Coming up:

May 16 – Kindergarten Bake Sale – bring your quarters and help support  Mary’sPlace  

May 16 -  Board Meeting – 6:30 @ Kristie Timss’

 May 21 & 22 - All School Healthy Bodies Day 

 May 24 – Kindergarten & Lions School Bus Field Trip

May 28  NO SCHOOL – Memorial Day 

June 4 & 5 – All School Field Day 

June 8 – Kidmoves End of the Year Celebration Recital – 6:30 PM 

June 8 – Last day of school for Kangaroos 

June 12 - Last day of school for T/TH Lambs & Doves

June 13 – Last day of school for M/W/F Doves, All Lions and Kindergarten 

June 14 – Staff cleaning of school 

June 15 – Staff End of the year Lunch and Planning for 2012-13

"Under the table" ArtArt under the table????

Our classroom has been so colorful this month as we spent two weeks having fun with the rainbow colors !!!!  Look for our “human rainbow” at the Art Walk.

We enjoyed an uproarious “U” week by reading many stories about underwear, designing our own unique underwear, and coloring under the table !!  Unbelievable !!!

The last week of this month will be spent talking about and constructing methods of transportation…there are so many things that help us get from here to there !

Important upcoming dates:  April 11- this our celebration fo 100 days of school.  Each student should bring 100 things to school.  There are only two rules:the child has to be able to carry their items by themselves and the items have to all be the same thing ( for example, 100 raisins, 100 paper clips… be creative…I’m sure your child will have some great ideas !!!   May 10th – Mother’;s Day Tea – for all the wonderful ladies in the life of your Lion.  It will be at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.

As always, feel free to call the [preschool office or Mrs. Sturm or myself if you have questions or concerns,

mrs. mim.

First Lutheran Kindergarten Friday Letter

March 16, 2012 

For your information… 

Thank You: WOW!!!!  I cannot believe my birthday celebration last Friday!!!  Just thinking about it right now makes me so emotional!  Your generosity and thoughtfulness amaze me.  I loved the personal poster and personal mug, the beautiful vase and flowers, the gorgeous glassy baby and gift cards and the YUMMY cupcakes with the balloons and party hats!!  You all make me feel so loved and appreciated!  You are all truly a very loving, special class this year.  I feel incredibly blessed for such a supportive parent body!  So…thank you from the bottom of my heart!  You made my year!

Mary’s Place: During February and March we will be collecting loose change in a jar to share with Mary’s Place for them to use as bus passes or motel vouchers.  Our jar is now 3/4 full! 

Scrips Order Dates:  Mar. 16 and Mar. 30  

Book Order:  Due March 22nd

My picks this time are:

Honeybee: 

Animal Magnetic Pattern Blocks Set:  Every primary classroom has pattern blocks in their stash of manipulatives to help teach geometry in the classroom!

Eric Carle Pack:  I love Eric Carle and he is our author of the month in a couple months!  I especially like the book, The Grouchy Ladybug, which helps teach children how to tell time to the nearest hour!

Firefly:

Spelling Bee Game:  Although I do not have this specific game, I have one very similar to it!  This is a great game to help mix it up a bit while reviewing and learning new reading skills.  This would also be a handy game to have during the summer and play just 10-15 minutes a day to keep your child’s sight word skills sharp!

Reading Logs:  Please return completed log April 2nd for a small prize!   

Zoo Reports:  See enclosed flyer.  Sorry!  Last week the smaller flyer did not make it in the Friday envelope!!  This week I am sending another info sheet that is in smaller font on one page!  It is the same information, just easier to read! 

Zoo Field Trip:  Please let me know if you would like to chaperone on the zoo field trip!  We will meet at the church at 9am, drive to the zoo in private cars and then return to the church at 1pm.  ***We will be returning one hour later than the usual Kindergarten dismissal*** 

Zoo Passes:  If you have a zoo pass, please bring a copy of it to me and a copy of your drivers license and we can use it for our field trip on April 2nd.  If we have enough zoo passes, we may not have to pay any $$ for our trip to the zoo!  Otherwise, the discounted rate for us is $7.25 per student.

Inventors Table:  We would love it if you could send in any clean recyclables for our Inventors Table that we will have as a station every Friday at Free Choice!  Please no styrofoam. THANKS!

Important upcoming dates: 

March 19^th: No School-Teacher In-Service Day 

March 28^th:  Zoo index cards and diorama due 

March 29^th:  Art Walk at 6:30pm and Basket Raffle (Blake’s mom, Debbie, is in charge of our basket!) Great job selling your tickets!!

April 2^nd:  Field Trip to the Woodland Park Zoo-9am to 1pm

April 17^th:  Kinder Coffee Chat-Spread the word for any families that are interested in attending Kindergarten at First Lutheran next year! 

