Newsletter #36

Wow! What a week 🙂 Memorial Parade went great, Our last field trip to Farmers Market was fun – so much learning and reviews of the year happened there, and PBL Presentation was such a success (The children LOVED being able to teach you and THANK YOU so much for coming and being a part of the celebration – I am one PROUD teacher)! I can hardly believe we have only one more week until summer! I am savoring my last moments with these kindergarteners and realizing that goodbyes are going to be so tough :’)

This is our LAST newsletter this year, and I just want to take this chance to say Thank you so much for all your support and help this year as parents –  Thank you for your prayers, for your encouraging words and for all your hard work supporting your children in many different ways.

What did we learn and What will we learn?

Mandarin/Language Arts: We continue to grow and learn new characters/phrases, as well as expanding our vocabularies in our daily conversations and news sharing. We practiced how to read with a friend this week and it is now a permanent choice for our daily 5. Next week we will focus a lot on reviewing all that we have learned in Kindergarten.

Bible: This week we focus on talking about how we can do God’s work and how Holy Spirit helped us, we also drew our Spiritual Journal pages. We are reviewing stories we have heard this year.

Memory Verse/Fruit of the Spirit: We will spend some time reviewing our Bible Memory Verses and Fruit of the Spirit this coming week.

We are working on practicing and memorizing the Lord’s Prayer – you can also find it on our Bible Memory Verses recording page. I encourage you to practice the Lord’s Prayer with the children at home too (when you pray/before bed, or even when you have some extra time).

Math: We continue to practice our number sense and learning how numbers work together (addition/subtraction) as well as story problems. We are reviewing our equations along with telling stories and using the right phrases when we do tell our math stories. We are doing some math games and practice reviewing our concepts in partner groups.

Exploring God’s World (Sci/SocStu): We got to apply our knowledge through our field trip at Farmer’s Market! We had the chance to review needs and wants, engaged in conversations with the sellers there, and did some trading. Many thanks to our wonderful chaperones who guide the children through this whole trip and make it a success 🙂 We also wrapped up our Science Animals PBL as the children went in action in teaching you! Next Tuesday we will get to hear and see the first graders talked about their habitat  and teaching about animals – your children are VERY EXCITED that we get to be audiences of animals habitat learning.

Writing: We continue to write stories and next week we will be writing a special book – my book of reflection on Kindergarten. It will be one of our big project for next week to complete this book and we will be able to share it on the last day!

Play: We are starting to clean up some toys (since we have so many!) while enjoying our play time as usual 🙂

Things to Note:

Bus Tags: All students use turn in their bus tags before the last day of school. Students who never ride the bus (walkers, parent transportation) should turn their tag into the school office the last week of school. Students that are currently using their bus tags may give their tag to the bus driver on the last day they ride the bus, give them to their teacher or drop them in the school office on the last day of school. Misplaced tags might be charged for $10.

Father’s Day: We will be doing a little art project this week to celebrate the hard work that our dads do 🙂 Allow me to wish you a Happy Father’s Day in advance!

Things coming home: In the next couple of days your child will start bringing many things home each day, many of them can be use for summer reviews.

Google Folder for Pictures: I have shared some pictures with you in a google folder – I have found that it’s actually an easier way and you get the full quality! Let me know if you are having trouble accessing it.

From the Immersion Coordinator: As we move into the summer months, stop by my office (#69 between the library and gym) if you would like a handout from add.a.lingua that gives suggestions and ideas for enhancing your child’s immersion education during the summer. As always, feel free to stop in or email me (jpierce@zcs.org) with any questions that you might have.

What’s Coming Up?

Specials: Monday – Spanish, Art, Tuesday – Music, Spanish. Wednesday – PE.

Qiao Laoshi is subbing: Monday, June 5th. The children are aware that Li Laoshi will be gone for the day, and that they will be in good hands! The good news is most of them knew Qiao Laoshi from Preschool so they are not so nervous 🙂

Mandarin Parents Meeting: Monday, June 5th at 3PM. Learn about plans for Mandarin program for the upcoming year!

End of the year Chapel: Wednesday, June 7th at 1PM.

Prayer Requests:

Prayers that the children will be able to stay strong and continue to do their best through (especially practicing Self-Control) the busy and approaching summer weeks. Prayers that they will be able to show what they have learned too as we are wrapping up the year and is in another assessment period! Prayers for finishing Kindergarten strong and a good end of the year time together.

谢谢！

－黎老师

Newsletter #35

We had a busy and wonderful week! The children were very excited and a little sad too that this is the last week of framework – it’s last week of poem, new radicals, word wall words, high frequency words, grammar and culture. We had a great week making our products and practicing our lines – I am so impressed at the children’s focus and motivation as they work through their PBL, they are loving the process and are being great scientists and thinkers!

*Sharing some class picture we took this week*

THREE THINGS COMING UP THIS WEEK:

1. Memorial Parade at Zeeland Downtown on Mon, May 29th at 8:45AM! Please remind your child to wear the Blue Jacket, meet me at south of Main street near the intersection of Centennial&Cherry.
2. Last field trip to Farmers Market on Wed, May 31st morning! NO HOT LUNCH that day please.
3. PBL Presentation and reception afterwards on Thurs, June 1st at 2:30PM in the Music/Choir Room! *Let me know if this changes your child’s transportation plan (I would imagine most, if not all of our children will be pick up by family!)*

What did we learn and What will we learn?

