November 2017 archive

19
Nov
2017

Newsletter 11: Week of November 19

categories: newsletters 2017-2018

Week Overview

We had an awesome week together and made some huge steps in the Daily 5 and guided reading groups! I hope you’ve found a few minutes to practice the literacy activities your child brought home on Friday. They were so proud of themselves and they have lots of reasons to feel that way! I’m proud of them too! 🙂

Even though I missed one of the days for being sick, it was good to have a full week! I’m looking forward to a 2-day week coming up! We’ll be doing some literacy and math activities centered on the themes of Thanksgiving and being grateful. There will be no additional newsletter blog post next week so I want to say now how incredibly grateful I am for all of you. I love spending my days with your children and the classroom “family” we’re building brings me great joy. I couldn’t do my job without your support. Thank you for the prayers, encouragement, and all kinds of help!

Important Dates

November 21: Picture Trading & Friendship Fruit Salad

November 21: Chapel 1:00

November 22-24: Thanksgiving Break

December 15: NO pm bus or hot lunch

December 25-January 5: Christmas Vacation

Reminders

  • Picture Trading: In celebration of Thanksgiving we will trade pictures of ourselves with our friends. This lesson will go along with our brief learning about the First Thanksgiving. Please send in wallet size photos or 4×6 size photos of JUST your child. Your child will need to bring in 19 copies. Often Meijer or Snapfish will run a deal with photos costing just a few cents. I am informing you early, with hopes you can find a deal somewhere. 🙂 We will trade photos on November 21st.
  • Friendship Fruit Salad: One of the things we’re looking forward to as a part of our Thanksgiving celebration is making a fruit salad together. Please help your child bring a small portion (no more than 1 cup) of their favorite fruit prepared and ready to eat on Tuesday, November 21. For example, if it is an apple, please bring apple slices not a whole apple. 🙂 We’ll combine our favorite fruits and share “friendship fruit salad” together.
  • SignUp Genius: There are still a few slots open on our Thanksgiving & Nativity Scene Prep SignUp Genius. If you would like to volunteer, please use this link. 
  • Helpful Links from the Office:
    • 2017-2018 ZCS Family Directory: The ZCS Family Directory contains staff, Board members, and family contact information as well as class lists. The directory remains in Google Docs, has been fully updated, and will continue to reflect the most current information. Please email zcsinfo@zcs.org to request changes or updates. (Remember to take notice of the tabs across the bottom of the document for easy access to each section!)
    • 2017-2018 ZCS Family Handbook: The ZCS Family Handbook contains information such as school start times, cancellations and delays, calendar, dress code, hot lunch information, etc. It can be found on the ZCS Parents page. Scroll down to find the link.

Curriculum

Bible: This week in Bible every student got the opportunity to say their memory verse for a prize/certificate. We started learning our new memory verse below. We also talked about peace, the next Fruit of the Spirit. We discussed different things that help us feel God’s peace.

Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.

Proverbios 3:5-6 Confía en el Señor con todo tu corazón y no en tu propia inteligencia. Reconócelo en todo tus caminos y Él enderezará tus veredas.

Literacy: Daily 5 has been going super well! Each child has a check-in sheet. Before beginning a new round of Daily 5, everyone touches the picture that corresponds to the center they’d like to do that round and I cross off the picture as I check everyone in. It was such a joy to be able to meet with every guided reading group this week- most of them 2-3 times!

In grammar we’ve been talking lots about articles and nouns. In Spanish every noun has an article. Some articles are definite, like saying “the apple” in English. Other articles are indefinite, like saying “an apple”, or some apples” in English. This week we learned how to change these articles to talk about a singular noun or a plural noun.

  • Reading strategy: Making connections
  • Word wall word: soy (I am)
  • Read aloud: Chistes de animales
  • Vocabulary Words:
    • rápido (fast)
    • alto (tall)
    • saltar (jump)
    • chistoso (funny)
    • valiente (brave)
    • callado (quiet)
    • grande (big)
    • pequeño (small)
  • Phrase of the week: ¿Cómo está el tiempo?  (How is the weather?)
  • Letter of the week: Ss

Handwriting: We worked on our letter of the week- Ss. This was a little tricky for some of the kids! It’s an easy one to accidentally write backwards.