April 23-27^th:  Spring Break! 

April 30:  Class Pictures 

May 6^th:  Singing performance at 11am church service 

May 10^th:  Mother’s Day Tea 

May 11^th:  Field Trip to Seattle Childrens Theatre-The Hungry Caterpillar 

May 16^th:  Kindergarten Bake Sale 

Dear Kindergarten Families, 

We are in full swing for preparing for our Art Walk night!  This is an event you will not want to miss!  I’m not going to tell you what we are doing so it is a fun surprise, but know that the students are so excited to have you come see all of their hard work on the 29^th!

Literacy:  We had fun this week reading and writing days of the week!  Knowing specialized words in categories lets children use these words when writing and recognize them quickly when reading.  We talked about how days of the week have names and are always in the same order.  Students then cut out the words of days of the week and matched them on a piece of paper.  We also introduced a new word family, the –op family!  We had fun brainstorming –op words and then writing them for handwriting practice.  We started working on poems about our zoo animals, too.  Lastly, we started our next Little Reader about the zoo!

Writers Workshop: This week we talked about planning detailed stories by saying detailed stories aloud before writing them.  Students paired up with their writing partner and explained what they were going to write and then worked on their own to write detailed stories.  We talked about how details make our stories more focused and interesting.

 Math:  This week we reviewed graphing, skip counting, addition and subtraction.  Students had a blast skip counting in different styles…robot style, mouse style, etc.  See if your child can skip count by 5s in a silly voice!

Chapel:  See enclosed flyer

Big Cheese:  How can it be?  Our last Big Cheese!!!  It was so fun to have Sadie as our last Big Cheese…Hobie the cat came to visit, her mom visited and Sadie brought in some special toys to share with the class.  Thank you everyone for all of your hard work to make your child’s week special.  Your boards, activities and visitors were incredible.  Your children will never forget their special week!!!

Have a wonderful, three day weekend!  We will see you on Tuesday!  Ms. Heidi and Ms. Hart 

We are all very happy to have January (and the snow) behind us. Next week is Parent/Teacher Conferences. We love having you come in to talk about your favorite subjects – your kids! It’s a great time to celebrate the accomplishments so far this year and to look on areas we will be working on for the remainder of this school year and to look toward your child’s next educational setting – regardless of if it’s here at First Lutheran or at another school! We have Valentine parties to look forward to. The Lions and Kinders will be mailing their valentines home – with a stop at Starbucks. We are also looking forward to a visit from our favorite dentist – Nicole Van Meigheim (Valerie and Ellie’s mom). Don’t forget we have a “mini” mid-winter break – so we will not have school on February 20 & 21. Please don’t hesitate to call if you have any questions!

Many Blessings

February:

8-10 Parent/Teacher Conference

6 or 7 Lions and Kinders Field Trip to Starbucks

20 & 21 NO SCHOOL

28 & 29 – A Visit from the Dentist

March

19 – No School – Teacher In-Service

29 – Art Walk/Ice Cream Social & Basket Raffle

April

18 & 19 – Lambs & Doves Special Person Celebration

23 – 27 – No School – Spring Break

Thank you for the opportunity to educate your children, we love it so much!

Kären

Now, we’re getting ready for hearts, friendship,  and Valentine’s Day  !!!

Enjoy the photos of our January experiences !!!!

mrs. mim and Mrs. Sturm

N

Now we’re excited about Pajama Day and thinking about hearts and Valentine’s Day !!!  Those  Kangaroo”sweethearts” are experimenting with different ways of painting, learning to listen to their friends and sit for stories and songs, and really getting ready for their next educational step.

hope you enjoy the photos !!!!

have “hoppy” day !!!!

mrs. mim.

If you are thinking about enrolling in the Kangaroo class, please come and spend a Friday morning with us, meet some current Kangaroos, and talk with thej parents.  It’s the best way to get a sense of how the class operates.  We love to have visitors…just let the school office know when you’re coming so we can have enough materials ready for you !!!!  Hope to see you soon !!!

If you are a current Kangaroo reading this, please remember to turn next year’s  registration in to the school office ASAP… classes for 3 and 4 yr. olds are filling up quickly and as current families, you have priority registration until January 30th (when open registration begins).

I’m going to try to add some hpotos of the fun we have in Kangaroo class…wish me luck…and enjoy the photos !!!

mrs. mim.

April 6, 2012 

For your information… 

School Skills and Spanish Summer Camp:  Carolina, our Spanish teacher, and I will be teaching a one week half day camp this summer!  We are so excited to offer this fun, beach-themed camp for 4-7 year olds to keep school skills and Spanish skills sharp the week of July 30th!

