Reminders:

• Please send in clean towels (in towel bag) on Monday
• Please send in word wall book bags in on Monday
• Mondays we have gym. Please dress your child so he/she is ready to move 🙂
• Please send in library books by Tuesday morning
• Thursday, November 5- Pajama Day! The Kindergarten classes are having a pajama day. Still no stuffed animals in school, but your child can dress in pajamas and comfy clothes for the day! 
• No School Friday, November 6
• In the next two weeks, please try to send a picture or video through SeeSaw at home. I sent a few videos of the parade this past week and this week I will have them post a video of their own as well! I would love your child to think of something he/she would like me to see from home.

What we are learning:

• This week we learned how to use Raz Kids on our ipads. This will be one part of Daily 5 called “listen to reading.” I will send home instructions for connecting to Raz Kids at home. Look for these next week. I instruct the class to listen to the book first, then read it on their own (or try). Eventually we will also take a comprehension quiz about the book.
• This week our word wall word was go. We did lots of fun things with the word go including reading the book Go Dogs Go and Mrs. Arnold wearing her go green, go white sweatshirt and mask!
• We took our first Math test this week. It was a good check to see if the class was able to listen to instructions, follow along and understand some of the math concepts we are learning. Next week, I will send home some pages from our workbook that we did not complete from unit 1. There is more than enough pages for us that we do not finish all of them. Feel free to keep a math packet in the car or bag and have your child do some when you have free time. These are optional.
• In Bible we finished our study of Joseph. We enjoyed reading about Joseph’s trust in God during hard times. We learned from the forgiveness he had towards his brothers and we practiced our new verse, Romans 8:28, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him who are called according to his purpose.”  We enjoyed watching the Veggie Tales version “Little Joe” Friday afternoon.
• In writing we are moving on towards writing and labeling lists. This week we chose an item from outside to study. We looked at it carefully and then wrote down (made a list) of what we noticed. We are still focusing on beginning sounds but are beginning to hear middle and ending sounds as well!
• We enjoyed moving around and looking for word wall word posters around the room. We are writing them down and learning the words very well. We are learning a, at, go, I, look, see, the.
• We read the book “Pumpkin Patch Parable” by Liz Curtis Higgs on Friday afternoon. It is a reminder to us that when we see a glowing pumpkin, we are to let our lights shine for Jesus!
• Up in Lights this week was Clara Klein, it was fun to learn about Clara and watch of video of her playing the piano. Clara adds so much joy to our room and her zest for life is so contagious! We are blessed to have Clara in our room this year!
• 

Conferences:

It was a pleasure talking with so many of you on Thursday evening and I look forward to talking with the remainder of you on Monday. Thank you for walking along side of your child and our classroom this year. Your support means so much, especially during these very different circumstances.  It is an honor and privilege to be teaching your children.

Reminders:

• No school October 21-23
• Conferences for those who haven’t had them yet are Monday October 19.  The zoom link is here. You will also be receiving a paper(s) about your child on Monday that you can take with you to our conference. Thank you in advance!
• Please send clean towels back in their re-usable bags on Monday
• Library is Tuesday you may send their books in any time before that.
• Plastic book bags went home for the first time today! Please send them back on Monday.
• I will send towels home to be washed on Tuesday

What we are learning:

This week in Bible we studied Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob and Esau. We read all of the stories on our rug and did some papers to go with them. The week was highlighted by our understanding that God can do the impossible!

In Phonics this week we learned about hearing the different parts in a word called syllables. We each had a different card to put up in our pocket chart according to the amount of syllables it had. We learned we can put our hand under our chin to count how many times our chin moves down or we can clap when we say the word to figure out how many syllables there are.

In math this week we used our white board mats to draw circles. We learned that 5 circles drawn horizontally, vertically or any other way is still 5. We worked in our math books to locate the number of objects in a group. We also worked on our individual chalkboards writing the numbers 4 and 5! They did amazing at this and they love drying our chalkboards because we wave them up and down and sing!!

We are starting “real rounds” of Daily 5 this week. We could just between drawing and labeling or writing to self. During this time Mrs. Arnold works with groups at her table on letters and sounds. We will soon be starting to read books from our leveled library.

Our new word wall words this week were look and see. We worked on rainbow writing, finding the words in text and finding them in a poem and drawing a picture in their poetry folder to match the poem.

In writing workshop this week we continued to work on labeling. We even labeled Mrs. Arnold and things around our classroom! We also drew a map of our playground and labeled that!

We usually try to go outside and run our big sledding hill during the morning for a bit of a mask break. It is great exercise and it gets us outside in the fresh air!

Friday morning we enjoyed seeing some of the animals Maestra Geurink (K teacher across the hall) brought in today. We were able to take turns going outside to pet the animals.

Finally, our friend Zander Meyer was Up in Lights this week. We learned so much about what Zander likes and it involved a lot of derby cars! We are blessed to have Zander in our classroom!

Reminders:

• Please send in clean towels in their reuse bags on Monday
• We have PE Monday afternoon. Please dress your child in clothes that are comfortable and make sure he/she has socks and sneakers. (indoor gym shoes are at school)
• Please send in library books by Tuesday morning
• Thanks for filling out the parent teacher conference questionnaire. Here is the link if you haven’t filled it out yet.
• Birthday treats are optional and in Phase 4 and 5 are non-edible.

