Just a Note

This week we were excited to share report cards with you! We’re so proud of the growth we’ve seen already this school year. If you have any questions after viewing the report card and reading the comments, please reach out. We hope you can find some time to intentionally celebrate your child’s hard work in a way that fits your family! Thank you for all the ways you support your learners at home and us as their teachers at school. The next few months are exciting in 1st grade. Lots of learning and growth happens and we love our front row seats to it all!

Important Dates

• Jan. 29-Feb. 9: MAP Growth Window (See note below)

• Jan. 30: Immersion Year 1 Parent Meeting (See note below)

• Feb. 5: Project Best Life Parent Info Meeting for 4th/5th grade parents; 6:30pm

• Feb. 7: Elementary Worship; 2:50-3:10pm

Feb. 14: Valentine’s Day Celebration

• Feb. 15: Schedule switch – Friday specials schedule

• Feb. 16-19: Winter Break – No school, no pd

• Feb. 23: All School Chapel (9:10) and Family Groups (9:40); Pastor Appreciation Breakfast

• Feb. 29: Optional Parent/Guardian Teacher Conferences; School in Session

• Mar. 1: Half Day of School; no PD

Reminders & Announcements

• MAP Growth: We’re looking forward to upcoming MAP Growth assessments! MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) assessments in Math, Language, and Reading will help teachers to understand what students will be ready to learn throughout this school year. (1st graders do not take a language assessment in this wintertime assessment window yet.)It’s important that students do their best to show all that they’ve learned this year! We are helping your student by preparing them to know what to expect on the assessment, coaching them on assessment-taking strategies, reminding them that they are capable of doing well, and shaping a structured and supportive classroom environment on those mornings.

  You can help your student by ensuring that they get proper sleep the evening before an assessment, feeding them a healthy breakfast on each assessment morning, and encouraging them to have a positive attitude and to do their best–this assessment is important, and they are capable!

  Together, we can support students in doing their best to show what they’re reading to learn this year! There is additional information available at https://www.nwea.org/parent-toolkit/. If you have further questions, please let me know!

• Immersion Parent Meeting: Join us for a time to connect with other immersion parents on January 30 at 7:00 pm. This is an opportunity to learn about our approach to immersion at ZCS, ask questions related to immersion, and meet other parents of ZCS immersion students. Now that you have experienced the rhythms of another school year and your young child is making huge strides in developing a solid basis for biliteracy, I encourage you to join us in the media center to talk about both Spanish and Mandarin immersion at ZCS. While this gathering is for parents who are in the first year or two of having students in our immersion program, anyone who wants to learn more about immersion is welcome to attend (current or prospective parents).
• Lunch Coverage: Maestra Rodríguez and I have a meeting from 12:00-12:45 on Tuesday, January 30. We are looking for someone to cover the classroom during lunchtime. The kids come in from recess at 12:20. Please email me or reach out on the Remind app if you’re available! Siblings are welcome to come. Thank you!
• Valentine’s Day: We’re looking forward to a day when we can focus on God’s love for us and our love for each other! Your child is invited to bring a valentine for their classmates (18 students.) On Wednesday morning we’ll spend some time in valentine math and literacy centers and passing out valentines. If you would be willing to send in a snack and/or juice, please let me know by email or Remind app. We’d like to have a class snack to help make the day feel special. Thank you!
• Recess in Wintertime: Elementary students go outside for recess in the wintertime unless the windchill is below 0. If it is close, sometimes we go out for a shorter recess and then play inside for the rest of the recess time. Please plan accordingly and continue to check to make sure snow clothes are clean and dry before sending them back to school!

What We’re Learning Right Now

Math: Unit 3

Bible: Unit 7- Settling the Land

Bible Verse: Éxodo 15:2

Science: Special Project- inventing a solution to meet a human need by observing God’s creation and his animals and plants.

