Week Overview

It’s been quite the week! We started with a firetruck (Thank you, Mr. Schrotenboer!) went to the nature center in the middle, (Thank you parent drivers and snack donators!) and made applesauce together at the end! While the kids made applesauce they searched for the letter M and articles, el, la, los, and las in a book called The Applesauce Book, El libro del puré de manzanas. I’m grateful for every day I get to spend with your children! I’m looking forward to sharing some highlights with you in our conference this coming week!

Important Dates

• October 22-23: PT conferences in the evening
• October 24-26: CEA convention – No School
• November 2: Grandparents Day

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’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!
• SignUp Genius for Grandparents’ Day: Thank you to the several of you who jumped right on the opportunity to donate items or help on Grandparents’ Day! I am still looking for a few more volunteers to help on that day and for a large picture frame please. If you’re interested please use this link to sign up. Thank you!
• New Student: Kai will start on Monday, October 22! Thanks for your help in welcoming them to our school community!

Curriculum

Bible: This week we continued 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!

Our new Bible verse is below. Check out the Bible verses tab for a video!

Math: This week we practiced identifying circles, squares, and rectangles. We also practiced finding groups of objects to match a given number. This is great practice for 1:1 correspondence and number recognition.

Writing Workshop: We continue to practice drawing our stories. This week everyone drew about our experience with the fire truck. We’re also beginning to talk about labels. This week we labeled a pumpkin.

Exploring God’s World: Our science lesson took us to DeGraaf Nature Center this week! We used our 5 senses on a nature hike and learned a lot about how God created animals with 5 senses to protect them. We learned usually an animal has a “super sense” that is heightened and that they rely on heavily for finding food or staying safe.

Afternoons: This week we attended K-5 singing on Thursday afternoon, a beautiful opportunity to worship Jesus with our kindegarten-5th grade friends. On Wednesday the class was exhausted so I let them watch a mono silabo video on the letter Mm instead of doing math centers. You can see the video here. On Tuesday we did math centers and on Friday we had art!

Up in Lights: This week Liam Schrotenboer was Up in Lights! Liam was so proud to introduce us to his daddy and show us how his dad volunteers in our community as a fire fighter. Thank you Schrotenboer family for such a memorable morning! Liam, you are a one-of-a-kind, gentle, soft-hearted, and vibrant child of God!

From the Immersion Program Director

Week Overview

What a memorable week! It was so exciting to share our news with your kindergartener and then with your whole family! Thank you so much for the emails of congratulations and for all of the prayers! I couldn’t think of a better group to support us and share in our excitement! I’ve been told the class you teach when you’re expecting makes its way into a special part of your heart. I can see why people say that!

I will keep you posted as I figure out details regarding my long-term sub and anything else that might be helpful for you and your kids to know for a smooth transition. Right now I’m planning to teach until the end which means I will be with you until spring break!

Celebrating a new baby!

Important Dates

• October 17: Morning Field trip to DeGraaf Nature Center- Please bring a booster if your child doesn’t ride the bus!
• October 22-23: PT conferences in the evening- Please see Reminders section
• October 24-26: CEA convention – No School
• November 2: Grandparents Day- Details coming soon!

Reminders

• Parent Teacher Conferences: I’m excited about the opportunity to touch base with each of you early in the year.
  • How to Sign Up:  Access the link to the conference site from the ZCS website parent page. The link on the website is live! Please make sure you do this asap and, if you will not be available either evening, please make arrangements with me very soon!
  • Questionnaire: If you haven’t already done so, please use this link  to complete a Google form/conference questionnaire. I’d like to have these by the end of today, (Friday.) I use this information to guide our conversation when we meet together. I’m looking forward to celebrating the growth your child has experienced already in the first couple short months of school!
• New Student: We are excited to welcome the Glerum family who is moving to our area from Muskegon! Kai and his family visited our class this week and your children did an excellent job welcoming them to our class! His parents’ names are Rochelle and Josh. Thank you for your help in supporting the Glerum family and their transition to ZCS!
• Book Bags: Hopefully you had a chance to play with some letters last weekend. These bags went home again this weekend and will continue to go home every weekend. Please help your child remember to bring the bag and the materials inside back to school on Monday. 
• DeGraaf Nature Center Field Trip: Last reminder! We will leave school at 9:00 am and return by 11:45 AM in time for lunch and AM dismissal. Parents who sign up to drive will transport your child to the trip. We have a limited number of boosters! Please help by planning to bring in your child’s booster seat if you are dropping your child off at school. 

