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

Newsletter 22

We had a very fun and a busy week too! It is such a week of celebration with 100th Day, Valentines Day, as well as Mandarin jars filled celebration 🙂 I love love Kindergarten at this time of the year because their language have grown so much that there is a lot of output happening, and they also start to understand jokes now in Mandarin! We are also starting to do many more things independently – and the children take ownership of their learning so much more. I hope you have a great break on Monday, and I will see you on Tuesday!

*I have also introduced part of the framework for next week, and sent home the homework. It is still due on Friday like usual – In the future this is what would most likely happen when we have a 4 day week!*

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 expand the way that they share news and speak/write their sentences! There are many things in framework that I used to guide them through as they work, that I am starting to have the children try working on by themselves, we are doing great ? We are transitioning towards more independence in Mandarin tasks as well! We have been reviewing each choices in our daily 5, and have been trying to transitions independently. We are almost at the fully independent daily 5 time! The children are getting really familiar with the each different components of framework that we introduced, practiced and assessed each week.

Bible: We shared 2 more miracles this week – Jesus healing the lepers, as well as Jesus healing the blind. We talked about how Jesus give healing to those who are sick, but not only physically, He also give healing to the ones that need Him in their hearts.  Next week we will talk about Jesus feeding 5,000, Jesus walking on water, and Jesus raising Lazarus from the death if time.

Memory Verse/Fruit of the Spirit: We had a good conversation talking about kindness and goodness, as we think about how we learn to continue to be kind and good to each other. In light of Valentines Day we also had a talk about different ways we would show our love for God and people 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, 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. Please continue to find opportunities for your children to practice their number writing and ask them if the number looks right if it’s written backwards. We are also in the introduction section of making and combining shapes using 2D foam shapes. Feel free to encourage your child to spot different shapes on things they see around them! You can also start practicing addition/subtraction concept with them through different opportunities at home (like counting plates on the table as you set up dinner, adding/subtracting with cereals/snacks before they eat, etc.) Have the children show you how they count with their fingers as well as through pictures!

Exploring God’s World (Sci/SocStu): We continue  to practice directions in Science and Social Studies. In Science we focus on different direction words like front, back, left, right, inside, outside, in front, behind, in between as well as in the middle. In Social Studies we are learning about North, South, East, and West, as well as reviewing an individual in the earth. The children are making connections of the terms that they know in English, but now learning it in Mandarin. We are wrapping up our Science Motion unit, and we are talking about citizenship and talking about what it means to be a part of our world in Social Studies.

Writing: I got to meet one on one with the children again this week – and got to chat with them about their writing. I have also introduced them a little booklet that they can keep their ideas in when they can’t write down their stories quite yet (because they are working on writing another story). The children are getting used to the idea of finding words in their books, on the wall or asking their friends. In the next weeks we will continue to focus on writing stories, and also learning the steps before officially publishing a story.

Play: The children had such a sweet and heartwarming time on Tuesday as they open valentines gifts and making note cards for their friends and family. A highlight is also on Friday we went out and stayed outside together to play some new games that LiLaoshi taught as a Mandarin celebration! The children voted for “LiLaoshi playing with us inside/outside”, we decided to take advantage of the warmth sunshine on Friday!

Things to Note:

Spring Field Trip Sign Ups: Looking ahead, there are 2 field trips coming up – Garden Crossings is on March 24th, Friday (8:45-10:30AM), and Critter Barn/Timbertown is on April 20th, Thursday (8:45-3:15PM Whole Day!). We still have spots for Garden Crossings Chaperone! Here is the Signup Genius Link for Chaperone sign up. http://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0d4ea5a922a6fc1-spring1

Box Top: Feel free to send in box top anytime, and when you do, please label S.Sulayman on the bag and write down the total amount of box top collected. Thank you!

Valentine Quarters: We are raising money for our sponsor child in the Philippines this month. The heart sheet attached is the sheet your child will be turning in at the end of February. For each “task/job” they completed, you are welcome to tape a quarter (or more) on the heart sheet, or collect it in a bag and cross the heart out. We will learn to love the others during this time of the year, as we earn money to support our friend Wayne at Philippines. 