Mandarin/Language Arts: We continue to grow and learn new characters/phrases, as well as expanding our vocabularies in our daily conversations and news sharing. We practiced how to read with a friend this week and it will soon be a permanent choice for our daily 5. Next 2 weeks we will focus a lot on reviewing all that we have learned in Kindergarten!

Bible: This week we focused on reviewing the Fruits of the Spirit we have learned each day. This week we talked about goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control and how we see them in our daily life. We had the chance to tell a mom about what we learned about God in Kindergarten and reflect on it as our days at school is ending. We will start reviewing some of our bible stories as we wrap up the school year.

Memory Verse/Fruit of the Spirit: We are practicing our May’s Bible Memory Verse which is about going out and doing His work! Next week we will draw this bible memory verse out and start the process of filling in our Spiritual Journal – it’s a journal that will follow the children all through their ZCS years! I will also be assessing their May Verse.

We are working on practicing and memorizing the Lord’s Prayer – you can also find it on our Bible Memory Verses recording page. I encourage you to practice the Lord’s Prayer with the children at home too (when you pray/before bed, or even when you have some extra time).

Math: We continue to practice our number sense and learning how numbers work together (addition/subtraction) as well as story problems. We are reviewing our equations along with telling stories and using the right phrases when we do tell our math stories. We are also learning 3D Shapes, identifying them while reviewing our learning on directions.

Exploring God’s World (Sci/SocStu): For PBL, this week we focus on creating our products and practicing our lines as we get ready to teach! The children are loving the process and can’t wait to share their learning with you! We also had the chance to talk about goods, services, our needs and wants as well as trading. Next Wednesday we will be going on our last field trip to farmers market and make connections to all these concepts in real life situations.

Writing: We are sharing our first How To Book stories and continue to write stories.

Play: We love love animals, there was a lot of role playing school/work, as well as home this week. Many of the children also chooses to practice their PBL lines during play this week!

Things to Note:

Memorial Day Parade: Memorial Parade is on the 29th morning. I look forward to seeing the Kindergarteners in their blue jacket! You may send the jacket back to school on Tuesday.

From ZCS Office – If you have not already done so, please hand in your enrollment form/packet to the school office! Thank you!

PBL Celebration – Please join us as we celebrate the children taking ownership of their learning on Thursday, June 1st at 2:30PM! Families and friends are all welcome as the children teach you all about their animals (in Mandarin) follow up by reception afterwards! We look forward to seeing you and presenting in front of you!

From the Immersion Coordinator – As we move into the summer months, stop by my office (#69 between the library and gym) if you would like a handout from add.a.lingua that gives suggestions and ideas for enhancing your child’s immersion education during the summer. As always, feel free to stop in or email me (jpierce@zcs.org) with any questions that you might have.

What’s Coming Up?

Specials: Monday – Spanish, Art, Tuesday – Music, Spanish. Friday – Spanish.

Memorial Day Vacation/Parade (NO SCHOOL): Monday, May 29th.

Farmers Market Field trip: Wednesday, May 31st. (We might not make it back in time for Hot Lunch so please NO HOT LUNCH that day as well)

PBL Celebration: Thursday, June 1st, 2:30-3:25PM. You won’t want to miss this! Join us for reception afterwards as we celebrate a great year of Kindergarten.

End of the year Chapel: Wednesday, June 7th at 1PM.

Prayer Requests:

Please pray for the children as they get ready to share their learning with you this coming Thursday. Pray for calm nerves, courage in speaking up in front of others (especially to you adults!) They are so ready and so excited and I have been very impressed with all that they do all through the process 🙂

We are approaching the end of the school year very quickly so pray for perseverance, patience and continue to hang in there as summer break approaches! Prayers for finishing Kindergarten strong and a good end of the year time together.

谢谢！

－黎老师

Newsletter #34

The weather was so nice this week and the children loved going outside.We are also thankful that we get a classroom with AC so it’s actually not that hard to get the children back on track to learning as they come back HOT from outside! On Friday we started compiling our research to make the final products that we will use to teach you about animals and it turned out so wonderful! We had a good chunk of time where I meet with each group and assigned the other groups to keep working and moving forward as I meet with other groups – the children stayed on task, made their own decisions and help others all along. At the end of it they told me it felt so short and we agreed it’s because we were having so much fun! I am one proud teacher 🙂

*The lines for their PBL Presentation was also send home so that they can take some time to practice and hopefully memorize the lines within the next 2 weeks!*

As we get ready to go to Farmers Market on May 31st, I sent a paper home (in English) that the Kindergartener can work with you to think about how your family use money, and how the children can use their money at Farmers Market. I encouraged the children to answer the question as much as they can writing in Mandarin, or they may draw a picture and you can help them label the pictures (in English). The children know we will discuss the paper together next week, so please send it back to school latest by Friday, May 26th! Each child will have $2 dollars to spend at the market.

