Week 5: September 27-October 1 - "All Nature Sings!"

All Nature Sings!

What a wonderful way to go on our break. From watching flowers float in our water table, to adding live worms to our compost, to learning about monkeys in Puerto Rico, to choir singing, and self-portraits…this was quite the jam-packed week at The Well Center!

In SEEDS the highlights by far were the visits from our special guest-teachers: Mr. Josué and Mrs. Emily. Mr. Josué spoke to us about his experience working with monkeys on an island off of Humacao (read the Science blurb below for more) and we learned about hymn singing and harmonizing with Mrs. Emily, as she worked with us on our hymn, “This is My Father’s World.” She encouraged the children by telling them that “God has given all of us a voice and an ability to sing.” It was a beautiful reminder that we will all worship together for eternity. It was a very special time, especially since Roi had asked to come and play the hymn with his keyboard. He had been practicing for weeks and was excited to share his gift for music with his friends and teachers. He did such great job! May this be only the beginning times like these!

To top it all off, one of our first beloved assistant teachers, Mrs. Aleyda, was in town and dropped by with doughnuts for the children to enjoy at the big park. A special thanks to all of our wonderful visitors!

THE GARDEN

Every child is a creature made and intricately designed by the Lord. This week, we studied in worship that as Psalm 139 tells us, we are “fearfully and wonderfully made by God.” We emphasized that before anyone saw us, God saw us and he knew exactly what we were to look like. “God can see the baby inside my mommy!” Elena shared. We also discussed that God made us to be close to him, like trees planted by streams of water whose leaves never fail (Psalm 1:3). At the park, we searched for leaves and we emphasized that leaves can’t survive when they fall off the tree. We also noted that God made a variety of different leaves and that they are beautiful and unique. This was a great way to inspire them to make their first self-portraits of the year. The kids were up for the challenge and they worked joyfully. We love how their self-portraits turned out! On Thursday, we were very excited to show the kids the 500 worms we ordered for the compost bin. Those who wanted to got a chance to hold the worms in their hands, while others held the toy worms. We also introduced the activity table.This table will be filled with different things to explore and first up was: water. After playing with their hands inside the water, the kids added some of the leaves they had collected in the park as well as some daisies that Ms. Vivi had used in the worship story. Some of the things we could hear coming from their imaginative play were: “The water is squishy!”, “Look at my fish!”, “My fingers are an octopus”, “This big leaf is a ship and it’s taking the passengers!”, and “I can make it rain with my fingers!”

“Me veo muy lindo!”

-Juan Diego’s reaction to his self-portrait.

SEEDS

This week in Science, we had the blessing of having Elisha’s dad, Josué, come and talk to us about his work with the Rhesus monkeys in Cayo Punta Santiago in Humacao. Josué worked on the island for 8 years and got the opportunity to build shelters, feed, and transport supplies among other things. We enjoyed hearing his stories and the children asked some great questions. The kids wondered how they could tell the males and females apart, if they liked to swim and/or play, if he had seen a live birth, and even what happens when the female Alpha dies and she doesn’t have a daughter to succeed her. Back in the classroom we began to discuss the Zoology project they will be working on for the next few months as they prepare to present their findings to their group in class.

During the break, I encourage you to read over any of the pages that were assigned about mammals and visit Youtube for a variety of short videos and documentaries to encourage their learning.

As we continue to study about the pilgrims in History, we took time to imagine what it would be like to leave one’s home in order to live in a place where you could worship God freely. This was the situation of many of the pilgrims and this conversation helped us to recognize how the colonies first began and what kind of laws and governments would eventually turn into the United States of America. We also played some more of the Indian games that we practiced the week before. Here is a shot of Elisha playing “Spear.”

Supplemental Readings for SEEDS

American Pioneers and Patriots -
- P. 29-38 (We began reading this story in class together)
Guide to God’s Animals - pp. 42-43, 16-19
The readings above are NOT homework. They are optional readings to reinforce and review with your children the topics covered in their previous classes. If possible, make these readings cozy, comfy, fun, and an activity that the entire family can enjoy together. Kids may even just enjoy skimming these pages on their own, and looking at the pictures. A post-it or an index card will help them find this week’s sections.