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From the Director

November 4th and 5th– No School. Parent/Teacher Conferences

November 6th - Handwriting Without Tears program @ 7:00pm

November 7th and 21st – Lunch Bunch for 2 and 5 day classes

November 7th—PALs meet-up from 9:15m to 12:00pm in the Parish Hall (Playdate for younger siblings!)

November 12th and 19th– Lunch Bunch for 3 and 5 day classes

November 13th– Stone Soup for the 3 day classes @11:30am

November 15th– Stone Soup for the 2 and 5 day classes @11:30am

November 27th to 29th – No School. Enjoy the Thanksgiving Holiday!

St. Andrew’s Preschool News November 2018

Director’s note 1

Save the Date!! 1

Puppy & Kitten News Fish & Frog News

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Penguin and Polar Bear News Lion News

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Discovery Room Music Preschool Chapel and Schedule News From the Church Preschool Info

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Save the Date!!

We thank you God For happy hearts,

For rain and sunny weather. We thank you God for this our food,

And that we are together. Amen

I am so thankful for all the families at this preschool, for sharing your precious children with us each day and for referring new families to us. I am also very thankful for our amazing staff, for their energy, creativity and willingness to treat each child as a special individual; for Robyn who keeps the office running smoothly and keeps me on my toes; and for the Parish for their on-going support of one of the largest ministries here at St. Andrew’s. Parent conferences will be held on the Teacher workdays, November 4th & 5th. Please see your child’s teacher for available times. We do feel strongly about discussing your child without them present so we encourage parents to make arrangements for childcare. One option is to coordinate with another parent in your child’s class to watch each other’s children here during the conference. Parents are welcome to use the playground or the Music Room. Children must be supervised by an adult. November 5th is also Election Day and St. Andrew’s is a polling place. Please park in the back parking lot and be aware of all the activity in the building and parking lots. We invite any interested parents to come to a presentation on Handwriting Without Tears on Wednesday, November 6, 2019 at 7:00 pm in the conference room. Kelly Nyman, who is the Lion Teacher is trained in the HWT program and will present this informational session. Come and learn how to make handwriting fun, functional and NOT frustrating for preschool children. Please RSVP to preschooladmin@standrews.net or 703-455-8458. This is an adult only presentation but you are welcome to bring a friend. I hope you will be able to join us for our annual Stone Soup event. This is our annual tradition where each class makes a pot of vegetable “stone” soup and we all enjoy lunch together. We will be showing a slide presentation of all that our students have been involved in so far this year. We always make room for visiting grandparents, nannies, siblings or other special family members. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Jeanne

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The Puppy and Kitten Class

The Puppies and Kittens had a fabulous October! Our theme was "Fall on the Farm," so we learned all about farm animals, and we sang fun songs to practice our animal sounds. The children played with Little People barns and farm animals, and made farm scenes using felt boards. We also went on a nature walk to observe how the outdoors has changed as the fall season progresses.

Our sensory bin this month has changed a couple of different times. We

filled the bin with corn kernels and plastic farm animals, we then switched to brown shredded paper, leaves, acorns and pumpkins. Later on in the month, we replaced these with spiders and plastic pumpkin balls and confetti for some Halloween fun. For our crafts, we painted pumpkins, and made sheep and tractors out of different shapes. We sang and read the book "Five Little Pumpkins Sitting on a Gate", learning the song in music along with the associated hand motions. During the final week of October, the children wore their costumes to our Pumpkin Palooza celebration.

To wrap up, here are some of the activities we did this month that helped

our Puppies and Kittens work on important developmental skills: Books: All About the Farm; Five Little Pumpkins; Inside A Barn in the

Country; Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf.

Fine motor/eye-hand coordination: Halloween stamping with farm and

fall stamps, peeling the backs off stickers to create a Halloween scene

and decorating foam pumpkins. Making bracelets with beads and pipe

cleaners.

Hand strength: Using pinchers and scissors in the play dough area and

other playdough tools.

Gross motor: Various playground activities such as pulling friends in the

wagon, climbing on the playground equipment, and walking across the

balance beam.

