Reminders:

• February 9-100th day! In our kindergarten classroom, we will celebrate that we are 100 days brighter! Please try to have your child wear something bright! (yellow, any neon color, white, etc) We will have fun with some 100 themed activities and add a little glow to our day 🙂 
•  February 10, 2024  6:00 pm – 800 pm | Snow Fest // 6-8 PM on the Sledding Hill *more information in the ZCS blue note
• February 12, 2024 | No Busing
• February 13, 2024 | No Busing
• February 14: Valentine’s Day-We will have the class pass out Valentines. You do not need to write the names of everyone in the class, you may write to: a friend from: your child’s name This is great name writing practice. We have 19 students in the classroom. You may choose from home made or store bought valentines. We are encouraging students to spread God’s love by showing kindness.
• February 16, 2024 | No School // Winter Break
• February 19, 2024| No School// Winter Break
• February 23, 2024 | Pastor’s Breakfast *invitations sent home Friday and Monday All School Chapel *Kindergarten and First Graders will help lead a few songs before the speaker.

What we are learning:

This week in Bible we discussed the Lord’s Prayer. We took our Bibles down to the school prayer room and read the Lord’s Prayer and then we took turns praying. It was such a beautiful moment seeing these young students desire to talk to Jesus and understand what that means. We also talked about Nicodemus and what new life in Jesus means. We colored a butterfly to remind us of what it means to be “born again.”

In phonics this week we learned about the -at word family. We practiced adding different letters to the front of the -at ending. We realized that word families rhyme and then made a hat with some of these words on it.

In writing workshop we continued to work on pattern books. We learned a bit about brainstorming to come up with our own ideas for writing. Next week we will write a complete pattern book all on our own!

In math this week we continued with simple addition and subtraction. We are focusing on the concept that adding is making a number bigger and subtraction is making a number smaller. Subtraction really hit home when we talked about taking french fries from mom and dad;)

In Daily 5 we are continuing to work in groups with Mrs. Arnold. Right now we are working hard on the vowel sounds as we are seeing so many vowels in what we read!! We also talked about how if you get the vowel sound wrong it changes the whole word!!

In science we continued to work on our barriers up unit. Last week we designed and built a ramp. This week we looked for ways to stop things when they came down a ramp!

Micah Garvelink was Up in Lights this week.His mom and dad came in to share about him. We learned he loves the zoo and Mrs. Arnold read a great book he brought in called Yertle the Turtle.

Reminders:

•  February 10, 2024  6:00 pm – 800 pm | Snow Fest // 6-8 PM on the Sledding Hill *more information in the ZCS blue note
• February 12, 2024 | No Busing
• February 13, 2024 | No Busing
• February 16, 19 2024 | No School // Winter Break

What we are learning:

In Bible this week we read the story of the little children coming to Jesus. We learned that God wants us to have the faith of a child. We talked about how when we are younger we love others so much and we need to continue that as we get older and it gets a bit harder at times. We talked about how big our love is for all of our friends in the classroom.

In math this week we continued to work on finding the sum of a problem by adding two factors. We played a game with partners where we added to the number 5.

During writing workshop we continued to work on pattern books. This week we wrote an I see book about things we saw while sledding. We are working on saying words slowly and writing the sounds we hear.

During Daily 5 we learned about lots of different reading strategies. We are working on sliding through sounds to read a word as well as breaking it into chunks. IN YOUR CHILD’S BOOKBAG IS A PAPER WITH OUR READING STRATEGIES AND CVC WORD CARDS IN WHICH YOUR CHILD CAN POINT AND SAY THE SOUND OF EACH LETTER AND THEN SLIDE ACROSS THE ARROW TO READ THE WORD. IF POSSIBLE, COULD YOU PUT THEM IN A BAGGIE AS I RAN OUT THIS WEEK! THANK YOU!

Here is a list of our sight words thus far:A, and, am, at, come, go, here, I , is, me, look, see, the, this and we.

In engaging God’s world (science) we learned about motion and force. We designed ramps with a partner and put balls of different shapes and sizes down them. I was amazed at our engineering minds! We noticed that different sizes and weights of balls made a difference as to how fast they went down our ramps. We also got to sled down a very big ramp(hill);)

This week Jaxson Brink was Up in Lights. Jaxson’s mom and dad came to share about him and we learned that Jaxson favorite thing to touch is his soft Detroit Lions blanket. We are so thankful to have Jaxson and his kind spirit and amazing sense of humor in 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.
• January 22-All school chapel-9:10
• February 16-19-Mid-winter break-no school
• February 29-Optional parent teacher conferences

What we are learning:

This week we continued our study on the ministry of Jesus. We read from our Bibles the story of Jesus calling his disciples. We talked about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus and a fisher of men. We talked about how shining our lights is a sign we are His disciples.

In math this week we began simple addition by adding counters. We learned what the addition sign looks like.