Book of Friends: We finished our book of friends project! They will be coming home soon! Thanks for your patience, sweet Clara, as you had to wait until the very end for your turn! 

Math: We acted out addition and subtraction problems in real life situations. For example, we had 3 friends with a bowl of soup, but only 2 spoons. The kids were challenged to use addition and subtraction to work through these every day situations. This might be a fun thing to try at home!

Writing Workshop: We continue to practice stretching out the sounds and writing all the sounds we hear. This week we also began a special system for organizing our writing! Every child has a folder with a spot for stories they’ve finished and stories they’re still working on.

Exploring God’s World: This week we talked about air. I blew up an inflatable globe and asked the kids, “What’s inside?” Then I “caught” air inside a plastic grocery bag and asked the same question. Next I blew up a balloon and asked the question again. Finally I asked the kids to breathe in and out with their hand in front of their mouths. We can’t see air, but we can feel it and hear it moving sometimes and we know it’s all around us. This reminded us of the Holy Spirit. God is with us always even though we can’t see or hear him directly all the time.

From the Immersion Coordinator

What is circumlocution, and why is it important for our immersion students?
Circumlocution is the process of describing or ‘talking around’ a word that you might not be able to remember or haven’t learned yet. Clearly, the ability to circumlocute is crucial for our immersion students! Everyday they are confronted with the need for more vocabulary. The ability to stay in the language while searching for a new word is a skill that we concretely teach from Kindergarten on up. The process of circumlocution also develops the child’s use of the target language and helps us keep the two languages distinctly separate. You can encourage this skill at home as well by playing games such as Taboo or a verbal form of charades (child needs to guess or describe a word without saying the actual word).
11
Nov
2017

Newsletter 10: Week of November 12

categories: newsletters 2017-2018

Week Overview

I’m so grateful for the opportunity to meet with you all last week! Touching base with you, praying with and for your families, and sharing your child’s progress with you was definitely a highlight of my week. Thank you for making our conference a priority and creating the time in your schedule!

Important Dates

November 21: Picture Trading

November 21: Chapel 1:00

November 22-24: Thanksgiving Break

Reminders

  • Picture Trading: In celebration of Thanksgiving we will trade pictures of ourselves with our friends. This lesson will go along with our brief learning about the First Thanksgiving. Please send in wallet size photos or 4×6 size photos of JUST your child. Your child will need to bring in 19 copies. Often Meijer or Snapfish will run a deal with photos costing just a few cents. I am informing you early, with hopes you can find a deal somewhere. 🙂 We will trade photos on November 21st.
  • Helpful Links from the Office:
    • 2017-2018 ZCS Family Directory: The ZCS Family Directory contains staff, Board members, and family contact information as well as class lists. The directory remains in Google Docs, has been fully updated, and will continue to reflect the most current information. Please email zcsinfo@zcs.org to request changes or updates. (Remember to take notice of the tabs across the bottom of the document for easy access to each section!)
    • 2017-2018 ZCS Family Handbook: The ZCS Family Handbook contains information such as school start times, cancellations and delays, calendar, dress code, hot lunch information, etc. It can be found on the ZCS Parents page. Scroll down to find the link.

Curriculum

Bible: We began our unit on Joseph last week. We talked his family’s dynamics, his colorful tunic and the way his brothers responded out of jealousy and anger. We learned about the dreams God gave him and the way God never left Joseph even when things were hard and scary. While I’m confident from the video I shared last week that your child knows the last memory verse, we haven’t celebrated with certificates yet. I hope to do that this week and then begin our next Bible verse, Proverbs 3:5-6.

Literacy: Daily 5 is going very well! As I mentioned to several of you at our conference, the kids have been working so hard on learning the structure and routines of this important learning time. They are working fairly independently and are pretty self-sufficient. I am excited to begin meeting more consistently with small guided reading groups! Beginning this coming Friday every child will bring home a book bag with literacy activities to practice at home. This is highly encouraged, but isn’t homework. Please bring the book bag home on Monday so that we can use the materials during our guided reading groups at school.

