Week Overview
We had another awesome full week of kindergarten together! This week we created a classroom contact 100% led by the input your kids gave on how they think we should do school. Their awesome ideas included: raise your hand, do not interrupt, close your eyes when you pray, sit like a pretzel in your carpet square, be loving, be safe, share, learn, obey, and listen quietly when it’s not your turn to talk. Everyone signed the contract promising to do their best to follow their suggestions. They are getting the hang of this school thing!
Have you noticed we have the blessing of some extra hands in our room? Maestra Katie Poynter is officially joining our class in the mornings M-F! She works under the umbrella of CLC. She and her husband have two kids, a kindergartner and a 2nd grader. Maestra Angelica is with us 4 mornings a week. She works in our immersion program and is spending her time with us until December when Maestra Zondervan’s nephew heads back to Mexico. I will try hard to share her at that point! 🙂 Maestra Angelica has four kids 8th grade and older. Breanna Lamer, a 6th grader here at ZCS, expressed interest in helping in our classroom while she waits for her younger siblings to finish their school day. Of course I took her up on that offer! I am so grateful for these teachers and they are amazing with your children!
Important Dates
- September 28: Teacher Inservice – No School
- October 2: Picture Day for our Class
- October 17: Morning Field trip to DeGraaf Nature Center
- October 22-23: PT conferences in the evening (more details coming later!)
- October 24-26: CEA convention – No School
Reminders
- Picture Day: Picture forms went home this week. You may turn them in at any time between now and picture day. I will keep a collection of them here in our classroom.
- Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA): A note about KRA came home this week. At your earliest convenience please return the form that was attached.
- DeGraaf Nature Center Field Trip: We will leave school at 9:00 am and return by 11:45 AM in time for lunch and AM dismissal. Parents who sign up to drive will transport your child to the trip. If your child does NOT ride an AM bus, please plan to send in their booster seat. If you are interested in driving please see the SignUp Genius here.
- Bathroom Breaks: As you might have noticed, we do not have a bathroom in our classroom. We take class bathroom breaks twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon. Individual bathroom breaks are always allowed, but can lead to missing instruction if they happen too often. If you would please help your child remember to use the bathroom at home before leaving for school I think that would be helpful! Thanks!
- Library: On Tuesday we’ll visit the library again. If your child would like to check out a different book please help them remember to bring their original book back to school. Kindergarteners may check out only one book at a time. For the first time in my 7 years of teaching every student turned in their library book this week! Way to go!! I appreciate your support!
Curriculum
Bible: We continue to walk through the 7 days of creation. This week we completed the pages for days 5-7. We learned that God rested on the 7th day and encourages us to have a special day of rest too.
We’ve also started practicing our Bible memory verse. I’ll assess this verse sometime in a few weeks and we’ll continue practicing at school in the meantime. This would be a great addition to family devotions or bedtime routine. Please visit our Bible Verses tab to see a video to help your child practice at home. (Please don’t laugh at me too hard! I’m not above looking like a fool to help your child!) 🙂
Genesis 8:22 “Mientras la tierra exista habrá siembra y cosecha, frío y calor, verano e invierno, días y noches.”
“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”
Literacy: We continue to build our stamina in Read to Self. Our goal is to read for 10 minutes on 5 different days. When we do we get to learn about the next choice in The Daily Five!
Our linguistic focus this week was articles, el and la. In Spanish all nouns have genders. El is used for masculine nouns and la is used for feminine nouns. Usually masculine nouns end in -o and feminine nouns end in -a. We noticed the articles before each noun and practiced classifying them together!
- Reading strategy: Determining importance of text
- Read aloud: Un beso en mi mano
- Vocabulary Words:
- el beso (kiss)
- el mapache (raccoon)
- el corazón (heart)
- la mano (hand)
- Phrase of the week: Ayúdame por favor. (Help me please.)
- Letter of the week/Handwriting Letter: Oo
Book of Friends: We “met” two new friends this week- Porter and Braxton! It was fun to search for the letter O in their names.
Math: We continue to work on numbers 1-10. This week our math centers included: putting the correct number of play dough apples on the apple trees and forming numbers with play dough, practicing turn taking and counting as we played Hi Ho Cheerio, a roll, count, and color with dice, and making puzzles.
Exploring God’s World: We continue to talk about our 5 senses: gusto, (taste,) olfato, (smell,) oído, (hearing,) tacto, (touch,) and vista (sight.) This week we reviewed our experience with the popcorn and talked about the body parts God made for us that help us use each of our senses.
Writing Workshop: Your kids continue to be great story tellers! About now it might be a good time to remind you I’ll believe a portion of the stories that come from home if you believe a portion of the stories that come from school. 🙂 This week we learned that good writers respond to the stories they hear. We learned how to use phrases like “Yo también,” (Me too,) and “¡Que emocionante!” (How exciting!)
Afternoons: In the afternoons we spent our time resting, playing, and doing math centers. Friday the kids went to K-5 singing for the first time! This is always a highlight and Mr. Meyer does a great job leading us. Just so you’re aware, when we have K-5 singing we may have to miss a special. This week singing was during our usual art time. Mr. Meyer is doing his best to switch up the days we sing together so classes do not always have to miss the same special or any specials at all.
From the Immersion Program Director
Should we be concerned about the MAPS test being offered in English when our immersion students have had limited exposure to English?
Our students in 3rd grade and above have begun MAPS testing this week. While this test is fully in English, the results will still be valuable for individual and programatic data. Research has consistently displayed that standardized testing is still reliable regardless of the difference in language of testing and language of instruction. However, we do interpret the results of our immersion students through the lens of immersion; there are certain areas where we would expect our immersion students to be lower (for example–spelling) for certain grade levels. Conversely, there are also areas where we would expect them to be higher. The intent of these tests are to show individual student growth over time. It will also give us valuable information from which to compare our various programs at school. Offer your children an encouraging word as they anticipate these assessments and remind them to be confident as they approach the English…we know the skills transfer between languages, and we are confident in our immersion students’ adaptability!