What did we learn and What will we learn?

Mandarin/Language Arts: We continue to grow and learn new characters/phrases, as well as expanding our vocabularies in our daily conversations and news sharing. Our poem this week was on drawing Spring so on Monday morning we drew what we heard and read in the poem! The children were so excited as they realized that the last sentence of the poem says – I take my color pencils and draw spring: which is exactly what we were just doing! We just learned how to read with a friend this week and it will soon be a permanent choice for our daily 5. Next week will be our last week focusing on framework and the following weeks we will focus on reviews.

Bible: This week we focused on reviewing the Fruits of the Spirit we have learned each day. We started with reviewing what the words mean, and then talked about how we see the fruits in our daily life. We also talked about how we can ask the spirit to help us show one of the fruit (or more) when we are struggling with different things. We talked about love, joy, peace, patience and kindness this week. Next week we will talk about goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Memory Verse/Fruit of the Spirit: We are practicing our May’s Bible Memory Verse which is about going out and doing His work! Next week we will draw this bible memory verse out and start the process of filling in our Spiritual Journal – it’s a journal that will follow the children all through their ZCS years!

We are working on practicing and memorizing the Lord’s Prayer – you can also find it on our Bible Memory Verses recording page. I encourage you to practice the Lord’s Prayer with the children at home too (when you pray/before bed, or even when you have some extra time).

Math: We continue to practice our number sense and learning how numbers work together (addition/subtraction) as well as story problems. We are reviewing our equations along with telling stories and using the right phrases when we do tell our math stories. We are also exploring and learning 3D Shapes, identifying them while reviewing our learning on directions.

Exploring God’s World (Sci/SocStu): For PBL, this week we focused on researching all about our animals. At the end of the week we finalized our research and move into thinking how to present our ideas to you. Next week we will focus on making our products and practicing to teach! The children are nervous but more excited that they will get to share their learning with you! We are also reviewing some Social Studies concept as we get ready to go to Farmers Market soon.

Writing: We finished sharing our Small Moment Critter Barn story and are now moving towards writing our How To Books! We talked about how we write how to books and talked about ideas we can teach others “How To” do.

Play: We love love animals, there was a lot of role playing school/work, as well as home this week. We continue to enjoy making art and little gifts for others here and there.

Things to Note:

Water Bottle and Towels: Water bottle and towels were send home (for the last time this year) on Friday, please clean them and return them on Monday!

ZCS Library Books: All students should return all Library books by next week. At this point in the school year, new books cannot be checked out. If you see any books at home that belong to ZCS please bring them back.

Memorial Day Parade: Memorial Parade is on the 29th morning. The instruction on the parade was send home last week – If you have any questions let me know! Please EMAIL me if you are NOT COMING!

Mandarin Homework&Flashcard: Homework that will be coming home next week will be word wall words and high frequency words from framework U6W5 – it’s our LAST week of framework. Thank you for your continue work at home!

From ZCS Office – If you have not already done so, please hand in your enrollment form/packet to the school office! Thank you!

From the Immersion Coordinator – As we move into the summer months, stop by my office (#69 between the library and gym) if you would like a handout from add.a.lingua that gives suggestions and ideas for enhancing your child’s immersion education during the summer. As always, feel free to stop in or email me (jpierce@zcs.org) with any questions that you might have.

What’s Coming Up?

Specials: Monday – Spanish, Art, Tuesday – Music, Spanish, Wednesday – PE. Thursday – Spanish.

Memorial Day Vacation/Parade (NO SCHOOL): Monday, May 29th. Kindergarteners who are interested and available that day are invited to march in the parade in downtown Zeeland!

Farmers Market Field trip: Wednesday, May 31st. (We might not make it back in time for Hot Lunch so please NO HOT LUNCH that day as well)

Save the Date – PBL Celebration: Thursday, June 1st, 2:30-3:25PM. You won’t want to miss this! Join us for reception afterwards as we celebrate a great year of Kindergarten.

Prayer Requests:

Please pray for the learning in working together and being good group mates as we work closely with the friends in our group during PBL Project. Pray that it will be a meaningful learning experience not only to dive into the animals that God has created, but also learning how to work together, distributing jobs, helping each other, and be kind and humble when we are discussing and making decisions about our animals.

We are also approaching the end of the school year very quickly so pray for perseverance, patience and continue to hang in there as summer break approaches! Prayers for finishing Kindergarten strong and a good end of the year time together.

谢谢！

－黎老师

Newsletter #33

It’s a wonderful time of the year where we get to enjoy the wonderful nature and the children love sharing Tulip Time traditions that your families do each year 🙂 I would also like to celebrate you! Happy mothers day – I hope you enjoy a wonderful time with your family and thank you for all you do. I hope you enjoy the flowers that the children have planted (pick them up at Garden Crossings today if you haven’t already!), the little animal they made during Art, and the flower and message!

What did we learn and What will we learn?

