A Day in the Life

Lots of new, fun updates from last week!!  They have been in the process of starting construction on a bathroom, closet, and kitchen for the pavilion and as of last Tuesday, the construction has begun!!  

        

The kids have handled the distraction quite well, and for me, it's totally worth it!  What does this new addition to the pavilion mean?

 – No more football-field length treks to set up and tear down our classroom

 – No more 15 minute bathroom break in the middle of the day because the kids will just be able to go    when they need to

 – A total of, probably, 40-45 minutes saved each day we have class for set-up/tear-down

 – We can leave our walls up!

 – And, hopefully, less accidents by the kids because they have to walk so far to use the bathroom…

To name a few…  Needless to say, we are beyond excited for this new addition!

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With all of our extra time in the mornings, I was looking around the classroom last week and realized, that we have covered a lot!  Our classroom is looking more and more like the classroom I envisioned!  So, I thought it'd be fun for this week's post to have a gallery tour of sorts.

We start our day with a story – either the story from the wordless book or a bible story for our Jesus Storybook Bible.

Then we have some movement time – we've read books with movements, we've stretched, we've played zig-zag with the chairs, over/under with a ball, we've played with the parachute, and sometimes just run around the pavilion a couple of times!

After movement we have our Class Meeting, where we practice counting, teach the calendar…

The letter of the week…

For letters, we teach their sound, so every day we go through each letter sound and then focus that week around one specific letter.  So far, we've taught the vowels.  

 And color of the week…

 

Over the last 6 weeks of class we have taught the colors yellow, black, red, white, and green.  I have mentioned before that we're using the colors from the wordless book (a way to present the gospel and tell the story of Jesus using colored pages)  

Yellow – God's holiness and everything that He made in His perfect image

Black – Our sin and separation from God

Red – Jesus dying on the cross for us

White – Because of Jesus' death we are made clean and pure in the eyes of God, and in result our relationship with Him is restored

Green – Growing in our faith with the Lord, what that looks like, and what we need to do it

A verse goes with each color of the wordless book, so each week we have also exposed the kids to a bible verse that coincides with the bible lesson we're teaching.

Yellow – John 3:16a  "For God so loved the world…"

Black – Romans 3:23 "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"

Red – Hebrews 9:22b "…without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness"

White – John 1:12 "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God"

Green – 1 John 1:9 "If we confess our sins…God will forgive us."

Also, as of two weeks ago, we included a value from the Fruits of the Spirit!  We have taught kindness, patience, and, up next, is love.

After our Class Meeting we take our bathroom break, then come back for snack and a story… Today is Nicaragua's Independence day so last week during this time we taught the significance of the flag (which was a wonderful addition to our classroom, thanks to Lindsay!)

      

The stories we read go in our "Library", so during Learning Stations the kids can read them with a puppet or a buddy.

Once the kids are done with their snack we move into the Learning Stations – Literacy, Math, Bible are the stations we have every day where the teachers go over the content of that day.  

     

     

We also have Reading, Sensory, Blocks, Science, and Music that we rotate in and out for the kids to do while they wait to meet with a teacher.  

     

After Learning Stations we have time for Arts and Crafts.  Jordan has taught them a folklore dance, but mostly we do art projects that connect to either the letter, color, or bible story from that day.  

         

At the end of Arts & Crafts, it's already time to go home, so every day we pray with them before we walk back, sing a good-bye song, and pass out a sticker or prize for whoever earned it that day with our behavior system.

And it may be the cutest thing to hear the kids say "Dame Cinco!" and hold their hand in the air when we want them to sit nice and listen.  Definitely still something they're learning, but that's what we use for behavior, as well as the color faces.  Blue they get a sticker, Purple they get to pick out a prize!

               

And there you have it, A Day in the Life… 100% still in the works, but I think we're on the right path!

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One more thing for my financial supports from this last week:  While everything I do here couldn't happen without your help, your support also sent this wonderful couple on a date night last Friday. 

 This is the couple we cook dinner and do English lessons with each week and they have been a huge blessing to my time here.  Because of the money you are giving me, we were able to send them out for a nice dinner while Heather and I watched their 5 kids for the evening.  So, thank you!

Until next time…

Much love!