Writing: Small Moments- Understanding a small moment story, discovering small moments, stretching one small moment, adding details to our writing

Mentor Text: nothing new because of MAP Growth

Grammar Feature: Singular possessive adjectives, “Atonos” – are written before the noun: “mi, tu, su, nuestro, nuestra”.  (Ex: mi casa, nuestro perro)

Word Feature: The suffixes -ante, -ario, -dor (a), ero (a) are at the end of words that tell about professions or jobs. (Ex: comerciante, panadero, veterinario, vendedor)

New High Frequency Words: el rato, reír, el rodeo, eres, caí

Sylables of the week: rra, rre, rri, rro, rru

Just a Note

It was a short but sweet week! Tuesday was a fun change of pace as we listened to the Grand Rapids Symphony accompany a read aloud of the book Wild Symphony. Thank you to the parents who joined us and for those who prayed for traveling safety!

Thursday I was able to meet one on one with students to listen to them read. I’m so proud of the growth I see in each one of them! Please continue to enjoy reading at home with your child and, whenever possible, listen to them read the books from school! They’re working really hard!

Important Dates

• Jan. 15: Martin Luther King Jr. Day, No students, PD 8:00-12:00, afternoon for grading

• Jan. 16-19: Delta Screener Window

• Jan. 22: All School Chapel at 9:10, Family Groups after chapel

• Jan. 22: Roller Skating Party- Y5-2nd grade (Parent Partners sponsored event)

• Jan. 29-Feb. 9: MAP Growth Window

• Jan. 29: Roller Skating Party- 3rd-5th grade (Parent Partners sponsored event)

• Jan. 30: Immersion Year 1 Parent Meeting

• Feb. 5: Project Best Life Parent Info Meeting for 4th/5th grade parents; 6:30pm

• Feb. 7: Elementary Worship; 2:50-3:10pm

• Feb. 15: Schedule switch – Friday specials schedule

• Feb. 16-19: Winter Break – No school, no pd

• Feb. 23: All School Chapel (9:10) and Family Groups (9:40); Pastor Appreciation Breakfast

• Feb. 29: Optional Parent/Guardian Teacher Conferences; School in Session

• Mar. 1: Half Day of School; no PD

Reminders & Announcements

• A note from ZCS Parent Partners: SKATING PARTIES are coming!!!
  January 22: Y5-2nd
  January 29: 3rd-5th
  February 13: Middle School
  All skating parties will start at 6:00pm and wrap up at 8:00pm. Admission is $10.00 and skate rental is included in that price. NOTE- any child over 33 inches coming into Rollerxscape will be charged the 10 dollar admission fee. A supervising adult who does not plan to skate will NOT be charged the fee.
  Rollerxscape does not allow any outside food or drink in their facility due to health department rules. Concession stands will be open, and you are able to purchase food and beverages if you wish to do so. Come and join in on the fun! Hope to see you there!
• Recess in wintertime- Elementary students go outside for recess in the wintertime unless the windchill is below 0. If it is close, sometimes we go out for a shorter recess and then play inside for the rest of the recess time. Please plan accordingly and continue to check to make sure snow clothes are clean and dry before sending them back to school!

What We’re Learning Right Now

Math: Unit 3

Bible: Unit 7- Settling the Land

Bible Verse: Éxodo 15:2

Science: Special Project- inventing a solution to meet a human need by observing God’s creation and his animals and plants.

Writing: Small Moments- Understanding a small moment story, discovering small moments, stretching one small moment, adding details to our writing

Mentor Text: Pequeño gato nocturno

Grammar Feature: Direct object pronouns

Word Feature: In Spanish we use the suffixes -aco, -usa or -zuelo to show that something is  bad or of poor quality (malo o de mala calidad.) Please note we never use these endings for people. 

New High Frequency Words: el rato, reír, el rodeo, eres, caí

Sylables of the week: ra, re, ri, ro, ru

Just a Note

Merry Christmas! What a gift to be able to celebrate with your precious kiddos! Monday morning we “jingle jogged,” Thursday morning we worshiped together as a school and did a craft in our family groups, Friday morning we walked to Harvest Stand Ministries to donate our winter gear, (and the kids sang Christmas carols in Spanish on the way!) I had to leave early to take care of sick family members, but I am confident the kids had so much fun celebrating at the class party! THANK YOU to all of you for showing up big this week- running and cheering, worshiping in chapel, donating winter gear, planning, preparing, and leading our class celebration, and more! Thank you for the special Christmas gift you gave! It was a beautifully presented basket with a gift card for various restaurants, an ornament with an “I,” and a fun plant. I love it! Thank you! I wish you all a very special Christmas celebrating the birth of our Savior and a restful and playful Christmas break!

