Weekly Highlights
We had another great week! God is so good! One thing that stuck out to me as I reflected on this week was how much Spanish your children are using! Thank you, Jesus! Please continue to lift our class up in prayer as we journey toward bilingualism together! I’m so proud of your kids!
Important Dates
- December 14: No pm Bussing
- December 17: Jingle Jog! Our class will be jogging from 10:30-11:00am. If you would like to cheer the kids on, please come to the gym. Students may wear Christmas pajamas (they can have t-shirts if you think they would be too hot). We will wear our gym shoes for the jog 🙂 Mrs. Miller will send home papers soon describing the fundraiser part of the jog. It is to raise money for our sister school in the Philippines.
- December 20: Christmas Chapel led by our kindergarten classes! If you love to decorate and would like to take on the role of adding Christmas trees, poinsettias, balloons or other festive (simple) decorations for our chapel, please email me! The classes will be standing on risers, so we are thinking of a few things to decorate the sides. If this is something you enjoy and would like to take charge of, we would love the help 🙂
- December 21: Classroom Christmas Party. I sent a SignUp Genius out for volunteers. Beyond that, we are set for the party. You won’t have to worry about sending anything extra with your child that day, but they will need their normal snacks and lunch.
Reminders
- Nativity Project: There are still a couple spots left in our SignUp Genius. If you are interested in helping please, I’d really appreciate it! Follow this link to sign up.
- Hot Lunch: I have to turn in the hot lunch order by 10:00, but usually do it by 9:00 as part of our morning routine. If you come in late, please be sure to let the office know you are ordering hot lunch when you sign your child in. If you let me know ahead of time to order hot lunch for your child, for example, when you email to say they will be tardy, I’ll just include it with our normal class order. When a student needs hot lunch, but didn’t order it, they have to wait until everyone goes through the line to see what is extra. This means that child has very little time to eat and usually has to finish up during recess. 🙁
Curriculum
Bible: We started our nativity scene project this week! We learned about the angel who spoke to Zachariah and Elizabeth and then the angel who spoke to Mary. We learned that angels had an important job- to tell people good news from God. We also made Mary and Joseph. This week I assessed on our November Bible verse. 🙂 Below is our verse for December.
Lucas 2:6,7 Mientras estaban allí así que dio a luz a su hijo primogénito. Lo envolvió en pañales y lo acostó en un pesebre, porque no había lugar para ellos en la posada.
Luke 2:6,7 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.
Literacy: We continued to explore adjectives. We learned how to change adjectives to describe more than one thing.
- Read aloud: Sueños
- Vocabulary Words:
- nacer- to be born
- el barco- boat
- profundo- deep
- navegar- navigate
- la sirena- mermaid
- Word wall word: es (is)
- Phrase of the week: Vamos a recoger.
- Letter of the week/handwriting letter: Ll
Math: This week we started practicing how to count by 5’s. We made a Christmas tree of handprints. Each handprint is 5 fingers. This was a fun way to learn about counting by 5’s!
Writing Workshop: This week we turned our focus a bit to writing lists. We’re working on writing a list of animals.
Exploring God’s World: It was exciting to use our knowledge of adjectives to describe Earth materials this week! We closely observed each one using our 5 senses and then wrote a list of adjectives to describe each one.
Afternoons: This week we opened some new math centers all about Christmas! Kindergarteners use dominos, base 10 blocks, a cut and paste activity, and a dice game to practice math. It is good to have everyone here on Tuesday afternoons!
Up in Lights: Lydia was Up in Lights this week! Her mom, dad, and older brother, Eli, came to visit and share some of the ways God made Lydia so special. Her dad read us a Fancy Nancy book and we got to learn some new fancy words. 🙂 Thank you, Lydia! We love you so much! You are a precious child of God and our class wouldn’t be the same without you!
From the Immersion Program Director, Jodi Pierce
Wondering how kids learn language? So are we! Join Betsy Sneller, language researcher at Georgetown University (also known as Mr. Sneller’s daughter and a grad of ZCS), and Jodi Pierce, director of ZCS’s language immersion program, for a short presentation about language acquisition on Tuesday, December 11 at 7:00 in the media center. Betsy will talk about how researchers study language acquisition, what the field has uncovered so far, and some of the exciting questions they are still researching. Come with any questions you might have! The content will definitely be applicable for both immersion and non-immersion parents.
