Newsletter 23
It’s hard to believe February is ending and March is coming. I can’t believe how fast time is passing but I think we are all excited for warmer days (Though the snow got back today :O) We had a generally warmer week and the children loved not having to spend so much time dressing up in order to go outside!
We had a wonderful and meaning chapel on Thursday as we focus on talking about loving others, and showing our love. It was great to be reminded to be kind, be good, be full of compassion and full of love. We pray that God will give us the glasses to be able to tell us who is in need of help and pray that God will give us the compassion to help others. (I encourage to ask your child what they heard at chapel and how they would like to show their love to others!)
What did we learn and What will we learn?
Mandarin/Language Arts: We are focusing on adjectives and verbs for our grammar – it is so fun to teach and start hearing the children expands the way that they share news and speak/write their sentences! We continue to review our words and learning new words. Our leveled reading book is slowly transitioning to having new characters and phrases that the children would need to start decoding more – whether it’s on recognizing the words and/or understanding the books. Our daily 5 has transitioned fully into children’s choices, and they are getting used to the cues and telling the teacher their choice. We will continue to take the journey and challenges towards more independence, and taking ownership of our learning.
Bible: We shared 3 more miracles this week – Jesus feeding 5,000, Jesus walking on water, as well as Jesus raising Lazarus from the death. We talked about how miracles are only possible in God because He is the powerful one, we learned about having faith in God even though at times it’s hard. We also talked about how even though as sinners we often lose faith in God, God never gives up on us. Next week we will review all Jesus’ miracles (We are constantly reminded by how powerful He is!) that we have heard and pre-teach what parables are – and the following week we will start our unit on Jesus’ parables.
Memory Verse/Fruit of the Spirit: We continue to talk about kindness and goodness, as we think about how we learn to continue to be kind and good to each other. We continue to talk about how we can be kind, good and loving to others around us and also the ones that are not around us. We are also practicing our February Bible Memory Verse. Next week I will assess the children’s February Bible Memory Verse and we will introduce March’s Memory Verse and Fruit of Spirit.
Math: We continue to practice our addition and subtraction (counting with our fingers this week), we continue to work on teen numbers and doing 10+some more to make them, practicing writing our teen numbers, as well as discovering partner groups. We are also practicing to make and combine shapes using 2D foam shapes, while at the same time learning to classifying things in group. Feel free to continue to practice adding and subtracting, telling addition/subtraction stories through your daily conversations, writing numbers (especially practicing teen numbers and getting them used to the idea of 10+more).
Exploring God’s World (Sci/SocStu): Our unit of Social Studies focus on How Do We Get Along With Others. This unit specifically dive in to concepts like fairness, thinking about other rights and feelings, responsibilities, and citizenship. It is actually goals that we work on as Kindergarteners all year long – and now that the children have more language and understanding it is great to really dive into these concepts and talk about them.
Writing: The children continue to enjoy writing and word searching to be able to try to write their stories with words. We focus on teaching words that we can include in our stories as transitional/sentence opening this week. I encourage the children to look back to what they have written and see if the transitional phrases can help their stories to be smoother.
Play: There was quite some big projects during play time this week! With the high frequency word “get ready” and “start” the children are currently big on competing with marbles and cars. We also continue to enjoy playing school with stuffed animals. This week we also did some flower arts with poms poms and pipe cleaners as we get excited over the warm week!
Things to Note:
Garden Crossing Field Trip Sign Up: Garden Crossing Field Trip is coming up March 24th, Friday. We need 2 more chaperones to drive 6 kids! Sign up link is here: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0d4ea5a922a6fc1-spring1
Water Bottle/Towel: Water Bottle and Towel were sent home on Friday. Please clean them and return them to school by Monday.
Papers coming home: Just wanted to let you know that for quiet time the children have the choice to work on some simple things that are totally optional (I usually have a sheet or two of math/other simple tasks) that they can choose to do during quiet time on their towel with a clipboard throughout the week. They can also choose to just rest and lay on their towel – I have found that this group of children enjoys doing things instead of just laying on their towel. If they started something that they didn’t finish I’ll have them bring it home on Fridays – feel free to use it as a resource or practice at home and know that I do not expect it to be returned to school.
Valentine Quarters: Keep collecting quarters ? Keep Wayne and his family, as well as our sister school in Philippines in your prayers. I can’t wait to hear how the children earn their quarters. Just a reminder that I would love to have the heart sheet back by next Tuesday (latest the end of Friday please!)
Parent Teacher Conferences: Time is flying by way too quickly – we are already planning for SPRING conferences. I am excited to see you on March 20th or 21st. I have sent home a questionnaire for this conference (same as the last conference – it is optional to fill it in this time, if you do fill it in, I’ll appreciate it if you send it back to school by March 13th.) Conferences Sign up begins March 3rd at 9:00 am.
BOOK IT: Keep reading and turning in Book It’s for your pizza coupons! I also wanted you to know that this coming week I will be sending home the LAST Book It page for the year.
Mandarin Homework&Flashcard: Homework and Flashcard this coming week are words/phrases from U4W4. Please continue to help me in keeping your children accountable for following stroke order and word proportion on Homework, and recognizing characters for Flashcard. Thank you for all you do at home!
From the Immersion Program Coordinator – Why does my child’s teacher feel that she/he needs to step out of the classroom to talk to me? Our teachers do a phenomenal job of protecting the target language-only environment in the classroom, and you can play an important role in protecting it as well! When we set clear boundaries and expectations with children, we know they are much quicker to respect our expectations. It is the same with the language use; we need them to see that the classroom is for Spanish or Mandarin only. You can help by using even broken Spanish (or Mandarin if you know it!), by stepping out of the classroom to talk with the teacher, or at minimum, by turning your back and whispering when English is needed. Thanks for the support!
What’s Coming Up?
Specials: Monday – Spanish, Art, Tuesday – Music, Spanish, Wednesday – Library, Spanish. Thursday – Spanish.
Quarters for Wayne DUE: February 28th.
Parent Teacher Conference Sign Up: March 3rd.
Blackout Reading Day (March is Reading Month Event): Wear black and bring a flashlight to school!
Parent Teacher Conferences: March 20th and 21st (NO SCHOOL on March 20th).
Garden Crossings Fieldtrip: March 24th.
Prayer Requests:
With the weather changes we have a couple of friends that are having some cold/flu! Please pray for health and adjustments of the weather changing ?
Please also join me in prayer as we welcome and transition into having our Head of School – prayers for Mr. McAboy and his family!
谢谢！
－黎老师