Monday, November 28
Dear Parents,
The children are convinced I tricked them today! The question box was empty! We figured out
why…many animals disappear during the winter. Do they vanish? No! We are learning about what
animals do in winter…hibernate, migrate, or adapt. Today was an overview and we’ll get more
specific throughout the week.
To help those animals who do stick around, the children made bird feeders with pine cones, peanut
butter, and birdseed today. Do you have a tree or something where it could be hung at home?
Possibly near a window so that your child can observe it throughout the coming weeks? This will
be a great conversation starter as your preschooler continues to develop and hone those skills.
We also started working on a special surprise for you! They promised to wait to share about it
until you open the gift. I’m hopeful we don’t have a lot of sickies over the coming weeks, but if
we get started now, hopefully no one will miss out on creating it due to illness.
We started Jesus Time with a contest between three different toys. We were trying to find out
which one was the favorite. Can your child recall which toy won? There was a contest in our
Bible story too. King Xerxes was looking for a wife and had a contest to find her. Esther became
his wife and the queen. We are looking forward to hearing what comes next tomorrow!
We continue to work on our Christmas songs. If you have time at home, please use the sheet
that went home with the lyrics and links to the tunes to practice with your preschooler. Missed
that paper? You can find it here.
Don’t forget…if you’d like to order from the Scholastic Book order, please send it/order online by
Friday. I plan to submit the order during rest time. It will likely be here by the end of the
following week.
The November snack schedule is here. The December snack schedule can be found here. Please
send snack for 14 on your day. See what’s for lunch here
See many of you tomorrow!
<><,
Mrs. Maxfield
Tuesday, November 29
Dear Parents,
We reviewed our three big words again today: hibernation, migration, and adaptation. Focusing on
hibernating animals, we made a chart of animals we thought might hibernate. With each animal’s
name on a post-it, we were able to reposition them after we read Animals that Hibernate to find
out if our ideas were right. We had a few animals we had to do some internet research on to find
out. We took our knowledge of hibernating animals to the paint easel and created some
hibernating animals. Check them out in the hallway!
We built letter Ms out of our big lines today. Xan your child identify the letter? Can they share
anything that begins with the /m/ sound?
During Jesus Time, we heard about Mordecai and Haman, two more characters in our Bible story.
Haman had a horrible plan to hurt Mordecai and the Jewish people who loved and trusted God.
Esther heard of the plan and told King Xerxes and saved herself and her people.
We continue to work on our Christmas songs. If you have time at home, please use the sheet
that went home with the lyrics and links to the tunes to practice with your preschooler. Missed
that paper? You can find it here.
Don’t forget…if you’d like to order from the Scholastic Book order, please send it/order online by
Friday. I plan to submit the order during rest time. It will likely be here by the end of the
following week.
The November snack schedule is here. The December snack schedule can be found here. Please
send snack for 14 on your day. See what’s for lunch here
See many of you tomorrow!
<><,
Mrs. Maxfield
Wednesday, November 30
Dear Parents,
We reviewed our special 3 words that tell us what animals do in the winter. We focused on
migration today. We read Why Do Animals Migrate? to help us understand the why behind it. We
discovered two reasons – to find a warmer climate and when in search of food. We found out
about a lot of animals that migrate and even created some with Model Magic. Most of the
creations were birds, likely because of all the feathers available to them.  We added the letter
M page to their Alphabet Handprint books with a mouse.
We’ve started working on letters in our Handwriiting books. As we learn how to correctly make
the letters, we have a song we’ve been singing, “Where Do You Start Your Letters?” Ask them
to sing it for you! As you observe your child writing at home, remind them to start their letters at
the top.
Mrs. Lewis led our preK chapel this morning. She told us about waiting and even practiced! Advent
is a season of waiting as we wait for Christmas, but more importantly, we wait for the return of
Christ. She told us about the first candle we’ve been lighting on our advent wreath, the candle of
hope.
We continue to work on our Christmas songs. If you have time at home, please use the sheet
that went home with the lyrics and links to the tunes to practice with your preschooler. Missed
that paper? You can find it here.
Don’t forget…if you’d like to order from the Scholastic Book order, please send it/order online by
Friday. I plan to submit the order during rest time. It will likely be here by the end of the
following week.
The December snack schedule can be found here. Please send snack for 14 on your day. See
what’s for lunch here
See many of you tomorrow!
<><,
Mrs. Maxfield
Thursday, December 1
Dear Parents,
We reviewed our three big words again today and spent some time learning about adaptations. We
used the book How Do Animals Adapt? to find out how they prepare for the winter. We did an
experiment to simulate blubber with some shortening, a glove, and a bowl of ice water. Can your
child tell how the water when they put their fingers in it? What about when their hand was in the
glove wrapped with blubber? They were amazed!
We worked on letter Ms today snipping paper strips and gluing. Do you notice some math skills of
patterning coming in when they do these mosaic letters? Fun to see!
We heard the words from Jeremiah, “I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans
to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Zippy heard us talking
about this verse and wanted to know why God let it rain when his family had plans for the zoo.
We did our best to try to explain it to him. No matter our plans, God’s best plan was for salvation
for us through the gift of a Savior.
We were treated to a special pizza party this morning. Our class sold the most products in the
Andoro & Sons fundraiser. Way to go PreK! (All those that sold attend on Thursdays.) My
apologies if your morning only student wasn’t too hungry for lunch. My full-dayers weren’t too
hungry either. 
We continue to work on our Christmas songs. If you have time at home, please use the sheet
that went home with the lyrics and links to the tunes to practice with your preschooler. Missed
that paper? You can find it here.
