The girls think about time as they design their homemade sundial clocks.

Spring is in the air now that it is March and we are so looking forward to having a great time with our FUN THURSDAYS happening this month.

Check out the ad below to learn the themes for each Thursday this month!

Scroll down to see More photos and suggested readings for the Week

THE GARDEN

It was wonderful to see everyone again this week. We enjoyed swinging at the park and playing many games outside. We have been learning two songs that spell out words and the kids are getting great at them. We are currently learning the “B-I-B-L-E” song and another song that spells “J-E-S-U-S” as part of the chorus. You can ask them to sing them out to you and see if they remember the letters.

During activity time, the children requested to repeat the ice cream shop center. We also used the letter of the week to challenge them to build something “Enormous” in the block area. Gillian and Isabella built wonderful structures. Additionally, we began to play a classic game called “Enano, Gigante.” Even those who don’t know much Spanish were happy to join in and lead the game calling out to their friends to either shrink or get all at their command. On Thursday we had fun outside tracing our shadows and I was able to show them a shadow clock I was preparing for the Seeds students. They were thrilled to see that when they stood at the center, the shadow pointed to 10 o’clock just like my watch and phone said. Inside, we played a different memory game. The children had to choose any object in the room and place it in the center, then the children would create a pattern as they each had turns and the person next to them had to remember. It was exciting and quite challenging at times.

This week:

Letter: “P” for “Penguin”

Theme: I show love to everyone, especially my family

SEEDS & OAKS

This was an exciting week in Seeds and Oaks as we honored Elise for her birthday and had TWO Oaks students present their worship stories. Both Joshua and Bayoán presented their stories which focused on the end of the reign of King Saul and the beginning of the kingdom of David. It was awesome to see how both young men presented the truths of Scriptures in creative ways, with Joshua choosing to use small props to tell his story, while Bayo used his fellow Oak students to act out the drama. We are proud of both of them. This is truly evidence of seeing the mission of The well lived out right before our eyes.

In our online class for SEEDS where we introduced what God made on the fourth day of Creation, we also discussed why God had made the sun, moon, stars and celestial bodies. According to the account in Genesis, God created them to: light up the earth, separate light from darkness, govern the day and the night, and mark appointed times and seasons. This week, we reviewed those reasons and focused on how the sun and the moon help people tell time. We spoke about the lunar calendar and God’s appointed times to His people as well as the days and times being recorded by the Gregorian or solar calendar. This led us to talk about how people used the sun in ancient times to tell the time with sundials. First, we went outside and tried out a giant sundial in the parking lot made with chalk that Garden students had helped to prepare. After explaining how it worked, it was time to give it a shot. When Estela stood in the middle, she acted like the “gnomon” or the object used to cast the shadow and tell the time. The kids loved seeing how her shadow fell between two and three because it was 2:30pm. Once inside, we set out to make our own sundials to take home. The kids decorated their sundial and I made sure they remembered that number 12 needed to point to the North. I loved receiving pictures of the sundials in action and look forward to hearing their experiences this week.

In History, we learned about the Phoenicians and the students were amazed to find out that the purple cloth this culture was famous for, came from an ancient process of extracting dye from Murex shells, a type of mollusk. The OAKS students began map work that showed just how expansive the Phoencian reach was throughout the Mediterannean.

Finally in Oaks biology, the students finished up learning about the anterior muscles and moved onto the posterior muscles. As a fun way to encourage fervent retrieval method practice during Thursday's class, the students earned a homemade chocolate chip cookie for their class to share by correctly guessing (the first time) a muscle described by another student using anatomical directional terms. They earned a whopping 40 cookies for Ms. Catherine to bake for them for Tuesday's class!! Way to go!