Which comes first? The chicken or the egg? Our Pre-K classes are going to find out thanks to Cherrie Curtis, CEA - 4H and Youth and Development Leader, and Cora Wieneck TX 4-H Poultry Ambassador. They brought us eggs, an incubator, and read a book to us about the life cycle of a chicken. We now wait 21 days.....

We made snow in our sensory bin!

Thank you to Molly Kendrick for teaching a yoga class to our Pre-K kiddos! The children learned different breathing techniques, discovered their dominant hand and leg, and participated in fun stretches and balancing poses. It was a wonderful, engaging experience for everyone!

The children were given white crayons and had to write the word love on a heart. As they water colored the message appeared.

The students had fun building their name snowman! I gave them snowballs with letters of their name in random order. They had to put them in order correctly and glue them to their paper. Knowledge of letters and words is an important component of literacy. The idea that written words are composed of letters that represent sounds is called the alphabetic principle. Children's understanding of the alphabetic principle is a predictor of future reading success.

This time of year it is easy to get caught up in the rush of the Christmas holiday and lose focus on what is the true meaning of Christmas. I am so blessed to be able to teach our students about Jesus’ birth and talk openly about God at St. James. The children have memorized songs, lines, and moving parts which requires a tremendous amount of focus and commitment. It isn’t easy to perform in front of a large audience especially when it is full of your loved ones. I am very proud of their determination and hard work.

To conclude our Bread Study, we took a trip to Gusano’s to answer our focus question, “Who works with bread?” The students not only had the chance to visit a restaurant, but they also rolled out pizza dough and made their own pizzas—sauce, cheese, pepperoni, and all! The best part was getting to enjoy the delicious pizzas they created. A big thank you to Gusano's for their wonderful hospitality and for hosting St. James Day School Pre-K! Our students had an amazing experience!

Our Pre-K classes chose to help pack boxes at Harvest Regional Food Bank as our community service project this year. We felt it was important for the children to donate their time in a meaningful, hands-on way. Through this experience, our students learned what community service is, why it matters, what a food bank does, and how it helps people in our community.

Before our field trip, we asked our students two guiding questions:

What is community service?

Community service is doing helpful work for your neighborhood or town. It is work you do for free—giving your time and effort instead of getting money. Community service makes a positive difference and helps build a stronger community.

What is a food bank?

A food bank is a place where people donate food to help those who don’t have enough to eat. It is like a grocery store, but people do not have to pay money to get their food.

Sorting & graphing helps children look at numbers in different ways. Starting them with graphs when they are young helps them count items quickly, organize, compare, and discuss information. We used skittles on a turkey body to make graphing fun!