Important Dates

• December 25-January 5: Christmas Break
• January 8: School resumes
• January 16: Field Trip to Lollipops Concert (details coming later, but your child will need a sack lunch- no hot lunch)

Reminders & Announcements

• Lollipops Concert- On January 16 we will be heading to Forest Hills Fine Arts Center for a Lollipops Concert. We are hoping to have 2 parent chaperones to help that morning. We hope to leave about 9:00 and will return early in the afternoon. We hope to be able to ride a bus, but if we can’t find a bus or driver I will reach out asking for more parent helpers to drive please. If you’re interested in chaperoning, please reach out!

What We’re Learning Right Now

Math: Finish Unit 2- Story problems and math sentences

Bible: Unit 6- Moses

Bible Verse: Éxodo 15:2

Science: Finish Special Project- inventing a solution to meet a human need by observing God’s creation and his animals and plants.

Writing: Small Moments- Understanding a small moment story, discovering small moments, stretching one small moment, adding details to our writing

Mentor Text: Los superhéroes están en todas partes

Grammar Feature: pronouns- plural personal pronouns & number agreement: In Spanish the plural personal pronouns are nosotros/as, ellos, ellas, and ustedes.  They verb is conjugated to match the pronoun and the number of people. This may seem tricky to us, but this is something immersion students pick up by hearing and using the language every day. They don’t always do it correctly, but it is something they often do without giving it much thought. Our goal will be helping them tune their ears in to make sure they use it correctly.

Word Feature: In Spanish we use the suffixes -on, -ona, -azo, -ote, and -ota to show that things are very big.

New High Frequency Words:  para, hago, la clase, eso, algo

Sylables of the week: ga, go, gu, gue, gui

Just a Note

I love being a teacher this time of year. Sharing the Christmas story with my students each season is a big highlight for me. As Christians the birth of our Savior is the start of God’s great rescue plan- His plan to rescue us from sin and offer us salvation. In our Christmas Bible unit, we are zooming in and studying each character of the Christmas story up close. This coming week we’re looking forward to some fun moments creating Christmas gifts for parents and singing Christmas carols. Next week Friday we will celebrate Jesus’ birthday together with a variety of centers.

Important Dates

• December 21: All school chapel 9:10 (Family groups after chapel)
• December 22: Elementary Worship 2:50-3:10
• December 18-22: Jingle Jogs (More details including our specific day below)
• December 25-January 5: Christmas Break
• January 8: School resumes
• January 16: Field Trip to Lollipops Concert (details coming later, but your child will need a sack lunch- no hot lunch)

Reminders & Announcements

• Lollipops Concert- On January 16 we will be heading to Forest Hills Fine Arts Center for a Lollipops Concert. We are hoping to have 2 parent chaperones to help that morning. We hope to leave about 9:00 and will return early in the afternoon. We hope to be able to ride a bus, but if we can’t find a bus or driver I will reach out asking for more parent helpers to drive please. If you’re interested in chaperoning, please reach out!
• Winter Gear Donations- Just a reminder that donating is completely optional! Harvest Stand Ministries connected with a parent in our class and mentioned they are especially low on adult gloves. If you would like to donate, please send your things in by Thursday, December 21. Thank you!
• Jingle Jog- Monday, December 18 at 10:00-10:30ish our class will be running in the Jingle Jog! You are welcome to come cheer and/or run with your 1st grader, but no pressure! Please help your child pick out something festive they will also be comfortable running in! This is a fundraiser for our sister school in the Philippines. Please stay tuned for more information from Mrs. Miller, our PE teacher, about the fundraising details.

