The first several weeks of school are spent building routines, getting to know each other, reviewing concepts and mastering skills while slowly introducing new ones.  This past week I feel like your children were showing me how much they have grown and mastered during this time! They have consistently been reading to self for 10-15 minutes so we were able to move on to building stamina in reading to someone.  After doing this for only three days, we are already up to 6 minutes.  I know they will build there stamina quickly for this one.  We talked this week about how it is important that students are able to read to self and read to someone for 10-15 minutes because I will be working with small groups during this time and they need to be independent during this time.  They are taking ownership of this and trying their best.

It is also exciting to hear their excitement when they find our word wall words in books and around the classroom.  They are reading short sentences and are excited about it!

This past week we also rotated between centers in the classroom.  Small groups were working well together in adding, rhyming, letter formation and listening for beginning sounds in words.

Our Bible Verse for October is Genesis 8:22 “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”  We will continue to recite the verse this week and give children a chance to say it independently.

We reviewed our Bible stories from this unit by watching a little bit of the Read and Share Bible DVD.  I like using this for a review because the DVD shows the stories in a clear and simple way that is easy to understand.

On Friday we read “The Pumpkin Patch Parable” by Liz Curtis Higgs.  The overview of the book from Thomas Nelson reads “The story for children illustrates how a loving farmer can turn a simple pumpkin into a simply glorious sight.  In the same way, God’s transforming love can fill each of our hearts with joy and light.” We talked as a class about letting that light shine by being kind of loving and sharing God with everyone we meet.  I encouraged them to think of that light when they saw pumpkins this weekend.

This past week we spent two days in Math Centers! It was fun to have the class divided in groups and working together on counting, number recognition, writing numerals and exploring shapes.  We are practicing working with a quiet voice 🙂  They did very well!

Our week in Review:

THANK YOU for all of the birthday wishes! I felt very special on my birthday and truly enjoyed celebrating with your children. Thank you for all of the kind words and special treats. I really appreciated it!

Bible-This week we remembered God’s promise to Abraham and saw how God blessed Abraham’s son with a wife. We continue to see how God keeps His promises.

Math-We are practicing writing numbers 1-3, recognizing groups of numbers and addition and subtraction. On Wednesday we started a few games using dice to decide the number and practice addition and subtraction with candy corn. It has become a favorite choice for the class when they finish early with work or lunch. We have talked that the candy corn is for math and not to eat because we are all touching it. So far, everyone has respected that J It has been a fun way to practice the math skills we are working on!

Read A Loud-This week our featured read a loud book was Frog and Toad. The story was based on Toad losing a button. Frog tried to help him find the lost button, but didn’t find the right one. Toad became very frustrated and even angry. We found several parts of the story that we could relate to (losing things, becoming frustrated and angry and finding something).

Handwriting-We worked on forming letters H and K. I was once again very impressed by the handwriting I saw especially letter K.

Word Wall-We added the word “see” to our wall. We thought of sentences we could make using the word see. We decided to write things we see in Fall. Each student said a sentence. I gave each student his or her sentence typed out and cut up into individual words. Each child put together their sentence and illustrated it. I will be putting together the pages to create our first class book.

Writing-We are continuing our writer’s workshop by thinking of a story, picturing it in our heads and then saying it. Each child was able to tell a story to a friend and then sketch it out. We are collecting our writing in our special writer’s workshop folders at school, so you will not see these stories going home yet. 🙂

Exploring God’s World-this is when we are exploring the world through science or social studies. We are having conversations about maps and connecting the need for a map to help Grandparents when they come for Grandparents day. We will be taking a few walks around the school and thinking of what a bird’s eye view would look like.

Looking ahead…Grandparents/friends Day is Friday, November 4 from about 9-noon. More details will be coming in red folders this week, but please mark this date on your calendars.

NO SCHOOL THURSDAY AND FRIDAY (October 20-21). I will be attending the CEA Convention with many other teachers from Michigan. Please pray for our travel safety and that we can be encouraged, renewed and inspired by our time together.

Reformation Day Chapel – Monday, October 31 10am.

NO PM BUSING OR HOT LUNCH – November 9 & 10.

NO AM AND PM BUSING OR HOT LUNCH – November 11.

Our week in Review:

Bible-This week we began to look at Patriarchs. These are people God has used to fulfill his promises. Abraham had a strong faith to follow God’s call to a new land. A move like that can be scary even today! God was faithful and provided for Abraham. He gave him a son and even tested Abraham’s faith using Isaac. Abraham continued his obedience and God continued to bless Abraham.

Math-We compared rectangles and squares this week, specifically counting the sides and corners and comparing lengths. We compared numbers as well using words greater than and less than. We continued adding numbers up to 10 and began subtraction.

Read A Loud-This week our featured read a loud book was Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? By Bill Martin Jr. This was a familiar book to many of the students in class. It was fun for them to help me read it and listen for the repeated rhyme: me and see. This week in phonics we have been listening for rhymes and making rhyming words.

Handwriting-We worked on forming letters N and M. The slanted big lines can be very tricky, but I was very impressed at the handwriting I saw!