Mandarin Homework&Flashcard: Homework and Flashcard this coming week are from U4W3. 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 – Do you know what the threefold goal of immersion education at ZCS is? We aim to advance the students’ academic achievement,cultural competency, and insist on high level performance in the target language. We are privileged to do this all within the Christian environment of ZCS. If anyone you know would like to tour our program to see immersion education in action, feel free to connect with Jodi Pierce, the Language Immersion Programs Coordinator at jpierce@zcs.org.

What’s Coming Up?

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

President’s Day – NO SCHOOL: February 20th.

All-School Chapel: February 23rd, 9:10AM.

Quarters for Wayne DUE: February 28th.

Parent Teacher’s Conference Sign Up: March 3rd. – I will send the note through email soon!

Parent Teacher’s Conferences: March 20th and 21st (NO SCHOOL 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

Newsletter 21

We had a good week and ended the week on a high note as we take our field trip to learn and review motions! It is so fun to see the Kindergarteners in action and learn through many, many movements. Next week we will be celebrating 100th Day of school on Monday! The children are also welcome to bring in little Valentine treats that they can go ahead and deliver in their friend’s boxes on Monday/Tuesday.

What did we learn and What will we learn?

Mandarin/Language Arts: We continue to practice recognizing words, making meaning as well as practicing reading strategy as we read together in class. There are some things in framework that I used to guide them through as they work, that I am starting to have the children try working on by themselves ? We are transitioning towards more independence in Mandarin tasks as well! We have been reviewing each choices in our daily 5, and have been trying to transitions independently. The children are getting really familiar with the each different components of framework that we introduced, practiced and assessed each week.

Bible: We shared 2 more miracles this week – Jesus calming the storm and Jesus catching fishes! We had a good conversation talking about how when Jesus calms the storms, it’s like when we have hard things going on in our life too. We have to have enough faith that God will take control 🙂 We also talk about how when Jesus tells His disciples to go and catch men, that means Jesus wants us to go to the world and tell many, many people His story and introduce them to Jesus! I love sharing Jesus’ miracles stories with the children because it reminds all of us how powerful and mighty He is. Next week we will talk about Jesus healing the lepers, the blind as well as feeding 5,000 if time permits.

Memory Verse/Fruit of the Spirit:  We introduced the February Memory Verse and Fruit of the Spirit. We will dive more into them this month.

Math: We continue to practice our addition and subtraction, we continue to work on teen numbers and doing 10+some more to make them, as well as discovering partner groups. Please continue to find opportunities for your children to practice their number writing and ask them if the number looks right if it’s written backwards. You can also start practicing addition/subtraction concept with them through different opportunities at home (like counting plates on the table as you set up dinner, adding/subtracting with cereals/snacks before they eat, etc!) Have the children show you how they count with their fingers as well as through drawings!

Exploring God’s World (Sci/SocStu): We are practicing directions in Science and Social Studies. In Science we focus on different direction words like front, back, left, right, inside, outside, in front, behind, in between as well as in the middle. In Social Studies we are learning about North, South, East, and West. The children are making connections of the terms that they know in English, but now learning it in Mandarin. Our field trip to For the Kidz was so much fun as we explore motions out of class/school!

Writing: This week I introduced conferencing officially with the children. I model how conference looks like when we write, and tells them that every Thursday and Friday we would have a period of time when I would be focusing on meeting with each child to discuss and talk about their writing. The children are getting used to the idea of finding words in their books, on the wall or asking their friends. In the next weeks we will continue to focus on writing stories, and also learning the steps before officially publishing a story.

Play: The children continue to enjoy playing school with each other! They would reenact the whole day including morning work as well as going home routine. This week some children also write each other notes and deliver it into their friend’s valentine boxes. We also started some of our 100th Day Celebration activities and I can tell that the children are SO EXCITED!

Things to Note:

Spring Field Trip Sign Ups: Looking ahead, there are 2 field trips coming up – Garden Crossings is on March 24th, Friday (8:45-10:30AM), and Critter Barn/Timbertown is on April 20th, Thursday (8:45-3:15PM Whole Day!). We still have 2 spots for Garden Crossings Chaperones! Here is the Signup Genius Link for Chaperone sign up. http://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0d4ea5a922a6fc1-spring1

Box Top: Feel free to send in box top anytime, and when you do, please label S.Sulayman on the bag and write down the total amount of box top collected. Thank you!