Mandarin/Language Arts: We continue to grow and learn new characters/phrases, as well as expanding our vocabularies in our daily conversations and news sharing. In leveled reading, we continue to work on reading books that are getting harder (seeing new words, understanding what they mean, as well as practicing our understanding and reading strategies). We just learned how to read with a friend this week and it will soon be a permanent choice for our daily 5.

Bible: We talked about how Holy Spirit help guide us to know what God wants us to do (making good choices as well) and His plan for us. We talked about how sometimes even though we are doing God’s work, we might run into difficulties too. But we have to be courageous and continue to tell people His words – with God helping us, also through Holy Spirit’s guidance. We wrapped up our unit on God’s Love and reviewed the different ways Holy Spirit has helped God’s people do His work after Jesus went back to heaven. We will soon go back to Moses’ stories that we shared before Jesus’ stories! Next week we are focusing on reviewing all of the fruits of the spirit, each and every one of them and how do they look like in our daily life.

Memory Verse/Fruit of the Spirit: We are practicing our May’s Bible Memory Verse which is about going out and doing His work! We continue to talk about and discuss May’s Fruit of the Spirit – Self-Control.

We are working on practicing and memorizing the Lord’s Prayer – you can also find it on our Bible Memory Verses recording page. I encourage you to practice the Lord’s Prayer with the children at home too (when you pray/before bed, or even when you have some extra time).

Math: We continue to practice our number sense and learning how numbers work together (addition/subtraction) as well as story problems. In Kindergarten, many skills are reviewed and strategies are practiced so that the children have a solid understanding of the numbers before expanding to learning harder concepts or with bigger numbers. We are also exploring and learning 3D Shapes, identifying them while reviewing our learning on directions.

Exploring God’s World (Sci/SocStu): We have started talking about our PBL Projects which is a children based research unit on animals. We are at the researching phase – we are recalling what we already know, what we would like to know, as well as thinking of different ways that can help us find out what we would like to know. We are also learning ways to organize our thoughts on a thinking map/graph so that we do not miss anything when we are teaching our parents about our animals. The children are so excited and are loving the PBL process! 🙂 I can’t wait for them to share their learning with you!

Writing: We are in the process of finishing another small moment stories for our Critter Barn field trip. We are also starting to write some How To book and teach other to do things that we know how to.

Play: We love love animals, there was a lot of role playing school/work, as well as home this week. This week I also added some strings and beads so there are a lot of necklaces, bracelets and bookmarks going on!

Things to Note:

Memorial Day Parade: Memorial Parade is coming in 2 weeks. The instruction on the parade was send home last week – If you have any questions let me know! Please EMAIL me if you are NOT COMING!

Mandarin Homework&Flashcard: Homework that will be coming home next week will be word wall words and high frequency words from framework U6W4. Thank you for your continue work at home!

From ZCS Office – If you have not already done so, please hand in your enrollment form/packet to the school office! Thank you!

Expand(ED) Deadline Coming Soon: Please sign your child up for any Expand(ED) opportunities on this website (or search ZCS Expand(ED) online) by Friday, May 19. Opportunities include academics, sports, language, and creative arts. Camps will be canceled if there are not enough students signed up. If you have any questions, please email mklompmaker@zcs.org

From the Immersion Coordinator – All immersion parents are invited to learn more about your child’s immersion education at an Immersion Parent Round Table Discussion. While these are completely optional, I encourage anyone to join at least one meeting whether you have questions or just prefer to listen. The grade levels are just suggested ranges so that we can focus on topics which tend to be of interest to that level but don’t feel restricted by them. We will meet in the classroom at the back of the media center. Bring your lunch and your questions!

What’s Coming Up?

Specials: Monday – Spanish, Art, Tuesday – Music, Spanish, Wednesday – LAST Library time this year, PE. Thursday – Spanish.

Memorial Day Vacation/Parade (NO SCHOOL): Monday, May 29th. Kindergarteners who are interested and available that day are invited to march in the parade in downtown Zeeland!

Farmers Market Field trip: Wednesday, May 31st. (We might not make it back in time for Hot Lunch so please NO HOT LUNCH that day as well)

Save the Date – PBL Celebration: Thursday, June 1st, 2:30-3:25PM!

Prayer Requests:

We are taking on new challenges and learning to be more independent on many things in class! Prayers for courage and learning spirit as we take big steps in this last month of Kindergarten. Prayers for the children as they take on more responsibilities and ownership of their learning and the things that they do each day ?

Please pray for the learning in working together and being good group mates as we work closely with the friends in our group during PBL Project. Pray that it will be a meaningful learning experience not only to dive into the animals that God has created, but also learning how to work together, distributing jobs, helping each other, and be kind and humble when we are discussing and making decisions about our animals.

谢谢！

－黎老师

Newsletter #32

We started the week celebrating another jar filled – it’s always exciting to see the children taking ownership of their own learning (jars filled are all their hard work!) We are also working on being more independent in class! This week we started with less to no reminders to do our classroom job, putting things in our red alert folders ourselves, as well as starting morning work independently. We have also started leading lunch prayers (I am most excited about this!) during lunch, one child per day. They are also in charge in delivering important verbal reminders and information to you from school to home.