Word Wall-We added the word “look” to our wall. It was fun to hear the class tell me whenever they saw the word look this week. It showed up in many of their reading books and in our read aloud!

Writing-We are continuing our writer’s workshop by thinking of a story, picturing it in our heads and then saying it. Each child was able to tell a story to a friend and then sketch it out. We are collecting our writing in our special writer’s workshop folders at school, so you will not see these stories going home yet.

Exploring God’s World-this is when we are exploring the world through science or social studies. This week we went on a nature walk and looked at the leaves changing colors. We collected many leaves from our walk. After looking in our resource book, we believe that there are many maple trees outside our school. Our leaf collection turned into an art project as students tried leaf rubbing. They have also been using our magnifying glasses to take a closer look at the leaves.

Play-This week many friends have chosen to play games during our play time. Candyland and Sorry have been favorites. It has been fun to watch them learn/practice taking turns, counting and recognizing colors while playing these games.

Looking ahead…Grandparents/friends Day is Friday, November 4 from about 9-noon. More details will be coming, but please mark this date on your calendars.

Transitional Kindergarten Note from Nancy Pyle

Parents, we are so grateful that we can offer your family the option of transitional kindergarten.  We understand that kindergarteners grow and change all year long, and we love it that we can meet their schooling needs as you decide throughout the school year.

In order to keep the scheduling manageable for our teachers, we ask that you talk with the teacher about any changes to your child’s kindergarten schedule at least a week before that change will happen.  This gives the teacher time to make sure the right number of materials are ready for each day as she plans ahead.

Also, please remember that changes to transitional kindergarten schedules should be permanent.  Any additional afternoons should be added to your child’s regular schedule from then on moving forward.  This means that we cannot make switches of days or add an extra day on a given week because something came up and you would prefer your child to be in school that afternoon.  Please do not talk with your child’s teacher about such situations.  If you are in need of last minute childcare occasionally, then you could look into afternoons of extended care as an option.

As you go through this year, your child’s teacher will be able to answer most questions about transitional kindergarten.  Feel free to let me know if you ever have a question you are wondering about, though.  I’m happy to help!

Hello October! I am amazed how quickly the days and week are going this year. Your children are filling our school day with smiles and laughter. They continue to build friendships in classroom and playground, which is wonderful to see.

We had a great time on our first field trip this past Wednesday. Thank you to all drivers! The kids enjoyed exploring nature with their 5 senses.

Reminders:

Please make sure your child has spare clothes in his/her backpack in case of bathroom accidents or wet playground accidents. Thank you!

Hot Lunch and PM bussing will not be offered Friday, October 7

Our school pictures are on Tuesday, October 4.

• School Picture Make-Up/Retake Day – If your child is sick or gone on the original date OR you are not happy with the original pictures, your child may return on this date (Thursday, November 10) for a retake.
• Ordering Options:

• Portrait Packages: You may order online with credit card OR via paper order form with cash/check.
• ONLINE Orders:Please have your online order placed before or by your child’s original scheduled date and time.
  • Please still have your child come to school with the paper order form filled out with name, grade, and teacher and write at the very top ONLINE ORDERin bold letters. You do NOT have to fill in the order portion of the form.
• PAPER ORDER FORM:You may send a check or cash with the paper order form completely filled out with your child the day of his/her scheduled photo.
• Yearbook Orders:
• At this point in time you are NOT be able to order yearbooks online. The paper order form is the only option right now.
• Please check box #14 on the paper order form if you would like to order a yearbook.
• We will do a picture exchange in November, but you do not necessarily have to order pictures from this to participate. You may use pictures printed from home or any other source.

Our week in Review:

Bible-This week we reviewed creation, the fall and God’s plan for restoration. We practiced our Bible Memory 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

Math-We reviewed shapes and looked for shapes in our classroom. This is a fun and easy game to play in the car, at a restaurant or any place there is a little waiting. We also started addition this week. A lot of time was spent using manipulatives to add together and also building math language. We used the word partners when talking about numbers that were being added together.

Read A Loud-This week our featured read a loud book was Owen By Kevin Henkes. As we read the story, we noticed the rich vocabulary used in the book. These words helped us understand what the author was describing.

Handwriting-We worked on forming letters B and R. We always start from the top and are working on reaching the bottom line when we are writing. The slanted line can be difficult when making an R, but the class worked on this.

Word Wall-We added the word the to our word wall. Once we reviewed the word, it was amazing how many times students saw the word throughout the day. J

Science-We focused on our sense of smell, taste and touch. In our classroom students closed their eyes and smelled soap, coffee and cocoa. We talked about smells that we like and smells that we don’t like. Some smells can help protect us-like if food smells bad, we may not want to eat it! As we ate our lunches we talked about foods tasting sweet, sour, salty or bitter. We went around the classroom feeling different textures (smooth, bumpy, soft, hard). We also used our senses during our field trip on Wednesday.

Play-I introduced a new activity to choose during play this week. “Hot crayons” uses a griddle to hold a paper and students carefully color with a crayon. We practice and go over safety rules (do not touch the griddle or paper while it is on the griddle, hold the crayon up high, rest your other hand behind you and let the paper cool before you touch it) and the kids had a great time trying it out. It is soothing way to color 🙂