Thank you: Thank you for all of your support, donations and ticket sales for our VERY successful basket raffle!  The kids are so excited to have a new climber for recess time!  Also….drum roll please…we collected $79.50 in our coin jar for Mary’s Place!  Thank you for your generosity and spare change!

Math Homework:  Please see enclosed math activity for math homework this week!  If your child returns their math, they can earn a free pencil this week!

Enrichment Classes:  Please see enclosed forms for our last session of enrichment classes!

Easter Gift:  Happy Easter!  We hope your child enjoys the small Easter gift from us!

Book Order Due:  April 18^th My picks for this book order are:

SeeSaw: 

56. Nature’s Miracles Pack:  This is a great pack that will complement our curriculum when we study butterflies and work in our Kindergarden!

35. The Grouchy Ladybug:  Eric Carle is our author study coming up and this book is all about telling time…our next math unit!

Firefly:

18.  Elephant and Piggie Set:  We have been reading these adorable books in our small guided reading groups!  They are so much fun, the kids love to laugh and read them!

Reading Logs:  Please return completed log May 1st for a small prize!   

Inventors Table:  We would love it if you could send in any clean recyclables for our Inventors Table that we will have as a station every Friday at Free Choice!  Please no styrofoam. THANKS!

Gardening Supplies:  We are excited to start our garden unit next week!  If your child has any gardening tools that we could borrow to help prepare our Kindergarden for planting, please send in:

*Kid-sized gardening gloves

*Kid-sized gardening tools

*Seeds to plant in our garden!

Mother’s Day Tea:  Please see enclosed invitation!  Please RSVP how many guests your child will have attending the tea-don’t forget to include the guests’ first and last name.

Important upcoming dates: 

April 17^th:  Kinder Coffee Chat-Spread the word for any families that are interested in attending Kindergarten at First Lutheran next year! 

April 23-27^th:  Spring Break! 

April 30:  Class Pictures 

May 6^th:  Singing performance at 11am church service 

May 10^th:  Mother’s Day Tea at 11am

May 11^th:  Field Trip to Seattle Childrens Theatre 10:30am show-The Hungry Caterpillar 

May 16^th:  Kindergarten Bake Sale

May 21^st:  All School Health Day

May 28^th:  No School-Memorial Day

June 4^th:  All School Field Day

June 12^th:  Celebrate Summer Birthdays at Saltwater Beach Park

June 13^th:  Last Day of School

July 30^th-August 3rd:  School Skills and Spanish Camp from 9am-12pm

Dear Kindergarten Families, 

Literacy: This month we started our poetry study!  There are many worthwhile reasons to teach poetry writing in Kindergarten.  Some of the advantages are that it requires little writing to express ideas, it inspires a love of language, invites careful choice of words, provides an easy, open-ended alternative for kids who find structured forms of writing challenging, positively impacts other writing and most important of all:  Kids love it!  After writing a couple class poems about rain and Kindergarten, students then wrote their own poems.  Some of the poems were about dogs, recess, rain, sun, friends, zoo animals and Legos!  We are also sending home the latest little reader, The Bunny Book!  Please have your child read this book to as many people as they can!  We also learned some fun chants to remember how to spell some common sight words-“are”, “was”, “go”, “have”.  Ask your child if they remember the chants!

Math:  To welcome April, we filled in our April calendar!  We played a few math games this week to deepen students’ understanding of concepts we have talked about before in class.  We did a money game where children rolled dice and collected coins and had to exchange for nickels or dimes.  We also played Ones, Tens, Hundreds where children rolled a dice and tried to make 10 bundles of 10.  Look for this game in their Friday envelope.  Lastly, we talked about different ways to divide numbers.  For example, 5 and 5, 4 and 6 or 7 and 3 for dividing 10.  To help children understand this addition concept, we put 10 beads on a pipe cleaner and students had to show us the different groups of 10 on their bead string.

Science:  Thank you for a wonderful trip to the zoo!  What a beautiful, fun day to enjoy our friends and see our zoo animals!  Thank you to all of the parents who drove to the zoo to make this field trip possible!  Children finished their zoo observation worksheets in class this week.

Music:  Mr. Perez worked with us on our songs for our concert on May 6^th!

Chapel:  The Doves did a wonderful job telling us the Easter story!

Have a wonderful Easter weekend, Ms. Heidi and Ms. Hart

We are also very busy assessing all the school skills we are acquiring and teachers are preparing to share their findings and observations with parents during conferences.  You will be amazed at all your children can do !!!!

Pajama Day is coming up…Tuesday, January 30th…it promises to be a fun, lazy day !!! You don’t even have to get dressed… come to school in your p.j’s !!!!!!!!

As always, if you have questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to contact us.

mim brustuen mimiemb@yahoomail.com

Click here for our calendar for January Mim January 12 Calendar