April 2017 archive

Newsletter 31: Week of April 30

Highlights from our week…

Our class waved goodbye to the last week of April on Friday. It’s hard to believe we turn the calendar to May tomorrow! God has been so good to us this school year! Thanks to each one of you who are a very special part of what God is doing! At this time of year it’s always fun to reflect on how far your kids have come. We’ll continue diving into our curriculum, but it’s never to early to celebrate God’s faithfulness over the school year so far!


Important Dates: 

  • April 28: All school chapel (1:00)
  • May 5: Pen Pal Celebration- Kindergarteners will meet their secret pen pals and enjoy some pizza-themed literacy and math centers together!
  • May 5: Family Fun Night @ ZCS
  • May 10: 1/2 Day for Tulip TIme
  • May 11: No hot lunch or pm busing
  • May 12: No hot lunch or pm busing
  • May 29: Memorial Day (no school) Kindergarteners who are interested and available that day are invited to march in the parade in downtown Zeeland! More information will be coming soon!
  • June 1: PBL Celebration (10:00-10:30) I’ll be sending details home soon, but for now please note that your child will be taking part in a PBL unit about animals in May. On June 1st at 10:00 each child will present his/her project in a group! Please join us for cookies and lemonade afterward.
  • June 7: Holland Farmers Market and lunch at Kollen Park
  • June 8: Last day of school! Happy summer!
  • June 8: No hot lunch of pm busing

Phew! That’s it until the end of the year I believe! The end of our school year brings many special things! Please make note of these dates in your calendars and, of course, let me know if you have any questions! Thanks for hanging with us!


Important Announcements: 

  • Mother’s Day Flowers: The greenhouse is taking great care of our Mother’s Day hanging baskets. The dates to pick up the flowers are Thursday, May 11, Friday, May 12, or Saturday, May 13.
  • Farmers Market: On Wednesday, June 7 we’ll be heading to our last kindergarten field trip, the Farmers Market! From there we’ll head to Kollen Park for a picnic lunch. We will not be eating hot lunch that day. We will be back to school about 12:45. “Morning kids” are welcome to stay until then! If you need to pick your child up at the normal 11:50 time, please meet us at Kollen Park.
    • We are still looking for a couple more drivers for this field trip! It’s a little more hands-on so I’d like to make the groups a bit smaller than normal if possible. The only way to do that is with your help! ? We’ll be leaving about 9:30 that morning. Please use this link to sign up. Thank you!
  • Pen Pal Celebration: Please follow this link to sign up for volunteering during our pen pal celebration or to bring pizza ingredients if you are able and interested! Thank you!

Check out how much we’re learning and growing in Christ! 

Bible: This week we talked about Pentecost. We celebrated the power the Holy Spirit living inside of us gives us to share the good news of the Gospel. We also discussed what a powerful event this story is for us as immersion language learners. When the Holy Spirit came as tongues of fire on the disciples, they began to speak many languages and share the Gospel so that all could understand! It was a good reminder of our responsibility as language learners to share the Gospel in English and Spanish.

We’re also practicing our Bible memory verse. I’ll assess this sometime in the middle of May. We’ll have 1 more Bible verse after this one to learn in Kindergarten.

Mateo 28:5-6 El ángel dijo a las mujeres:―No tengan miedo; sé que ustedes buscan a Jesús, el que fue crucificado. No está aquí, pues ha resucitado, tal como dijo. Vengan a ver el lugar donde lo pusieron.

Matthew 28:5-6 The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.

Literacy: This week our grammar focus was on the verb estar. We looked at a Keynote presentation full of pictures of our class and used the verb estar to describe what the people in the picture were doing.

  • Reading strategy: Inferring
  • Read aloud: El pez arcoiris y la cueva de los monstruos
  • Vocabulary words
    • el pez (fish)
    • la cueva (cave)
    • el brazo (arm)
    • la piedra (rock)
    • el arcoiris (rainbow)
  • Word wall word: ¿qué? (what) que (that)
  • Phrase of the week: ¡Hablemos solamente español! (Let’s only speak Spanish)
  • Letter of the week: Kk

Math: Using the fruits and veggies from our play kitchen we made addition and subtraction story problems as if we were in a grocery store. Then we practiced making partners to 10. A practice worksheet for this skill went home this week.

Exploring God’s World: The kids are loving the new writing daily 5 choices all about the animals we learned about at The Critter Barn! They’re doing a great job with all of that Spanish vocabulary!

Writing Workshop: We celebrated our Small Moments stories! When the music stopped, we stopped dancing, found a friend, and shared our stories with them.

On Friday we started our next unit, How To Books. I asked the kids to tell me step-by-step how to make a pb&j sandwich. We all giggled when I took their directions literally and squished the bread by placing the jar of peanut butter on it. We’ll be using that exercise to make a class book.