*Sharing some pictures from our celebration, worm lesson and beginning stages of Critters PBL!*

It’s been such a pleasure working with you this year – thank you so much for the little things you send in during this week! Feeling so blessed and loved as your child’s teacher 🙂 I love what I do each day! Enjoy the wonderful weekend and don’t forget to go and pick up your 1ST (Garden Crossings) Mother’s Day Gift!

Next week’s schedule:

-½ Day Wednesday, May 10 –  Buses will be running (10:45 middle school dismissal/11:50 Elementary Dismissal.)

-Full Day Thursday, May 11 – NO Hot Lunch and NO PM Busing

-Full Day Friday, May 12 – NO Hot Lunch and NO PM Busing

What did we learn and What will we learn?

Mandarin/Language Arts: We continue to grow and learn new characters/phrases, as well as expanding our vocabularies in our daily conversations and news sharing. In leveled reading, we continue to work on reading books that are getting harder (seeing new words, understanding what they mean, as well as practicing our understanding and reading strategies). We just learned how to read with a friend this week and it will soon be a permanent choice for our daily 5.

Bible: We talked about how Holy Spirit help guide us to know what God wants us to do/His plan for us. We talk about how Paul and Silas were thrown into jail because they were telling God’s news, but Holy Spirit gave them peace and joy even in midst of hard times. We also talked about how Paul shares news about God but not everyone liked that (and he faces difficulty while doing God’s work as well). But we have to be courageous and continue to tell people His words – with God helping us, also through Holy Spirit’s guidance. We will continue to talk about Paul’s stories and how Holy Spirit help us in our daily life.

Memory Verse/Fruit of the Spirit: We are starting to practice our May’s Bible Memory Verse which is about going out and doing His work! We also had a good discussion about May’s Fruit of the Spirit – Self-Control. We did a lesson where the children have to use self-control so that they don’t touch or eat the chocolate that Li Laoshi has put right in front of them – It was not easy, but the children managed to use self-control as they get through the lesson without getting distracted by the chocolate. Self control is a fruit that we have been working to learn all year and this month we get to dive more into it.

I would encourage you to talk about Holy Spirit with the kids if you are able to as well – it can be a harder concept to grasp at their age certainly.

Math: We continue to practice our number sense and learning how numbers work together (addition/subtraction) as well as story problems. In Kindergarten, many skills are reviewed and strategies are practiced so that the children have a solid understanding of the numbers before expanding to learning harder concepts or with bigger numbers. We are also exploring and learning 3D Shapes, identifying them while reviewing our learning on directions.

Exploring God’s World (Sci/SocStu): We are talking about living/non-living things and how to differentiate them. The three ways we know things are living are 1) They can reproduce 2) They grow 3) They eat/take in food as well as produce food. We started the week of with observing and touching the special visitors in our class – worms! It was fun to see children getting excited over His creation and learning about His world! We have also started talking about our PBL Projects which is a children based research unit on animals. We already voted for the 3 animals we are teaching, and will be diving into phases of research which is – what we know and what do we want to know, and how do we find information.

Writing: We finished up our garden crossing stories and had the chance to share it with our friends. This week we also started talking about How To Books and practiced writing a How To Book together that cross over with our Science Learning as we teach others How To Plant Flowers!

Play: We love love animals and is so excited that we get to dive into learning animals and teaching animals in our PBL Unit!

Things to Note:

Water Bottle and Towels: Water bottle and towels were send home on Friday, please clean them and return them on Monday!

Garden Crossing Flowers Pick Up: An email and a hard copy coupon has been sent home! You are welcome to go and pick up your plants. The date for pick up is May 3rd-May13th! It will be a perfect opportunity for some bonding time as Mother’s Day is coming up 🙂

Memorial Day Parade: The note on memorial day parade has been sent home on Thursday. If you have any questions let me know! Please EMAIL me if you are NOT COMING!

Mandarin Homework&Flashcard: Homework that will be coming home next week will be word wall words and high frequency words from framework U6W3. Thank you for your continue work at home!

From ZCS Office – If you have not already done so, please hand in your enrollment form/packet to the school office! Thank you!

From the Immersion Coordinator – All immersion parents are invited to learn more about your child’s immersion education at an Immersion Parent Round Table Discussion. While these are completely optional, I encourage anyone to join at least one meeting whether you have questions or just prefer to listen. The grade levels are just suggested ranges so that we can focus on topics which tend to be of interest to that level but don’t feel restricted by them. We will meet in the classroom at the back of the media center. Bring your lunch and your questions!

What’s Coming Up?

Specials: Monday – Spanish, Art, Tuesday – Music, Spanish, Wednesday – Library, PE. Thursday – Spanish.

Tulip Time Half Day School: Wednesday, May 10th.

NO HOT LUNCH/PM Bussing: Thursday and Friday, May 11th and 12th.

Garden Crossing Flowers Pick Up: The dates to pick up the flowers are May 3rd till May 13th.

Memorial Day Vacation/Parade (NO SCHOOL): Monday, May 29th. Kindergarteners who are interested and available that day are invited to march in the parade in downtown Zeeland!

