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Director's Note...
Dear Parents,
The children had so much fun on the ponies, Spirit and Sissy. Thank you to Whatever Little Pony for the years of joy they have brought to children and families.
This week we will be celebrating "Pumpkin Days" at preschool. Please see your child's teacher for additional details, as each class will be celebrating on different days. Our campus is also having dress-up days each day this week as part of Red Ribbon Week.
The Student Council is also selling Boo Grams this week.
Thursday night is our Evening with Dad Pumpkin Prayer Carving Event from 6-7 p.m. We will be on the elementary school lunch tables. Bring your hallowed-out pumpkin and your carving tools!
Grace and Peace,
Mary Wolfinbarger
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This Week in Jesus Circle
Bible Story: God Knows What’s Best for Us – The Ten Commandments Law: Often we sin and do what we want, rather than what God knows is best for us. Gospel: God sent His Son, Jesus, to forgive us, taking away the guilt of our sin by dying on the cross. Sanctification: Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can live as content, obedient children of God and trust that His rules are for our own good. Bible Words: “Love the Lord your God.” Deuteronomy 6:5
This week we will also be talking about the Reformation. As Lutheran Christians, we acknowledge Oct. 31 as Reformation Day and celebrate the reforms that Martin Luther brought to the church—especially his focus on the importance of Scripture alone as our source of truth and life, grace alone as our means of salvation, and faith alone as the gift of God through the Holy Spirit that brings that grace into our hearts and lives.
Dear Family: Your child has been learning the Bible story about the Ten Commandments. Talk about the rules you have at home. Why are there rules? (To keep everyone safe) Compare your family rules to the Commandments. Let your child know that we all break God’s rules. That’s why God sent Jesus to suffer and die on the cross: so our sins could be forgiven. In your daily prayers together, guide your child to confess his sins and ask for God’s forgiveness.
You can read this week's story in "The Story Bible" on pages 117-120.
Our chapel offerings will go toward the Grantparent Program. The purpose of the Grantparent Program is to provide tuition assistance to students in urban communities so that they can receive an excellent Christian and academic education. Many children living in urban communities need to hear the Good News of Jesus in a safe, nurturing environment, but they can't afford tuition to attend a Lutheran school.
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From Our Handbook
Ages and Stages Questionnaires
Upon enrollment and at the beginning of each new school year, parents will be asked to complete an Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) and an Ages and Stages Questionnaire – Social Emotional (ASQ-SE) for their child's current age. The ASQ and ASQ-SE are parent-reported screening tools that address five developmental areas: communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem-solving and personal-social.
The results of these questionnaires will assist our classroom teachers in planning the curriculum, ensuring that it encompasses all the children's needs and goals. The results will also provide additional feedback and information that will be incorporated into our assessment methods.
Having parents complete the developmental questionnaires enhances the screening accuracy by tapping into the parent's in-depth knowledge of their child. It is important that our preschool partners with our families in the assessment process so we may continue to provide the very best in early childhood education and care.
The ASQ and ASQ-SE are versatile, flexible, and designed to be administered at home by a parent. Children are tested in an environment that is comfortable for him or her at a time that is convenient for the parents. The ASQ activities allow the children to play, move about, and practice daily life skills. The questionnaire should take 10 – 15 minutes to complete and then be returned to your child's teacher. It will be scored and kept on file for curriculum planning and the preparation of our assessments and parent conferences. All information and results will be kept confidential for Abiding Savior's use only.
2022-2023 Parent Handbook
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Staff in the Spotlight
Mrs. Erin Whitten - 3-Year-Old Teacher Assistant
"My name is Erin Whitten. I am a mother of two boys, Austin and Wyatt; both attend Abiding Savior. For the last 15 years, I have been working as a consultant in the healthcare industry, focusing on regulatory and reimbursement services. Like the rest of the world, 2020/2021 brought changes for our family, and I found myself as a full-time stay-at-home mom for the first time. This change allowed me to help with Austin’s class, something that made my heart feel full. I am a true believer that things happen for a reason, and God has a plan that we do not always see coming. Since the first day I dropped my son off at preschool Abiding Savior has felt like home, so I thoroughly enjoy being part of the Abiding Savior Preschool team."
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Extra Curricular Activities
We offer several enrichment programs for your child. There is limited space in each class and a minimum number of participants required to offer the class.