Parent Teacher Conferences

Here is the link for Thursday’s parent teacher conferences. I will send the link for the following Monday’s conferences in next week’s newsletter! Just click to join a few minutes before your conference and you should be sent to a waiting room. I will let you in as soon as the previous conference is completed. I appreciate your patience and I hope to be as close to on time as possible!

I will  be sending a paper home about your child as well as a letter and number assessment the day before your conference. It would be great if you could have that ready for our zoom meeting! Thank you in advance!

What We Are Learning:

This week in Bible we read about Abraham following God’s call to move. We talked about how Abraham needed to trust God to lead him and his family. We played a game of follow the leader to demonstrate the trust that we need. I led the students to our prayer room and they said they would trust me to get them there. We then did a popcorn thankful prayer in our school’s prayer room.

This week we continued to work on labeling. We practice labeling a five senses paper and then we practiced labeling our own stories in groups with Mrs. Arnold. Encourage your children to draw you pictures and label things in them!

We were so excited to start working on sight words! We call these word wall words. We added the and I to our wall. It was wonderful to watch the class work on writing and reading these words. Next week we will begin keeping our  word wall books in zip top bags. These are great reading practice for daily 5 and I will be sending them home on the weekend. Please look for the bag in your child’s back pack starting next week Friday and send it back in on Monday so we can continue to add to it.

In math this week we worked on comparing numbers. We colored in towers and then looked to see which one was taller or shorter. We were also were able to figure out the difference in the size of our towers!! We are learning to think outside of the box as two of our math mottos at school are: Everyone can learn math, and mistakes can help you learn. We also practiced writing the numbers 1-3.

In Science this week we wrapped up our 5 senses unit. Focusing on touch and then reviewing all 5 senses. For our sense of touch we had to reach into a paper bag and feel different textures and try to guess what we might be feeling. On Friday we all walked to the kitchen and used ALL 5 of our senses to pop a bag of microwave popcorn. We voted and decided that for that lesson taste was definitely our favorite sense!

We started our day today with  a Zoom Chapel. The topic was adoption and it was beautiful to hear the adoption stories from several families from our school. We were reminded that we are all adopted into God’s family. We were chosen by HIM.

We also learned about Mia this week as she was Up in Lights! We also enjoyed watching a video of her riding her horse, Harvest! We are blessed to have Mia in our class!

Finally, on our beautiful Friday afternoon we walked down the big hill at ZCS and listened to and saw some of God’s beautiful creation! We were even able to get a glimpse of some ducks in the pond!

Reminders:

• • We have PE Monday afternoon. Please dress your child in clothes that are comfortable and make sure he/she has socks and sneakers. (indoor gym shoes are at school)
  • Please send in library books by Tuesday morning
  • Thanks for filling out the parent teacher conference questionnaire.  Here is the link if you haven’t filled it out yet.
  • Birthday treats are optional and in Phase 4 and 5 are non-edible.
  • Please fill out the ASQ found here. (email sent earlier this week)
  • Miss Sherrie (Stuursma) is part of our early childhood team. She often checks in the preschool and kindergarten classrooms during the day and also works with small groups and individual children. We are so thankful for her work. If your child ever mentions working with Miss Sherrie, this is why. 🙂 She is a valuable part of the team. Especially this year when we aren’t able to  have parent volunteers working in our classroom, we appreciate when she is able to be an extra set of hands!

Parent Teacher Conferences:

Here are instructions for signing up for virtual parent teacher conferences this year. Sign up begins October 5. I am looking forward to talking with you about your fabulous children!

There will be a zoom link in the WAAG  the weeks of conferences. I will use the waiting room feature to let you in at your time slot.

What we are Learning!

This week our highlight was definitely reading the story of Noah in our Bibles together. As we were reading God provided a rainbow right outside our window! We learned the rainbow is a sign that God keeps his promises to us. What an AMAZING moment that was in our classroom, to stand with 17 children and witness God’s promise to us right in that moment! God is in everything!

In Math this week we used manipulatives to compare numbers and we were even able to compare our numbers and figure out how much bigger or smaller the numbers were! We also learned the attributes of squares and rectangles and found them around our room.

In phonics this week we finished up our ABC “magazines” and will be moving on to word wall words next week! The students should have brought their ABC packet home with them today! We also continued learning about rhyming words and made a class book with animals and rhymes.

Next week you will notice word wall work papers. We will rainbow write and search for the word as well as begin to read a small book with our word wall word in it. These are great papers to review and read with your child a few times. I even suggest keeping the word wall books in a ziploc baggy and start reading these with your child often. Practice pointing to the words and read with them.

We were able to continue to draw pictures of true stories about us and we began the very initial phases of labeling, as we labeled ourselves in our pictures. This coming week we will begin labeling more!

We were able to explore God’s world this week by using our sense of taste. We tried something sweet, sour and salty and then we made a class graph to see what taste our class prefers. It seems that we are sour lovers!

On Friday we examined the meaning of some positional words such as over, under, above, below, and next to. We then followed Mrs. Arnold’s directions to put our animals in our zoo!

Throughout the week we enjoy singing as it gives us an opportunity to move our bodies. Jack Hartmann has some great alphabet songs that we do for practice and fun! We also worshiped God in song this week with a song that many of us learned in preschool, “Our God is a Great Big God.”

Finally this week we began flexible seating. This gives the students an opportunity to move a bit more while seated or sit in a less traditional manner to help them with learning. Every student gets a chance for every type of seat once a week. We use big exercise balls, lap trays, scoop chairs, stools and soft seats. I just wanted to let you know in case your child had come home talking about this!! They have really enjoyed the seating this week!