The Box

We had a wonderful visit from Pastor Tori who is one of the church clergy persons.

She shared a book called Henry's Freedom Box.  It is based on a true story of a man who gained freedom from slavery by having himself mailed in a shipping crate to a state in the North.  Conceptually, the story is difficult for this age group, but Pastor Tori did a wonderful job of making a complex subject matter relevant to preschoolers.  She gently pointed out unkind actions throughout the story and highlighted the importance of treating EVERYONE fairly and kindly.

Pastor Tori brought a box and let each willing child get in it.  Getting in and out of the box was great fun for the Bunnies, but in the end they agreed that they wouldn't want to stay in it and certainly wouldn't want to be mailed in a box.  Even with a challenging topic, this simple prop gave the Bunnies an opportunity to experience empathy.
We hope Pastor Tori will be back to visit us again several times before the end of the year.

Patterns

Here is a simple, yet challenging puzzle we had in our class.  It is a file folder game.  Know what that is?  It's a game or task that is completely contained in a file folder.  They are flat, portable and fun!

In this game there are 8 hearts each with an ever so slightly different pattern on them.  Half of each heart is already attached to the folder and children must match up the other half of the heart.  The patterns on the hearts are so similar that the children have to really look hard.  I love how one Bunny reached over the table to help out her friend.  Two heads (and hearts!) are better than one.

Love

Celebrating Valentine's Day at school is something the children really enjoy.  We don't make a big deal of the commercial aspects, but we certainly take time to talk about God's love for us and our love for our families and each other. 

We had a good bit of heart art.

We had some beading with red, white and pink beads.

The most fun of all was exchanging valentines.  Each Bunny got to pass out his or valentines by placing one in each bag around the table.  This is not as simple as it sounds, by the way.  It was an excellent and motivating way to practice one-to-one correspondence.

We had darling store-bought cards, cards lovingly made at home, and cards with bible verses reminding us of God's love.  Each Bunny was very excited to take them home and read them.  As adults we can certainly remember that fun feeling of sitting down to look at all of our valentines.  We hope the Bunnies always know how much they are loved!

In the Background

Sometimes little, yet important things slip past our vision.

The most important thing about this photo is not the super cute Bunnies eating their snack...

...it's the two Bunny boys in the background referencing our alphabet poster.  We have never seen the children even notice that poster, and here are two kids clearing interacting with what they see depicted there.  Yay!

Creatures of Habit

These two do this....

every single morning.  First thing.