Preschool outline: Rockets, Letter Mm

Monthly Theme: Space
Weekly Topic: Shuttles/rockets
Letter Mm

Tuesday

Gathering activity: Memory matching game.

Rug time: calendar, weather, Pledge of Allegiance. Discuss how the weather this week is very different from last week. Now we have snow. What sorts of things do we wear to play in the snow? Encourage children to think of one that begins with the letter M.

Read The Mitten by Jan Brett. Do coloring and cutting activity to retell the story. Source: http://www.janbrett.com/put_the_animals_in_the_mitten.htm

Workbook practice writing uppercase M.

I did not hold preschool on my last planned day due to our area's big windstorm. So I am including the science lesson of making ice cream here -- plus it goes well with the following story. Gather children in kitchen to help mix milk, cream and sugar. Talk about the order of seasons. What season was it when we started preschool? What season is it now? It is colder in winter. What happens to water outside in winter?

While ice cream maker runs, read Mooncake by Frank Asch. This story is about a bear who builds a rocket because he wants to visit the moon and see what it tastes like. He falls asleep during take-off. When he wakes up he thinks the snowy landscape is actually the moon; he's never seen snow before. It tastes delicious!

I hope children will arrive dressed for the weather so we can play outside and mimic the story.  If not, we'll play "Mother, May I?" inside.

Talk about how the story of the bear was make-believe, but that scientists have actually created spacecraft to visit the moon.

Storytime:
This Rocket by Paul Collicutt -- uses the concept of opposites to explain spacecraft. Realistic pictures.
Space at Your Fingertips, written by Judy Nayer and illustrated by Terri Chicko, uses illustrations based on photographs.

Singing time:
Use the book There was a Bold Lady who Wanted a Star by Charise Mericle Harper, sung to the tune "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly."
"The Mitten Song" -- Thumbs in the thumb place, Fingers all together! This is the song We sing in mitten weather.

Check ice cream mixture. How has it changed? Do you think the moon would taste as good? :)

Thursday


Gathering activity: Examine rocket page in Look Alikes Jr. by Joan Steiner. She creates scenes made up of everyday objects. Encourage the children to identify what they see.

Rug time: calendar, weather, Pledge of Allegiance. Introduce lower-case m. We've learned half the alphabet now.

"Magic sounds" game to review letters A to M: Ahead of time write capital and lower case letters on index cards. Drop cards into a magician-type hat. Tell the children that we're going to "turn" these pictures into sounds. Encourage children to call out the letter sound as I pull out several cards, one at a time. Then ask children to match the capital letter with lower case letter. (Save cards for matching game as a future gathering activity.)

Workbook practice on lower-case m and numbers.

Outside activity: Build a small snowman together to save in the freezer. Read The Summer Snowman by Gene Zion, illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham. Identify how the letter m is in important sound inside words, too.

Social studies: Teach about Martin Luther King Jr. Read My Brother Martin by Christine King Farris, illustrated by Chris Soentpiet

Decorate milk jug space helmets with crayons and stickers. (I will cut these out ahead of time, provided I gather enough cartons. Drink up, kids.)

Other stories:
The Berenstain Bears on the Moon by Stan and Jan Berenstain
Curious George and the Rocket by H. A. Rey
If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Joffe Numeroff, illustrated by Felicia Bond

Singing time;
"I am Like a Star Shining Brightly"
"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star"
"Once there was a Snowman"
and these silly lyrics to "I'm a Little Teapot" (although I can hardly sing this song without lapsing into the Jeopardy "time's done" music, hee hee):

I'm a speedy rocket, watch me pop! (hold hands in fists that burst fingers open)
Here are my boosters (point to feet), here is my top (point arms upward).
When you do the countdown, point me high.
5-4-3-2-1, Watch me fly! (jump up)

Natural light

We visited Midway's annual Creche Display at the precise moment the sun streamed in through the window and lit this stunning crystal nativity. December 3.

As a general rule I don't like to use a flash when I take pictures. Sure, it can be helpful, especially in low-light or back-lit scenes, such as making the difference between the two photos of James.

Most of the time, though, I like the challenge of using ambient light to capture images. And I really like taking pictures at Temple Square.

We went there on Wednesday, Dec. 28, our 18th wedding anniversary. Jeff, having already seen the lit square at the start and finish of each work day for a month, could have justifiably balked when he came home and I suggested we go right back. Especially with the kids in tow. I think a quiet restaurant meal was more what Jeff had in mind. But I found a sweet significance in sharing the day and the site of our wedding with our children. 

Here's the obligatory group shot, taken with a flash. Red eyes and everything.

Aside from cropping out a random little girl in James' shots above, all the pictures here are straight out of the camera. All those that follow were taken without flash. 

Samuel took the second photo of the Christus. And if you've seen the size of our camera, you appreciate the effort it took for him to point it upwards. I dig the composition!

I show you all these pictures exactly as the camera recorded them for a reason. Today in Sunday School the teacher used a lesson on gold-mining to introduce this year's focus of study, the Book of Mormon. With a quiet power the teacher stated that if our goal was merely to read the book by year's end -- just to say we'd done so -- we would fail. 

A higher goal, he said, is to study the scriptures more painstakingly, more deliberately, more prayerfully -- more slowly -- than ever before so we don't miss the treasures within.

I return to my pictures. I had not looked through them until after church today, which experiences provided a new lens. 

I took two looking up at the Angel Moroni through a tree. According to my camera's specs my shutter speed was 1/60th of a second for the first.

But look at the brilliance of the second one in the exact same spot, all because I opened the shutter longer (1/10th of a second).

I look forward to a year of committed scripture study, the kind where I can be still long enough to soak up more of God's light.