Newsletter #32

Newsletter #32

We started the week celebrating another jar filled – it’s always exciting to see the children taking ownership of their own learning (jars filled are all their hard work!) We are also working on being more independent in class! This week we started with less to no reminders to do our classroom job, putting things in our red alert folders ourselves, as well as starting morning work independently. We have also started leading lunch prayers (I am most excited about this!) during lunch, one child per day. They are also in charge in delivering important verbal reminders and information to you from school to home.

*Sharing some pictures from our celebration, worm lesson and beginning stages of Critters PBL!*

It’s been such a pleasure working with you this year – thank you so much for the little things you send in during this week! Feeling so blessed and loved as your child’s teacher 🙂 I love what I do each day! Enjoy the wonderful weekend and don’t forget to go and pick up your 1ST (Garden Crossings) Mother’s Day Gift!

Next week’s schedule:

-½ Day Wednesday, May 10 –  Buses will be running (10:45 middle school dismissal/11:50 Elementary Dismissal.)

-Full Day Thursday, May 11 – NO Hot Lunch and NO PM Busing

-Full Day Friday, May 12 – NO Hot Lunch and NO PM Busing

What did we learn and What will we learn?

Mandarin/Language Arts: We continue to grow and learn new characters/phrases, as well as expanding our vocabularies in our daily conversations and news sharing. In leveled reading, we continue to work on reading books that are getting harder (seeing new words, understanding what they mean, as well as practicing our understanding and reading strategies). We just learned how to read with a friend this week and it will soon be a permanent choice for our daily 5.

Bible: We talked about how Holy Spirit help guide us to know what God wants us to do/His plan for us. We talk about how Paul and Silas were thrown into jail because they were telling God’s news, but Holy Spirit gave them peace and joy even in midst of hard times. We also talked about how Paul shares news about God but not everyone liked that (and he faces difficulty while doing God’s work as well). But we have to be courageous and continue to tell people His words – with God helping us, also through Holy Spirit’s guidance. We will continue to talk about Paul’s stories and how Holy Spirit help us in our daily life.

Memory Verse/Fruit of the Spirit: We are starting to practice our May’s Bible Memory Verse which is about going out and doing His work! We also had a good discussion about May’s Fruit of the Spirit – Self-Control. We did a lesson where the children have to use self-control so that they don’t touch or eat the chocolate that Li Laoshi has put right in front of them – It was not easy, but the children managed to use self-control as they get through the lesson without getting distracted by the chocolate. Self control is a fruit that we have been working to learn all year and this month we get to dive more into it.

I would encourage you to talk about Holy Spirit with the kids if you are able to as well – it can be a harder concept to grasp at their age certainly.

Math: We continue to practice our number sense and learning how numbers work together (addition/subtraction) as well as story problems. In Kindergarten, many skills are reviewed and strategies are practiced so that the children have a solid understanding of the numbers before expanding to learning harder concepts or with bigger numbers. We are also exploring and learning 3D Shapes, identifying them while reviewing our learning on directions.

Exploring God’s World (Sci/SocStu): We are talking about living/non-living things and how to differentiate them. The three ways we know things are living are 1) They can reproduce 2) They grow 3) They eat/take in food as well as produce food. We started the week of with observing and touching the special visitors in our class – worms! It was fun to see children getting excited over His creation and learning about His world! We have also started talking about our PBL Projects which is a children based research unit on animals. We already voted for the 3 animals we are teaching, and will be diving into phases of research which is – what we know and what do we want to know, and how do we find information.

Writing: We finished up our garden crossing stories and had the chance to share it with our friends. This week we also started talking about How To Books and practiced writing a How To Book together that cross over with our Science Learning as we teach others How To Plant Flowers!

Play: We love love animals and is so excited that we get to dive into learning animals and teaching animals in our PBL Unit!

Things to Note:

Water Bottle and Towels: Water bottle and towels were send home on Friday, please clean them and return them on Monday!

Garden Crossing Flowers Pick Up: An email and a hard copy coupon has been sent home! You are welcome to go and pick up your plants. The date for pick up is May 3rd-May13th! It will be a perfect opportunity for some bonding time as Mother’s Day is coming up 🙂

Memorial Day Parade: The note on memorial day parade has been sent home on Thursday. If you have any questions let me know! Please EMAIL me if you are NOT COMING!

Mandarin Homework&Flashcard: Homework that will be coming home next week will be word wall words and high frequency words from framework U6W3. Thank you for your continue work at home!

From ZCS Office – If you have not already done so, please hand in your enrollment form/packet to the school office! Thank you!

From the Immersion Coordinator – All immersion parents are invited to learn more about your child’s immersion education at an Immersion Parent Round Table Discussion. While these are completely optional, I encourage anyone to join at least one meeting whether you have questions or just prefer to listen. The grade levels are just suggested ranges so that we can focus on topics which tend to be of interest to that level but don’t feel restricted by them. We will meet in the classroom at the back of the media center. Bring your lunch and your questions!

  • May 17 at 12:00: Preschool-3rd
  • May 18 at 12:00: 4th-8th

What’s Coming Up?

Specials: Monday – Spanish, Art, Tuesday – Music, Spanish, Wednesday – Library, PE. Thursday – Spanish.

Tulip Time Half Day School: Wednesday, May 10th.

NO HOT LUNCH/PM Bussing: Thursday and Friday, May 11th and 12th.

Garden Crossing Flowers Pick Up: The dates to pick up the flowers are May 3rd till May 13th.

Memorial Day Vacation/Parade (NO SCHOOL): Monday, May 29th. Kindergarteners who are interested and available that day are invited to march in the parade in downtown Zeeland!

Farmers Market Fieldtrip (tentative depending on weather): WednesdayMay 31st. (We might not make it back in time for Hot Lunch so please NO HOT LUNCH that day as well)

Save the Date – PBL Celebration: Thursday, June 1st, 2:30-3:25PM!

Prayer Requests:

We are taking on new challenges and learning to be more independent on many things in class! Prayers for courage and learning spirit as we take big steps in this last month of Kindergarten. Prayers for the children as they take on more responsibilities and ownership of their learning and the things that they do each day 🙂 Also pray for patience and perseverance as we continue learning when summer is getting closer and closer!

谢谢!

-黎老师

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *