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!
Genesis 8:22 “Mientras la tierra exista habrá siembra y cosecha, frío y calor, verano e invierno, días y noches.”
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
What is the Three-Fold Goal of immersion education?
As an immersion program, we are striving for excellence in three areas. 1) Academic Achievement: We expect our students to learn the same content that is expected of our English-track classrooms. 2) High language proficiency: We strive to have our students speak the language accurately and at an age-appropriate level of proficiency. 3) Cultural Competency: We hope our students will be sensitive to cultural differences and navigate culturally embedded situations with grace and empathy. As a Christian school, we can add that our first and foremost goal is to integrate our faith into all components of our learning and growth at Zeeland Christian.
A note about Mandarin FLES
We love exposing our children to other languages and cultures at ZCS, however, we have encountered a roadblock in the area of Mandarin FLES for a few of our grade levels. Unfortunately, one of our Mandarin teachers still has not received a visa. We anticipated waiting until October 1 for this approval, but as this date has now passed, it is clear that it could be several more weeks. In order to cover our Mandarin immersion 3rd/4th grade classroom, we shifted our FLES teacher to this position. Therefore, the start of Mandarin FLES will be delayed another few weeks. I want to assure you that we are considering all other options in order to get this program running as soon as possible.