What We’re Learning Right Now

Math: Unit 2- Story problems and math sentences

Bible: Navidad/Christmas

Bible Verse: Lucas 2:6-14

Science: Special project- inventing a solution to meet a human need by observing God’s creation and his animals and plants.

Writing: Small Moments- Understanding a small moment story, discovering small moments, stretching one small moment, adding details to our writing

Mentor Text: Various Christmas books- Feliz Navidad, Si llevas un ratón al cine, Una señora se tragó una campana

Grammar Feature: pronouns- singular personal pronouns & number agreement: In Spanish the singular personal pronouns are yo, tú, él, ella, and usted.  They verb is conjugated to match the pronoun and the number of people. This may seem tricky to us, but this is something immersion students pick up by hearing and using the language every day. They don’t always do it correctly, but it is something they often do without giving it much thought. Our goal will be helping them tune their ears in to make sure they use it correctly.

Word Feature: In Spanish we use the suffixes -ísimo, -ísima to make superlatives. For example, is something is very very good it is “buenísimo” instead of “bueno.”

New High Frequency Words:  pero, el amigo, todo, juntos, venir

Sylables of the week: ja, je, ji, jo, ju, ge, gi

Just a Note

This week one of the highlights for me was sharing jokes. We were talking about how to spread joy to others when one of the girls mentioned making others laugh. Several of the kids were able to find a joke with their families and share it with our class. We had a lot of fun giggling together! I also shared several jokes Maestra Rodriguez and I looked for together. Then each student made a small poster with the joke of their choice and posted it somewhere in our school to bring others joy! Our classroom was full of smiles that day!

Important Dates

• December 21: All school chapel 9:10 (Family groups after chapel)
• December 22: Elementary Worship 2:50-3:10
• December 18-22: Jingle Jogs (More details including our specific day below)
• December 25-January 5: Christmas Break
• January 8: School resumes
• January 16: Field Trip to Lollipops Concert (details coming later, but your child will need a sack lunch- no hot lunch)

Reminders & Announcements

• Winter Gear Donations- Each December 1st graders collect warm winter clothes (hats & mittens,) to donate to Harvest Stand Ministries. Please consider donating new hats or mittens to this great cause in our community!
• Jingle Jog- Monday, December 18 at 10:00-10:30ish our class will be running in the Jingle Jog! You are welcome to come cheer and/or run with your 1st grader, but no pressure! Please help your child pick out something festive they will also be comfortable running in! This is a fundraiser for our sister school in the Philippines. Please stay tuned for more information from Mrs. Miller, our PE teacher, about the fundraising details.

What We’re Learning Right Now

Math: Unit 2- Story problems and math sentences

Bible: Navidad/Christmas

Bible Verse: Lucas 2:6-14

Science: Special project- inventing a solution to meet a human need by observing God’s creation and his animals and plants.

Writing: Small Moments- Understanding a small moment story, discovering small moments, stretching one small moment

Mentor Text: Si llevas un ratón a la escuela

Grammar Feature: Indefinite articles: “un, una, unos, unas” work together with the nouns. (femenine, masculine, singular or plural)

Word Feature: In Spanish we use the suffixes -illo/a -ito/a and -cito/a to show that something or someone is small, cute, or dear to us. For example, you might call your abuela (grandma) abuelita.

New High Frequency Words: va, verdad, vamos, sí, en

Sylables of the week: fa, fe, fi, fo, fu

Just a Note

Now that our aalpa project is finished it felt a little more like “business as usual” in the classroom… with the added excitement of snow and Christmastime of course! It was good to meet in small groups for reading and writing again. Wintertime is when I see tremendous growth in 1st graders and it’s exciting to see the beginnings of that already! December is one of my favorite months to be a teacher because I love seeing Christmas through young children’s eyes. It’s so fun to hear them share about putting up Christmas trees, accidentally spotting their Christmas present, discovering the antics their elf on the shelf was up to and other fun family traditions! I’m thankful at Christmastime more than ever to teach in a Christian school where we can openly share our faith and how much God choosing to send his Son to save us means to us as believers!