Next month we will be learning more about Fall and all the changes that happen as the weather changes and becomes cooler. We will also discuss the idea of thankfulness.

We will be participating in our school wide "Stone Soup" celebration, and will do some fun Thanksgiving crafts.

Mrs. Kroeger and Mrs. Jacobs

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The Fish and Frog Class

The children are elated to be learning about Fall and getting ready for Halloween! We have been doing some creative art projects and activities to go along with this exciting time of year. We enjoyed making scarecrows in the Frog class (which are hanging in the hallway), and using play-doh with pumpkin and Halloween cookie cutters. The Frogs got to weave black webs on paper plates and decorate them with creepy spiders. The Fish class had a scavenger hunt to pick leaves, sticks, and acorns from nature to create their own 'leaf man' influenced by Lois Ehlert's book. Some children used the easel to paint pumpkins along a vine. We also did some fun Fall crafts. The Frog class made stained glass Fall leaves to decorate our windows. The Fish class made monster collages inspired by Ed Emberly's "Go Away Big Green Monster." Our Fish continued with HWT by learning how to sound out and properly form letters F, E, P, and B. Both classes got to paint real miniature pumpkins and gourds to supplement home Halloween decorations. The children also enjoyed making pictures and/or decorating foam pumpkins with Fall stickers and other Fall collage supplies. They unleashed their inner artist through free art by using stickers, scissors, markers, slickies, etc...It's great to see how they can use their imagination when we put out a variety of art materials on the table. We had fun in our digging bin looking for leaves, miniature pumpkins and scary spiders. We’ve been playing with play barns and farm animals in dramatic play. Towards the end of the month, we transitioned to woodland creatures and discussed which animals are "nocturnal." We have been learning some songs and finger plays about Fall and Halloween. A favorite is the “Five Little Pumpkins” rhyme. Our next unit will be all about Thanksgiving and food. There will be some food related crafts to go along with this unit. For example, making stamp pictures with fruit stamps and coloring a cut-out paper apple with paint and marbles enclosed in a container. The children shake the container and when they open the lid, they are surprised with their creation! We will read stories about food and Thanksgiving and discuss things that we are thankful for. This will help prepare us for the school wide event, "Stone Soup." The children will be assigned an ingredient to bring to school and we all prepare the soup together as a class. Please check your calendars for Stone Soup dates. Conferences will be held on Monday, November 4th and Tuesday, November 5th. There is a sign-up sheet posted to the left of the Discovery Room door. Please let us know if you will not be able to make the conference dates and we can discuss other options. As the weather gets colder, please remember to have your child wear a jacket, sweater, or coat on cold days, and mittens and hats if necessary. We still go outside when the weather is colder and we want the children to be comfortable. If you forget, we do have some extra jackets and mittens in the office. We have started teaching the children to put their own coats on by doing the "preschool flip." We just started, so it will take some time, but it's great when they can finally do it themselves! Thank you to those parents that helped with Pumpkin Palooza and that volunteered to provide food or supplies for our special Halloween snack that day. And as always, thank you for sending in daily snacks and birthday treats. We appreciate all our parents do to help us! We are enjoying spending time with your fabulous children! Please don't hesitate to e-mail or call us if you have any questions or concerns. Karolina Smith and Nandita Rebello

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The Penguin and Polar Bear Class

