Our Year Comes to an End...

I want to say from the bottom of my heart: THANK YOU! You have some UNBELIEVABLE children.  They are smart, energetic, unique, excited, eager to learn and KIND!  I have had an amazing journey this year watching them grow and learn.  I watched them problem solve and make friendships.  I am very proud of each and every one of them this year!

I hope to see you all on Wednesday for our End of the Year Celebration.  We will have a slideshow of our year along with songs, snacks and you will be taking home their final portfolios.  They can not have their report cards until Friday, so if your child will NOT be in on Friday, let me know if you would like to pick it up or have it mailed to you.  The final overall assessment will be there too. 

I will see some of you back in PREK-4 and some over in the KINDERGARTEN ROOM! Remember to keep working, but in a FUN and ENGAGING WAY.  Go on hunts for certain things, ID letters over breakfast, don't feel the need to HAVE TO do workbooks.  I would suggest anything but that.  There are so many other ways of learning and I hope that you have learned some new ideas throughout the year as well.  Feel free to email me if you need some ideas!

May God continue to bless and keep you each and every day!
Tanya Boyle

Amazing!

That is my word this week! The children have been doing some amazing things! We are working on our chapel service for May 30th.  The Theme is Lend Me an Ear! The children are learning about talking about God and listening when others share His Good Word.  We are trying to run through the service and songs daily.  If your child has a part, be sure to practice at home with your child.  We want to make sure all are comfortable up in front.

Our last artist was Vincent Van Gogh and we tried to recreate Starry Night.  It was hard, but they tried.  This week we talked about Georges Seurat and Pointillism.  This was a cool concept.  The children really loved going up to the board very closely to see the pixels and then step away to get an amazing painting right before their eyes.  It was a great lesson in perspective also. 

Eric Carle is our subject of discussion this week.  He is a wonderful children's author and illustrator.  His work has inspired our art and our word work this week.  The children learned all about ALLITERATION, ask them! They really love that word and making up sentences to reinforce the meaning.

Spanish is coming along nicely.  We are up to 15, with some ease.  We have a song is Spanish that reinforces counting.  A good idea to see if they know their numbers and colors in Spanish is to point to the number or color and ask for it "EN ESPANOL".  Some have mastered more like days of the week and polite conversation.  I am super proud of how they remember when asked and even in situations when I forget to ask!

Months of the year along with their order is our final new big concept.  We will be doing this daily along with days of the week that will be asked out of order.  That is really how you know a child has learned a letter, word or concept.  You isolate the skill/letter in question and ask them about it.  For example, point out specific letters like p and q one at a time and ask for an ID.  Point to different months or days or numbers and ask for them randomly.  The kids LOVE being quizzed. :)

NEXT WEEK:
Poetry and we FINISH the alphabet!  We have come so far and learned so many AMAZING things this year.  I hope you see them shine as brightly at home as we see them during the day!

A couple of final housekeeping items:
1. Due to school dress code, please do not allow your child to wear shorts.  If anything changes, I will keep you informed.  pants and skirts and dresses must be knee length or lower.

2. Field trip money is due by May 23.  I sent home a note about looking for a couple more chaperons.  This will be a first come basis due to limited bus space.

3. Our end of the year celebration will be June 6th.  Please try to attend.  There will be a short slideshow of our year, songs, certificates and snacks!  It means a lot to us to be able to share this day with you.  It should be about 45 mins- 1 hour.  You will also take home all of your child's art and portfolio items at that time.  Friday June 8th is a full day with closing chapel in the afternoon.  If your child will not be present, that is ok.  I just need to know by June 4 so I can prepare their stuff earlier. 

May God continue to bless and keep you!
Tanya Boyle :)

Raining Day fun projects at home!

Want to make a big cloud?
http://pinterest.com/pin/128423026844506205/
How about a beautiful floral print?
http://pinterest.com/pin/238831586459261662/
http://pinterest.com/pin/242138917435477149/
practice shapes?
http://pinterest.com/pin/137359857354591954/
need a fun gift from the kids for a special person?
http://pinterest.com/pin/237494580319879516/
matching upper and lowercase letters?
http://pinterest.com/pin/160018592979503865/
pottery?
https://kindergartennothing.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/hopi-pottery/

Send me pics if you do any of these!
TB

May Showers are also bringing May flowers

Welcome to rainy season! This week we started plants and flowers. Our artist of the week, Carl Linnaeus was even a botanist!  They are learning all about the parts of the plant, how the parts work and what will happen if something is missing.  We did a lima bean experiment that failed. We will retry next week and we hope for success.  We discussed "hypothesis" and success and failure with experiments. They were ok with the fact that our first try was a failure. I was proud of them for not getting upset.

We are flying through the rest of the alphabet.  We are currently on Tt, Uu and next week Vv and Ww.  Please be sure to practice writing and sounding out these letters.  Don't forget to also go back and review all the letters of the alphabet! The best way to retain is to repeat!