Important Dates

• December 5: Elementary Musical (all 3rd and 4th grade + 2nd grade Mandarin students)
• December 21: All school chapel 9:10 (Family groups after chapel)
• December 22: Elementary Worship 2:50-3:10
• December 18-22: Jingle Jogs (More details including our specific day coming later)
• December 25-January 5: Christmas Break
• January 8: School resumes
• January 16: Field Trip to Lollipops Concert (details coming later, but your child will need a sack lunch)

Reminders & Announcements

• SeeSaw- This week the kids recorded the final part of their aalpa projects on SeeSaw. They are so proud of themselves and are excited to share their work with you! Many of you have already viewed their SeeSaw portfolios this year and some have even already commented on the video from this week- thank you! If you need help accessing your child’s things please let me know. I’d love to help you!
• Home Reading Routine- Wow, I believe everyone completed the form- thank you! About 2/3 of our classroom families say they would prefer to have the books all week long. I think the best way to give everyone the best chance of practicing books at home is if I send them home on Fridays but you keep them over the weekend and all the next week. For this to work, I really need your child to have their book bags on Fridays please! We will practice new books at school during the week and bring them home on Fridays. You may keep the books at home until the following Friday. (Many families like to keep the book bag in their child’s backpack so it doesn’t get lost or mixed up with other books from home. Just a reminder there is a $10 fee for any lost or very damaged books.) Fridays will be our book bag day! I’ll try to send a message through the Remind app next week Thursday.
• Burn Bright Weekly Focus- As Christian educators, we have countless opportunities to teach kids how to live in ChristIan community and to model and practice that together with them. This week, our elementary staff and students are going to talk about spreading joy. As Christ followers our joy comes from deep within because of what Christ has done for us, and it is miraculously accessible in both the darkest and brightest of times. We will be asking: In what ways might we intentionally spread an extra bit of joy this week? Who might be blessed by an additional dose of joy? We encourage your family to talk about ways to spread joy at home just as we will be doing at school! We’d love for your child to share with us at school what he/she does at home to spread joy, and hopefully your child with share with you the ways he/she does so at school. Thanks for your partnership! Burn bright!

What We’re Learning Right Now

Math: Unit 2- Story problems and math sentences

Bible: Unit 5- José

Bible Verse: Salmo 100 (There’s a great song on our blog under the Bible verses section!)

Science: Special project- inventing a solution to meet a human need by observing God’s creation and his animals and plants.

Writing: Small Moments- Understanding a small moment story, discovering small moments, stretching one small moment

Mentor Text: ¿De dónde eres?

Grammar Feature: Definite articles: “el, la, los, las” work together with the nouns. (femenine, masculine, singular or plural)

Word Feature: In Spanish nationalities and professions are not capitalized.

New High Frequency Words: con, fui, la familia, sobre, está

Just a Note

Your kids are such hard workers! We’re getting ready to finish up our first try at the aalpa, the language proficiency project your children have been working on for the last couple of weeks! By the time we are done, your kids will have listened to a book and answered comprehension questions about it, talked with a friend about how their family celebrates Thanksgiving and compared the celebrations to the characters in our book, created a poster all about how they celebrate, and presented their poster to their class! Wow! Right now everyone is working on their poster and I´m meeting with 2 students at a time to listen to their conversations! I’m so proud of your kids and how far they’ve come as language learners! Each day they show up ready to learn and try their best!

Important Dates

• November 21: All school chapel 9:10 (No family groups)
  • Also Outdoor Discovery Center is coming in the afternoon to show us some animals and talk about their habitats and the way God uniquely built them to survive in their habitats for our science lessons!
• November 22-24: No School- Thanksgiving Break
• December 5: Elementary Musical (all 3rd and 4th grade + 2nd grade Mandarin students)
• December 21: All school chapel 9:10 (Family groups after chapel)
• December 22: Elementary Worship 2:50-3:10
• December 18-22: Jingle Jogs (More details including our specific day coming later)
• December 25-January 5: Christmas Break
• January 8: School resumes
• January 16: Field Trip to Lollipops Concert (details coming later, but your child will need a sack lunch)

