Week Overview

We have completed 8 days of Kindergarten! God is good! Thank you for all that you are doing to help us start this school year off well! I am speaking almost 100% Spanish. I’m thrilled with the amount of Spanish your children are comprehending and many of them are bravely speaking Spanish to me already! The week started out very hot, but one afternoon we enjoyed refreshing popsicles from Daniel’s family- thank you! The week ended a lot cooler and I think we were all relieved!

On Tuesday Mr. McAboy presented the Bibles the kids will get to use this year in kindergarten. He put on three different pairs of sunglasses- a red pair, a yellow pair, and a blue pair. We noticed that, while everything looked pretty much the same with each pair of sunglasses, it did look a little red, yellow, or blue. The Bible, Mr. McAboy told us, is like the glasses we use to look at the world around us. We pray that all of us look at others and the world through the lens of God’s Word.

We’ve been talking a lot about using kind words and actions. The Fruit of the Spirit we’re studying this month is love. On Thursday during devotions I squirted some toothpaste on a plate and asked the class to help me get it back in the tube- impossible! The toothpaste, I explained, is a lot like our words or actions. Once we say something we can’t take it back. Once we make a sad choice we can’t take it back. We asked God to help us use loving words and actions. Then I taught the phrases for I’m sorry, lo siento, and It’s okay, Esta bien. While these phrases don’t erase the words or actions we used, we determined they are powerful in making the situation a little better.

Important Dates

• September 21: No pm bussing or hot lunch
• September 28: Teacher Inservice – No School
• October 17: Field trip to DeGraaf Nature Center

Reminders

• The kids have been doing an amazing job knowing how they are getting home from school! Continuing to review this with your child goes a long way in making them feel comfortable at school. I will continue walking students to the bus until they are comfortable finding their buses by themselves. Even then, I will walk them to the outside doors. Even if I haven’t come back to the classroom yet, you are welcome to come on in and pick up your child. I wish I could be in 2 places at once! I hope to never leave the classroom without an adult in charge. On Tuesdays and Thursdays Ms. Kathy will be there. On the other days, Amanda Schrotenboer, Liam’s mom, will be there. Thank you, ladies!
• This week we’ll visit the library for the 1st time at school! We also have gym tomorrow! Please make sure your child has gym shoes at school.
• Please feel free to send a water bottle to school with your child. Hydrated brains help us learn and a shorter line at the drinking fountain means we get to head back to learning that much sooner.
• Thank you for continuing to check the red alert folders. Sometimes they will be empty. This doesn’t mean your child wasn’t learning that day. 🙂 Often we spend our learning time in centers focused around hands-on learning that doesn’t include worksheets.
  

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Curriculum

Bible: God’s creation is amazing! We have learned about the good things God created on days 1-4. Each time we learn about a day of creation I pull out a surprise from the mystery bag that represents what God created on that day. After the lesson, the kids create a new page for their creation book. I love the way slowly going through the creation week in this way helps us focus on our creative God.

Literacy: Our literacy block is taught through The Daily 5. Right now we are building stamina in the 1st of the Daily 5, Read to Self. The kids are working on reading the whole time, staying in 1 spot, and reading quietly. Try asking your child to model how we do these things for you. In our first round we read for 1.5 minutes! In the next round we read for 6 minutes! We are graphing our reading stamina together. For more information on The Daily 5, please see the document under the “More Resources” tab.

Our vocabulary words below come from our mentor text, a book that I read out loud and use to focus on different reading strategies.

• Reading strategy: Determining importance of text
• Read aloud: Bienvenidos a Kindergarten
• Vocabulary Words:
  • la oficina (office)
  • divertido (fun)
  • la enfermería (nurse)
  • especial (special)
  • el patio de recreo (playground)
• Phrase of the week: ¿Cómo estás? Muy bien, gracias. ¿Y tu?
• Letter of the week: What is a letter? What is a vowel? a, e, i, o, u

Book of Friends: Each kindergartener is working on a book of friends. When the project is complete they will have a page for each of the kindergarten friends in their book. Creating the pages helps us focus on our different names- how many letters? vowels or consonants? etc. It also gives us an opportunity to celebrate how God made each one of us unique as we draw a picture of the friend on that page. So far we have completed a page for Jesus and started a page for Elle Koster! Before drawing, we discussed how to draw people without skipping some of the most important features like eyes, hands, ears, etc.

Math: We are working on counting up to 10 in Spanish and using different manipulatives and strategies to represent the numbers. Try asking your child to find a group of objects that matches the number you tell them. Each morning we count the days of school we’ve completed and do that number of a variety of different exercises. Twice in the morning and once in the afternoon this week we ran math centers. While I or Maestra Angelica worked with a small group of students, the rest of the class worked on puzzles, creating masterpieces with large foam pattern blocks, or building with unifix cubes.

From the Immersion Program Director:

I wanted to take this opportunity to re-introduce myself to our immersion families. My name is Jodi Pierce, and I serve as the director of our immersion programs. Among other professional experiences, I have taught in the immersion setting abroad, served as the director of another immersion program prior to ZCS, and hold a MA in Dual Language and Immersion Education. I am passionate about the opportunities that immersion education offers our students, and I am determined to help our staff make our immersion program the best it can be. If you have any immersion-related questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to stop by my office (Office #69 between the media center and gym) or send me an email (pierce@zcs.org). It is a blessing to be partnering with you as we strive to “Love God, Love Kids, and Love Learning!”