Farmers Market Fieldtrip (tentative depending on weather): Wednesday, May 31st. (We might not make it back in time for Hot Lunch so please NO HOT LUNCH that day as well)

Save the Date – PBL Celebration: Thursday, June 1st, 2:30-3:25PM!

Prayer Requests:

We are taking on new challenges and learning to be more independent on many things in class! Prayers for courage and learning spirit as we take big steps in this last month of Kindergarten. Prayers for the children as they take on more responsibilities and ownership of their learning and the things that they do each day 🙂 Also pray for patience and perseverance as we continue learning when summer is getting closer and closer!

谢谢！

－黎老师

Newsletter #31

It was a good Spring week and Chapel ended the week perfectly. Next week is the start of May and the children knows that this means new challenges are coming! We are getting ready for more independence and new things as we finish up Kindergarten 🙂

Hopefully you have heard this from your child (that means they are delivering the news that I have asked them to) – we are celebrating another language jar filled in class this coming Monday! They are welcome to wear PJ to school and bring a friend (stuffed animals/dolls that can fit in their backpack).

What did we learn and What will we learn?

Mandarin/Language Arts: We continue to explore word wall words, high frequency words, learning grammar as well as continuing growth in word recognizing and using them in context. There are some words that the children will find in our weekly learning that might not be completely new – and it’s always exciting to see them making connections of their prior learning and previous experiences! In leveled reading the children are progressing in the materials, which mean not only reading and recognizing the characters, but also practicing some reading strategies, trying to figure out what the story is about as well as practicing reading fluently. When you are reading with the children at home I encourage you to what the story is about – who’s in this book, what happened, what are some patterns you see, how did things go, etc.

Bible: We talked about Peter escapes from jail, Philip and the Ethiopian, as well as some of Saul’s stories. Next week we will talk about continue to talk about Saul’s stories and the early stories of how God’s message started traveling. We talked about how God Has a plan for Saul and because Saul was touched, he had a change of heart and change his name to Paul – then went to tell people stories about God. We also talked about how Holy Spirit help guide us to know what God wants us to do/His plan for us.

Memory Verse/Fruit of the Spirit: We have assessed our Easter bible Memory Verse and we are starting to practice our May memory verse which is about the mission God has given us during Pentecost. We have wrapped up talking about Gentleness and is now starting to talk about our last fruit of the spirit – Self Control.

I would encourage you to talk about Holy Spirit with the kids if you are able to as well – it can be a harder concept to grasp at their age certainly.

Math: We continue to practice teen numbers, math mountain as well as math partner groups. In Kindergarten, many skills are reviewed and strategies are practiced so that the children have a solid understanding of the numbers before expanding to learning harder concepts or with bigger numbers. We are also learning what some 3D shapes are called, and talk about their characteristics.

Exploring God’s World (Sci/SocStu): We are talking about living/non-living things and how to differentiate them. The three ways we know things are living are 1) They can reproduce 2) They grow 3) They eat/take in food as well as produce food. We will have some special visitors that help us learn more about living and non-living things next week! We will soon start our PBL Learning Unit on Animals.

Writing: We continue to work on small moments stories from our Garden Crossings field trip and Critter Barn. This week we also started talking about How To Books and practiced writing a How To Book together that cross over with our Science Learning as we teach others How To Plant Flowers!

Play: We are enjoying story telling, and building houses, places, buildings and later on bringing our animals (which are the characters) in our stories to our buildings and role playing. We also loved making art and our art box is always popular.

Things to Note:

Garden Crossing Flowers Pick Up: Your child planted a seed when we visited Garden Crossings. The greenhouse kept the basket and has been taking care of it so that it will be beautiful for you by Mother’s Day! Please enjoy a weekend outing, or send your husband to Garden Crossings to pick up your child’s basket for a nice surprise. The dates to pick up the flowers are Thursday, May 11, Friday, May 12, or Saturday, May 13.

Mandarin Homework&Flashcard: Homework that will be coming home next week will be word wall words and high frequency words from framework U6W2. Thank you for your continue work at home!

From ZCS Office – If you have not already done so, please hand in your enrollment form/packet to the school office! Thank you!

From the Immersion Coordinator – Do you use a foreign language in your day-to-day life? Perhaps you know of someone else who uses their bilingualism in the work place or elsewhere. We are always looking for individuals who can demonstrate to our students the advantages of knowing and using a second language. If you or someone you know might be willing to visit a classroom or connect with a class online, please touch base with me (Jodi Pierce, jpierce@zcs.org) or your child’s teacher.

What’s Coming Up?

Specials: Monday – Spanish, Art, Tuesday – Music, Spanish, Wednesday – Library, PE. Thursday – Spanish.

Wear PJ and bring a friend to school: Monday, May 1st.

Tulip Time Half Day School: Wednesday, May 10th.

Garden Crossing Flowers Pick Up: The dates to pick up the flowers are Thursday, May 11, Friday, May 12, or Saturday, May 13.

Memorial Day Vacation/Parade: Monday, May 29th.

Farmers Market Fieldtrip (tentative depending on weather): Wednesday, May 31st.