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Happy Fall, everyone. The Penguin and Polar Bear Classes have been enjoying the gorgeous fall weather while outside on the playground. The students love to run around and chase each other as they climb and slide. They enjoy giving each other rides in one of our wagons and also waiting at the “bus stop” to get their wagon ride. It is so important that they have this time to move about freely to develop muscles, coordination and friendships. During circle time we have been busy working with Handwriting Without Tears. We have covered the proper formation of the letters L, F, E, H, and T, and practiced cutting in addition to correct pencil/crayon grips for writing and drawing. We’ve also enjoyed our time playing the "What’s missing game" with objects that start with the letters that we are working on in class. This game helps us identify the beginning sounds of the items used as well as sight memory. We’ve been learning the "Mat Man" song, which helps children remember to draw all the parts of a person in a picture. We’ve had fun rolling two dice, counting up the dots, and then identifying the corresponding number. Lastly, we’ve practiced pattern recognition using pictures of pumpkins, leaves and ghosts in different colors. Our art this month was centered around our themes of Fall and Halloween. The children made glitter acorns, where they glued small pieces of tissue paper on the acorn cap - which is great for fine motor development. We also created fall button trees and rake and leaf art. We had fun preparing for Halloween by making toilet paper roll bats, spiders, jack-o-lanterns, stained glass pumpkins and puffy ghosts. You can see many of these masterpieces on the scene we created on the wall outside our classroom. In dramatic play, the children loved our camping setup during the first two weeks of the month. They enjoyed playing in the “tent” we set up and pretending to make s’mores over the “campfire.” The children later enjoyed our Pumpkin Playground where they dressed up in fun Halloween costumes and pretended to trick-or-treat. They also loved digging in crinkle paper/fall leaves for pumpkins, acorns and leaves, and then in black beans for spiders, skeletons, and other spooky Halloween things at the sensory table. The Little People Halloween set has been a big hit in the block area. The students are also having a lot of fun putting together floor puzzles as a group. This cooperative play is a fantastic skill for children. We enjoyed sharing our costumes during Pumpkin Palooza on Oct. 30th for the Penguins and Oct. 31st for the Polar Bears. During our snack time on these days, we shared fun food, and during our playground time, we got to play Halloween themed games. November will be a special month to celebrate families. Our class will be inviting their family members to join them for a special meal of homemade stone soup. This celebration will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 13 for the Penguins and on Friday, Nov. 15 for the Polar Bears; both at 11:30 AM. Our themes for November in the classroom will be Stone Soup and Thanksgiving. We are thankful for the many children in our care along with their families. Mrs. MacArthur and Mrs. Kockler

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The Lion Class

Happy Fall Lion families! We had a great time in the month of October learning about scarecrows, bats, pumpkins and Halloween. We started the month with a unit on scarecrows. We read several stories about scarecrows and learned what scarecrows are made of and how they are used on the farm. We made our own scarecrows and practiced cutting shapes using the circle for the scarecrow head. The Lions also made a scarecrow head using shapes. These were very creative and beautiful examples of our unique class.

The Lions practiced following directions coloring a “color by number” scarecrow. We have many dot-to-dot and coloring pages the Lions can choose during center time. There are many early childhood scholars that say that coloring pages are not developmentally appropriate for preschoolers. I believe there can be a time and place for everything. If a coloring page excites a child to use a variety of writing utensils and exercise their hand muscles, then I’m all for it! As long as it doesn’t replace more creative forms of open-ended art, it’s a chance for kids to write and color without stress. The Lions pretended to go camping in our dramatic play area since camping is a great fall activity.

Following scarecrows, we began a week talking about Bats and Nocturnal Animals. We read many stories about different nocturnal animals and talked about the difference between fiction and non-fiction books. We discussed the difference between nocturnal and diurnal animals and we sorted and graphed different animals by their sleep patterns. While discussing bats, the Lions learned about echolocation and how bats use that to communicate. They made cut paper collage bats and the creative faces they added to their bats were fantastic. We made some process art night sky paintings and added bat silhouettes.

We continue to make class books in the Lion class. This month we made a counting book using counting bears where each Lion is featured for each number 1-20. Since we only have 12 Lions, Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Toppall, Mrs. Phillips, Ms. McCurdy, Mrs. Dutton and the Lion teachers got to participate too! The last page is a picture of the entire class counting to 20. We also made a preposition book to help us learn location words. Each Lion is featured as a preposition, for example, Mrs. Nyman is between the chairs. These books are by far the favorite of our class. We made a class book about pumpkins and their feelings and each Lion was able to pick the emotion they wanted to represent.

We continue to practice writing our names. We use white boards after snack to write our name and then the kids are free to draw or read a book until it is time for free play during center time. I am amazed by how far our handwriting as come this year already. We continue to work on our pencil grip and writing from the top to bottom.