Reminders & Announcements

• Next week is a 2-day week! I will not be sending a blog post home next week, but I’ve included what we’ll be learning the week after Thanksgiving break below. Next week will be focused on finishing aalpa and doing some different Thanksgiving activities, crafts, and centers together.
• I know next week will look different and you likely have plans out of your normal weekend routines, but I’ve been wondering if it’s better to send books home on Fridays and hope kids have a chance to practice over the weekend or to send books home on Mondays and hope they practice during the week. Please watch for a Google Form coming home soon with one question asking you which might work better for your family. You know your family dynamics best and I want things to work for you! I’ll see how the majority of you answer and let you know if we’re going to switch to sending book bags home on Mondays instead of Fridays. (This is not because I think kids aren’t practicing at home. It’s because I want to be flexible and meet the most needs I can!)
• RazKids- RazKids is a virtual library of leveled books you can access via the free app! Look for Learning A-Z in the app store. Our class username is Mizenbaard1. Your child knows our class password (a symbol.) The leveling isn’t perfect because the books are simply translated versions of the English books at each level, but it is great optional practice for listening to and reading books at home in the target language! We use this app often throughout the week when a child chooses Listen to a Book during Daily 5.

What We’re Learning Right Now

Math: Unit 2- Story problems and math sentences

Bible: Unit 4- Isaac y Jacob

Bible Verse: Salmo 100 (There’s a great song on our blog under the Bible verses section!)

Science: Animals- How God uniquely made them to survive in their specific habitats.

Writing: Practice appropriate letter formation, writing a complete sentence, using capital letters, spacing between words and punctuation marks at the end.
-Talk as you draw.
-Say words slowly as you write them so you can hear and record all the sounds.
-Add details to your sentence.

Mentor Text: No new mentor text to have time for aalpa presentations

Grammar Feature: contractions- a + el = al and de + el = del

Word Feature:  In Spanish days of the week, months of the year and seasons are NOT capitalized

New High Frequency Words: cada, como, quién, nadie, mosquito

Just a Note

We had another great week! We’ve been talking a lot about Thanksgiving because it’s the theme of our AALPA (add.a.lingua language proficiency assessment.) We completed the 1st part- answering some comprehension questions about a book I read to the class. We’re getting ready for the next part- a conversation with a friend about how we celebrate Thanksgiving and how it compares to the characters in our book. One thing that would be helpful is to talk with your child about how your family celebrates Thanksgiving. (What do you do? Who do you celebrate with? Where do you go? What kinds of foods do you eat?) If you don’t typically celebrate you could talk about how someone you know celebrates it. I have learned about some fun family traditions over the years of doing this assessment! Some I remember are eating pizza and macaroni and cheese, going to Urban Air, and running a 5k!

Important Dates

• November 10: No School, teacher PD
• November 16: Elementary Worship, 2:50-3:10 in the media center
• November 21: All school chapel 9:10 (No family groups)
• November 22-24: No School- Thanksgiving Break
• December 5: Elementary Musical (all 3rd and 4th grade + 2nd grade Mandarin students)
• December 21: All school chapel 9:10 (Family groups after chapel)
• December 22: Elementary Worship 2:50-3:10
• December 18-22: Jingle Jogs (More details including our specific day coming later)
• December 25-January 5: Christmas Break
• January 8: School resumes

Reminders & Announcements

• Report Cards- These summaries of your child’s learning went home this week. As a reminder,  we use a numbered grading system at ZCS:
  3- Secure
  2- Developing
  1- Beginning
  It is completely appropriate and expected for a student to have a 2 at this point in the school year. Celebrate that!  A child with a 1 is beginning to grasp the concept yet, but it isn’t necessarily a high concern at this point. Encourage your child to keep working hard! If we have major concerns, we already talked to you about them at conferences. With that in mind, if you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out! One note of clarification- there was a mistake in the program we use for our report cards. As a reminder, all instruction, including all reading instruction, is done in Spanish. Because of the mistake, the report card looks a little like some reading is taught in English, but that is not the case. Again, please reach out with any questions! We’re so proud of all of our students and all the many ways in which they are growing! Thank you for the many ways you support them and help them grow!
• RazKids- RazKids is a virtual library of leveled books you can access via the free app! Look for Learning A-Z in the app store. Our class username is Mizenbaard1. Your child knows our class password (a symbol.) The leveling isn’t perfect because the books are simply translated versions of the English books at each level, but it is great optional practice for listening to and reading books at home in the target language! We use this app often throughout the week when a child chooses Listen to a Book during Daily 5.