Save the Date – PBL Celebration: Thursday, June 1st, 2:30-3:25PM!

Prayer Requests:

Please continue to pray for health and strength as we go through season change. Spring is exciting and beautiful but the weather is also pretty unpredictable (just usual Michigan – right?). We are also taking on new challenges and adding more things on our responsibilities so please pray for the courage and patience in taking on new challenges!

谢谢！

－黎老师

Newsletter #30

We had such a good day at Critter Barn yesterday learning and experiencing all about animals! It was a great to see the children getting all excited and making many connections on living/non-living things, animals, getting the chance to see, touch, experience many different things in relation of animals, as well as playing at the park to end the day. We also had the chance to celebrate Earth Day today as we discuss the importance of protecting and preserving this beautiful Earth that God has blessed us with. We made a personal promise that we will do our part in protecting and preserving earth each and every day!

I look forward to seeing you at the Mandarin dinner tomorrow night if that’s what your family has planned on 🙂

What did we learn and What will we learn?

Mandarin/Language Arts: We jumped back into our weekly framework learning. We continue to explore word wall words, high frequency words, learning grammar as well as continuing growth in word recognizing and using them in context. In leveled reading the children are progressing in the materials, which mean not only reading and recognizing the characters, but also practicing some reading strategies, trying to figure out what the story is about as well as practicing reading fluently. When you are reading with the children at home I encourage you to what the story is about – who’s in this book, what happened, what are some patterns you see, how did things go, etc.

Bible: We reviewed Resurrection/Ascension and started talking about God’s Love for His churches (Pentecost – God send us holy spirit to help us live for Him, and to give us power to tell others about Him , Peter and the crippled beggar). We will talk about Peter escapes from jail, Peter and the Ethiopian, as well as Saul’s stories this coming week. I would encourage you to talk about Holy Spirit with the kids if you are able to as well – it can be a harder concept to grasp at their age certainly.

Memory Verse/Fruit of the Spirit: We continue to practice our March&April Bible Memory Verse (which is the verse about Easter). Please continue to practice this Easter verse and reflect on it’s important meaning of Easter! Next week I will also assess the children on their April’s verse. We continue to talk about Gentleness and how we can show gentleness throughout our daily life.

Math: We worked on our teen numbers, discovering partners of group that add up to 10, and continue practicing writing our numbers. I encourage you to ask the children some partners that add up to 10! We are comparing numbers and showing them using less and more, as well as introducing the math mountain. Next week we will continue to practice these skills through Math centers, if time permits, learning what some 3D shapes are called, and talk about their characteristics.

Exploring God’s World (Sci/SocStu): We are talking about living/non-living things and how to differentiate them. The three ways we know things are living are 1) They can reproduce 2) They grow 3) They eat/take in food as well as produce food. We will continue to explore the living and non-living, and will be talking about seeds and growth. We also had the chance to have meaningful and personal learning experiences through Critter Barn Fieldtrip! Next week we will have some special visitors in class that will help us further learn about living and non-living things.

Writing: We had the chance to write another small moment story coming back from Critter Barn – I am asking the children to choose a small moment from this field trip and expand their stories to write a small moment story. They continue to work on wrapping up their Garden Crossings Story, and other stories they are working on. Next week we we will get a glance on how to write “How-To” Books.

Play: We continue to enjoy story telling and roleplaying during Play!

Things to Note:

Critter Barn Pictures: I have shared a google drive folder with you consisting the Critter Barn pictures. Let me know if you need access to it in case you missed the email 🙂 Enjoy!

Water Bottle and Towels: Water bottle and towels were send home on Friday, please clean them and return them on Monday!

Mandarin Homework&Flashcard: Because characters of U5W5 are mostly review, I am combining our learning of U5W5 and U6W1 together next week. Both weeks flashcard will be sent home (but the children are completely aware that I am only assessing them on flashcards characters that are marked – the rest you can take time practicing at home). On homework, I will only be sending home U6W1. Thank you for your continue work at home!

From the Immersion Coordinator – What is an AALPA? This acronym stands for add.a.lingua performance assessment. This assessment allows us to assess and track each child’s development throughout his/her years of immersion education. During the aalpa, each child is evaluated through the three modes of communication: interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational. Teachers conference with each child after each section and help them to determine linguistic goals. All of our K-8 immersion classrooms will be working through an aalpa before the end of the year.  Ask your child’s teacher if you would like to know more about the aalpa at your child’s grade level. <Mandarin kids haven’t taken aalpa yet>

What’s Coming Up?

Specials: Monday – Spanish, Art, Tuesday – Music, Spanish, Wednesday – Library, PE. Thursday – Spanish.

Spring Chapel: April 28th, Friday at 1PM.

Tulip Time Half Day School: May 10th.

Garden Crossing Flowers Pick Up: The dates to pick up the flowers are Thursday, May 11, Friday, May 12, or Saturday, May 13.

Memorial Day Vacation/Parade: May 29th.

Farmers Market Fieldtrip (tentative depending on weather): May 31st.

Save the Date – PBL Celebration: June 1st, 2:30-3:25PM!

