelings.

A K-3 tradition ... reading "The Kissing Hand" and receiving Kissing Hand cookies from Mrs. Connie!

As you'll see from this blog, as well as from many of our different craft projects, Mrs. LeeAnne loves taking pictures! We decorated these frames as a special gift for parents to use with our first-day pictures (check out the bulletin board outside our classroom to see the finished products). Before we put our pictures in them, we tried taking the kids' photos. We did manage to get some cute shots, but these outtakes are even funnier ...

Music lovers!

K-3 is blessed that Mrs. Connie is not only a wonderful teacher, but also a gifted musician! The students love it when she plays the piano; sometimes they sing along and sometimes we all play instruments together. Today, after singing the ABC's, Mrs. Connie broke into a rendition of "Let It Go," to the delight of the Frozen lovers in our group. As most of the girls sang along, these two friends started dancing together.

And here's some video of our parade earlier in the week. We love playing music!

First week FUN!

We've had a great first week! Monday was the first day all of our students came for all of the day. We've spent the time learning new friends' names, getting to know the school day routine, and most importantly having lots of fun!

Monday morning play-dough was a big hit!

The train table is everyone's favorite!

This boy loves his dinosaurs!

We're so happy that the children are already forming friendships!

Play-dough fun on a rainy morning.

Pillow pets make story time even more special!

First paint project of the year!

Tomorrow we'll share some of the first-week craft projects we've done, plus some hilarious "outtakes." We're off to a terrific start in K-3!!

First days of school

Welcome to a new school year! We hope our kiddos are as excited about starting school as we are! Judging from these photos, everyone had a great phase-in!