"Y" week and Class Pictures!

September 29- October 2

Sound of the Week – Y

Book of the Week – When I was Young in the Mountains

Habit of the Month – Obedience

Mom of the Month – Kate Wilson

We had a great week!  We met our 4^th and 5^th grade partner class.  They read to us and we enjoyed apples outside.  I am so excited about the kindergarteners forming relationships with these older kids.  Our partners are excited about us too!  They did a great job of engaging our kids and asking them questions.  One young man even asked if he could take a minute to pray with his partner in the hall before they left.  We plan to meet with them a couple of times a month.  Your child brought home a yellow sheet with information about their partner.  As I said last week, hold on to that; it will come in handy later! 

We had other wonderful guest readers as well!  Thank you to Elle’s grandparents and Ben’s mom and Ellie’s mom for reading to us! 

Thank you to our wonderful Mom of the Month, Jan Reynolds for your help all month.  She and Emily Truong helped us make a delicious apple pie!  Your children are wonderful bakers!  Have them help you at home! 

This week we will be celebrating the letter “y”!  We will be using yellow yarn to make letters of the alphabet, learning about yesterday and the months of the year.  At home you could enjoy finding yellow things, measuring with a yardstick, eating yogurt, trying a yoyo and practicing saying “Yes Ma’am and Yes Sir”.

We will enjoy our Book of the Week, When I was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant.  This is a very sweet book about two children raised by their grandparents in rural, poor Appalachia.  We will discuss God’s perspective on children (Psalm 127), grandparents, getting older (Proverbs 16:31) and contentment (Matthew 6:23-33 and Philippians 4:4-6, 12).  Give your child the opportunity to ask their grandparents how life was different when they were children!  Cynthia Rylant has written many wonderful children’s books.  Some favorites are When the Relatives Came and Silver Packages.

Individual and class pictures will be taken on Wednesday.  All students are to wear their dressy enrichment day uniforms.  You can order pictures in the envelopes that were sent home last week.  

On Thursday and Friday I will be attending the Child Light Schools teacher’s conference.  Thank you to Kate Wilson, Jan Reynolds, Todd Adkison and JR Wilson for leading our class service project on Thursday. 

"A" Week and Apple Picking!

Week of September 22-25

Sound of the Week – A

Book of the Week – How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World

Habit of the Month – Obedience

Mom of the Month – Jan Reynolds

D week was indeed delightful!  We enjoyed Make Way for Ducklings, our very first picture study and having Mrs. Adkison read to us

We especially enjoyed donuts delivered by Mr. Reynolds!

This week we will be enjoying the book How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman.  This is a kindergarten favorite!  It is a delightful, creative and humorous adventure that your children will enjoy reading over and over again!  We’ll use the recipe at the back of the book to make an apple pie on Thursday, with the help of Mrs. Reynolds.  Make up your own story of what you would do if the store was closed.  Use a world map to find all the places the girl travels in our story.

We will begin kindergarten homework this week.  I will send home a sheet for practicing writing the letter A.  As we discussed at our curriculum meeting, please be sure to help your child practice the correct letter formation (ask them to sing the song about where we start our letters!) and pencil grip.  Practicing the “right way” is so important!  All of that information is in the handouts from the meeting.   

On Tuesday we will meet our partner class!  We will be partners with Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Stewart’s 4^th/5^th graders.  I am so excited about this!  My own grown children still remember who their partners were when they were PCS students.  This gives the younger children an opportunity to get to know the “big kids” and learn that they are not someone to be afraid of.  It gives the older children the opportunity to set a good example and encourage the younger ones.  Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Stewart told me that their students are very excited about this opportunity!  They will be joining us on Tuesday to read our book of the week and share a snack of some delicious apples.  We will exchange information with them about things we like to do, and about our favorite candy bars.  (Hint: a candy bar makes a great gift for big and little partners at Christmas time!)

Wednesday is a late start day.  That means it is also a jeans day.  Students can wear jeans with a regular dress code shirt if they would like for a suggested $1 donation to our missions fund.  Students may be dropped of at 9:00 am.  School begins at 9:30.

Friday is our family apple picking outing.  Pray for beautiful weather and a fantastic time!

"D"elightful D Week!

Week of September 15 – 18

Sound of the week  - D

Book of the week – Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey

Habit of the Month – Obedience

Mom of the Month – Jan Reynolds

We had a great week celebrating “C”!  We Counted Candy Corn, and “ate” the Life Cycle of a Butterfly!

We loved having Mrs. Stephens come read to our class! (and Elle and Maggie did have the Life Cycle of the Butterfly plates, they just got cropped out of the pictue – all you really wanted to see was the beautiful girls anyway!)

