GOOD SHEPHERD NURSERY SCHOOL

November 2005 Newsletter

Primary circles continue to be full of information and fun.  With fire safety as one of our topics the children learned what they should do if there was a fire in their home (crawl on the floor to stay away from the smoke), if they caught on fire (stop, drop, and roll), and also to designate a meeting spot outside their home at which to meet everyone.  We then visited Firefighter Joe at the fire station where the children learned even more about fire safety and were able to climb on the fire truck, which was the hit of the day!  Firefighter Joe also put on all of his gear to teach the children not to be afraid of him or another firefighter in the event of a fire. 

Another topic that we recently discussed was recycling and how to keep our world clean.  The children have really enjoyed being able to follow through on our discussion by separating recyclables into the correct bins at the Science Center.   

During “manners” week we discussed how to use good manners in a variety of settings such as in school, restaurants, stores, and many other places.  We also practiced what to say when greeting someone, asking for something you want, or when you need to get a person’s attention while they are talking to someone else.  

During small groups this month we worked on categorizing and measuring.  The children were given colored bears in different sizes and asked to group them together in different ways.  The next time we got together we made pumpkin bread for our Thanksgiving dinner.  The children were taught how to use measuring cups as the teacher helped read the recipe.  

The Pre-K circles are very exciting, as the children enjoy being together and taking turns listening and sharing their many thoughts about our discussion topics.   October was fire safety month, and we had several discussions about ways to keep our selves safe in case of a fire.  Following our trip to the fire station we reviewed the important points that we had learned from Firefighter Joe.  We also used different-sized fire trucks, police cars and ambulances to enhance our vocabulary and practice our knowledge of directional words.  For example, the children were asked to “put the large fire truck in front of the small fire truck, and then put the ambulance behind the small truck,” or “put the police car in between the two fire trucks”.    

We then did a unit on recycling.  We talked about how God made the world and then gave us the responsibility of taking good care of it.  We discussed how we can help make sure the earth stays nice for the animals, birds and fish to make their homes in.  One of the ways in which we can do this is to recycle.     

Our next topic was “manners”.  We used puppets to role play different situations and talked about how using polite manners makes a difference in the way people feel.   We talked about treating everyone with kindness, just as Jesus did.  We also reiterated our rule “you can’t say ‘you can’t play’”.