Don’t forget…if you’d like to order from the Scholastic Book order, please send it/order online by
tomorrow. I plan to submit the order during rest time. It will likely be here by the end of the
following week.
The December snack schedule can be found here. Please send snack for 14 on your day. See
what’s for lunch here
See many of you tomorrow!
<><,
Mrs. Maxfield
Friday, December 2
Dear Parents,
We wrapped our unit up with a short video. Two children told us about hibernation, migration, and
adaptations that animals have for the winter. We used some white paint to show one adaptation
(camouflage) that polar bears have in the Arctic. Can your preschooler describe it to you? We
made hibernating bears’ dens and practiced our cutting while making an ornament. We are using
these special ornaments as Christmas decorations in our classroom. Check them out next time
you’re in.
I brought two special pictures to Jesus Time today. One looked like a Thanksgiving feast and one
like the Last Supper. We recalled Esther’s feast being like the Thanksgiving picture, but many
were not familiar with the latter. Jesus prepares a feast for us in the Lord’s Supper. Through His
words, forgiveness, life, and salvation are ours in this feast!
We continue to work on our Christmas songs. If you have time at home, please use the sheet
that went home with the lyrics and links to the tunes to practice with your preschooler. Missed
that paper? You can find it here.
The December snack schedule can be found here. Please send snack for 14 on your day. See
what’s for lunch here
Have a great weekend!
<><,
Mrs. Maxfield
Parent Letter – Friday, December 2
Next week…
JESUS TIME: The Savior is Coming – God has a plan for salvation
THEME: Doctor/Dentist
LETTER: X
LETTER BAG: Ella
CHRISTMAS STORE – Each year WOL holds a Christmas store for the children to shop for gifts
for people on their list. More information will be coming home soon, but mark your calendars for
our shopping days, December 12-14. Once all of the children have shopped, Mrs. Loesche will be
packing up the gifts and heading to another campus. Gifts range from about $ .50 to $20. If you
would like for your child to have the opportunity to shop, fill out the envelope coming home with
who they should shop for and specify a dollar amount they are allowed to spend. Any change will
come home in the envelope. All gifts will be wrapped too! The children put so much thought into
what they buy for each person on their list. It’s sweet to watch. If you would like to be an elf
and help Mrs. Loesche with this adventure, please shoot me and email and I will pass on your
contact info to her. Thanks!
CHRISTMAS PARTY – Our Birthday Party for Jesus is planned for Wednesday, December 21 from
10:30-11:30 AM. All students are welcome to join us for the party even if it is not their regularly
scheduled day to attend. We will be doing a class book exchange at the party. Please spend no
more than $5-6 on a book for another child of your own child’s gender. Mark the wrapped book,
“From: Your Child’s Name.” Please send in the wrapped book by Friday, December 19. If you
missed the note that come home about this, you can find it here.
EARLY DISMISSAL – Wednesday, December 21, is an early dismissal. Morning students will dismiss
at regular time. Full-day students will dismiss following lunch at 12:30 PM. After care will be
available.
CHRISTMAS CONCERT – Mark your calendars for the WOL Christmas Concert. This special event
is held in the Ascension Campus gym at 1 PM on Sunday, December 11. This year the concert is
broken up into age groups to accommodate the large crowds. PreK- Grade 2 will present at 1 PM
and Grades 3-8 at 3 PM. If you’re lucky like me, you get to go to both.  A handout came home
with the words for our 3 pieces we are performing. Please practice at home too. We’ll be
practicing daily at school as well. If you missed the handout, you can find it here.
READING AT HOME – I hope that reading at home with your children is part of your daily routine.
It’s such an important component to their pre-literacy skills. We’ll be adding Book Buddies in
January after we return from Christmas break to encourage you at home, but in the meantime,
have you seen this awesome list of books that has made its way around social media? We have
read and will read several of these, but if you are tired of the same old books at home, look for
some of these at your local library.
SCHOLASTIC MY BIG WORLD – Every few weeks your children have been bringing home the
Scholastic magazine, My Big World. I didn’t realize the online part for families required a password,
but I recently set one up. If you would like to access any of the materials suggested in the
magazine, simply type in the website listed and when asked, enter the password MrsMPreK4.
I WANT YOUR TRASH! – I am good on TP rolls. THANK YOU!. As you are giving and receiving gifts
in the next couple of months, please start saving the large pieces of Styrofoam that you find inside
of the boxes. One week this winter we’ll be having “Invention” week and I’m hoping to have a
good collection of things for the children to invent with. Thanks for your help!
PTL DINNER OUT NIGHTS - Word of Life’s Parent Teacher League (PTL) plans monthly
fundraisers at local restaurants to benefit the PTL. At each event a portion of the proceeds are
donated back to PTL to fund teacher classroom requests. We hope you’ll be able to join us.
 December 5 at St. Louis Bread Co. at Chippewa & Landsdowne from 4-8 PM
 January 9 - Raising Canes in Hampton Village
 February - Fuzzy's Tacos (date/time-TBD)
 March - Pie Five (date/time – TBD)
 May 8th – Culver’s (time – TBD)
SNACK SCHEDULE – Please send in snack for 14 when it is your day. The snack schedule for
December is here.
LUNCH MENU – See what’s on the menu here.
IMPORTANT UPCOMING DATES:
 December 10 – Breakfast with Santa in the Ascension Campus gym 8:30-10:30 AM
 December 11 at 1 PM – PreK-Gr 2 Christmas Program at the Ascension Campus
 December 21 from 10:30-11:30 AM – Birthday Party for Jesus
 December 21 at 12:30 PM – Early dismissal
 December 22 – January 3 – NO SCHOOL Christmas Break