Important Reminders:

Please turn in enrollment papers to the school office this week! It is so helpful to have this information to plan for next school year. Thank you!

Spring Break-March 30-April 8 We return to school April 9!

Wednesday, April 18: Field Trip to the Critter Barn. Please plan on all students staying the whole day and packing a sack lunch for your child.

This week in Kindergarten…

We continue to use our reading strategies during Daily 5. The class is amazed at how heavy book bags are becoming. I wanted to have a lot of choices for you to read over spring break.

In Math we are working on teens and seeing them as 10 plus a few more. We used classroom items to represent teen numbers.

In Handwriting we worked on lowercase j, p and making sure certain letters go “downstairs” under the line and other stay right on the line.

We continue to add color words to our word wall. We have learned red, blue, yellow, green and purple.

We had fun dressing Wacky on Wacky Wednesday. After reading the book “Wacky Wednesday” each student drew their own picture of a wacky scene. It was so fun to look at their drawings and watch them present it to the class.

We read the book “The Tiny Seed” and then studied different seeds. The class had fun sorting through a variety of seeds and figuring out what they would grow into.

On Friday, the class studied another living thing-worms! I can’t wait to hear about this on Monday.

In Bible we continue to add events to our Easter timeline. We learned about the last supper and how we remember Jesus’s body and blood when we have communion at our churches.  We also saw Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Thank you to all who signed up to help with classroom supplies. I appreciate all of you!

Reminders:

Wednesday, March 21: Wacky Wednesday! Wear something wacky/mismatched today!

Friday, March 23: Bring a flashlight today!

March 30-April 9: Spring Break!

There are a few spots left for drivers on our Critter Barn Field Trip and Holland Farmer’s Market. Please consider filling those if you are able 🙂

Daily 5-This week we had a great time adding new books to book bags. I left older ones in as well so children have a few options to read over the weekend. Please take some time to go through word wall words with your child and ask them about their reading strategies. Students enjoyed highlighting these as we used them while reading. I encouraged students to leave the paper on the table next to them as they read so they could use a strategy when they came to a word they didn’t know.

Phonics-we worked on stretching out words and listening to different letter sounds. We practiced this with a phonics game board. The class did great working in groups of 2-3 to play this game.

Handwriting-we were able to practice letter k. This is such a tricky one with two slanted lines. It was great to see such improvement after we practiced!

Bible-We are so excited to start our Easter timeline. God had a plan for Jesus on earth and each step to the cross was an important one. This week we read about Jesus’s Triumphal entry (Palm Sunday) and Jesus teaching us to serve others when he washed the disciples feet.

Engaging God’s World-we discovered that there are three characteristics of living things: 1. Eats 2. Grows and 3. Reproduces (we actually used this big word). We talked about how a plan eats differently than a human, but it still eats. We sorted pictured and categorized them as Living or Non-Living.

Writing Workshop-We have started writing our small moment stories! This is such a big leap for our young writers. They are thinking of a true story, telling the beginning, middle and end, writing sentences (that are not pattern) and sketching. It is a lot of work! They are working so hard sounding out words and trying to keep a “finger space” between words. I am so proud of them! This week we wrote about our field trip to Visser Farms and a story of their choice.

On Friday we enjoyed traveling to a new spot to read. We went to Mr. Joustra’s room and his class came into ours. The kindergartners were impressed with the big chairs and tables in 4th grade.  We read the book “Miss Fannie’s Hat” for hat day. It is a sweet book about an elderly woman famous for wearing her beautiful hats each Sunday. She decides to donate her favorite one to the church auction. Although it was hard, it was such a blessing to the church and she felt so happy. It was good to talk to the class about giving after reading.

We ended our day with Kindergarten singing. It is always powerful to hear all five kindergarten classes singing praises. A highlight this week was watching them sing “Lord I Lift Your Name on High” and telling how Jesus came from heaven to earth to show us the way. We ended with a new video of “This Little Light of Mine.” A cartoon lightbulb was walking down a dark city street singing this familiar song. It included the verse “Jesus is the light, I’m going to let HIM shine.” As the song concluded there were three lightbulbs now walking down the street, singing and shining their light. It was so neat to share with children that they can shine their light and lead others to Jesus!