Handwriting Without Tears: We’re making our way through the lowercase letters. This week we worked on r, n, and m.

Up in Lights:  Benson  was Up in Lights this week! Thank you, Benson, for introducing us to your brother, Max, sister, Kendle, and your mom and dad! Benson is one of the biggest football fans I know, in particular the Bengals! He was also very excited to show us his new house. He moved just a couple weeks ago! We’re so glad you’re in our class, Benson! 


From Our Immersion Coordinator

Do you use a foreign language in your day-to-day life? Perhaps you know of someone else who uses their bilingualism in the work place or elsewhere. We are always looking for individuals who can demonstrate to our students the advantages of knowing and using a second language. If you or someone you know might be willing to visit a classroom or connect with a class online, please touch base with me (Jodi Pierce, jpierce@zcs.org) or your child’s teacher.

Newsletter 30: Week of April 23

Highlights from our week…

It was another fun and full week of Kindergarten for our class! On Thursday we celebrated Earth Day. We talked about our role as stewards of God’s creation. Each child created a book about how to take care of God’s world. On Friday we saw many animals at the Critter Barn! It was another fun way to celebrate God’s creation! A very special thank you to the families who helped us make this possible from driving to preparing snacks! Thank you so much! Please check out of photos tab for pictures of your cute kids! I’ll be adding them sometime this weekend.


Important Dates:

  • April 28: All school chapel (1:00)
  • May 5: Pen Pal Celebration- Kindergarteners will meet their secret pen pals and enjoy some pizza-themed literacy and math centers together!
  • May 10: 1/2 Day for Tulip TIme
  • June 7: Holland Farmers Market

Important Announcements: 

  • Garden Crossings: The dates to pick up the flowers from Garden Crossings are Thursday, May 11, Friday, May 12, or Saturday, May 13. Please see the link below for information. If you’re unable to pick them up that weekend, I’ll pick them up on Monday and take them to school.
  • Farmers Market: On Wednesday, June 7 we’ll be heading to our last kindergarten field trip, the Farmers Market! From there we’ll head to Kollen Park for a picnic lunch. We will not be eating hot lunch that day. We will be back to school about 12:45. “Morning kids” are welcome to stay until then! If you need to pick your child up at the normal 11:50 time, please meet us at Kollen Park.
    • We are still looking for a couple more drivers for this field trip! It’s a little more hands-on so I’d like to make the groups a bit smaller than normal if possible. The only way to do that is with your help! 🙂 We’ll be leaving about 9:30 that morning. Please use this link to sign up. Thank you!
  • Pen Pal Celebration: Please follow this link to sign up for volunteering during our pen pal celebration or to bring pizza ingredients if you are able and interested! Thank you!

Check out how much we’re learning and growing in Christ! 

Bible: On Monday we finished our timeline by adding the Resurrection! Christ has risen! We opened an empty egg to represent the empty tomb.

We’re also practicing our Bible memory verse. I’ll assess this sometime in the middle of May. We’ll have 1 more Bible verse after this one to learn in Kindergarten.

Mateo 28:5-6 El ángel dijo a las mujeres:―No tengan miedo; sé que ustedes buscan a Jesús, el que fue crucificado. No está aquí, pues ha resucitado, tal como dijo. Vengan a ver el lugar donde lo pusieron.

Matthew 28:5-6 The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.

Later on in the week we talked about the Ascension. There were some beautiful discussions about Heaven. Christ is coming again!

Literacy: This week we turned our focus to Earth Day and The Critter Barn. Kindergarteners will begin a new Daily 5 writing option all about animals on Monday. We also created a book about how to take care of God’s Earth. We classified words according to the verb “estar” and placed Jj words we found in books and around our classroom on the syllable wheel. It was a great week of review and real-life application lessons in the context of things happening in the world around us.

Math: We continued to work in small groups to complete our math test. It’s time consuming doing it this way, but it’s worth it. 🙂 I think we are finished now! I’m looking forward to beginning unit 4! I can’t believe this is the last math unit of the year. Please stay tuned for a parent letter coming home next week. It highlights some of the things we’ll be covering in this unit.

Exploring God’s World: Our Exploring God’s World unit took us to The Critter Barn this week! Thank you, again, to everyone who helped make this day so amazing! We learned about many different animals including goats, chickens, ducks, cats, rabbits, and cows. I’m excited to use this adventure to give one of our Daily 5 writing choices a memorable context.

Writing Workshop: We’re finishing up our unit on Small Moments stories and getting ready to celebrate this coming week! When we fix and fancy our writing we are looking for spaces between words, uppercase letters at the beginning of sentences, and periods at the end.

Handwriting Without Tears: We’re making our way through the lowercase letters. This week we worked on k and reviewed some of the other lowercase letters we’ve been learning lately. As you watch your child write at home or write with him/her please help them remember to start at the appropriate place, (usually the top.)