In writing workshop we continued our pattern book writing. This week we tried to write a book with our very own ideas and words. We are keeping our books in our writing folders at school.

We added this to our word wall word board this week. The other words are a, am, at, go, here, I, is look, me, see, the and we. Please continue to practice these at home.

In phonics we reviewed rhyming. We also are continuing to do our Heggerty phonics videos. This week we practiced breaking words into parts.

Titus was Up in Lights this week. His mom and dad came to share about him. We learned about the amazing fisherman he is. His mom and dad also read Titus’ favorite book, The Sword and the Stove.  We are beyond blessed to have Titus and his helpful heart in our classroom!

Here a few snippets of our time enjoying all the beautiful snow God gave us!

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!

Reminders:

Please remember to bring library books and towels back on Monday!

Separate bags for snow clothes. Label everything!

Important Dates:

• November 10: No School
• November 17: All school pajama day for our PBIS celebration

• November 22-24: No School; Thanksgiving Break

• December 22-Jingle Jog and Christmas Party-more information to come

• December 25-January 5: No School; Christmas Break

What we are learning:

Bible: We finished up our unit on Joseph highlighting God’s forgiveness. We continued to practice our Bible verse, Romans 8:28. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, those who are called according to His purpose.”

Phonics: This week we continued to listen to beginning sounds. We played Thanksgiving bingo and wrote down first sound of many Thanksgiving words!

Math: In math this week we started our unit on shapes. We looked for things that made shapes stand apart, We talked about how looking for sides and corners is a good place to start! We flipped cards with a partner to see if we could find one thing alike and one thing different about the shapes we chose.

Writing workshop: We started making lists this week. We helped Mrs. Arnold make a Thanksgiving grocery list and then made a list together of things we are thankful for.

Daily 5- Everyone should have a book coming home in their book bag today! They are such proud readers and I am proud of them as well!

Happy Thanksgiving from these wonderful turkeys!

Reminders

Please remember to bring library books and towels back on Monday!

Separate bags for snow clothes. Label everything!

Important Dates:

• November 10: No School

• November 22-24: No School; Thanksgiving Break

• December 25-January 5: No School; Christmas Break

What we are learning:

This week in Bible we continued our study of the Patriarchs.. We read through the story of Rebekah being chosen to be Jacob’s wife. We also read the story of Jacob and Esau and how Jacob used deception to receive the blessing from Abraham. We learned that even when we make bad choices God still can work through us.                                              We also did a thankful sentence prayer during devotions, where each child expressed to God one thing they are thankful for.

In phonics this week we practiced reading our alphabet chart in different ways-by sound, letter, picture or a combination of any three. We also worked on saying words slowly to hear the sounds. This was also very helpful for our writing workshop in which we labeled what our Thanksgiving tables look like.

In math this week we worked in centers to practice ordering things. To make it more challenging we closed our eyes and had our partners take something out of our orders to see if we could figure out what number was missing! We also worked on writing numbers as well as figuring out if we have enough spoons or forks for everyone in our groups. We learned that you can still have enough even when you have extra!

In engaging God’s world we began our unit on weather. Our field trip was a great building block for this unit, as we saw how the weather can change daily! We learned what it means to be a scientist and we are keeping weather journals so we can track the patterns in our weather!

Fun on our very cold and snowy field trip!

Gwen was Up in Lights this week. Her mom and dad came in to share about her! We learned so many things about her including her favorite book, animals and Bible story. We are so blessed to have Gwen and her amazing giggle in our classroom! She exudes the love and joy of Jesus!

Reminders:

• Please send in clean towels/blankets in on Monday.
• Tuesday, October 31 Field Trip! You are welcome to meet us at Hemlock Crossing for a nature walk/scavenger hunt. We’ll form smaller groups and then meet at 10:50 for a snack and worship. Please make sure your child is dressed for the weather. I think it is looking much colder than this week! We will arrive back at school around 11:45/11:50.

What we are learning:

This week in Bible we continued the study of the Patriarchs. We read about how God blessed Abraham and Sarah with a baby at an older age. We talked about how with God ANYTHING is possible!

In math this week we continue to recognize numbers in different formats. We played a pizza game with our peanut butter and jelly partner to add toppings to our pizzas.

In Daily 5 everyone had a turn to either read or work with letter sounds with Mrs. Arnold. Other friends were then able to work with play-doh, stamps and magnets to create word wall words and practice sounds.

During our outdoor learning time we practiced putting on Oaki suits. These are suits that will protect us from the wind and rain as the weather becomes more unpredictable!

This week in social studies,(engaging God’s world), we learned about maps and about our very special place on the map. One that is unique to us. We looked at how big the world is and then marveled at how amazing God has to be to have created it all!

This week Kinsley Lotter was up in lights. Her parents came to share about her and all of the students were so inquisitive and had many great questions for Kinsley! We learned that Kinsley has lots of princess dresses at home! We are blessed to have Kinsley and her sweet spirit in our classroom!