What We’re Learning Right Now

Math: Unit 2- Story problems and math sentences

Bible: Unit 3- Abraham

Bible Verse: Genesis 12:2

Science: Plants- characteristics, life cycle, and how we use them in everyday life

Writing: This week I was able to meet with most kids in a small writing group! Each child has a different template they are using for their personal narrative stories. We brainstormed more ideas of what we could write and are all focusing on getting just a little bit better each day. A big thing we’ve been talking about lately is using capital letters at the beginning of each sentence, punctuation at the end, and spaces between words. We’re trying to remember to read our writing again to make sure it makes sense.

Mentor Text: No new mentor text

Grammar Feature: No new grammar feature- AALPA instead (see above)

Word Feature: No new word feature- AALPA instead (see above)

New High Frequency Words: No new words this week- AALPA instead (see above)

Some more Grandparents/Grandfriends Day Pictures

Just a Note

What a fun week! One student came in saying, ¨It’s half fall half winter outside.” I know I’ll remember making gratitude lists while listening to Christmas music and before reading a book about fall for a long time! Thanks for sharing your kids with us for another great week of 1st grade!

Have a great weekend,

Melissa

Important Dates

• November 9: Legacy Event 6-9 pm
  • Also School picture retakes- please let us know if you need them and send the un-cut booklet back to school
• November 10: No School, teacher PD
• November 16: Elementary Worship, 2:50-3:10 in the media center
• November 21: All school chapel 9:10 (No family groups)
• November 22-24: No School- Thanksgiving Break
• December 5: Elementary Musical (all 3rd and 4th grade + 2nd grade Mandarin students)
• December 21: All school chapel 9:10 (Family groups after chapel)
• December 22: Elementary Worship 2:50-3:10
• December 18-22: Jingle Jogs (More details including our specific day coming later)
• December 25-January 5: Christmas Break
• January 8: School resumes

Reminders & Announcements

• AALPA: This week we will not begin a new week of our add.a.lingua currciculum, (grammar and word features.) Instead we are going to begin a special project called a language proficiency assessment or AALPA. There are 3 parts, interpretive (reading a book together and answering questions about it,)  interpersonal (having a conversation with a friend,) and presentational (making a poster.) The theme of the project is Thanksgiving. One way to help your child with the project is to talk to them about your plans for Thanksgiving or how your family usually celebrates- What do you do? Who do you celebrate with? Where do you go? What kinds of food do you eat?
• RazKids- RazKids is a virtual library of leveled books you can access via the free app! Our class username is Mizenbaard1. Your child knows our class password (a symbol.) The leveling isn’t perfect because the books are simply translated versions of the English books at each level, but it is great optional practice for listening to and reading books at home in the target language! We use this app often throughout the week when a child chooses Listen to a Book during Daily 5.

What We’re Learning Right Now

Math: Unit 2- Story problems and math sentences

Bible: Unit 3- Abraham

Bible Verse: Genesis 12:2

Science: Plants- characteristics, life cycle, and how we use them in everyday life

Writing: This week I was able to meet with most kids in a small writing group! Each child has a different template they are using for their personal narrative stories. We brainstormed more ideas of what we could write and are all focusing on getting just a little bit better each day. A big thing we’ve been talking about lately is using capital letters at the beginning of each sentence, punctuation at the end, and spaces between words. We’re trying to remember to read our writing again to make sure it makes sense.

