This week we will talk about nutrition, and identify some foods that are healthy and some foods are not.  This usually leads to delightful discussions about our favorite foods, going out to restaurants, and cooking at home.  During Holy Week we will visit the sanctuary and will talk about Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter.  We will emphasize that God is always listening to us and that we can talk to God through prayer in many different ways. 

During small group time this month, the primary children practiced using scissors to cut up thin sheets of foam, pieces of playdough, and pieces of construction paper.  We also practiced using pencils to make the letters in our names, and identified eight basic colors.

The dramatic playroom changed from a hospital back to regular housekeeping complete with dress-up clothes, play food, a tea set, tool box, mops, brooms and vacuum cleaners.  For our theme weeks on “Nutrition” and “Manners”, the room will be transformed at the end of this week into a restaurant called “The Good Shepherd Café”. Colorful tablecloths cover several small tables; each set with flowers in bud vases, salt and pepper shakers and other condiments.  In this setting, the children have the opportunity to be waiters and waitresses, chefs, cashiers, and of course, customers.  A variety of menus picturing different foods help the children gain language and pre-reading skills.  Waiting tables gives the children a chance to practice listening, following directions, “writing” orders, using polite words and working cooperatively together. Many of the children like being in charge of the cash register and handling the money.  Using the cash register and calculators help with important math skills such as number recognition and counting.  An assortment of food, dinnerware, aprons, chef hats and fancy clothes are available to support a lot of wonderful imaginary play!

Currently at the math center are “geo boards”.  The children enjoy stretching multi-colored rubber bands from one nail to another on a square wooden board.  Often they begin by stretching the band in a straight line, but quickly progress to making simple shapes like squares, rectangles and triangles, and then move on to creating complex geometric patterns and colorful overlays.  “Color Train Game” will be out next.  This is a fun board game which promotes not only color-recognition and matching, but also social skills such as waiting your turn, and following the rules as you move the plastic train around the colorful track.

The science table was very busy this month!  The children experimented with Cartesian diver bottles.  An eyedropper was placed inside a plastic bottle filled with water.  The children squeezed the bottles and the eyedroppers (Cartesian divers) sank to the bottom of the bottle.  When they released the bottles, the eyedropper returned to the top of the bottle. The children could see water going into the eyedropper when the bottles were squeezed, causing the eyedroppers to sink.  They quickly learned to predict how fast or how slow the diver would dive.  The children had so much fun racing the divers to see which could dive the fastest or trying to squeeze the bottle just enough so that the divers were floating in the middle.  The following week, we placed a tub of water and numerous objects out on the table.  The children predicted which objects would float or sink, and then checked their answers by trying it.  Both experiments taught the children about buoyancy and opposites.