In the week before Halloween, we talked about pumpkins and how they grow. We talked about how pumpkins grow on vines vs. trees (bringing up our past knowledge about apples) and that pumpkins start as a flower just like apples. We learned about the stages of the life cycle of a pumpkin. Learning how things are similar and different is an important skill as our Lions begin to start making connections from everything in their lives. We painted a pumpkin as a class, and each Lion painted their own pumpkin at the easel. Our baking project for the month was making pumpkin muffins. The class helped add the ingredients, mix and even helped us walk them down to the kitchen to put them in the oven. The Lions enjoyed the muffins as an extra snack for the day. We made spin art pumpkins and pumpkin suncatchers. Spin art is a favorite art project because kids love to see how the paint combines and splatters and it is a gross motor activity because the more muscle the kids use the faster it spins and the more interesting their art becomes.

CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE….

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The Lion Class

We finished the month talking about Halloween. The Lions have enjoyed pretending in our “Pumpkin Playground”. They “dressed up” with Halloween masks and visors and they loved playing with pretend spiders and plastic pumpkins pretending to trick-or-treat. We read a fun story, “Creepy Carrots” and they each made their own Creepy Carrot for our class mural. They had to use their knowledge of the story to relate how they would talk to Jasper Rabbit (the culprit eating the carrots in the story) if he tried to eat them. This type of activity helps them have a deeper understanding about what we read when they needed to apply what they knew to another situation outside of the story. We have read this story for years in the classroom, it is one of my favorites. This is the second year making a mural and I love how the outcome is always different. The Lions made witches and they chose to make a scary or a friendly witch. Our Halloween picture frames are a gift for you from your creative children.

Our Lions are a very creative class. They have free reign of the art table on most days, even when we have a structured art project. You will see collages filled with stickers, foamies, pipe cleaners and popsicle sticks. This class has discovered they love sticking pipe cleaners into paper. I couldn’t plan a better fine motor exercise if I tried and they started doing this all on their own. The sky's the limit for their creativity and I think this is such a unique aspect of our classroom (that Mrs. Nyman and Mrs. Winand loved for our own children when they were students here). As well, they continue to draw in the classroom. This is a great stress-free way for these emerging writers to practice their grip and writing skills. We love seeing what they draw, and it is a great way to get to learn more about each of our Lions.

Next month we will talk about Fall, Stone Soup, and Thanksgiving, and what it means to be thankful. We will incorporate families into our discussions and how we can be good friends to each other. We look forward to meeting with you during our parent teacher conferences on November 4th and 5th, as well as, seeing you at our Stone Soup celebration on Friday, November 15th. I hope you will come see me at the Handwriting Without Tears workshop on Wednesday, November 6th. This is a great chance for you to learn what Handwriting Without Tears is all about.

It is getting cold outside. Please remember to switch out the clothes in your child’s bag to long sleeve shirts and pants if you haven’t already done so. As well, please put some mittens (instead of gloves if you have them) and a hat in your child’s bag so we will be ready when it is cold enough to really bundle up.

With Love and a Roar, Mrs. Nyman and Mrs. Winand

CONTINUED…

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The Discovery Room “Where no discovery is too small”

The Discovery Room has been filled with pumpkins, pumpkins, and more pumpkins. We talked about the life cycle of a pumpkin. The life cycle game has pictures of each stage on the card. The children match the cards in order to tell the story. By far a favorite activity has been pounding golf tees into a pumpkin. I did take the top off of the pumpkin and the children thought that was pretty neat to see the golf tees from the inside. We did more pipette practice with wax paper and orange colored water. I drew the outline of a pumpkin and the children were asked to fill the pumpkin outline with orange dots. They liked how the water dots stick to the paper so you can easily move them around or combine them into a larger water dot! The pretend pumpkin patch is by far my favorite activity. Here are two students busy creating and organizing the pumpkin patch. This is a new activity I added so the children could see what was inside the pumpkin. So after looking at the model, we went for it and put our hands in the yucky gooey pulp and seeds. Nope, didn’t happen. Not one person volunteered; so I put the pulp and seeds inside a Ziploc bag. The Ziploc bag increased participation by 100%. If you haven’t tried the lettuce or herbs from our Tower Garden please stop by. Chester is happy to share! Yes, next month is November and you know what that means-DINOVEMBER! Yours in Discovery, Tami Phillips

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St. Andrew’s Preschool Chapel News

Chapel Schedule

Chapel is in full swing around here! Come join us any Tuesday or Friday morning at 9:30 in the chapel! This month we will continue learning about the exile and return of God’s people and hear about Jonah, the backward prophet. We will also talk about our Thanksgiving blessings and begin sharing our Advent stories. We will wonder about the gifts God has given us and the journey that Mary and Joseph and we were on, not just back then but now also. We will let Mary and Joseph help show us the way into and through the Advent season.

