Working Hard in 2016!

"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit."
Psalm 51:10-12

Happy New Year to all of our Little Lambs families! As we eagerly watch 2016 get under way in the classroom, we pray that God would continue to sustain the staff and students as we work with joy and with a steadfast spirit. We are so blessed to work with your children and are thankful for the trust you have placed in us. Please take a few moments to see what we've been up to in the classroom:

Literacy: The children continue to work at their own individual paces in this area, as they are ready. As a group we continue to master letter and sound recognition, as well as isolating beginning and ending sounds in words. Many of the children are now successfully working with equipment that supports these skills. It is always exciting to watch this area develop! We are also working on the concept of opposites and soon will move on to rhyming words. As many of the students are motivated to write their names independently, we are supporting this with a lot of small motor activities, as well as working to correct habits that are interfering with progress. This takes some time, so please encourage your child to be patient! The Kindergarten children are beginning to work with long vowel rules and also continue to build up their recognition of sight words. 

Math:  In addition to the class' work with numeral and quantity recognition and with understanding the decimal system with our gold bead activities, we are working on concepts of sequencing, sorting and organizing. We are beginning to work with our solid geometric shapes as we see how they relate to plane geometric shapes. We are supporting the children who are ready to master written numerals, with continued activities to strengthen hands and pencil control. Many students are now working comfortably with addition concepts, using the bead stair equipment, and Kindergarten students are ready to move into multiple-digit addition!

Science and Social Studies:  As we finish our study of the ocean habitat, we are enjoying craft projects that include jellyfish, rainbow fish and ocean suncatchers. Our Kindergarten group enjoyed a field trip to the Portland Aquarium to see some ocean creatures up close. Next we will move on to the arctic as we learn about the people, plants and animals that survive in the coldest environments on our earth. Brrr! We are also studying states of matter, and the children are getting very adept at identifying solids, liquids and gasses. Soon we will begin looking at our wonderful five senses. Watch for information about an upcoming field trip to Learning Palace to support some of these areas of study!

Music: Our Little Lambs are spending more and more time working with the classroom set of bells, training their ears to hear matching tones, to identify the sound of going up the scale and down the scale and, soon, to learn the names of the notes. We are also ready to begin learning about the orchestra and the instrument families it includes.

The new year is off to a wonderful start as our Little Lambs are working, playing and learning beautifully!

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