Book Bags: Please continue to practice reading with your children, as they need practice to read/recognize the Mandarin characters, and practice different reading strategies! Please make sure book bags (and all the books inside) are send back to school on Mondays – I start meeting with groups right away and need some books bag in order to rotate them in our different groups (since we have limited amount of books). Thank you so much for practicing reading at home with your children!

100th Day Snack Challenge/Project: We are celebrating 100th day of school this coming Monday! I encourage you and your child to participate in our challenge/project, and if you are, please send in the 100th Day snack on Monday, February 13th. Please make sure it is peanut/tree-nut free, also coconut (and coconut oil) free! I Since the children are laying the snacks out on a paper, please make sure that the 100th snacks are dry snacks.

Valentine Quarters: We are raising money for our sponsor child in the Philippines this month. The heart sheet attached is the sheet your child will be turning in at the end of February. For each “task/job” they completed, you are welcome to tape a quarter (or more) on the heart sheet, or collect it in a bag and cross the heart out. We will learn to love the others during this time of the year, as we earn money to support our friend Wayne at Philippines. 

Classroom Valentines: We are also going to show our love to our neighbors by having classroom valentines. It is optional – if your child is thinking of sending valentines please make sure it is peanut/tree-nut free, also coconut (and coconut oil) free! If your child would like to send their friend a valentine they can do so any day next week until Thursday, and the box will be send home on Thursday.

Mandarin Homework&Flashcard: Homework and Flashcard this coming week are from U4W2. 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 – Do you know what the threefold goal of immersion education at ZCS is? We aim to advance the students’ academic achievement, cultural competency, and insist on high level performance in the target language. We are privileged to do this all within the Christian environment of ZCS. If anyone you know would like to tour our program to see immersion education in action, feel free to connect with Jodi Pierce, the Language Immersion Programs Coordinator at jpierce@zcs.org.

What’s Coming Up?

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

Featured Friend: Abi 韩明慧 is featured on the week of February 13th. That will conclude our Featured Friend! It’s been a joy to get to know all of our friends and welcome families into the class 🙂

100th Day Celebration: February 13th. This is the day for 100th Snack Day Challenge!

Classroom Valentines: Feel free to send valentines in any time this coming week. I will send home the box on Thursday, February 16th.

President’s Day – NO SCHOOL: February 20th.

All-School Chapel: February 23rd, 9:10AM.

Quarters for Wayne DUE: February 28th.

Prayer Requests:

Please continue to keep our class in your prayers – In light of 100th days pray for continue growth and progress 🙂 I’ve seen so much growth and progress in the children this year, and I am so proud of them! Continue to pray for perseverance and patience, as well as the courage to take more independence in daily routines as well as in the learning process. In light of valentines day pray for loving, kind and safe friendships. Prayers that the children will continue to learn to love God, and the people around them.

谢谢！

－黎老师

Newsletter 20

We actually made it through a 5 days week!! The snow is also back for a bit so there are more things to play with during recess too. We continue to review some old routines but now with more independence (trying daily 5 transitions by ourselves, starting to write our own stories in words, and making sentences by ourselves as well! are just some of the things we are learning to be more independent on :)) 

What did we learn and What will we learn?

Mandarin/Language Arts: We continue to practice recognizing words, making meaning as well as practicing reading strategy as we read together in class. There are some things in framework that I used to guide them through as they work, that I am starting to have the children try working on by themselves ? We are transitioning towards more independence in Mandarin tasks as well! We have been reviewing each choices in our daily 5, next week we will talk about how we can make our own choices, and how do we know when it’s time to transition to the next activity.

Bible: We talked about Jesus’ visits to Martha and Mary’s house and how God wanted us to spend time with Him. The children reflected through drawing how they would like to spend their time with God, which includes praying, worshiping God, reading the bible, telling God we love him, showing kindness to our friends and neighbors, and enjoying the earth He has blessed us with. We did a review of Jesus’ Ministry Stories and is transitioning into talking about the miracles that Jesus performed next coming weeks. We have talked about our first miracle – Jesus turning water into wine! The children are making connections with what they have heard from Sunday school, but continue to be amazed at His miracles!