Up in Lights:  I forgot to add this section at first last week (Sorry VanderVeen family!) so I kept it on here again. There was no Up in Lights presentation this week.

Lily was up in lights this week! She introduced us to a new song based on 1 Samuel 16:7, “The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” Thank you for this important reminder, Lily and family! Lily, you are a beautiful child of God inside and out!



From Our Immersion Coordinator

What is an AALPA? This acronym stands for add.a.lingua performance assessment. This assessment allows us to assess and track each child’s development throughout his/her years of immersion education. During the aalpa, each child is evaluated through the three modes of communication: interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational. Teachers conference with each child after each section and help them to determine linguistic goals. All of our K-8 immersion classrooms will be working through an aalpa before the end of the year.  Ask your child’s teacher if you would like to know more about the aalpa at your child’s grade level.

Newsletter 29: Week of April 16

Highlights from our week…

It is so good to be with your precious children again! We had a lot of fun sharing stories from our spring vacations- stories from far away places and stories about exciting happenings here in Michigan. Your children did a phenomenal job transitioning back to school routines. It seemed like they were happy to be back at school and I know they were excited to see their friends!

One of the favorite parts of this week for sure was hearing a very entertaining and dynamic speaker, Aaron Zenz. He is an author and illustrator from southwest Michigan who shared all about writing one of his books, Hiccupotamus. He was a very hard act to follow once we got back to our classroom Thursday morning!

It was good to be together again! Board games was a fun part of play time this week!

Amigas playing HiHo Cherry-O


Important Dates:

  • April 21: Critter Barn field trip (all day)
    • “Morning kids” are welcome to join us for a full day on Friday, April 21. After spending the morning and part of the afternoon at The Critter barn we’ll head to Lawrence Park where we’ll enjoy an afternoon snack and some outdoor play! Please make sure your child is dressed to be outside! There will be no hot lunch for our class that day and children should come with picnic-style lunches. (Please keep everything disposable.)
  • April 21: ZCS Auction (save the date for an evening of FUN!)
  • June 7: Holland Farmers Market

Important Announcements: 

  • Please be sure to read the important announcement about The Critter Barn field trip under our “Important Dates” section above! Thank you!
  • The dates to pick up the flowers from Garden Crossings are Thursday, May 11, Friday, May 12, or Saturday, May 13. Please see the link below for information. If you’re unable to pick them up that weekend, I’ll pick them up on Monday and take them to school.

Garden Crossings Note-1qcnhc2


Check out how much we’re learning and growing in Christ! 

Bible: Each Kindergartener has been diligently creating a timeline of the events leading up to Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection. As we learn about each event we open a new Resurrection Egg as a tangible representation of our lesson. Sharing this special time of year with your child means so much to me. It has been a pleasure to walk through them through Holy Week!

Literacy: This week we talked about the verb “estar” again. Before break we learned that this important word is used to describe the location of an object or person. This week we learned that it’s also used to talk about present progressive verbs. In English these verbs end in -ing. This time we focused on how to express something in the form “I am ____.” Estoy ______.

  • Reading strategy: Inferring
  • Read aloud: Sana Ranita Sana
  • Vocabulary words
    • la cucharada (tablespoon)
    • curar (cure)
    • enfermo (sick)
    • el abrazo (hug)
    • las caricias (pats… think on the head or pats on the shoulder :))
    • linda/o (cute, sweet)
    • cariñosa/o (loving)
    • las cosquillas (tickles)
  • Word wall word: bueno (good)
  • Phrase of the week: Yo también. (Me too!)
  • Letter of the week: Jj

Math: We are reviewing in preparation for our math test! I have started the test with several students already and they are doing very well!

Exploring God’s World: Kindergarteners created 2 pages for a class book. On one page they illustrated and wrote about living things. On the other page they wrote and illustrated about nonliving things. We also created a t-chart and classified a variety of objects as living or nonliving.

Writing Workshop: We didn’t have a lot of time for writing workshop this week but we did squeeze in a short review of our small moments anchor chart and a little time for writing. This coming week I hope to give students time to pick one writing piece to fix and fancy.

Handwriting Without Tears: We’re making our way through the lowercase letters. This week we worked on i, e, and l.

Up in Lights: Lily was up in lights this week! She introduced us to a new song based on 1 Samuel 16:7, “The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” Thank you for this important reminder, Lily and family! Lily, you are a beautiful child of God inside and out!


From Our Immersion Coordinator: I want to take this opportunity to celebrate our Mandarin immersion students and teachers. In the winter, our 3rd through 5th graders were able to take a standardized language proficiency test that allowed us to compare our students’ language performance with that of Mandarin immersion students across the country. Our students outperformed the national average in all four areas of language (reading, writing, speaking and listening)! Our Spanish immersion students participate in a similar assessment in 5th and 8th grade and have also consistently had positive results.