Important Dates:

May 4 Fun Night at school! Please see the blue note for details.

May 9 Tulip Time Half Day for whole school

May 10 and 11 NO Hot Lunch or PM bussing

May 30 Farmer’s Market Field Trip *If you would like to drive, please sign up through the sign up genius. I would like to finalize drivers and riders soon. Thanks!

I also sent a sign up out this week for PBL help. Please sign up to help with this fun project if you are able! Thanks!

We continue to load up book bags with books for your children to read. Thanks for taking time at home to have your child read to you. I would also love for you to go through word wall words a few times over the weekend. There are just a few that are giving some trouble.  Those words make up a large percentage of our reading.

In math we played a grocery store game to show addition and subtraction. The kids also played teen addition memory (the cards had 10 + addition on them). This is great for building teen number sense.

In Phonics we continue to compare word families. It is fun and entertaining to listen to their word ideas 🙂 Please continue to have fun with these at home as well.

In Bible we are starting our Parable unit by listening to the stories Jesus told to teach us a lesson. We read about the Good Samaritan and the Midnight visitor. We talked about real ways we can be good neighbors and how thankful we are that Jesus is always with us.

In Writing we read letters from our pen pals. This was very exciting. We are also reviewing our writing by checking if we start our sentence with a capital letter, use finger spaces between words, use a period, check if our illustrations and sentences make sense. We also started How To writing. We wrote out how to wash hands and had a few classmates follow the directions exactly. We had lots of giggles when we realized out instructions needed to be exact. We had to turn on the water before we could wash the soap off. We also needed to dry hands! This type of writing was a bit more challenging and took us two sessions to complete. I am proud of the hard working Kindergartners we have!

Critter Barn Fun!

Thank you to those that drove and chaperoned our trip to the Critter Barn! Thank you for providing the snack as well. We were cold, but God blessed us with a sunny afternoon to spend at the park. There was so much to see and learn at the Critter Barn. I encourage you to go again as a family and let your kindergartner lead the way. I am sure they will have a lot to share. 🙂

With the unexpected snow/ice day Monday and our big field trip Wednesday it has been an unusual week! We have been able to get a lot done and have some fun learning 🙂

In Bible we reflected on Easter by listening to praise music and drawing a picture to go in our spiritual journals. These journals are so special because they follow your child through middle school. It will be an amazing time to reflect on their Christian education. I love witnessing the start of it!

In Writing Workshop we started writing to our pen pals! First, I needed to explain what a letter was. 🙂 We are writing friends from Mrs. Johnson’s classroom.  This is such a fun unit and writing. It is a hard one, but this class is definitely up for the challenge. We will write back and forth a few times, then celebrate with a pen pal pizza party. Look out for a sign up genius for this event soon.

In Phonics we continue working on cvc (consonant vowel consonant) words and word families. Please continue to have your child read those words to you and make up your own lists!

In Daily 5, we did our best to squeeze in as many reading groups as possible with such a short week.  Thanks for reading at home and working on the word wall word cards.

In Math we had fun with finding number partners. We thought of one number and then all the partners that come together to make that number. We also enjoyed creating math stories with a picture. Using a picture of a grocery store we came up with many math problems. ex: There were 6 loaves of bread on the shelf and the family bought 2, how many are left? 6-2=4. This is another easy activity to do at home with your child.

Coming up

April 27: all school chapel at 9am

May 4: Family Fun Night at school (school wide, more details should be in the blue note)

What a great week back!

This time of year is so exciting for students and teachers. We are getting hints of spring outside and I stand back and think of all of the learning and growing that has happened inside. Your children have grown so much-and they have so much more they will do this school year! The next several weeks will continue to be full of fun and learning and hopefully sunshine 🙂

We picked right back up with Daily 5. I unloaded the books from the last few weeks and I am starting fresh with one or two new books each week. Thank you for taking the time to read with your child at home as well and review word wall cards.

In Math we are working hard on counting by 5’s and 10’s as well as building our knowledge of teen numbers. Many numbers are being written nicely.

In Phonics we are looking at word families. This week we sorted -ed and -en words as well as -in and -it words. I asked the class to make sure they read their word families paper to you before they go into the recycling bin 🙂 Writing lists of word families is a great activity to do at home as well. You just need paper and pencil.

In Handwriting we are continuing writing lower case letters. We practiced h, b,f, r and n.

In Writing we are wrapping up our small moment stories. I hope you enjoyed reading the spring break stories. It was fun to read those and hear about the small moments that were special to your children.

In Bible we read about Jesus’s Ascension. It is amazing to really feel the love of Jesus in all that he did for us and truly believe that He is preparing a place for us in heaven.  I have loved watching your children learn about this during Easter and beyond.

Reminders:

The ZCS Auction is Friday! It is a great fundraiser for our school and lots of fun 🙂

April 18-Field Trip to Critter Barn *Please leave booster seats at school if you are able.

May 30-Field Trip to the Holland Farmer’s Market