Several student are working on addition and are sucking it up like sponges.  We may even dabble with some basic subtraction in the near future.  I am very proud of how excited they are about working in class. Some children are even trying to do some read out loud instructions for group work time.

Starting next week, we will be working on planning our chapel. The children will be learning not only WHAT we are doing for our chapel service, but WHY! That's what it is all about right? Not just the performance, but the meaning behind it. 

As we start to approach warmer weather, please remember dress code: no open back shoes, flip flops, sandals or sleeveless shirts. Tie shoes are only to be worn if your child can tie.  Feel free to send a hat or put some sunscreen on in the am if it is particularly warm and sunny.

Birthday book club was great. We had 7 preschool children.  I hope many preschoolers will participate in the medieval times report contest too.  That went home yesterday.  The children all seemed very excited about it. 

Finally, if you have not yet had a chance to meet Ms. Munoz, hopefully you have heard good things from your child. She has been a great help.  We continue to think of and pray for Mrs. Hoffman, but we are also thankful for Ms. Munoz.

Until next time,
Mrs. Boyle

ps... spread the word about LUSA! Let's keep going strong. 

Lots of catch up photos

Michelangelo was our first Famous Artist.

working on rhyming

working on beginning sounds

the finale to our rainbow unit, a class rainbow!

Yoga and cardio have been a great addition this year.

Jackson Pollack

The final product

The first treasure box pull!

You can squeeze an egg and NOT break it!

Picasso's Blue Period

 

 The final products





A visit from Ms. Juliana!

Have you been hearing a lot of big bug words lately? We hope so! This week we have talked about metamorphosis, molting, chrysalis, as well as other insect terms. The children can tell you basic characteristics of insects and how they are different from Arachnida, or spiders. The caterpillars are getting very close to the pupa stage. By tomorrow, I bet there are 3 in chrysalis form. We are observing and recording our caterpillars each morning when we arrive. This will be put together into our portfolios which will come home at the end of the year.

We had science today with AT. She and her dad made salt play dough. It was another big hit.c Our letters of the week are S and R. These are very common letters, so most have caught on quickly. We have been doing a lot of work with numbers too. It might be in the form of counting, recognizing or adding, but that depends on the child. We have also learned up to 15 in Spanish. Keep practicing these skills at home!

Next week we will introduce plants. The bugs will be a nice transition for this new unit. We will add T and U. In Religion we will talk about Pentecost. For the remainder of the year, we will begin our prep work for our chapels service on May 30.

Upcoming dates to remember: May 4: no school May 10: progress reports May 13: choir at St. Paul 10:45 service May 28: no school June 4: field Day June 5: field trip to Peggy Notebart June 6: preschool end of the year celebration 10 am June 7: no school June 8: chapel and last day of school!

Thanks again and be sure to continue to pray for Mrs. Hoffmann and her family.

Spring is in the air and we have the insects to prove it!

Well, first off, I hope you had a grand spring break.  I know the kids all did.  I love hearing about their time off!  It is good to be back to a routine.  Speaking of routine...I have talked to some of you who expressed concern about Mrs. Hoffmann's absence.  Unfortunately, Mrs. Hoffman will not be returning due to medical issues.  I did put a further explanation in the folders today, please do take a minute to check today.  The replacement will be Ms. Munoz who has been helping the last 2 weeks.  So, please introduce yourself as you see her in the am or pm.

As I said,  Spring is in the air and we have the insects to prove it!  We will be spending this week and next learning about insects.  We are discussing new insects and arachnids daily this week and we will focus on caterpillars and butterflies next week! This week our classroom has a visitor...LOLA the Tarantula. OH MY! She is NV's pet and she is an 8 year old tarantula, so this is a cool treat.  Next week, we will have 5 caterpillars that we will observe and record changes.  When we talked about bees, we even got to taste honey! Many thought it was DELISH!

Our letter of the week is Qq.  We are learning words and sound association.  The most important note for Q is that for most of their young years, all q words will be partnered with U.  So, in class we say that Q and U are bff's!  We even have a song by They Might Be Giants called QU. Next week we move onto R and S.

In Religion, we are talking about how we are all God's children, no matter our age.  We are also talking about how Jesus knows us all by name.  He knows what we think and like and don't like because God made us, so he knows it all just by our name! We will continue with that next week.

Our masterpiece Monday was with Jackson Pollack. The children learned a little about him and his style of drip painting. After that, we went outside and created our own.  It is in the hall, be sure to peek at it.

Finally we had science today with EM.  She and her parents proved that there is a way to squeeze and egg and NOT have it break.  I was very nervous and so were all the grown ups, but we made it through 22 kids and NO breaks even though they used every muscle to try. :) Science Night by the PTL is next week.  Don't forget to stop in for some super science hands on fun.

That's it for now.  Please remember to check folders daily.  We have a lot of important information coming and going and we want to make sure all are informed.

God's Blessings!
Tanya Boyle