A new favorite art choice during play…HOT Crayons. After going over safety rules, children carefully color paper that is set on top of a warm griddle. The peeled crayon melts and is a very soothing way to color. When finished, we blow on the picture 3 times and it is dry. It looks great hung in a window as the sun shines through it.

Reminders:

Daylight Savings this weekend!I hope everyone adjusted well 🙂

Friday, March 16-Hat Day-wear a hat!

Wednesday, March 21-Wacky Wednesday. Dress in wacky, mismatched clothes/hair.

Friday, March 23-Bring a flashlight

Wednesday, March 28-All school chapel @ 9am. Everyone is welcome to attend.

March 30-April 7 Spring Break

We had such a fun time Friday in our cozy pajamas. We listened to a story  during library, at quiet time and during our Kindergarten singing. It was a great day to snuggle and read.

In Daily 5 this week we received one new book and continued to work on reading strategies.

In Math we continued to build our understanding of teen numbers as ten plus a few more. We are also doing very well writing numbers with very few reversals!

In Bible, we wrapped up our unit on Miracles. It is amazing to read the power of Jesus. We also talked that there are times God does not perform a miracle because He has a bigger plan than we can understand.

In Phonics we continue to listen for letter sounds at the beginning, middle and end of words.

In handwriting we practiced i, e, and l. Handwriting is coming along very nicely!

We enjoyed our Field Trip to Visser Farms! I think the highlight for many children was seeing the dog welcome us to the farm and the cat that would soon have kittens! We also saw really interesting machines that help the farming process. Students planted a Gerber daisy that will grow into a mystery color. I can’t wait to hear what colors each student has. We were told to water them a few times a week and make sure it gets sun. I hope you enjoyed the carrot and potatoes that also came home. Some students enjoyed eating their farm fresh carrot for lunch Thursday. 🙂

We ended our week Friday with pajama day. It was fun to cuddle up and listen to a story read by Mrs. Joustra during library. During quiet time I also read many library books using our document camera. At the end of the day we gathered for Kindergarten Reading (instead of singing). We watched a video of Reading Rainbow, listens to Mrs. Zondervan read a book in Spanish and look at a big book Mrs. Johnson read to us. It was fun to read in so many ways!

Important Dates and Reminders

Monday, March 5-NO SCHOOL Parent/Teacher conferences for those registered

Thursday, March 8-Field Trip to Visser Farms *Please dress for any weather, especially shoes. Drivers  will be in class at 9 to gather boosters and help with bathroom breaks before we leave 🙂

Friday, March 9-Pajama Day!

If you have any money to donate to the Philippines, you may turn that in next week.

I will also send home reading calendars for March is Reading Monday! This special calendar can earn free tickets to a white caps game and can take place of our regular reading calendar.

This week in Kindergarten…

We continued Daily 5 rotations. Each group was able to meet with Mrs. Bronsink once to receive a new book. I used the remainder of the time to work one on one with students reading and reviewing sight words and sounding out cards. Please continue to read with your child at home and celebrate their learning!

We continue to think of small moment stories. This week we thought of a story to tell a friend. These stories were only 3-5 sentences long, but we were able to focus on the sentence and hear if the story had a beginning, middle and end.

In handwriting we continue to work on lower case letters. This week we practiced letter u and reviewed a d and g.

In phonics we looked at a new family, the an family. It was a little harder to think of three letter an words, but we did! We reviewed a few times throughout the week. If you notice papers coming home with these short words on them, find a good spot to hand them up and read through them a few times with your child. Work on sounding out the letters and saying the word.

We learned about using our Eagle Eye when reading to look at the picture and first letter of a word to figure out an unfamiliar word. We also learned from Lips the Fish to get our lips ready to make the letter sound. These are fun animals to remind us of reading strategies.

In Math, we continue centers practicing addition, number formation and number recognition. We also found different ways to categorize or group things. Each student cut out cards with different colors, sizes and shapes then decided how to group them. It was fun to see the different ways students came up with.

In Bible we continue to read about the miracles Jesus did on earth. We read of the blind man that was made to see again. It was important to point out that the man was not blind because of any sin he or his parents may have done. He was blind from birth so glory could be shown to God. We also read of the ten lepers that were healed. Of the ten, only one came back to thank Jesus. This reminded us to thank God every day for what he has done for us.