*If you signed up to donate some things we need for our Parables unit, please send them in this coming week so we have time to prep the materials before the lessons! THANK YOU!*

Memory Verse/Fruit of the Spirit:  We will review our fruit of Spirit: Kindness, and move on to the next fruit of spirit – Gentleness. I have assessed the children on their January Verse and we are starting to talk about our February verse, which is a verse about prayers and how we pray to God.

Math: We have started talking about teen numbers, exploring them as 10+more, as well as started talking about partners group for our numbers. (5 and 1 are partners that adds up to 6, and so is 3 and 3, 2 and 4… and so on) We are starting to explore addition and subtraction within 5 using our fingers, visuals and drawing. We also did a review of the concepts we learned in Math and Sci/SocStu on Friday and it was so much fun!

Exploring God’s World (Sci/SocStu): We are practicing directions in Science and Social Studies. In Science we focus on different direction words like front, back, left, right, inside, outside, in front, behind, in between as well as in the middle. In Social Studies we are learning about North, South, East, and West. The children are making connections of the terms that they know in English, but now learning it in Mandarin. Next Friday, we will go on our For the Kids Fieldtrip as we wrap up our Motion unit.

Writing: This week we tried to write sequential stories looking at pictures as a class. Then, we tried to look at our past drawings (stories) and start filling in words. We spend a good amount of our Friday morning exploring and trying to write – and the children were so positive and work really hard on trying even though it seems overwhelming at first!

Play: This week we spent some time decorating our Valentine boxes. We are also currently into acting out situations with dolls/animals, as well as playing cops, and noting what the teacher is doing (cracks me up!) – it’s always fun to see the children engaged in play as much as they can in their second language 🙂

Things to Note:

Spring Field Trip Sign Ups: Looking ahead, there are 2 field trips coming up – Garden Crossings is on March 24th, Friday (8:45-10:30AM), and Critter Barn/Timbertown is on April 20th, Thursday (8:45-3:15PM Whole Day!). Here is the Signup Genius Link for Chaperone sign up! http://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0d4ea5a922a6fc1-spring1

Box Top: Feel free to send in box top anytime, and when you do, please label S.Sulayman on the bag and write down the total amount of box top collected. Thank you!

Field Trip: Our next field trip will be to the For the Kidz Gym coming up next Friday. Please make sure you complete the waiver online here https://www.easyclassonline.com/7dkidz/familysearchform44.php, so that your child can participate in this field trip.

Valentine Quarters: We will raise money for our sponsor child in the Philippines this month. The Valentine Quarters package/letter was send home this week. The heart sheet attached is the sheet your child will be turning in at the end of February. For each “task/job” they completed, you are welcome to tape a quarter (or more) on the heart sheet, or collect it in a bag and cross the heart out. We will learn to love the others during this time of the year, as we earn money to support our friend Wayne at Philippines. 

Classroom Valentines: We are also going to show our love to our neighbors by having classroom valentines. It is optional – if your child is thinking of sending valentines please make sure it is peanut/tree-nut free, also coconut (and coconut oil) free! If your child would like to send their friend a valentine they can do so any day next week, and the box will be send home after the week of February 13.

From the Immersion Program Coordinator – Here is some encouraging anecdotal news for those of you who might be a little frightened by your immersion student’s English spelling or writing. Holland Christian High School took the time to compare the English grades and writing of our first two classes of immersion students; on average these students were indeed at or above the level of the non-immersion peers with some teachers reporting that they felt that immersion students’ writing had more depth than the comparison group.

What’s Coming Up?

Prayer Requests:

We have ended our second semester, and we are halfway through Kindergarten! It’s exciting to see where the students are, thinking back to how we started the year. It felt like yesterday! Please continue to pray for our class and the kindergarteners – we are taking on more independence and challenges in class as the children continue to grow. The weeks ahead are busy (with usual framework/subjects learning), as well as school events here and there!

谢谢！

－黎老师