Newsletter 20

We actually made it through a 5 days week!! The snow is also back for a bit so there are more things to play with during recess too. We continue to review some old routines but now with more independence (trying daily 5 transitions by ourselves, starting to write our own stories in words, and making sentences by ourselves as well! are just some of the things we are learning to be more independent on :)) 

What did we learn and What will we learn?

Mandarin/Language Arts: We continue to practice recognizing words, making meaning as well as practicing reading strategy as we read together in class. There are some things in framework that I used to guide them through as they work, that I am starting to have the children try working on by themselves ? We are transitioning towards more independence in Mandarin tasks as well! We have been reviewing each choices in our daily 5, next week we will talk about how we can make our own choices, and how do we know when it’s time to transition to the next activity.

Bible: We talked about Jesus’ visits to Martha and Mary’s house and how God wanted us to spend time with Him. The children reflected through drawing how they would like to spend their time with God, which includes praying, worshiping God, reading the bible, telling God we love him, showing kindness to our friends and neighbors, and enjoying the earth He has blessed us with. We did a review of Jesus’ Ministry Stories and is transitioning into talking about the miracles that Jesus performed next coming weeks. We have talked about our first miracle – Jesus turning water into wine! The children are making connections with what they have heard from Sunday school, but continue to be amazed at His miracles!

*If you signed up to donate some things we need for our Parables unit, please send them in this coming week so we have time to prep the materials before the lessons! THANK YOU!*

Memory Verse/Fruit of the Spirit:  We will review our fruit of Spirit: Kindness, and move on to the next fruit of spirit – Gentleness. I have assessed the children on their January Verse and we are starting to talk about our February verse, which is a verse about prayers and how we pray to God.

Math: We have started talking about teen numbers, exploring them as 10+more, as well as started talking about partners group for our numbers. (5 and 1 are partners that adds up to 6, and so is 3 and 3, 2 and 4… and so on) We are starting to explore addition and subtraction within 5 using our fingers, visuals and drawing. We also did a review of the concepts we learned in Math and Sci/SocStu on Friday and it was so much fun!

Exploring God’s World (Sci/SocStu): We are practicing directions in Science and Social Studies. In Science we focus on different direction words like front, back, left, right, inside, outside, in front, behind, in between as well as in the middle. In Social Studies we are learning about North, South, East, and West. The children are making connections of the terms that they know in English, but now learning it in Mandarin. Next Friday, we will go on our For the Kids Fieldtrip as we wrap up our Motion unit.

Writing: This week we tried to write sequential stories looking at pictures as a class. Then, we tried to look at our past drawings (stories) and start filling in words. We spend a good amount of our Friday morning exploring and trying to write – and the children were so positive and work really hard on trying even though it seems overwhelming at first!

Play: This week we spent some time decorating our Valentine boxes. We are also currently into acting out situations with dolls/animals, as well as playing cops, and noting what the teacher is doing (cracks me up!) – it’s always fun to see the children engaged in play as much as they can in their second language 🙂

Things to Note:

Spring Field Trip Sign Ups: Looking ahead, there are 2 field trips coming up – Garden Crossings is on March 24th, Friday (8:45-10:30AM), and Critter Barn/Timbertown is on April 20th, Thursday (8:45-3:15PM Whole Day!). Here is the Signup Genius Link for Chaperone sign up! http://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0d4ea5a922a6fc1-spring1

Box Top: Feel free to send in box top anytime, and when you do, please label S.Sulayman on the bag and write down the total amount of box top collected. Thank you!

Field Trip: Our next field trip will be to the For the Kidz Gym coming up next Friday. Please make sure you complete the waiver online here https://www.easyclassonline.com/7dkidz/familysearchform44.php, so that your child can participate in this field trip.

Valentine Quarters: We will raise money for our sponsor child in the Philippines this month. The Valentine Quarters package/letter was send home this week. The heart sheet attached is the sheet your child will be turning in at the end of February. For each “task/job” they completed, you are welcome to tape a quarter (or more) on the heart sheet, or collect it in a bag and cross the heart out. We will learn to love the others during this time of the year, as we earn money to support our friend Wayne at Philippines. 

Classroom Valentines: We are also going to show our love to our neighbors by having classroom valentines. It is optional – if your child is thinking of sending valentines please make sure it is peanut/tree-nut free, also coconut (and coconut oil) free! If your child would like to send their friend a valentine they can do so any day next week, and the box will be send home after the week of February 13.

From the Immersion Program Coordinator – Here is some encouraging anecdotal news for those of you who might be a little frightened by your immersion student’s English spelling or writing. Holland Christian High School took the time to compare the English grades and writing of our first two classes of immersion students; on average these students were indeed at or above the level of the non-immersion peers with some teachers reporting that they felt that immersion students’ writing had more depth than the comparison group.

What’s Coming Up?

Prayer Requests:

We have ended our second semester, and we are halfway through Kindergarten! It’s exciting to see where the students are, thinking back to how we started the year. It felt like yesterday! Please continue to pray for our class and the kindergarteners – we are taking on more independence and challenges in class as the children continue to grow. The weeks ahead are busy (with usual framework/subjects learning), as well as school events here and there!

谢谢！

－黎老师