Don’t you love our picture after chapel in our dressy enrichment clothes!  (BEFORE recess!)  They did a fantastic job practicing the Habit of Self–control in a rather lengthy chapel service!  Thank you Mr. Trung for sitting with us!

They look so beautiful and handsome in their dressy enrichment uniforms! One update on the dress code…Several are really struggling with fastening and unfastening belts. That is a very difficult task for a 5 year old!  I have secured permission, from Mrs. Crist, for kindergarteners not to wear belts on regular dress code days.  This will make our trips to the bathroom much more time efficient!  On dressy enrichment days (like chapel), they should wear the belt and then we will take them off and put them in backpacks after the event.  So unless your child is very self-sufficient and time efficient in taking care of their belt, please just leave them at home.  If your child just really wants to wear one and is still having difficulty you can check out http://www.myselfbelts.com .  This site has belts that are easy for young children to use. 

With the welcome cooler temperatures inevitably come higher “temperatures”.  If your child has fever, is throwing up, or on antibiotics for a contagious illness, please wait 24 hours before they return to school.  (in the case of a fever, 24 hours fever free without Tylenol or Advil) All of our families will appreciate anything we can do to prevent the spread of illness and so will your teacher!  Because of chemo, Kylie’s immune system is very weak and common colds and flu can be very serious.  I am helping my sister as Kylie’s back up caregiver and would really hate to bring illness home to her from kindergarten.  Thank you so very much for your help with this!

This week will be “d”elightful!  We will be enjoying another classic book by Caldecott winner author/illustrator Robert McCloskey.  Make Way for Ducklings is always a favorite!  We will be discussing alphabetical order, rhyming words, birds’ eye view, how parents care for their family, obeying our parents, mallard ducks and Boston Public Gardens.  Colossians 3 has much to say about parents and children, Deut. 4:1-9 and Prov. 22:6 talk about parents training their children, and Galatians 4:6 reveals God as the perfect, loving father.

This week we will be doing our first picture study, one of the illustrations from our book.  We will do our reproductions on Wednesday of one of those sweet little ducklings. 

We will enjoy diamonds, dots, dozen, dimes, ducklings, drawing and dancing this week in class.  Some fun ideas for home include a date with Daddy for donuts (look for a special invitation from your child).  Dig in the dirt. Eat dirt cups (chocolate pudding with crumbled Oreo cookies on top – put a gummy worm in the “dirt” for fun!)

Don’t forget about the bake sale on Thursday.  Send in $1 for a treat.  If you would like to tuck a dollar in a pocket of their backpack just to have for bake sale days you can let me know one is there and I’ll keep a list of who has one stashed away and help them look for it on days they might otherwise forget. 

C Week, Chapel and They Very Hungry Caterpillar

Week of September 8-11

Sound of the Week – C

Book of the Week – TheVery Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

Mom of the Month – Jan Reynolds

Habit of the Month – Obedience

We had a great time celebrating P last week and loved our “Tour of Italy”!  Thank you Jan Reynolds for our pizza making supplies and for helping us on Thursday! 

It was also a great treat to have Lauren’s dad, Tony Thomas, visit and read Papa Picclolo. Please let me know whenever you would like to join us as a guest reader.

I am looking forward to our Parent Meeting on Tuesday night at 6:15.  I will be sharing more about our year, and we will spend time praying together for your families, our class and your precious children!  I will ask you to write a note for your child, so please let me know ASAP if you will not be able to attend our meeting.

Wednesday will be our first Chapel.  Grades K-8 will worship together.  We will wear our dressy enrichment day uniforms and “put on” our best PEARL Rule manners.  We will go right into worship at 8:30 on Wednesday.  Thank you Hung Truong for attending with us.  Please remember to check the Dress Code policy for the “Dressy Enrichment Day” attire requirements. 

This week we will be celebrating “C”!  We will primarily work on the “hard c sound”, but we will introduce the “soft sound" as well.  If your child identifies something as starting with c that really begins with k we will talk about that.  I’ll say, “That’s the right sound, although when we write it, it is actually a ‘k’.  You’ll learn more and more, and when you learn to write words, you’ll see which are ‘c’ and which are a ‘k’.”

This week in class we will cut circles, count candy corn, talk about colors, creep and crawl.  Try playing cards at home – “Go Fish” is great for number recognition!  Also have fun making cookies or cupcakes, make a card for someone and count coins. 

Our Book of the Week is the well-loved Eric Carle book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  We will be discussing days of the week, numbers, and the life cycle of a butterfly.  In addition to the intricacy and beauty of God’s creation seen in a butterfly, we’ll use the butterfly as the analogy of being transformed by Christ into a new creature.  Our informing idea for this week is that just as a caterpillar is changed into a butterfly, so in Christ we are made new…transformed!  Check out Romans 2:12, Ephesians 4:22-24, and 2 Corinthians 3:18!