Kindergarten - Ms. Nancy & Ms. Rocio

Happy New Year, Three Kings, Snowy Day and Shadow Day Photos

Parents,

Here are some photos I thought you might like! 2012 has started out great! We had a New Year's Party, Three Kings Day,fun in the snow and the preschoolers came to our room for "Shadow Day" and we were fantastic hosts!

As you can see the Busy Bees had fun! If you are wondering about the words on the tables, we call the word instead of the color of the table when we want the Bees to line up!(helps with learning sight words)

We went to church to visit the Three Kings and Pray!

Rosca cake for Three Kings Day! There are babies hidden in the cakes.

Daniela and Olivia found the babies!

Preschool Shadow Day on Tuesday, Jan. 10th!

Remi





Reminder: Children can only go out in the snow if they have snowpants, boots, gloves, hats and warm coats.

Merry Christmas from the Busy Bees!

Enjoy these photos of some Christmas activities and the Christmas party that Mrs. Moulton ( Avery's mom ) organized for the Busy Bees. Oh! What fun it is to be a Busy Bee!

A visit from Santa!

Making reindeer food with Mrs. Moulton! 

Stringing Christmas necklaces with Mrs. Virginia!

Making gingerbread ornaments with Mrs. Nancy ( she is taking the photo right now)

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE BUSY BEES!

Some of the other games that the Busy Bees played were snowman freeze dance ( I think everyone enjoyed this one the most), snowball relay and pin the nose on the reindeer. They enjoyed a nice snack that was provided by Iris and Avery and received treat bags from Iris, Avery and Daniela! We will do this again for Valentine's Day and Mrs. Moulton already has plans in the working.

THANK YOU MRS. MOULTON FOR ALL THE FUN!!! HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

November And The Busy Bees! (PHOTOS)

Recycled Wrapping Paper and Ribbon Wreath Project Displayed at the Shedd Aquarium!

The Pilgrims Getting Ready to Prepare a Trail Mix Feast for their Native American Faith Partners!

Rolling Corn in Paint was so much fun for the Busy Bees!

We hope everyone had a fun Thanksgiving and we are looking forward to the Christmas season!

Reminders:

Christmas Concert on December 14th in the church at 7p.m. Busy Bees are to wear dressy clothes and meet in the church basement by 6:45

Field Trip to see Mrs. Claus on December 7th. Busy Bees are to come to school in their regular school uniforms/hot lunch will  be served

Parent Readers: December 6th Meg O'Rouke ( Seamus' Mom)

                        December 13th Sally Moulton (Avery's Mom)

Another flyer will come home sometime this week so you can sign up to read to the class starting in January!

Let there be peace in the world and love in our hearts!

Mrs. Nancy and Mrs. Rocio

 

October Activities!

Parents,

It is hard to believe that this is the last full week of October!

The Busy Bees are excited about Halloween and all the happenings. The Halloween Fest is on Monday, October 31st and there are a few reminders. The children are not allowed to bring any kind of weapons with their costumes, they need to come to school dressed in their costumes (make-up and costumes) they can bring their masks for pictures in the classroom but will not be allowed to walk or wear them over to the gym for the fest/classroom parade and the Busy Bees need to bring a change of clothes for after the fest.

 We will be in the gym for the fest at 9:45.

The field trip to the pumpkin farm is Friday, October 28th. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we will have a beautiful fall day like last Saturday. The Busy Bees need to wear their SJB sweat shirts and sweat pants or jeans. The children should wear the necessary coats/jackets/footwear for the weather on Friday. (They were really dressed appropriately for the weather last Wednesday.) We are leaving around 9:15/9:30 and should be back around 2:00.

This week the Busy Bees will be tested on several skills in accordance with our lessons and the Archdiocese learning standards. The math and reading series follow the learning standards and the assessments they provide go along with our new standard based report cards (this is in the second year of the pilot.)

Fire Safety and Red Ribbon Weeks were educational and fun for the Busy Bees. Firefighter Matt came and talked to the children about fire safety tips. The children were very attentive and had many questions and stories for Matt (who also was the gym teacher when Ms. Kim was out.) Red Ribbon Week was simple and age appropriate for the kindergarten children. Healthy habits, medicine given only by trusted adults and the "do not smoke promise" were covered.

The Shed Aquarium wreath project will be starting this week. They are asking for wreaths made of recycled items to promote the safety of animals and fish/sea creatures.The Busy Bees will be making a wreath using recycled wrapping paper, ribbons, and bows. If you are at a party and gifts are opened the wrapping paper, bows and ribbons can be used for our wreath. Please send in any used or scraps of these items you might have or are able to collect . We will be putting the wreath together the week of November 7th.