Hopefully some of these stories are becoming familiar to your children and they will be able to share them with you after school.

Music

Tuesday Friday Story Sequence

Farm animals, pumpkins and Halloween dominated the music room in October. As we entered our pretend pumpkin patch, we visited all the animals on the farm. Cows, sheep, cats, dogs, ducks and chickens were all there. We played the castanets, claves, egg shakers, tambourines, sound tubes, triangles and Boomwackers to animal inspired songs. We also assigned instruments to certain animal sounds. The cow bell became a cow, the guiro became frogs and the triangle became birds chirping in the trees. All of the classes learned the following Finger Play for the Pumpkin Patch Farm:

One little pumpkin is big and round. One little pumpkin rolls on the ground. One little pumpkin is tall and fat. One little pumpkin wears a silly hat. One little pumpkin is thin and tall. One little pumpkin shouts “Happy Fall.”

Towards the end of October, we switched to spiders and Halloween themed songs. We spun yarn webs, learned the Itsy Bitsy Spider and played with plastic spiders on the floor. We even used small parachutes to help the spiders spin their webs into the sky. The Halloween themed songs included information on skeletons, witches and monsters. All the pretend play encouraged discussion on real and not real and things that might scare us. In November we will prepare for stone soup and lessons on being Thankful!

Mrs. McCurdy

Nov 6—Wednesday Nov 8 Exile & Return

Nov 12 Nov 14—Thursday Jonah the backward prophet

Nov 19 Nov 22 Thanksgiving Blessings

Nov 26 Mary & Joseph show the way

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Parent/Teacher Conferences are Nov. 4th and 5th. For some of you it may be your first conference experience and you want to find out as much as possible about how your child is doing in school. Here are some questions to get you thinking about so you can maximize your 15 minutes with the teachers.

* How is my child interacting with others/teachers?

* Does my child interact well with others?

* Does my child share with others?

* Does my child stay on task/finish tasks?

* What are my child’s strengths/concerns?

Parent/Teacher Conference

As the weather is changing

please make sure your

child has a seasonal change of clothes in their bag as well as

jackets and appropriate shoes for

outside everyday!!

St. Andrew ’s Episcopal Preschool

6509 Sydenstricker Road Burke, VA 22015 Phone: 703-455-8458 FAX: 703-455-2927 Email: preschool@standrews.net preschooladmin@standrews.net

Mrs. Phillips is planning to do a project this month and could use 32ounce containers. The kind that yogurt or ricotta cheese comes in. Please send in whatever you may have, once you are done enjoying what was in the container. Thank you!

A Request from The Discovery Room:

NEWS FROM THE CHURCH November 7, 2019 - Parents and Littles (PALs) Amy Dutton | amy@standrews.net Our next PALs gathering is on Thursday, November 7th, from 9:15 a.m. to noon in the Parish Hall. Join us for some refreshments and fellowship while the kids play! Drop in for a bit or stay the whole time! November 17, 2019 - CROP Walk Stacey Thomas | crop@standrews.net Please join us on Sunday, November 17th, in bringing awareness to the needs of others in our community and around the globe. It's easy, social, and rather fun if you ask any of us who have been doing it over the years since St. Andrew’s and two other local churches brought it to Fairfax 27 years ago. The walk starts at 2:00 p.m. and is a 2.8 mile loop, beginning and ending at Fairfax Presbyterian Church. Ample free parking is available at the church. Families and dogs are welcome and encouraged. Sign up here (tiny.cc/CROP2019) to join the St. Andrew’s Team and/or to donate towards ending hunger in our area.