Newsletter #1
Wow! First week of school flew by! We are getting to know each other, and starting a little bit of Mandarin here and there. This coming week we will talk about how God created each and every one of us different and uniquely and we will celebrate that. We will also talk about carefully choosing kind and loving words, and do kind actions through a toothpaste activity.
Thank you for your support! From filling in paper work, getting things in promptly, classroom donations, prayers and encouraging words. Please know that it is greatly appreciated 🙂
What did we learn and What will we learn?
Mandarin: We are doing our daily calendar with Mandarin – It include dates, days of the week, months of the year, weather. We also have been learning colors, and Animals in Mandarin. We are starting to use Mandarin through short phrases and pictures, as well as repeating after Li Laoshi. There are songs that your children already know (or will soon be really familiar with) that we use daily during a couple of routines, and we often sing it together as a class.
Bible: We discussed about God and the bible. We also talk about our school theme selfless. We started talking about Day 1 and 2 of the Creation stories and will continue to tell the Creation Stories next week.
Math: We learned numbers, and review what we know in Mandarin (mostly from 1-10). We looked and numbers and counted dots that represent numbers. We will learn different ways to represent numbers.
Play: We have been exploring a couple of things in our classroom. We talked about sharing, being nice and respectful to our toys and classroom, and how to clean up. Next week, we will get to have Play time at the preschool classrooms.
The Kissing Hand: We read the story of Chester in English and in Mandarin, and we also had a “school tour” as we look for Chester! We also have an artwork that goes along with The Kissing Hand that you might have seen out by our classroom.
Social Studies: We talked about what it means to respect and make good choices. We also got a chance to talk about our class contract and sign it as a class. We will continue to learn classroom routines and brainstorm how to be a part of a class.
Our classroom rules are:
- Love God, Love others as yourself
- Be a good friend
- Make good choices
Things to Note:
Information: Thank you for coming to our parent information night! If you have any questions after reading all the papers in your folder, please let me know. If you are confused about something or don’t feel like you have enough information, contact me! It is possible that I might have missed an important detail without realizing it.
Routine: We have been learning and practicing a couple different routines.
Morning routine:
- Arrival
- Lunch bag, water bottle
- Red alert folder and mail for Li Laoshi
- Choose Lunch
- Take chair down from table
- Hang backpack in locker
- Recess – Playground until 8:40am (Kindergarteners doesn’t have to wait for LiLaoshi to pick them up anymore, they can start walking back by themselves as the bell ring)
- Morning work
Going home routine
- Pray
- Pick up trash
- Back pack
- Lunch bag
- Water bottle (if bringing home every day)
- Red alert folder and mail
- Dismissal as name is called
- Stack the chair
Please help me make sure that Red Alert folder is check daily and returned to the children’s backpack!
Volunteers: Thank you to our classroom volunteers for Busy Bees at Home and at School. If you are interested in getting on the list to help out our classroom – let me know!
Bus Duty and Busser: This coming week we start bussing – for the first couple of days I will be walking our busser to the bus so I will be asking a parent that is available by our class to watch the children for a couple minutes while I’m gone, and dismiss your child afterwards. On Tuesdays I have Bus Duty, I will be gone from 3:25-3:40PM (I will bring the busser with me as I head out). Elda and/or Carrie are willing to help me dismiss the children – so on Tuesdays, they will be dismissing the children. Thank you for helping me make this work!
Blue Note: If you did not receive the Blue Note electronically this past Wednesday, please email Tracy Nelesen (tnelesen@zcs.org) so your email is on the list!
What’s coming up?
Classroom Jobs and Chip System: Our chip system and classroom jobs are starting officially this coming week. We have talked about them and will review again next week as we start the system and our jobs.
Bussing and Hot Lunch – We start them this coming week!
http://www.zps.org/files/2012/11/September-2016-Christian-Menu.pdf
If your child is having hot lunch, please remind your children their choices in the morning – I send out lunch order as soon as we start our day at 8:45am, and once I send it out the children can’t change their choice of lunch. If you need help setting up his/her hot lunch account, please contact the office.
Library: This coming Wednesday, we get to go to the library and take a little tour.
Spanish: We had our first Spanish class last Thursday. This week, Spanish will be on Tuesday and Thursday.
Music: We will be having our first Music class this Tuesday.
PE: We had our first PE class this past Thursday. We will be having our PE on Thursday. Please make sure PE shoes are kept in their locker at all times (when Snow starts coming in they change their boots to PE shoes when they are in the building).
Degraff Nature Center Field Trip: September 30th, Friday.
Please keep our class in your prayers as we grow and learn together 🙂
谢谢!
– 黎老师