Highlights from our week…
Based on the giggles, I dare say the highlight of the kids’ week might have been when we ate snack under our tables to celebrate filling our Spanish production jar. Each time we start filling the jar again, the kids vote on how to celebrate when the jar is full. This time they decided to celebrate by eating under their tables. This is by far the most creative celebration I’ve had in Kindergarten! I love their vibrant imaginations!
Important Dates
- February 10: For the Kidz gymnastics field trip (10:30-12:30) Please see the information below for details!
- February 13: 100th Day of School!
- February 14: Valentine’s Celebration
- February 20: President’s Day Break- No school
Important Announcements
Please see this link for a note from our Kindergarten team! It includes important announcements that will be helpful throughout the month of February. This week I will be sending the quarters heart sheet mentioned in the letter. Please let me know if you have any questions!
- Report Cards: Report cards are now available to view online through the parent portal. I am so proud of every one of your kids! More details about the report card are in the letter from our Kindergarten team which you can access using the link above please.
- For the Kidz Gymnastics Field Trip: We are planning to leave about 10:30 and return to school about 12:30. There will be NO hot lunch for our class that day as we’ll be getting back to school too late. 1/2 day families please plan on picking up your child at our classroom door at 12:30. I’m sorry for any inconvenience. There were limited dates and times we could go on this field trip. All students must have a signed waiver to be able to participate. Please follow this link to complete the waiver for your child. You’ll be prompted to enter in a phone number to add your name and address. Then you will be asked to re-enter the phone number to add your child to the account. Be sure that your phone number is entered in this format: 000-000-0000. See our field trip blog post for more information!
- 100th Day Celebration: The 100th day of school is a big deal in Kindergarten! It means the kids have been working hard for 100 days! They have learned so much, grown a ton, and formed some amazing friendships! I’m looking forward to celebrating! To mark the special day we will be dressing as 100 year old people! (This is optional.) Some ideas include baby powder in your hair to make it gray, glasses, suspenders, a long skirt and sweater, or a cane. We will also be doing lots of fun math and literacy centers, creating a special art project, and eating a special 100th day snack made of 100 items!
- Valentine’s Day Celebration: I’m looking forward to celebrating friendships with your children on this special day! It’s a great way to continue our lessons on what it means to love your neighbor. On Valentine’s Day we will celebrate with a variety of math and literacy centers. One way we will intentionally show love to each other is by sharing valentines. (This is also optional.) When you help your child address valentines for his/her classmates, if you could please write “amigo” in the To: ___ section or leave it blank, that would be very helpful! Thank you!
Check out how much we’re learning and growing in Christ!
Bible: We continue to study Jesus’ life and ministry. This week we talked about The Lord’s Prayer. We serve a big God who is willing to listen to our prayers- big or small. Thank you, Jesus! Throughout the month of January we have been talking about the Fruit of the Spirit kindness, bondad.
Steve Green sings a song that comes from our Bible verse. We have been listening to the song to help us remember our verse and I encourage you to do the same at home! The link is below.
Spanish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBkx_T1_efI
English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMy7rabpY6g
Literacy: Our literacy curriculum comes from add.a.lingua and is written to be taught in 5 days. Sometimes I try to squeeze it into 4 days, but I didn’t feel like that would be a wise thing to do this time. No child is behind, but I was a bit behind in teaching our curriculum in other content areas. I felt like our time was better spent reviewing literacy and focusing more time on writing workshop, math, and handwriting.
Math: This week we reviewed how to write numbers 1-10 the school way. One morning, we even had fun writing them on friends’ backs. Almost like getting a massage at school! 🙂 We also practiced solving simple addition and subtraction problems as well as looking for groups of 5. These were all parts of our unit 2 test. I have been administering this test in small groups and I’m excited and grateful for this opportunity for the kids to show me how much they are learning! It’s going very well!
Writing Workshop: Right now we are working through a unit on pattern books. Pattern books have repeating words on each page. We’ve been reading lots of pattern books and working on identifying the pattern and theme of each book. We integrated some grammar lessons on the first person singular conjugation, (yo ___,) and our writing workshop time. As a class we brainstormed the words for each page using the pattern Yo ___. Then the kids chose their favorite page and drew the illustrations. On Thursday and Friday every child worked on writing their own pattern books following the pattern Yo veo ____. (I see ___.) Some of the most popular themes so far have been school and family.
Exploring God’s World: This week we talked about push vs. pull. We “rowed boats” with partners to experience a pull and did push ups against the walls in the hallway to experience a push. We brainstormed how we use pushes and pulls every day. Some of the ideas the class came up with were opening and closing doors, pushing shopping carts and strollers, and pulling on clothes. An important reminder was given that we don’t push or pull people! 🙂
Handwriting Without Tears: This week we used chalkboards, chalk, wet sponges, and dry paper towels to practice writing uppercase S and A the school way. We thought it was pretty cool that God made an animal, serpiente, whose name starts with Ss and who says the sound of the letters Ss- “sssss.”
Play: This week I introduced a new toy into our classroom! I had to laugh when the marble run box that Amazon sent to my house for the Spanish immersion classroom was written all in Mandarin! Anyway, the new toy was a huge hit! At least a handful of kids were working on setting up new marble runs every afternoon this week. We also set up our classroom chairs to make a car that brought us to Target, Meijer, and Florida.
Afternoons:
- Monday: art, rest, read aloud, recess, snack, play
- Tuesday: rest, math centers, recess, snack, play
- Wednesday: rest, math centers/daily 5 centers, recess, snack, play
- Thursday: rest, math centers, recess, snack, play
- Friday: rest, play, recess, snack, math centers, K-5 singing
From the immersion coordinator: On Tuesday, January 31 at 7:00 pm we will host an informational meeting for anyone interested in learning more about the Spanish or Mandarin immersion programs at ZCS. We will present an overview of what immersion looks like at Zeeland Christian, hear from an immersion parent, and open it up for a question and answer time. This meeting will be geared towards potential families but will also address many questions that existing families might have, so spread the word to parents of young children and consider joining us yourself. Grandparents who want to understand immersion education better are also invited!