Oct
2017
Newsletter 7: Week of October 15
Week Overview
This week was full of positive learning and growing! On Friday, for the very first time in kindergarten, the kids were able to choose which Daily 5 activity they wanted to do that round. Some chose Read to Self and others chose Work on Writing. On Monday we learned a new game, circunloquio, to help us describe a word if we don’t know the word in Spanish. This helps us stay in the target language and not slip into speaking English. Many children are becoming more comfortable at school. We had some very good conversations about using our words and bodies to love and respect others. I’m very proud of your children for all that they are accomplishing so far in kindergarten! God is so good!
Important Dates
October 16: I will be out of the building for a science conference. Maestra DeKruyter is amazing and will take great care of your children!
October 19-20: CEA Convention (No School)
October 27: All school chapel 9:00 (You are welcome to attend!)
November 3: Grandparents Day! Click here for the official invitation. More information to come!
November 8: No PM Bus / No Hot Lunch
November 8-9: Parent/Teacher Conferences in the evening – K-8 School in session
November 9: No PM Bus / No Hot Lunch
November 10: No School
Reminders
- Gifts of Being Grand- Please help me connect with grandparents by passing along these precious keepsakes. I sent home a letter detailing this form and what to expect on Grandparents Day. I’ve also included this information under our resources tab on this blog. I’ll add the Gifts of Being Grand to your children’s spiritual journals, a collection of pieces created throughout their years at ZCS. I would love to have these by Grandparents Day please and will have extra copies that day if anyone needs them. Thank you!
- Parent Teacher Conferences- God is doing amazing things through your kids! I am looking forward to meeting with each one of you on November 8 or 9. This is a wonderful time of celebration and I can’t wait to share with you all of the great things your kids are doing! Beginning October 25 at 9:00 am you will be able to sign up for one time slot. Thank you, in advance, for taking the time to meet with me! I’m looking forward to it!
Curriculum
Bible: This week we started talking about Abraham. God made a promise to Abraham that he would give him many children and grandchildren and that he would bless Abraham’s family. God’s plan of salvation was already taking place! We took a “trust walk” with a partner to get a better feel for what it means to trust. I also assessed each child on the Bible memory verse, Genesis 8:22. They did a fantastic job! Our next verse is below:
Genesis 28:15 Yo estoy contigo. Te protegeré por dondequiera que vayas, y te traeré de vuelta a esta tierra. No te abandonaré hasta cumplir con todo lo que te he prometido.
“I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.
Literacy: This week we talked about proper nouns. These are names that use a capital (mayúscula) letters. Kindergarteners completed their first word sort individually and did a fantastic job!
- Reading strategy: Making connections
- Word wall word: si, sí
- Read aloud: Este soy yo
- Vocabulary Words:
- la sonrisa (smile)
- la fresa (strawberry)
- el ratón (rat)
- el cabello (hair)
- los cachetes (cheeks)
- la lana (wool)
- la luna (moon)
- Phrase of the week: No entiendo. ( I don’t understand.)
- Letter of the week: Ii
Handwriting: We worked on writing uppercase and lowercase Ii. We’re working on making the point at the top of lowercase i medium-size. 🙂
Book of Friends: We met Addison and William this week! We got to create their pages and discovered they both have and I in their name.
Math:This week we used math manipulatives to determine which number is more (más) or less (menos.) We compared numbers up to 5.
Writing Workshop: We continue to practice drawing our stories. This week everyone drew a story from our field trip to De Graaf Nature Center. I love the sounds in our classroom lately while everyone is so focused on their work as great authors!
Exploring God’s World: This week we started our PBL, (project based learning,) which is centered around mapping and Grandparents Day. I told the kids that my dad and I were planning on trying a new restaurant in Allegan today. We’d be meeting halfway between my house and his house in Kalamazoo and I needed to figure out how to get to the restaurant. Some ideas they gave me were to “ask my mom,” use a gps, and finally, use a map! We’ll continue this discussion about maps next week and tie it in with Grandparents Day. I’ll send information explaining our project and the idea behind PBL in your child’s red alert folder soon.
Afternoons: In play I was excited to see that the firefighters have started making maps to help them save the people who call in to the station! 🙂 I’ve also seen children playing house. They had some valuable conversations as they tried to find a role in the family for each child who wanted to play in that center.
We opened a new set of math centers this week! The four new choices are: coloring apples to match uppercase and lowercase letters, sequencing numbers 1-10 to make a scarecrow puzzle, “writing the room” (logging which numbers they find in the 10 frames around our classroom,) and a roll and color pumpkins activity. Since these activities do include worksheets I want to remind you that, even if your child completes the same worksheet twice, it is still valuable practice! These worksheets aren’t something that can be memorized and filled in without practicing the math skills and objectives. I am trying to balance keeping track of which centers each child completes while still allowing the freedom of choice to motivate the their learning.
I’m Finished, Now What? When kindergartners finish eating their lunch or snack early or have “down time” in our classroom they may visit the “I’m finished, now what?” center. I like to include activities to practice math and literacy concepts, fine motor development, and love for reading in this center. Sometimes the activities are open-ended and sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes students have time to finish the activity and sometimes I ask them to clean up and move on before they’ve had a chance to finish. That means, occasionally, your child will bring something home that appears to be unfinished. They may finish it at home, but it is not homework. It’s not that they aren’t completing their assigned tasks on time, it just means that they didn’t have time to complete both tasks. They may also visit the center more than one time/day so you may see a repeated activity in your child’s red alert folder. Please let me know if you have any questions!