Weekly Highlights
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. It was wonderful meeting many of your parents and I’m grateful for their support! Thank you to all of you as well 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! Here are some pictures from our special day! I’m working on getting the fun photo booth pictures to you soon!
Important Dates
- November 8: Picture Retake Day
- November 8: NO PM Busing
- November 9: NO AM or PM Busing
- November 20: All school Chapel (9am)
- November 20: Friends-giving Celebration (see below)
- November 21-23: Thanksgiving Vacation
Reminders
- Gifts of Being Grand: Many of yoru parents turned in their GIfts of Being Grand pages during Grandparents’ Day. If you need another copy of the form please click here. I would love these by the end of November please. Thank you for helping create a lifetime memory for your child.
- On November 20 we are going to have a friends-giving celebration together. I would love for you to send in 26 bite-sized pieces of your child’s favorite food. We’ll then sample and enjoy our classmates very favorite food together in a friends-giving feast. I welcome you to be as creative or simple as you wish. Please send the food pre-cut and ready to eat. If it’s a food that should be eaten warm, you could send it in a thermos. Thanks for helping us celebrate Thanksgiving together!
- Please continue to check your children for lice daily. We have NOT found it in our classroom, but I would love to stay on top of this! Thanks! Along with checking your child’s head, you might consider putting coats and hats in the dryer for 30 minutes every day after school. This would kill any lice that may be on those items. We are doing our best to prevent it from coming into our room. Should you find any on your child’s head please let me or the office know. I know this can seem overwhelming and, possibly embarrassing to some, but please know we love you and are here to support you!
Curriculum
Bible: This week we continued talking about Abraham’s family. We learned about Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Esau. It was exciting to hear the very story we learned in Bible class shared at chapel and then taught by Mr. McAboy on Grandparents’ Day!
Our new Bible verse is below. Check out the Bible verses tab for a video!
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.
Daily 5 is also going really well! Right now kindergarteners may choose between read to self, work on writing, or listen to a book on the iPad. I started meeting with small groups and hope to continue this into next week! I love the moments I get to work with your children in small groups!
- 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
Math: This week we wrapped up unit 1 with our test. I am so proud of the gains your children are making already this year!
Writing Workshop: We learned about labels this week. Labels are words that tell readers about our pictures. The kids giggled a lot as they labeled me! 🙂 Then they worked on writing labels in their own stories.
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: We had some transitional students add more time at school this week. We loved the extra time with each friend! Maestra Patrick, one of our PreK teachers shared some water beads with us and the kids loved exploring in that sensory bin. We also have a bin of corn in our classroom that many friends have been enjoying. One afternoon Mr. Lowe came to help us learn some songs for Grandparents’ Day. Another afternoon some middle schoolers from HC orchestra came to play for us. We also had our first Mandarin classes! It was an exciting week!
Up in Lights: This week Makayla was Up in Lights! It was fun to meet her parents and her two little sisters. Makayla’s favorite song is “Oh What a Glorious Night” by Sidewalk Prophets. I was very excited to listen to a Christmas song! 🙂 Thank you, Makayla, for introducing us to your family and many of your favorite things! Our class would not be the same without you and your friendly smile!
From the Immersion Program Director
Where can I learn more about immersion education?
In addition to add.a.lingua’s parent site and blog which many of you have joined (
http://addalingua.com/parent)
, the CARLA website gives a plethora of options for learning more about
immersion (
http://carla.umn.edu/immersion/). This is the website for the
Center for
Advanced
Research on
Language
Acquisition which is a resource for
immersion educators around the world. The U.S. Department of Education funds 9 language resource centers, and this is the one that focuses on
immersioneducation. While much of the site is geared towards professional educators, parents can also glean great research-based information and tools from the portion of this site that is directed towards parents.
