Wow! This is our last full week of kindergarten! Can you believe how fast it went? Each and every student has shown ENORMOUS growth this year, and I am continually in awe each day.  Thank you for giving me the pleasure of watching your children grow emotionally, socially, and academically.

We have lots going on this week…

Special Events:

Tuesday

• We will attend a presentation given by the Lisle Public Library about their summer reading incentive program.  I hope that each child continues to read throughout the summer and this is a great way to continue building their interest and motivation in reading.
• We will visit the first grade classrooms in the afternoon.  The current first graders and teachers will give our students a brief overview of what to expect next year.  Each student will have the chance to attend both 1A and 1B.

Wednesday

• We will have ice-cream with our buddies today! Thank you to our parents who volunteered to donate this special treat. This will be our last activity with our buddies this year.  If your child wishes to bring a card or small gift for his/her buddy, this would be a great day to do so.

Friday

• Mother’s Tea Party!!! Please be in the GYM at 8:15.  We will perform our program in the gym and then proceed to the PAR for our cookies/juice.  The children have been practicing so hard, and are excited for their debut! Bring some tissues, it’s a tear-jerker!

In Reading this week, we will be wrapping up some odds and ends.  This is the last week I will meet with all three classes for reading.  I will be incorporating some of the student’s favorite activities from throughout the year.  Keep Reading!!

In Religion, we will be reflecting on and completing our last Diocesan assessment.

Word Wall Words: how, where

These are our last two words for the year! Wow, we’ve learned 80 words!!!

***I will be collecting word rings this week, and keeping them for next year’s students.  Please be sure to send them in. ***

IMPORTANT NOTICE!!!

• I am working on completing our End of the Year K3 DVD.  I will do a showing for the students/families on June 6th first thing in the morning.  More details will follow soon.  I will also be sending home a form this week for you to order your own copy of the DVD.

Please continue to keep the McMahon family in your thoughts and prayers.

This week…

We have been practicing each day for our Mother’s Tea program.  The children are doing a FANTASTIC job, and we are looking forward to showing off our talent!

Word Wall Words: any, ride, your

Reading: We will be using authentic children’s literature to explore use of the strategies good readers use to understand a story.  We will be introduced to inferring. Making inferences is difficult for young readers, but with using what we already know and adding it to what the book tells us, we can infer new ideas.

Religion: We will be discussing the life of Mary in preparation for May Crowning on Friday!

Afternoon Enrichment: Did your child tell you about Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain? We began exploring that story last week, and the students even partner read it!  This week we will learn through literature and video about the many different animals of Africa.  We will then incorporate what we have learned into our original text, Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain. The students seem to be enjoying this unit, and will be so excited to learn about all these exciting animals.

Have a very happy week, and as always, please let me know if you have any questions/concerns.

Miss Mayor

The kindergartners are all looking forward to our tour of the community on Wednesday.  We will be leaving the school at about 8:30.  We will be having snack before we leave, so please pack a normal snack for that day.  Also, the children are required to wear casual attire (appropriate for the weather) and gym shoes.  We will be walking alot!  One last thing…please pack a brown bag lunch for this day.  Your child will also need a drink.  If it rains, we will postpone the trip, as it will be difficult for the children to walk/eat in the rain.

Here goes for this week…

Reading: We will be working on finishing up finding the main idea in stories.  The children and I have been doing many different phonics games, word building, and writing.  I am hoping to give them a solid foundation in phonics before moving on to first grade.

Religion: We will be taking a look into God’s Church.  We learned last week that we are baptized into God’s Church family and now we will take it a step further.

Word Wall Words: no, came, ask

Afternoon Activities: We will be finishing up our author study on Eric Carle.  The children are really enjoying making connections with all his stories.  We are building in reading strategies, art, writing, and imagination with this unit.  We will also be voting on our next author that we will study in the remaining weeks of kindergarten.

Important Dates:

Wednesday: Field Trip

Friday: We will go see our school drama production of Beauty and the Beast. The children are really looking forward to it!

Friday, May 25th: Our Mother’s Tea is scheduled for 8:15AM.  More info. to follow in the coming weeks.

Only 32 more days of kindergarten! Let’s make the most of it!!

Have a happy week

Miss Mayor

We are back to a full week! There are less than 40 days left of kindergarten, and we still have lots to cover…

Religion: We will be learning about God’s Church.  We will also be wrapping up our unit on Baptism by doing our Diocesan assessment, where the children reflect on Baptism and briefly write.  We are excited to show Sr. Carolyn our work!

Reading: We will be doing many different interactive phonemic awareness activities this week.  We will also be taking another look at main idea using many stories from past units.

Word Wall Words: now, long

The K3 students are doing a very nice job with reading and recognizing their word wall words.  We are beginning to write more independently and they are becoming pros at using the word wall and stretching out unknown words.  Encourage your child to do this at home too!

Afternoon Enrichment: We are continuing to explore the many works of the famous Eric Carle.  The children are really enjoying reading his work and doing different art, writing, and reading strategies that correlate with each text.  We will finish up with Eric Carle this week and move on to another famous author for next week.

Important Announcements:

In celebration of Earth Day (April 22) we will be having a No Waste Lunch THIS TUESDAY.  We ask that your child only bring non-disposable containers for their lunch that day.  We will measure our lunch garbage tomorrow (Monday) and then again on Tuesday, hoping to see much less waste!

We have booked our Spring Field Trip! We will be taking a walking field trip through our community on April 25th.  More info. will be coming home this Wednesday.  We ask for returned permission slips as soon as possible because we only have a week before we go exploring our community.

Our Mother’s Tea will also be coming up in May. We will be setting the date this week and you will receive information as soon as it is available.

I hope everyone had a nice, relaxing Easter Weekend.  I enjoyed seeing some of my student’s families at Mass on Sunday.

We are going to be getting back into our routine this week after having so much time out of school. Yippee!

Here goes…

Religion:

We will be exploring the Sacrament of Baptism this week.  We will read about Jesus’ Baptism and also share pictures from our own.  Parents, please send a picture of your child’s Baptism if you are able.

Reading:

We will be reading a story called Everybody Works this week.  Using this story, we will learn what a main idea is and how to find what a story is trying to tell us.  This story will fit in perfectly with our Community Helpers unit in Social Studies.

Afternoon Activities:

We will be doing an author study on one of my favorite children’s author, Eric Carle.  We will be reading many of his stories and using our reading strategies to expand on each text.  Make sure to check out our classroom throughout the week for our new art projects associated with Eric Carle.

That just about sums up our week.  If you have any questions/concerns, please let me know.

Have a happy week

Miss Mayor