Fall/Winter weather changes from day to day! We do go outside and walk to the Altgeld building as long as it's not too cold, windy or thundering. We are having a little trouble with many children about wearing the nice warm clothes that they are sent to school with. Please remind your child to wear the warm coats, hats and sweaters when they go outside with us. We often have to go through their backpacks to find the warm clothes they come to school in. We will be taking note of the children that are giving us a difficult time about putting on their warm clothing. We will record this on their behavior reports. We will make the necessary decisions about not wearing their sweaters under their coats and not wearing their gloves if the weather gets warmer in the afternoons. Please label all clothing.

In November, we would like the Busy Bees to enter the building in the mornings by themselves unless they have snack that is too heavy for them to carry or if their parent has a question for the teacher. The Busy Bees should be hanging up their own backpacks/coats, taking out their folders and putting their lunches in their cubbies by themselves. It helps them to grow and be independent. They do these things all day long when we go out to play, to the Altgeld building and when they prepare for home. We feel they can do it by themselves in the mornings also. Both of us will be in the classroom in the mornings for November and will be able to assist them if they need the help. It will make their transition to first grade easier.

Upcoming Events:  Pumpkin Farm Trip - October 28th

                           Halloween Fest - October 31st

                           Child Find - November 2nd and 3rd

                           Story Bus Visits -  November 9th

                           Parent-Teacher Conferences/Report Cards -  November 11th

Let there be peace in the world and love in our hearts!

Mrs. Nancy and Mrs. Rocio

                                              

 

 

 

 

 

Busy Bees Busy Weeks

Parents,

As usual the Busy Bees have been very busy these past weeks.

Last week the Busy Bees were tested on sounds, rhyming, number and letter recognition, likenesses and differences and counting. These tests were given individually by the teacher. They were also given the first math assessment and will be given the second one this week. Results will come home at the beginning of next week. The Busy Bees were also given the Children's Progress Assessment in the computer lab. You will be given a copy of these test and many more at parent teacher conferences on November 11th.

Friendship activites were covered and enjoyed by the Busy Bees. On Friday they took home a special friendship project called "Friends are Like Flowers"  all of their classmates names are on the flower pedals because the Busy Bees are all friends. They also learned the song "Friends are Like Flowers in the Garden of Life." Many friendship stories were read like "A Story of True Friendship" by Ann Bonwell, "Fran's Friend" by Lisa Bruce,"Where Are You Going? To See My Friend" by Eric Carle, " Franklin's New Friend" by Paulette Bourgeois, "Willy and Hugh" by Anthony Browne, "Clifford Makes a Friend" by Norman Bridwell and "Hop Plop" by Corey Rosen.

 Lesson plans give you an idea of what the Busy Bees are learning. Lesson plans are posted weekly. These lesson plans are a guide and sometimes we have to make last minute changes due to the needs of the children. Many times we do more activities than listed and at times we delay a skill due to reviewing a lesson that the children need to review. Homework activites are listed on the lesson plans.

The Busy Bees did a Noah's Arc project which is dispalyed in the hallway! They used markers, art paper,animal stamps and crayons to create their own project that will come home soon.

Halloween is approaching and there will be the annual Halloween Fest in the gym. The Busy Bees will be going at 9:45 on Monday, October 31st. There are a few guidelines I would like you to know about before the day of the fest. If your child is going to wear makeup with their costume, the makeup needs to be applied at home. The children can bring masks for photo purposes but will not be able to wear them when we walk over to the gym (due to safety reasons). A change of clothes is needed so when the fest is over the Busy Bees can change into comfortable clothing for the rest of the day. This way their costumes will not get food on them or they will not get ripped during recess in the afternoon.

Let there be peace in the world and love in our hearts!

Mrs. Nancy and Mrs. Rocio

 

                                                                                                                                                   

What the Busy Bees Like About Kindergarten!

One of the class books the Busy Bees made was titled  I Like Kindergarten Because..........

Jonathan said " I like to watch the hermit crab all the time"

Bianca said " I like sliding down the slide"

Maya said " I like music and computer classes"

William said " I like computer class"

Giuliana said " I learn colors"

Noah said " I get to play in the block area with the cars and animals"

Olivia B. said " I like playing in the kitchen during centers"

Gianna said " I like to dance"

Nathan said " I like it because my mom always drives me to school"

Olivia N. said " I like the hermit crab"

Nina said " I go outside on the playground"

Martin said " It's so fun. I build buildings"

Laila said " It's fun. I like to go down the wiggly slide"

Seamus said " I like computer class"

Iris said " I like to do a lot of things. I draw pictures and play with toys"

Ila said " I play on the slides at recess time"

Avery said " I jump with the jump rope in gym class"

Ian said " I play in the kitchen at centers"

Tristan said " I like school"

Daniela said " I play in the playground"

Beau said " I like doing school work"

Esteban said " I go out in the playground".