We didn’t begin a new letter, mentor text, or grammar concept this week. Our add.a.lingua curriculum is written to be taught over 5 days and I feel it’s too important not to take the time to do it well. I don’t want to stress the kids out by rushing through it either. I would rather take our time and help everyone feel more successful. We reviewed definite articles- el, la, los, and las- as we read El Otoño, a book about fall. It was a great opportunity to practice new fall-themed vocabulary and review a major grammar concept we’ve been learning about. The kids took their own copy of the book home on Thursday.

Book of Friends: We “met” Adrian, Brayden, and Brooklynn this week! I hope to finish this coming week and send the books home soon after.

Math: We’ve been working on numbers 6-10. We’re looking for groups of 5 and trying to think about these big numbers as “5 and some more.” For example, 9 is 5 and 4 more.

Writing Workshop: We continue to work on putting labels in our story drawings. We’re practicing stretching out the sounds and writing all the sounds we hear.

Exploring God’s World: We started a new unit called God’s Earth. On Thursday I sent home a parent letter with some details about this unit and some suggestions and ideas to continue learning at home if you choose. Last week we tossed around an inflatable globe and kept track of where our thumbs landed- in water or on land. We discovered that the Earth is mostly made of water!

Afternoons: This time continues to be a relaxing, fun, and educational time for our class. I encouraged the kids to play with something they don’t normally play with and then something they haven’t played with in a long time. I even closed some of the most popular centers. The kids complained at first, but when they got going, the creativity I witnessed was incredible! I saw boys fishing from “boats,” girls taking their babies to the doctor, and boys and girls using the tools (pretend screws and screwdrivers,) to make fun designs on the “wood.”

From the Immersion Coordinator

What is an aalpa?

This is an acronym that stands for add.a.lingua language performance assessment. Sometime before Thanksgiving, all students between 1st and 5th grade will complete this evaluation; K-5 will complete another aalpa in the spring as well. At its most basic level, it is a unit of study that assesses each child’s use of the language in interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational modes. The teachers will lead their students through a study of a particular topic and give the students individual feedback at each stage. They will look at language-use strengths and challenges. The teachers will use these results to guide their instruction and set language goals for each child. The results from each aalpa are entered into a computer program which allows us to track student growth and learning trends from year to year.

04
Nov
2017

Newsletter 9: Week of November 5

categories: newsletters 2017-2018

Week Overview

I praise God for another great week of  kindergarten! One of the biggest highlights this week for me, and I think all of the kids, was Grandparents Day. We’ve been talking lots in Bible about God being a covenant, faithful God. His faithfulness throughout the generations was clear as kindergarteners, parents, and grandparents worked and played together Friday morning. Thank you to all of you for the parts you played in making the day so enjoyable! Thank you all for the donations of supplies, the prayers, the Gifts of Being Grand coordination, and to parents who donated their time and talents Friday morning at school!

