Dear Parents Knowing Jesus, Growing in Faith, Serving God’s Children
October 12, 2010

Welcome back! I am so ready to get back to a regular schedule. I think the children are, too!
We’re enjoying our autumn unit and our study of what plants and animals need. We’re making projects to decorate the hall and classroom. We’ll even be going on a bug hunt in the gym! We have plastic insects and spiders that we will scatter around the gym. They will be in teams and will need to find and collect certain insects and a spider and record them on a chart. This week we’ll learn a poem about the fly, by Ogden Nash. We are illustrating our poems so we have a book to bring home in the spring. We learn much about reading and writing through these poems. We won’t need the pressed leaves for another week or two. Just keep them in the phone books to dry well!
Our Bible lessons are about Gideon this week, from Judges 6 and 7. We’ll learn that God has a plan for each of us, and we need to trust him, especially when we don’t understand our circumstances. Our Bible verse is Proverbs 3:5 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” We have fun motions to help remember this Bible verse! Our offerings go to the Humane Society this month! Since our offerings will go to them I’ll also put a wish list on the back of this letter. If you’d like to help in that way you can. We’ll have a box by our classroom door for donations. We will be making a book about dogs on our whiteboard over the next weeks. If you have a picture of your dog or a friend’s dog, could you please send it to school or help your child send an email attachment of it to rox.withee@zioncrusaders.org? This is a technology project that involves the students in problem solving and exploring. We’ll share it at conferences!
We move on to “Ff” this week. Keep practicing the name of each letter, the sound it makes, and how to write it. “Ff” is an easier sound to remember, but we’ll still have fun learning it. We’ll graph fruit loops, learn more about fire safety, and write a class book about feelings. Send something tomorrow that begins with “f.” Please check to see if your child can write the letters Aa through Ff, and if they can write them if you say a word beginning or ending with a sound they make. A few minutes a night can make a world of difference to those having a little difficulty. In Writing Workshop they are working on writing little stories about themselves and those little moments that can make a good story. They are encouraged to “stretch” out each word and write what they hear. They’re also learning where to find help for some words, such as on our word wall, and in picture dictionaries, etc. When we write about animals we like they’ll know to go to our writing center for spellings of animals.
Our math activities involve much counting and recording how many. We also are always comparing sets of things, noticing how many more or less one set has than another. We are working on counting books, too, that they design. Get those binders back if you haven’t already as we will add the game, Compare. There is a deck of cards, but you can also play with a regular deck of cards, minus the face cards. Don’t forget to put the Math Night down on your calendar! It is Oct. 21st, from 6 to 7PM. Our math leaders will lead this and then you get to play card games with your children.
Since we are studying Fire Safety it is especially important for them to know their phone number and address. Please practice these in the car when driving places. We are also talking about how to get out of our homes quickly while crawling, and a safe place for the family to meet outside if you should ever have a fire. Noah and Elyse’s fathers will come join us Thursday morning for a fire drill, then share their work with us. Thank you both!!
Several parents asked about allowing their children to walk themselves in. This is a great time to learn independence and organizational skills. Just make sure they come in the building safely! They should be carrying their own backpacks and be responsible for their books and such. Love and logic allows them to make mistakes but have consequences when they forget. A separate grocery bag for their boots and winter gear keeps their backpack open for books and homework bags, etc. Remember on snowy days we like them to have shoes for inside and boots or a separate pair of shoes for outside.
The hospital has had some staffing changes, so they will let us know if they will be having field trips now or waiting until spring. I’ll let you know as soon as possible.
Book orders went home last week, and you can also order online. Just return it or have it done by Thursday, as that is when I will finish the order.
The children are bringing their banks home that they made. Just like the Israelites in our Bible lessons, we too can teach our children to return thanks to the Lords with our offerings. The bank is split into three parts, the church is for giving to God (Chapel, Sunday School, church offering or special giving project), the store is for spending money, and the Bank is for saving money. This really helped my daughters years ago learn to plan ahead and be ready on their own, and to learn to have a giving heart.

Here’s the Wish List for the Humane Society.

-Bleach
-Canned cat/dog food
-kitten and puppy food (Purina or Iams)
-adult cat/dog food (Purina or Iams)
-heavy duty trash bags (33 gallon)
-used towels & blankets
-laundry detergent
-Dawn dish soap
-antibacterial hand soap
-dog/cat toys
-paper towels
-toilet paper
-rubber exam gloves
-postal stamps
-office supplies
(white copy paper, legal notepads, extra fine sharpies/pens/pencils, post-its, tape, batteries, #10 envelopes)
-gift cards

We will start a fun group activity called “The Golden Nugget Bucket.” I will catch great behavior and give that child a gold painted rock. Everyone will get caught! At the end of each day we will put our rocks in a yellow bucket, because we fill people’s buckets when we are kind and helpful. When the bucket is full we will bring out the treasure box with little prizes. I like this as it promotes working together, working to have a nice atmosphere, and doing the right thing!
God’s blessings,

Roxi Withee