Prayer Requests:

Please continue to pray for health and strength as we go through season change. Spring is exciting and beautiful but the weather is also pretty unpredictable (just usual Michigan – right?). We are also taking on new challenges and adding more things on our responsibilities so please pray for the courage and patience in taking on new challenges! I can hardly believe we are stepping into May very soon :O

谢谢！

－黎老师

Newsletter #29

It was a good week coming back after Spring Break! We had a good time sharing what we did over Spring Break and launched right into learning as well. We had another author visit this week and it’s always great for the children to hear from real authors and get excited about them being authors to their stories as well – it was such an exciting way to start Thursday. We also had a Good Friday Chapel on Friday to end the week and reflect on God’s love for us. We also got to end the day with some questions and watching fun games with as we get to know Mr. McAboy.

What did we learn and What will we learn?

Mandarin/Language Arts: We jumped back into our weekly framework learning. We continue to explore word wall words, high frequency words, learning grammar as well as continuing growth in word recognizing and using them in context. In leveled reading the children are progressing in the materials, which mean not only reading and recognizing the characters, but also practicing some reading strategies, trying to figure out what the story is about as well as practicing reading fluently. When you are reading with the children at home I encourage you to what the story is about – who’s in this book, what happened, what are some patterns you see, how did things go, etc.

Bible: We focus on telling one event each day as it leads up to Jesus on the cross and Jesus’ raising from death. On Friday we finished the story of Jesus on the cross and focus on talking about why Jesus had to be on the cross even though he did not sin, and understanding that God does so because of His love for us. I encourage you to talk about and go through Easter stories with the children in English as well to help them make more connections. As we come back on Monday we will celebrate Resurrection/Ascension and then go into the stories about God’s love for churches (some events that occur as God send Holy Spirit for us). 

Memory Verse/Fruit of the Spirit: We started to practice our March&April Bible Memory Verse (which is the verse about Easter). Please continue to practice this Easter verse and reflect on it’s important meaning of Easter! We continue to talk about Gentleness and how we can show gentleness throughout our daily life.

Math:  We worked on our teen numbers, discovering partners of group that add up to 10, and continue practicing writing our numbers. We will continue to practice our math concepts. I encourage you to ask the children some partners that add up to 10! This week we also focus on continue practicing writing numbers 11-20, as well as comparing more and less. I am sending home a note next week to explain about math mountain that we are starting to teach and practice.

Exploring God’s World (Sci/SocStu): We are talking about living/non-living things and how to differentiate them. We will take about about how the three ways we know things are living are 1) They can reproduce 2) They grow 3) They eat/take in food as well as produce food. We will continue to explore the living and non-living, and will be talking about seeds and growth through Eric Carle’s book The Tiny Seed. The field trip we have coming up with help enhanced concepts we are learning through our Science Unit – Is it Living.

Writing:  We continue to work on our unfinished stories or writing our Garden Crossing Story – I am asking the children to choose a small moment from this field trip and expand their stories to write a small moment story. Next week we will have the chance to write another small moment story coming back from Critter Barn, and the following week we will learn how to write “How-To” Books.

Play: Some of our play time this week consist of some art projects in relation to our Is It Living unit as well as our Earth Day coming up next week. The children are also enjoying taking roles of family as they pretend to be different animals.

Things to Note:

Garden Crossing Flowers Pick Up: The dates to pick up the flowers are Thursday, May 11, Friday, May 12, or Saturday, May 13.

Mandarin Homework&Flashcard: Homework and flashcard for U5W3 went home as usual on Monday. Thank you for your continuous help at home making sure the children are following stroke order and word proportion, as well as practicing the flashcards. Next week homework and flashcard will be for U5W4.

From the Immersion Coordinator – I want to take this opportunity to celebrate our Mandarin immersion students and teachers. In the winter, our 3rd through 5th graders were able to take a standardized language proficiency test that allowed us to compare our students’ language performance with that of Mandarin immersion students across the country. Our students outperformed the national average in all four areas of language (reading, writing, speaking and listening)! Our Spanish immersion students participate in a similar assessment in 5th and 8th grade and have also consistently had positive results.

What’s Coming Up?

Specials: Monday – Spanish, Art, Tuesday – Music, Spanish, Wednesday – Library, PE. Thursday – Spanish.

Critter Barn Fieldtrip: April 20th, ALL DAY. Make sure to read the note I am sending through email soon!

ZCS AUCTION: April 21st, Friday.

Wei Wei Palace Dinner: April 22nd, Saturday. If you have any questions about this event please email Ann Hemmeke! I look forward to seeing you there 🙂

Spring Chapel: April 28th, Friday at 1PM.

Tulip Time Half Day School: May 10th.

Memorial Day Vacation/Parade: May 29th.

Farmers Market Fieldtrip (tentative depending on weather): May 31st.

Prayer Requests:

Please pray that the children will have a meaningful and personal experience as we talk about Easter stories and start to understand how great Jesus love for us through this Easter week. We are also taking more challenges as as class – so prayers that the children will be able to adjust and take on more as we get ready for 1st grade!

谢谢！

－黎老师