Important Dates

November 8: No PM Bus / No Hot Lunch

November 8-9: Parent/Teacher Conferences  in the evening – K-8 School in session

November 9: No PM Bus / No Hot Lunch

November 10: No School

November 21: Picture Trading

Reminders

  • Questionnaire: Last call to fill this out please! I’ll be reviewing your responses this week. If you haven’t already filled out the questionnaire to help guide our time together, please do so by clicking here! Thank you!
  • Gifts of Being Grand- I have already received a few of these- thank you! Please help me connect with grandparents by passing along these precious keepsakes. I sent home a letter detailing this form and what to expect on Grandparents Day. I’ve also included this information under our resources tab on this blog.  I’ll add the Gifts of Being Grand to your children’s spiritual journals, a collection of pieces created throughout their years at ZCS. I would love to have these by Grandparents Day please and will have extra copies that day if anyone needs them. Thank you!
  • Picture Trading: In celebration of Thanksgiving we will trade pictures of ourselves with our friends. This lesson will go along with our brief learning about the First Thanksgiving. Please send in wallet size photos or 4×6 size photos of JUST your child. Your child will need to bring in 19 copies. Often Meijer or Snapfish will run a deal with photos costing just a few cents. I am informing you early, with hopes you can find a deal somewhere. 🙂 We will trade photos on November 21st.
  • Picture Retakes- If your child would like his/her picture retaken, please SEND YOUR CHILD’S UNCUT PICTURE PACKET to school on picture retake day- November 9. This serves as the reorder form and is necessary. If your child missed getting his/her pictures taken, there are new picture envelopes in the office for ordering.
  • Helpful Links from the Office:
    • 2017-2018 ZCS Family Directory: The ZCS Family Directory contains staff, Board members, and family contact information as well as class lists. The directory remains in Google Docs, has been fully updated, and will continue to reflect the most current information. Please email zcsinfo@zcs.org to request changes or updates. (Remember to take notice of the tabs across the bottom of the document for easy access to each section!)
    • 2017-2018 ZCS Family Handbook: The ZCS Family Handbook contains information such as school start times, cancellations and delays, calendar, dress code, hot lunch information, etc. It can be found on the ZCS Parents page. Scroll down to find the link.

Curriculum

Bible: We wrapped up our unit in Bible with Jacob’s escape and eventual return home. The kids were amazed when they heard the words of their Bible verse right in our Bible story! Their expressions help me understand what “childlike faith” is. I will assess the verse this week.

Genesis 28:15 Yo estoy contigo. Te protegeré por dondequiera que vayas, y te traeré de vuelta a esta tierra. No te abandonaré hasta cumplir con todo lo que te he prometido.

“I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. 

Literacy: In grammar this week we learned how to change articles to match the number of nouns we are talking about. For example, el amigo means 1 friend and los amigos means more than 1 friend.

  • Reading strategy: Making connections
  • Word wall word: el papá (dad)
  • Read aloud: Así Vamos a Escuela (review)
  • Vocabulary Words:
    • disfrutar (to enjoy)
    • techos (roofs)
    • las zancadas (steps)
    • la campiña (countryside) *Some of our Kindergarten friends made connections between this word and where they live!
    • el titubeo (hesitation)
    • apurados (rushed, hurried)
    • los patines (skates)
  • Phrase of the week: ¿Qué es eso?  (What’s that?)
  • Letter of the week: Pp

Handwriting: We learned how to write uppercase and lowercase P this week. We learned that some letters sit on top of the line and others sink beneath it.

Book of Friends: We “met” Bennett and Kate this week! We’re getting close to the end!

Math: We’ve been working on our math test for unit 1 this week. I hope to share this with you at our conference. Your kids are doing an awesome job!

Writing Workshop: We learned about labels this week. Labels are words that tell readers about our pictures. We labelled the parts of a pumpkin and then the kids had a hoot labeling me! 🙂

Exploring God’s World: Many of your children were excited to use our PBL map to give grandparents a tour of our school! On Thursday morning we practiced highlighting the route as we walked from the gym to our classroom.

Afternoons: Wednesday afternoon I assessed many students in the hallway while Maestra DeKruyter helped the kids make a November calendar. As a reminder, this is an optional activity to do at home. You might try crossing off the days that pass, highlighting any special days like birthdays or trips or using the calendar to practice counting or saying numbers in Spanish. Other things we did in the afternoons this week include: playing in the house, making LOTS of bracelets with the beads (thank you for your donations!) and creating things in the art center.

Up in Lights: Bennett was up in lights this week! He introduced us to his sisters, parents and Ava, his cat. It’s clear God made Bennett special and we’re so grateful for him!

From the Immersion Coordinator

Our teachers look forward to connecting with you at parent/teacher conferences next week. As the program coordinator, I will also be available to meet with parents. If you have questions, concerns, or seek to learn more about a certain aspect of our immersion programming at ZCS, please connect directly with me to schedule a time. My email address is jpierce@zcs.org. Thanks!