Mentor Text: No new mentor text

Grammar Feature: No new grammar feature- AALPA instead (see above)

Word Feature: No new word feature- AALPA instead (see above)

New High Frequency Words: No new words this week- AALPA instead (see above)

Just a Note

Hello 1st grade families! it was another great week! On Tuesday the 1st grade Spanish immersion teachers all got to collaborate about how we can better serve each child’s unique needs. We prayed for each child and we made strategic plans for when we meet in small groups next week. I’m so excited to get started with RAMS time!

Our week ended with such a special picture of God’s faithfulness through generations- Grandparent’s and Grandfriends’ Day! We had many special visitors in our classroom. I think the kids had a lot of fun doing gummy bear math and science, interviewing their grands, and giving them their special art project- I promise we don’t use glitter often. 🙂

Please join us in praying for our class to get or stay healthy. We haven’t had a lot of kids out, but it does seem that when a classmate gets sick they miss several days of school. This can be hard for a 1st grader! Please join me in praying for health, for peace in their heart when a sick student is healthy enough to return back to school, and for their classmates to continue being empathetic and seeing ways in which they can support their friend. One day this week we were praying in our journals and several students prayed for a classmate who was sick. The next thing we knew, she was at our classroom door!

Have a great weekend,

Melissa

Important Dates

• November 9: Legacy Event 6-9 pm
  • Also School picture retakes- please let us know if you need them and send the un-cut booklet back to school
• November 10: No School, teacher PD
• November 16: Elementary Worship, 2:50-3:10 in the media center
• November 21: All school chapel 9:10 (No family groups)
• November 22-24: No School- Thanksgiving Break
• December 5: Elementary Musical (all 3rd and 4th grade + 2nd grade Mandarin students)
• December 21: All school chapel 9:10 (Family groups after chapel)
• December 22: Elementary Worship 2:50-3:10
• December 18-22: Jingle Jogs (More details including our specific day coming later)
• December 25-January 5: Christmas Break
• January 8: School resumes

Reminders & Announcements

• Book Bags: So far it seems like the routine of bringing book bags home at the end of the week and returning them to school on Monday is going well! This coming week I hope to collect the books that are in the bags and return them to our leveled library. If you know of any books that snuck out of the bag and onto the counter or under the seat in the car, for example, please send them back to school! There is a $10 fine for lost or damaged books.
• From our immersion director, Jodi Pierce: When I interact with people who are unfamiliar with immersion education, I am often asked how it is possible for children to learn academic concepts at the same time they are learning a new language. I briefly explain that our immersion teachers are experts at something called counterbalanced instruction. This is basically a technical way of saying that our teachers artfully dance between teaching content and teaching language concepts. We know that language is best learned within a meaningful context; therefore, while teaching math (or science or any other subject) our teachers will have both content and language goals. They will be teaching multiplication but will quickly side step to highlight a language feature that came through in the instructions or the story problem. While teaching social studies, they might ask the students to circle four past tense verbs in the text about the civil war. It is truly a beautiful thing to watch how our immersion teachers weave counterbalanced instruction into all of their teaching!

What We’re Learning Right Now

Math: Unit 2- Story problems and math sentences

Bible: Unit 2- El Mundo que Hizo Dios/The World God Made (Creation, The Fall, Noah and The Flood, Tower of Babel)

Bible Verse: Salmo 119:11

Science: Plants- characteristics, life cycle, and how we use them in everyday life

Writing: Practice appropriate letter formation, writing a complete sentence, using capital letters, spacing between words and punctuation marks at the end. We can tell stories in pictures and in words. Our illustrations should relate to the story. We can stretch words by saying them slowly out loud and record the sounds we hear. We can write stories across many pages and even use transition words to help our reader understand the order of the story. (I’m excited to start working in small writing groups this week!)

Mentor Text: No new mentor text

Grammar Feature: The word “de” is used to show belonging to something or someone. For example “My grandparents’ house” is written “la casa de mis abuelos.”

Word Feature: We will continue talking about rules for capitalizing letters. This week we’ll learn that titles of magazines and newspapers are capitalized. We’ll also talk about syllables with Nn (na, ne, ni, no, and nu.)

New High Frequency Words: era, tan, así, no, ni