This week was a great one in kindergarten! I feel like the kids are starting to feel at “home” in our classroom and getting the routines down and then transitioning so well into learning. I also feel as if they are forming so many new friendships and learning how to work together. It is a blessing to be teaching your children.

Reminders:

• Pictures are THIS WEEK TUESDAY, September 29, PLEASE BRING YOUR CHILD”S PICTURE FORM ON TUESDAY EVEN IF THEY ARE NOT ORDERING, as we want them all to be in the class composite!
• On Monday be sure to look in your child’s backpack for a hard copy of our Up in Lights schedule. I will send an envelope home with your child the Monday before their assigned week with all the papers to fill out and information you will need. Please touch base with me the week before your child is Up in Lights if you would like to join our class via zoom or if you would prefer to send a video in of something your child does or enjoys at home and even possibly an introduction to your family! Please make this whatever you want it to be and have fun!!
• Be looking for a parent teacher conference form to come towards the end of next week via email. Conferences will be October 15 and 19 and the office should be sending home information soon as to when and how to sign up!
• Remember library is Tuesday!

What we learned this week!!!

In Bible this week we finished up the story of creation and started to learn our Bible verse, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.. and God saw all that He had made and it was very good.” Genesis 1:1,31

This week we continued to work our way through the alphabet. We have now made it to the letter U!!  Everyday we “rainbow write” the letter and practice the sound and then look for the letter in some written text. We then have fun counting how many of the letters we find! Sometimes Mrs. Arnold misses a letter;). We also had some sensory time making letters with play-dough! Of course we made other things too! We are in kindergarten;)

We have now started the very fist phase of writing! We are drawing pictures of true stories in our lives! This has been fun to see. I also encourage the kids to draw even when they say the can’t or don’t know how to draw something. We talk OFTEN about how we don’t need to be perfect!

We reached our goal of 12 minutes for the read to self portion of Daily 5! Next week we will begin working in groups with Mrs. Arnold! I can’t believe we are to this part of our year already.

In Science we learned about God’s world using our sense of sight. We went outside and collected things on a big piece of tape and used a magnifying glass to look at them. It was fun to see how we all used our sense of sight in ways that were unique to the way God made us!

In math we worked on making circles and finding circles all around us! We also used manipulatives to make numbers! We also continue to work with our stem(science, technology, engineering and math)bins whenever we have extra time!

Reminders:

• Picture envelopes should have come home with your child this past week. Our pictures will be during the morning of September 29.
• I am hoping you all have received and been able to log into your child’s seesaw account. If you are having trouble or did not receive your QR code please lmk.
• September 25 will be a half day. There will be no afternoon bussing and we will dismiss at 11:45.
• Our Week at a glance will always be connected to our classroom blog and is updated by 5p.m. the Friday prior to the upcoming week. If I do not have my blog updated by that point you are still able to go to our class blog and click on Week at a glance and see the updates! Sometimes as a busy mom it is difficult to get everything done by 5p.m. on Friday;)
• Magazine Sale Fundraiser packets have been sent home.
  Fundraiser Links:
  • How To Videos – (https://bit.ly/31c2Fh6)
  • Kick-Off Videos – (https://bit.ly/32EHmpj)
  • Parent Letter – (https://bit.ly/3mqnTjx )
  • Prize Program – (https://bit.ly/2BnoqQS )
• Thank you for sending in clean masks and water bottles! I have noticed some children are getting a little more hungry at the end of the day. Please check in with your child about what snacks and lunches they are eating and enjoying.
• Library is Tuesday, feel free to send your child’s book back on Tuesday or any other day!

Week in Review:

This week was our first five day week in kindergarten! We are continuing to learn and do so many things and also stressing the importance of acting out of AMOR (love) for our friends and everyone around us.

I have loved taking our our Bibles and reading the story of Creation. It is a blessing to be surrounded by God’s handiwork as one day we enjoyed Bible outside!

In phonics we worked on recognizing letters. Each student received a bag of lower case letters and sorted them in different way. Some spelled names, other noticed that some letters had straight lines and some had curvy lines. It has been great to become familiar with letters!

We have been building our Stamina in Read to Self. The class helped me decide on what they needed to do to become better readers. Here is the list. 1. Read quietly. 2. Read the WHOLE time. 3. Stay in one spot. 4. Don’t disturb (or bug) those around you. I also reminded them that there are three ways to read a book. This has been helpful in making the most of our reading time. Our big goal is about 12-15 minutes and this week we made it to 6!  We are doing great!! Once we are comfortable independently reading (reading pictures, words and retelling the story) we will work on another element of Daily 5.

We also worked on telling stories with our fingers and looking for the beginning, middle and end. It was fun to hear some of their stories;)

Finally we are using stem bins at our tables now when we finish our work and jobs and it has been so much fun to see their creativity as well as their ability to work together to create some new and amazing jobs!

I hope your child is getting into the swing of things this year. It feels like we are starting to get into some “normal” routines as we have now finished our third week of school! It is a joy and privilege to be able to teach them everyday and more than anything I pray they are learning to love Jesus more this year!

I just wanted to touch base with you concerning my absence for the past two days. I woke up on Thursday with a fever and was fighting a bit of a cough. Normally, I can get allergies this time of year so I wasn’t particularly concerned other than the fact that they were accompanied by a fever.  I made a quick call to the doctor and he recommended a Covid-19 test. I apologize I needed to be out for two days but I needed to be cleared for the safety of everyone in our classroom and building. I just received the results today that the test was NEGATIVE. I will be back at school with your children on Monday! Thank you for your understanding and patience in this regard. This year may look at a bit different at times, but together we will not only survive but thrive!

