Welcome to the KB web page!

November 22 - 24, 2010

Food Drive

Check Folder For Homework!

We are collecting non-perishable food items for the Downey School in inner city Harrisburg. A request has been made for cereal and canned meat. All non-perishable food items in cans or boxes will be excepted. If your child brings in 3 items their name will go into a raffle for a $25 Barnes & Noble gift card. You may send in the items from 11/15 - 12/10.

Please send in family picture, baptismal picture and a picture of your child doing something they enjoy!

Mrs. Shelley Zabroske, Teacher
Mrs. Marcia Connell, Aide
Mrs. Gina Bowman, Aide

Religion

The children are learning the Our Father by reciting it with the school community every morning and they are also learning The Act of Contrition which we say as a school community every afternoon. Say these prayers with your child to see how well they know them and to help them learn the prayers. This week during religion we learned that Being Thankful is Good, We Give Thanks To God, We Give Thanks At Mealtime, and We Thank God For Everything.

During morning meeting we learn about the calendar, weather, temperature, money, tallying, schedule for the day, and the children get their jobs for the day. Every child has a job every day. If they can read their name they can figure out which job they have because we have a picture next to their name. Be sure to ask your child what their job was for the day. If you have a picture of your child from a sport, swimming, dancing, or anything that they like to do that they can talk about please send it in so we can highlight all the wonderful things they can do. Keep sending in the family and baptismal pictures so the children can talk about them and we can put them on our bulletin board.

Small Group Lessons - Math. The children learned about before and after. The children had to first determine which direction the animals were going and then figure out which one was before or after. I will be reteaching this concept this week.

Small Group Lessons ILA (Integrated Language Arts) - This week in small group Language Arts the children classified objects, did a shared reading of Warthogs in the Kitchen (a sloppy counting book), read the guided reading books, read sentences and completed their own sentence with pictures.

Please review the sight words in your child's folder each night. If your child is already a reader please feel free to add words that your child may not know by sight.

Small Group Social Studies -The children learned about Native American homes and symbols. They made tipis decorated with symbols. Read and completed activities about various holidays from the Let's Find Out magazine.

In ILA (Integrated Language Arts/reading, phonics, phonemic awareness, spelling, English), the children were introduced to the word 'a' and I told them that when it is a letter we say 'ay' when it is a word we say 'uh.' We have the words 'the' and 'a' on the word wall along with the color words and number words. We did shared readings and interactive writing. All year we will work on rhymes, onsets and rimes, beginning sounds, ending sounds and medial sounds. Ask your child to clap out the syllables in different words. Ask them to tell you how many claps they did.

Computer Class

The children are doing very well in our computer class with Mrs. Keeley on Thursday mornings. They practice their mouse skills (clicking, dragging, scrolling) with different games. This week the children did a pattern game and then colored a turkey. We printed the turkey for them when they were finished coloring. They each came up to the Smartboard and practiced using it by coloring in a large turkey.

Appropriate Clothing

Please send appropriate clothing for your child, the mornings are chilly when we go out for recess. By the afternoon it may be warm enough to not wear their jackets but they definitely need them in the morning. Please send a jacket with your child.

Snack and Lunch

Please send your child with enough napkins, spoons, forks, and straws for morning snack and afternoon lunch (if they are full day). If your child will be purchasing lunch please try to review the lunch menu with him/her so he/she will have some idea of what will be chosen for lunch.

Class Rules

Our class rules are simple and positive. 1) Keep your hands and feet to yourself 2) Listen 3) Walk 4) Raise your hand. I will begin a individual positive reinforcement chart this week with the children. Each child will have an index card with their name on it and when they are caught setting a good example and following the rules they will get a star on their chart. The whole class can get a star when they receive a compliment from an adult, e.g., music teacher, gym teacher, Sir. Michael Ann, etc. When they get 5 stars they will get to choose a prize from the prize box.

Youth Protection Clearance Form

In order to come into the classroom and volunteer on a regular basis you need to have your Diocesan Youth Protection Clearance. These forms can be picked up at the parish office. It takes at least 2 weeks for the paper work to be completed and sent back to the parish office. Please get your clearances as soon as possible if you have not already done so. It doesn't hurt to have them done even if you will not be in the classroom on a regular basis. You will be allowed to come in to the parties without them but if you think you would like to come in from time to time you will also need them.

This web page will be updated every week. In my perfect world I would be able to update it by Friday afternoon, but realistically it is usually completed Saturday or definitely by Sunday so you can have some idea of what is going on for the upcoming week and what we did the previous week. I will send out a group e-mail to let you know when it is completed.

Weekly Schedule and Important Dates

Monday, November 22nd - Music and French

Tuesday, November 23rd - No specials

Wednesday, November 24th - Half day, dismissal at 11:30, no lunch and no extended day program

Thursday, November 25th - Happy Thanksgiving! No school

Friday, November 12th - No school

Monday, November 29th - No school

Tuesday, November 30th - School resumes

Friday, December 3rd - Half-day, dismissal at 11:30

Friday, December 10th - Secret Santa Shop

Please empty the folder each night. Please know that when you see a workbook page completed that it was part of an entire lesson. The kindergarteners will be using manipulative, listening to a story, acting out ideas, singing songs, saying poems, using white boards, moving around the room, searching for items in the room, doing 'think, pair, share,' matching, sorting, classifying by attributes, tallying, reading, working together in a group to problem solve, the list could go on forever. Workbook pages have a place but should always be accompanied by developmentally appropriate activities.

After you finish reading the story see if your child can tell you the story in their own words in the correct sequence. Ask them what came first, next, and last. We are also counting words in a sentence, looking at where the sentence begins and ends (begins with an uppercase letter ends with a period, question mark or exclamation point). We are also listening to the number of syllables in a word and clapping them to find out how many? Ask your child to say a word and then clap the number of syllables they hear, for example, 'pump' 'kin' has 2 syllables. We will also be breaking a word into the onset and rime, the onset is the first sound as in 'C' for cat pronounced cash and the rime is the rest of the word 'at.' Phonemic awareness will help your child to become better and more fluent readers.

If you have any questions you can e-mail me at szabroske@sjsmch.org or call the school at 766-2564 and leave message.

Thank you for all you do for your child and for choosing SJS!

Sincerely,

Shelley Zabroske