- Amazing Athletes – This is a sports and fitness class offered on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 11:30-12:15.
- Showtime Dance – This is a dance program which includes Ballet, Tap, Hip Hop and Jazz. Dance is offered Monday for Mrs. Morgan and Mrs. Rivers' classes; Monday for boy's hip hop;Thursday and Fridays for all other classes from 11:30-12:15.
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Parenting Tip from Conscious Discipline
Is a preschooler saying, “I hate you!” a normal developmental milestone?
Saying “I hate you” is one of many typical ways that preschoolers express feelings of frustration and anger. The ability to know what you are feeling at the time you are feeling it is the key to all emotional intelligence. Young children have not yet acquired the ability to label their emotions (I feel anger) or manage them enough to express them in socially acceptable ways.
Emotional intelligence allows us to manage our feelings, resolve conflicts and basically get along with one another. Emotional intelligence, like cognitive intelligence, takes decades to mature and requires certain experiences to bring about that maturity. Many adults, regardless of age, still have trouble identifying, managing and expressing their anger in helpful ways. Just think about your response when your own children are not ready to leave the house on time or your attempts to have children do their chores fall on deaf ears. Our own expression of anger can be very blaming and attacking. “What did I just tell you? Am I talking to thin air? Why can’t you just listen?” are all adult forms of “I hate you.” Our expressions of anger and response to children’s attempts at communicating their anger will lead to or impede their growing emotional intelligence.
Young children have immature emotional systems. There is a huge difference between feeling an emotion (sad, happy, disappointed) and expressing that feeling in a socially acceptable manner. Young children feel the emotion but lack the social and emotional skills to express what they feel. That’s where our emotional coaching comes in! It becomes our job to help children express their feelings instead of act them out (tantrum, stomp off, throw things, hide, etc.). It also becomes our job to help them verbally express them in helpful instead of hurtful ways.
Many children attempt to control their world so that everything goes their way in order to minimize the upset they feel and must deal with. Unless we help them deal with their feelings of frustration, anger and disappointment, they will grow more skilled at control and manipulation than at emotional intelligence. Without the skills of knowing what they are feeling, they will not learn to manage those feeling nor be able to empathetically recognize those feeling in others. In short, they will have trouble with close relationships throughout their lives.
Many adults give into children’s inappropriate expressions of emotions, giving them the illusion that acting out will make the world go their way. When we do this, we unconsciously teach them that hurtful actions yield positive results. These children grow up attempting to control others instead of modulating and expressing their own feelings. The ability to express their feelings is dependent on how we teach them through our modeling and responses to their upset. So when a child says, “I hate you,” overlay this expression with a socially acceptable one such as, “You seem angry? You were hoping/wanting ______.” (Fill in the blank with the desire you think they are blocking.) End by validating their feelings and encouraging them, “It’s hard to ________. You can handle this.” Remember to speak from the heart.
I recently developed new products to help parents, caregivers, educators and counselors assist children with the difficult task of recognizing, naming and calming difficult emotions. The I Choose Self-Control Board, Feeling Buddies and Feeling Buddies for Families were created to help increase the emotional intelligence of the children in your care.
Conscious Discipline Website
Conscious Discipline and the Bible
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In Our Prayers
Thank you for your continued prayers for the loved ones connected to our center. If there is a need in your family and you would like to add someone to the prayer list, please let me know. This week we pray for:
+ Our October birthdays including Ms. Wood, Miss Maria, Zane, Dylan, Brooklyn, Isaac, Robert, Rose, Jaxston, Abigail, Layla, and Brody
+ Cash, Liv, Madison, Theo, Clark
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Wednesday Morning Adult Bible Study We meet in the Gathering Grounds coffee shop each Wednesday from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. Please join us as we study the book of James.
Women's Fellowship - "Ladies Night Out"
is set for Monday, November 7, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. and all women of Abiding Savior Church, School and Preschool are invited! We are having a potluck. (A-L main dish; M-Z salad) We will be working on a fall basket for our homebound friends and one for you to keep. Please bring a hand held stapler. It's a very easy craft! We would like an RSVP so that we know how many people to expect, to have enough baskets to work on. Please reply to Janice Trumbauer at 949-609-9766 or email krafter@cox.net.
Mark your calendar for Advent by Candlelight, Saturday, December 10.
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