Now to the important stuff;) I also hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Reminders:

• Thanks for sending in clean masks every day!
• Thanks for dressing in layers in this season of ever changing weather.
• Friday, September 18: No Bussing
• Friday, September 25: Half day/Teacher Professional Development
• 1st-8th grade classrooms sent out videos for their information night. Kindergarten families had our videos before school began. I think we have answered most questions and learn more and more as we go. I am attaching an overview of Kindergarten Curriculum at ZCS. You may read through it any time.

Kindergarten Curriculum Overview.docx – Google Docs

Curriculum review:

Bible: This week in Bible we finished up the Fruits of the Spirit. We learned and discussed goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. We also sang our two Fruit of the Spirit songs at least once a day! Ask your child to sing them for you, by the time we were done they were doing a great job and could almost all say all of the Fruits of the Spirit!

Math: This week we worked on counting as well as drawing and finding different numbered groups of things. We also finished reading through Anno’s Counting Book. We will be referring to that throughout the year. We also did our lesson by video just to practice for if we would ever need to go to remote learning and the kids did wonderful!!

Reading: We continued working our way through the alphabet. We worked on writing the letters H, I, J and K as well as listening to the sounds they each make and finding them in text (our alphabet packets). We also talked about how important it is to learn the letters and their sounds as it will help us to become good readers!!! For the letter I we also enjoyed an ice cream sandwich!:)

Phonics: We worked on recognizing our names and the names of our classmates. We decorated our name as well as explored what makes our name unique and in what ways our names are similar. 

Social Studies: We were able to add several new friends to our Book of Friends. This is a great way to start to recognize our friends’ names as well as practice our fine motor skills as we write their names. Plus we get to learn more about those around us!

Afternoons: Afternoons in our classroom vary from day to day depending on if we have specials or not. On days when we do not have as many specials we will have a quiet time as well as some purposeful play time. It is fun to watch the kids interact and problem solve as they play.

Finally we celebrated our first birthday of the year! Crew is now 6!! We all enjoyed his birthday treat as well! Happy birthday Crew!!!

Seesaw

My apologies on not getting your papers to you this week about signing in to seesaw. I had 12 of my friends take pictures of something in our classroom but unfortunately with my being sick the last few days I need to finish up with the last 5 friends.  I will plan on sending the papers in by midweek. If you do not see them by Wednesday please let me know!!!

We had another busy week in kindergarten! We are adjusting to our specials schedule and how each day looks! The kids are doing well and becoming more independent daily! I hope you all enjoy this long weekend together!

Reminders:

Please keep in mind that we have PE/Gym on Mondays. Please make sure your child has sneakers on that can go outside. We are reserving their new sneakers for when we have PE in the gym.

If your child is picked up by a sibling at the end of the day, please remind them to say goodbye to the teacher in the hallway before leaving with the younger student. This helps us keep track of everyone coming and going at the end of the day. Thank you!

Please email attendance@zcs.org is your child is going to be absent AND please include me on the email.

If you have a change for end of day pick up, please call the office so they can reach me in the classroom. Thank you!

Just a reminder that right now the drinking fountain faucets are not turned on so it is important to send in a water bottle. They can be refilled in the sink in our room!

If your child has not brought in a towel for quiet time please do so as it makes for a more restful time. Also, I will normally be sending them home every weekend to wash which was missed this week due to the craziness of our new schedule with both car pools lines and bus loops.  Thank you for your patience in this regard.

SeeSaw

Next week please check your child’s red folder or backpack for instructions on downloading the SeeSaw app and logging in to our classroom. This week, I will allow each child to take a picture and upload it to his/her folder. It will be fun to see what pictures they take. As the year progresses, I hope your we can continue to share videos and work in class through SeeSaw.

What We Are Learning:

In Bible we continue to learn the fruit of the spirit. We know these show in us when God is in us. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control are perfect examples of how we behave in school. I find that we use this vocabulary when talking with the class about expectations and behavior. We also have learned several new songs about the Fruit of the Spirit which we sing everyday!

We continue to work on “My Book of Friends” and practice writing our friends names. We notice how many letters are in names and find out something our friend likes to do. This week we added Jesus, Mrs. Arnold and Avery to our books!

We have been talking about being bucket fillers-showing and saying something kind fills other people’s buckets and our own! We have talked about all the different ways we can fill the buckets of those around us both at home and at school!

In Phonics we have been focusing on letters that are in our names. We put our class names in alphabetical order. I love to see the class reading each other’s names! They are getting very good at it.

We continue to work our way through the alphabet focusing on one letter a day. We practicing letter formation (handwriting) and the sounds the letter represents. I am thrilled with the work your children are doing. I told them we are working on this to help us become better readers and writers. We were able to celebrate our work with a popsicle treat from Mrs. Tibbe Wednesday afternoon.

In Math this week we went outside and counted things we saw on our playground! I even heard some counting above 50! We then practiced making the numbers 1-5 on our whiteboards. Next week in math we will begin using our workbooks!  Kindergartners love having math books. For one lesson I will try recording myself giving instructions and play it for the class.  It will be fun to use some new technology and give the students a taste of what a virtual lesson could look like if we ever need to do that. (which I hope not;)

WAAG(week at a glance)

Finally, you will notice on the left sidebar of the blog near the end there is a bookmark title and under that is our WAAG.  All you need to do is click on it to see our schedule for the upcoming week. I usually try and have it changed by 5 p.m. on the Friday before!

As always, if you ever have questions please feel free to contact me. One of the things that is so hard right now is not being able to see you and touch base face to face! Remember I am always here!!