 

Great Beginnings for the Busy Bees

Parents,

The beginning of the school year has been very productive for the Busy Bees. They made new friends, learned new rules, worked as a team, showed acts of kindness and participated in many other fun activities.

Academically the Busy Bees have been working on:

Religion: Bible stories and prayers are covered everyday. Some of the Bible stories the Busy Bees listened to are Noah's Arc, Adam and Eve, The Tower of Babel, Isaac is Born, Jacob's Dream and Joseph and His Brothers. "I Can Be a Sunbeam for Jesus" was read and the Busy Bees are showing acts of kindness so they can be sunbeams for Jesus. The new Stories of God's Love religion series has been introduced to the Busy Bees and they will be doing a lesson from the series once a week. Morning, lunch and going home prayers are said daily and we usually end our going home prayer with "Let there be peace in the world and love in our hearts".

Faith Partners: The Busy Bees met with their fifth grade faith partners on Friday. They enjoyed an indoor picnic. Photos were taken and will be placed in your child's portfolio that they will get at the end of the year.

Literacy:  Singing sounds, asking questions using (who, what, where and why) during the "Star of the Week", listening and talking about many read aloud stories, title and author, color and number words, and illustrating an "I Am " project has been covered. This week the Storytown reading series will start. The stories covered will be " From Head to Toe" by Eric Carle and "Something Special" by David McPhail. The Busy Bees will participate in many group and hands-on activities that go along with the stories. Some of the activities are comprehension, story walk through, sentence structure, the number of words in a sentence or title of a book, recall and retelling, oral language activities, acting out characters in a story, phonic songs, rhyming, poems and letter recognition.

Math: The new math series, enVision Math, started on Monday. It starts out slow but is good for review of printing numbers correctly and following directions. Hands-on activities like one-to-one correspondence (using counters), naming shapes (square, rectangle, circle, triangle, parallelogram , trapezoid, hexagon and rhombus) , shape poems, AB patterns, counting by 10's, counting to 100, days of the week and months of the year are all covered during calendar time.

Social Studies: Friendship and helping others was the main focus. The Busy Bees also talked about the city, state and country they live in. They say "The Pledge Of Allegiance" every morning and can identify the American flag. This coming week the focus will be on "God Bless America".

Science: Mixing colors using shaving cream and food coloring was a lot of fun for the Busy Bees to observe. They did record their observations on a recording sheet.

Attendance and Tardiness: Please have your child arrive by 8:00. The daily learning activities start at 8:00 and it is very disruptive when the children arrive late. It is also hard on the child arriving late because class/bathroom time is already in progress and the child is trying to make up for lost time. If your child is sick please call the office. Any missed work will be sent home the following day.  In Kindergarten tardies and absences are recorded on the report cards.

Helper of the Day: The Busy Bees with take turns being the "Helper of the Day". They will help with passing out crayon/pencil baskets before work time, help set up lunch, pass out napkins during snack, go on messages and hold the doors open, among other things.

Acts of Kindness Book: An "Act of Kindness" book will go home with a different child each day. When your child brings home the book please have him/her do the activity (directions in book) and return the book the next day.

Star of the Week: When it's your child's turn to be the star, we will send home the directions the week before so you know what your child will need to bring in.

****We have a check off list for the previous three activities and are trying to divide the activities up so everyone gets a turn to do something by the end of September.

Family Mass: The first Family Mass will be on September 18th at 9:45. We hope to see you there!

Let there be peace in the world and love in our hearts!

Mrs. Nancy and Mrs. Rocio

Important Dates to Remember!

IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER

May 25- Art Show at 5:30/Music Show at 7 p.m.

in the gym (Busy Bees need to wear jeans and T-shirts) they are going to be jungle animals and are wearing vests with animals on them. The children can be dropped off in assigned classrooms at 6:30 to wait until they perform for the music show. (Assignments not made yet)

May 26

- Earth Day - Children can wear jeans and earth shirts (a shirt with a flower, bird, earth, animal etc.) to school for $1.00

May 27

- No School (staff development)

May 30

- No School (Memorial Day)

May 31

- School Picnic on school grounds (children need to bring a lunch)

June 2

- "End of the Year Celebration" Kindergarten and Preschoolers sing at 9 a.m.

Children are to report to their classrooms at 8:00.

