Reminders:

• Please send in clean towels/blankets in on Monday (we are trying to keep stuffed animals at home and only bring those on special days. Thank you for understanding!)
• If there is snow on the ground or expected please have a bag with: snow pants, gloves (sometimes multiple sets), hat and winter boots. When boots are worn outside, the kids will wear gym shoes inside. Please try to label anything that belongs to your child. We try to make sure your child goes home with all winter gear each day in case it needs to be washed or dried. Thank you!
• Friday, December 22 9:00-9:30 Jingle Jog! Papers from Mrs. Miller came home this week. You are welcome to cheer your child on or run with! It is fun to wear Christmas colors, fun head bands or necklaces. Just keep in mind they get hot when running. T shirts are a great option! We are running with a 5th grade class so there will be more kids and parents in the gym. We will take a class picture when we are finished.
• Friday, December 22 10:45-11:45 Our classroom Christmas Party! I will keep an eye on the weather and if there is any chance of a snow day, I may change this. You just never know when we will get our next big snow! Also if you signed up to bring anything please send it with you child this week!

Highlights from our week:

This week we finished up our Nativities and read the full story of Jesus’ birth from our Bibles. We even had a discussion about how long we think God may have left the star in the sky for the wisemen to follow! I hope they have been able to retell the story to you using their boxes!

In Math this week we continued to study shapes. We worked in groups to make different things with a given amount of pattern blocks. As always, we continue to count everyday. We are now on day 75 of our school year and we will count by 1’s , 5’s and 10’s!

During Daily 5 we wrote our word wall words on ornaments with white crayon and then made them magically appear with red or green marker. We are also continuing to practice our sight words everyday!

In writing workshop we made a list of nativity words and a.list of things we want for Christmas. After learning last week about needs and wants I had one student tell me there wasn’t really anything he wanted as he has all he needs! I love to know they are listening and thinking about things they have learned!

During phonics this week we learned about writing from left to right, as well as how to use finger spaces and punctuation at the end of a sentence. We practiced making our very own sentence!

Caleb VanMaastricht was Up in Lights this week. Caleb’s mom and dad came to share about him on Friday and on Tuesday his mom brought his chicken, Dolly, for us to pet (or just look at if we preferred that;) Caleb is such a kind and loving friend who always makes us laugh and has the talent of impersonating both a weedwacker and a dolphin!! We are blessed to have Caleb in our classroom!

Finally, on Tuesday for our nature rich class, we took a walk and found “Christmas cards” in yards and sang Christmas songs while we rang bells. It was beautiful!

Reminders:

• Please remember to bring in a clean towel every Monday. I only have a few extra to spare in our classroom and lately we have been running out of towels!
• return library books on Monday!
• bring snow stuff in a separate bag and remember to take it out at home to make sure it is dry

Important Dates:

• JINGLE JOG-December 22-9:00-9:30-This is our annual fun run in the gym to raise money for our sister school in the Philippines. You are welcome to come watch and even run with your child if you wish! They may wear festive clothing and accessories such as lights and headbands. This is one of the highlights of our year! Mrs. Miller and Miss Brinks will have more information coming soon!
• Christmas party-December 22-10:40-11:40
• Christmas break-December 25-January 7
• School resumes-January 8

What we are learning:

In Bible this week we continued our study of the Christmas story. We worked on our Nativity boxes and discussed the greatest Christmas gift ever! God sent his son Jesus to us! We also practiced our verse, Luke 2:6,7-“While they were there the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her first born, a son. She wrapped him in strips of cloth and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for Him in the inn.”

In phonics this week we looked closely at letters in words and worked on identifying the first and last letters in words. We used a list of our pet names to work on this! Thank you for letting me know all of these amazing names!

During Daily 5 we worked on writing words as well as read to self and working with Mrs. Arnold.

We are beginning to concentrate on handwriting again. We are working hard to stay on the lines as we write and make tall letters tall and small letters small.

This week in engaging God’s world, we talked about the difference between needs and wants. This is a great discussion in kindergarten as it can be so hard to think outside of wants and look to not only our needs but the needs of others as well.

In Math this week we continued to look at shapes. We worked on counting sides to identify a hexagon and realized that it is different than an octagon. We then worked on making hexagons by putting different shapes together! They did so well with th

This week in outdoor learning we looked for the wise men and found them in the burn bright sign! We wore our oaki suits as it was very wet outside!

This week Elias Vanlente was Up in Lights. Elias’ mom came to share all about him! She read us a book entitled, “What would Danny do…”  We helped read the book by helping Danny make hard choices which led to different outcomes in the book! We are so blessed to have Elias in our classroom! He always has us laughing and brings so much joy to our classroom!

Reminders

• Please remember to bring in a clean towel every Monday. I only have a few extra to spare in our classroom and lately we have been running out of towels!
• return library books on Monday!
• bring snow stuff in a separate bag and remember to take it out at home to make sure it is dry

Important Dates:

• JINGLE JOG-December 22-9:00-9:30-This is our annual fun run in the gym to raise money for our sister school in the Philippines. You are welcome to come watch and even run with your child if you wish! They may wear festive clothing and accessories such as lights and headbands. This is one of the highlights of our year! Mrs. Miller and Miss Brinks will have more information coming soon!
• Christmas party-December 22-10:40-11:40
• Christmas break-December 25-January 7
• School resumes-January 8

What we are learning:

This week in Bible we began our unit on the Christmas story and started putting our Nativity boxes together. We read from our Bibles this week how Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her she was chosen to be the mother of Jesus. We talked about how with God all things are possible as well as how Mary followed God’s plan for her life without even a question or a doubt!

In math this week we continued to work on shapes and what differentiates one from another. We went on a rectangle hunt in our hallways and couldn’t believe how many rectangles we found! Feel free to have your child point out shapes in every day life! They love this activity.

During daily 5 we each had a chance to play a word wall word game as well making a list of friends. During group time with Mrs. Arnold we read books and practiced some phonemic awareness strategies.

In writing workshop we continued working on making lists. This week we made a list of school words together.

In phonics Mrs. Arnold brought a stocking filled with ornaments from her Christmas tree. We worked on saying the words slowly and writing down the sounds we heard. It has been fun to see so many of your children’s favorite ornaments as well. Thank you for sending in all the beautiful pictures!

During our outdoor learning time we took part in some creative play and made Thanksgiving dishes from snow and a participated in a Thanksgiving snow feast!