Curriculum

Bible: This week we focused in on God’s promises- His promises to Noah, to Abraham, and to us. We did a rainbow painting and each child uncovered their name which was written in white oil pastel. I hope this is a reminder that God’s promises are for each one of them!

Your children said the our Bible verse, Genesis 8:22, in groups for me on Friday. They did awesome! Our new Bible verse is below. Check out the Bible verses tab for a video!

Math: We’ve been working on addition and subtraction. We aren’t using the symbols yet, but this week we practiced acting out story problems. In small groups, we used tiny dinosaurs to add two different numbers of dinosaurs or take a dinosaur away from the group and count how many were left. We also started a shape book and talked about circles, rectangles, and squares.

Exploring God’s World: This week we used our sense of taste to determine which color apple we prefer: red, yellow, or green. Then we used our math skills to make a class graph and compare the number of classmates who prefer each color.

Project-Base Learning: This week we talked about Grandparents Day coming up in November. I asked the class what we could do to help our grandparents find their way from the gym to our classroom after chapel. We discovered that one thing we could give them is a map! Soon we’ll work on creating a map of our school together.

Afternoons: This week during play the kids have been extra creative in the blocks. They built Zeeland Christian and the playground. Then they combined the blocks center and the vehicles and people center to act out school. 🙂  In our math centers we’ve been working on adding and subtracting, reading books with numbers, shapes, and patterns, number sequencing 1-10, and drawing number scenes in our own versions of Anno’s Counting Book.

Up in Lights: This week Daniel Capestany was Up in Lights. It was interesting to learn that Daniel would like to be a train conductor and some kind of professional athlete, although he’s not sure which sport he’d like to play. 🙂 Daniel’s mom read the book El Pingüino Tacky, a hilarious book about daring to be different. We’re so glad you’re in our class Daniel! You are an amazing friend to your classmates and your joy is contagious!

From the Immersion Program Director

Week Overview

It was another exciting week to be in kindergarten! I’m eager to see the precious photos of your little one’s sweet smiles. We enjoyed singing with all our kindergarten friends, visiting the library, playing in the gym, creating in art, and singing in music. I see your kids making projects for one another at the art center, drawing pictures for classmates during rest time, and heading to the playground holding hands. God is present and He is good!

Important Dates

• October 17: Morning Field trip to DeGraaf Nature Center
• October 22-23: PT conferences in the evening- Please see Reminders section
• October 24-26: CEA convention – No School
• November 2: Grandparents Day- Details coming soon!

Reminders

• Parent Teacher Conferences: The dates for conferences are quickly approaching! This year we at ZCS are trying something new. Our conferences are set about a month earlier than they have been in previous years. I’m excited about the opportunity to touch base with each of you early in the year.
  • How to Sign Up:  Access the link to the conference site from the ZCS website parent page. The link on the website will be live at 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday the 10th.
  • Questionnaire: Please use this link  to complete a Google form/conference questionnaire by Friday, October 12. I use this information to guide our conversation when we meet together. I’m looking forward to celebrating the growth your child has experienced already in the first couple short months of school! 
    