The performance will take place in the lunchroom.

Children will be dismissed after the performance. The Busy Bees will be wearing the bee t-shirts that Jennifer Hardie made for the auction picture, so they only need to wear jeans and a t-shirt to school that day.

June 3

- No School for Kindergarten

*Please note that the Busy Bees will not need dress up clothes for the music show or the "End of the Year Celebration" just jeans and t-shirts.

Let there be peace in the world and love in our hearts!

 

Mrs. Nancy and Mrs. Rocio

It's Hard to Believe it's May!

Parents,

Welcome Back and Happy May!

We hope everyone had a nice Easter Break and a Happy Mother's Day!

Last week the Busy Bees heard several reading stories, learned some new sight words, reviewed money, celebrated cinco de Mayo and planted sunflower seeds.

They also enjoyed making the Mother's Day cards and drawings!

The cinco de Mayo celebration was fun. The Busy Bees made and wore sombreros, did the Mexican Hat Dance (after watching it on the computer) and ate quesadillas (thanks to Mrs. Julie ).

This week is going to be busy and fun!

We hope to see everyone on Wednesday from 6p.m. to 7 p.m. The Busy Bees will be working hard on a South Korea project. Some of the things that they will be doing is constructing the World Peace Gate in South Korea, learning and hearing many stories and facts about South Korea, making flags and booklets.

Along with learning about South Korea, the Busy Bees will be making flags and learning facts about their heritage. We will continue this project into next week!

Spring brings new life and the Busy Bees will continue to learn about plants and life cycles.

Math review will continue to be based on money, addition and subtraction, patterns and sorting.

Literacy will be based on the reading stories, blends, read alouds, sentence structure and story writing.

The lesson plans that I post will be written simply these next few weeks.

Here are several important dates to remember and put on your calendars:

May 11- Cultural Heritage Night ( 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.)

May 22- Family Mass/May Crowning ( 9:45 a.m.)

May 25- Music Show at 7 p.m. ( Busy Bees need to wear jeans and T-shirts ) they are going to be jungle animals and are wearing vests with animals on them.

May 27- No School ( staff development)

May 30- No School ( Memorial Day )

June 2- "End of the Year Celebration" Kindergarten and Preschoolers sing at 9 a.m. ( more information  to follow, we are meeting this week for details) I know that the Busy Bees will be wearing the bee t-shirts that Jennifer Hardie made for the auction picture, so they only need to wear jeans and a t-shirt to school that day.

June 3- No School for kindergarten

 *Please note that the Busy Bees will not need dress up clothes for the music show or the "End of the Year Celebration" just jeans and t-shirts.

Let there be peace in the world and love in our hearts!

Mrs. Nancy and Mrs. Rocio

The "WEEK OF THE YOUNG CHILD" and EASTER!

Parents,

The next two weeks the Busy Bees are going to celebrate the "Week of the Young Child" and Easter! The activities of the day will center around these two important celebrations.

The Busy Bees have been working hard on reading and math the entire year and are all doing GREAT in both areas. Everyone is reading well and doing great with math concepts. These next two weeks will focus more on hands-on learning, games, singing, art activities and having more center time. We all know that children learn through play and hands-on activities. The Busy Bees need a break from the paper work. So if you don't see any papers in their folders these next two weeks, they are still learning.

Some of the "Week of the Young Child" activities will be:

Monday - Decorating a paper plate to look like their face. These will be displayed                       in the hallway.

Tuesday- Literacy Activity- Illustrate a book titled  "May There Always Be Sunshine" It encourages children to realize what is special to them, and that they are all special in different ways. A parent will read also.

Wednesday- Pajama Day! The Busy Bees wear their pajamas to school.

Thursday- Freeze Pops and Art Activity.

Friday- Certificates go home.

The "Week of the Young Child" celebrates young children, their parents and their teachers who all work together to build a better future for all children. So let's make this week SPECIAL and celebrate the children and their futures. Take some extra time to have fun and sway away from the usual weekly routines.

Easter is a special time of year and the Busy Bees have been working on "Stations of the Cross" books with us. We have been going over the stations and will be taking the Busy Bees to church to review each station.

Some other Easter activities will be making Easter cards, working with their Faith Partners, art activities and a Jelly Bean Prayer.

Reminder: The Field Trip to see Rapunzel is on April 20th. The Busy Bees need to wear their regular school uniforms to school and will be eating their usual lunches. Everyone has paid and all permission slips have been signed.

So with these two SPECIAL weeks ahead, let's all enjoy!

Let there be peace in the world and love in our hearts!

                      Mrs. Nancy and Mrs. Rocio