• New Student: We are excited to welcome the Glerum family who is moving to our area from Muskegon! Kai will be visiting our class this week and plans to join our class officially either the 22nd or 29th of this month. His parents’ names are Rochelle and Josh. Thank you for helping us welcome this new family!
• Extra Desks: Have you noticed we have a couple of individual desks in our classroom? At some point in the school year most kindergarteners have a moment where they just need some space for one reason or another. I wanted to offer everyone a place to be by themselves when and if they ever need it. I never use the desks as a negative consequence, but rather an opportunity to enjoy a different kind of work space. There are a couple kids who have really enjoyed using it so far!
• Book Bags: For the first time book bags went home this week! This is a great way to follow up with the hard work your kids are doing at school. Right now everyone has letters- uppercase and lowercase- inside. Please see the letter (also inside) if you’d like ideas on how to practice letters at home.
• Book It: Pizza Hut participates in an optional reading incentive program. I will send a calendar/reading log home this week where your child may keep track of the days he/she reads. Please do not get hung up on the amount of reading, but rather, use this incentive as another way to help your child fall in love with reading. If something else works better for your child, there is absolutely no pressure to participate in this particular program. At the end of the month you may turn in the calendar to earn a coupon for a free personal pizza!
• DeGraaf Nature Center Field Trip: We will leave school at 9:00 am and return by 11:45 AM in time for lunch and AM dismissal. Parents who sign up to drive will transport your child to the trip. If your child does NOT ride an AM bus, please plan to send in their booster seat. Thank you to the many of you who volunteered to drive! If you are still interested in driving please see the SignUp Genius here. If you are planning to drive, please be sure the office has a copy (emailing one to Carrie is fine,) of your license and current insurance. 

Curriculum

Bible: This week we covered two Bible stories- Noah’s Ark and The Tower of Babel. In our discussion about Noah’s Ark we learned that God protected Noah’s family and promised never to send a flood to destroy the whole Earth again. God’s promises are for Noah and they are for us!

Before reading the Tower of Babel we tried to build a tower together without using any words to communicate. That was tough! We learned that the people couldn’t finish the tower because God confused their languages and made it impossible for them to communicate. This story is powerful as immersion students because it was the beginning of new languages!

Literacy: We have been focusing our attention on nouns and articles. We’ve learned that nouns have genders in Spanish. This week we learned that the articles also change when the number of objects changes. In English this is like adding an -s or -es to make a word plural.

• Reading strategy: Determining importance of text
• Read aloud: MIs Cinco Sentidos (My Five Senses)
• Vocabulary Words:
  • los sentidos (the senses)
  • la lengua (tongue)
  • la nariz (nose)
  • tocar (to touch)
  • los ojos (eyes)
• Phrase of the week: ¿Puedo ir al baño? (May I go to the bathroom?) This was an important phrase after learning how to ask for a drink last week!
• Letter of the week: Ee

Book of Friends: We “met” two new friends this week- Henry and Ava! Your kids are getting good at these routines and I can see progress in the pictures they draw of their friends! More and more they are choosing appropriate colors and remembering to include different features like details on clothing and all the body parts.

Math: We finished reading Anno’s Counting Book. Each page is illustrated with a scene that represents a number 0-10. I heard so much great Spanish as we went through each page of the book noticing the different ways each number was represented. This week we began drawing scenes in our own counting books.

Exploring God’s World: We continue to talk about our 5 senses: gusto, (taste,) olfato, (smell,) oído, (hearing,) tacto, (touch,) and vista (sight.) This week we focused on sight, vista. This week we focused on oîdo. The kids circled the things that they can hear and crossed out the things they couldn’t hear.

Project-Base Learning: This week we got started with our first Project Based Learning (PBL) project. PBL, in simple terms, is a project that is done by taking complete lead from a child’s interests. Starting in kindergarten, we begin to teach children what the PBL process looks like, how to ask questions, and how to go about learning more about something they are interested in. I started by asking the kids, “How do I know where to drive my car if I’m going to a new place?” One student suggested I need help, another that I need Jesus, and another that I stop by my church to ask. 🙂 Eventually, we arrived at the idea of using a map. Next week we’ll dig deeper into maps.

Afternoons: This week during play the kids discovered the ring toss and it’s been a hit! It’s exciting to watch your kids learn about sharing and taking turns when they choose to play this game. In our math centers we’ve been working on graphing, patterns, fine motor development, 1:1 correspondence, and number recognition. 

Up in Lights: This week Elly Huizenga was up in lights! She shared one of her favorite books with us, The Blossom Shoppe, by Katherine & Caroline Brickley. In the story Poppy, Posie, and Mama Blossom work to save their family flower shop. It’d be a great book to check out from the library and read at home! Thank you for sharing such a great book about hard work, creativity, acceptance, and the amazing things that can happen when you let your true colors shine, Elly! You are an amazing and important member of our class and we’re so glad you and your family are here!

From the Immersion Program Director