Welcome
to Mrs. DuBois’ Kindergarten page!
November News
All Saints Day
For the Solemnity of All Saints the kiddos played a saints card matching game and made a Saints of Heaven craft, adding some of the saints we’ve been learning about to their heavenly setting. Who did we add? The kiddos could choose from St. Mary, St. Michael, St. Francis, St. Patrick or St. Nicholas. They turned out great!
A Fun Visitor
Look who came to visit our classroom for a few days! What a fun addition to our Science Center! Thanks to the Ford family for letting us borrow Flash.
October News
Happy Halloween
Thanks to our Room Moms for a great party! Check out all the cute kinder-costumes!
Jack – o – Lantern Fun
What better time of year to explore pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns than the end of October? The kiddos had tons of fun with all sorts of jack-o-lanterns stories, crafts and writing. They wrote their own book about the life cycle of a pumpkin, from seed to “jack” and then carved their own classroom jack-o-lantern. They each got to make their own little jack too.
Monsters Everywhere
The kiddos created their own monster and then completed their first graphic organizer to write a mini monster report! The kinder-kids are doing a fantastic job learning to read & write CVC and high frequency words, so this was the perfect chance to use all those skills.
Cutest Monsters Ever!
Even their scary faces are cute!
Happy Birthday!
We celebrated another birthday today!
X is for X-Ray
Revisiting letter Xx was tons of fun with all things X-ray. We learned a bit about our bones and how to keep them healthy. We read some funny books about our bones and even wrote our own version of one of them. We sorted Cheetos bones (and ate them, of course!) and we made a little X-ray man from paper chains.
The Feast of St. Francis
St. Francis is the patron saint of our classroom so we loved learning all about this gentle, holy man. In honor of his feast day and his love for all of God’s creation, we made birdfeeders. And since it was the first day of our apple unit, making them out of apples was perfect!
Fire Safety Month
October is Fire Safety month and we had our first fire drill! We did a great job remembering to walk, stay calm and find our Kindergarten meeting spot by the tall tree in the play yard. After the drill was over, we investigated the fire engine, met the fire fighter and got our picture taken!
Our Lady of the Rosary
October is also the month of the Holy Rosary. The kiddos have worked very hard learning the Hail Mary prayer and were so happy to be making a mini rosary to take home. It had one decade of beads on it, so we can practice our Hail Mary each day. We also colored a beautiful image of Mary and created a big rosary on our bulletin board.
Our Lady of the Rosary, Pray for Us!
Happy Birthday, Mr. K
The Kinder-kids helped Mr. K celebrate his special day with a fun little song!
We love our principal!
September News
The Feast of the Arch Angels
The kiddos always love the stories of the Arch Angels and are especially excited to make a St. Michael shield. We had fun decorating the hallway for their feast day and will begin learning the Prayer of St. Michael in October.
Fun with Computers
Our classroom Chrome Books came in and we had a blast exploring some of the fun sites we’ll be using this year. The kiddos learned how to log on, how to find our Google Classroom and how to use the QR code scanner to get to several different websites, stories and games.
Future Soccer Stars
It’s been perfect weather for our favorite fall sport!
Homecoming Spirit Day
The cuties got to come to school out of uniform for the first time this week! We had our first Spirit Day in honor of the MTHS Homecoming game. Although most of the kiddos chose Metamora red & black, we did have a few show their STM Falcon pride! Go Falcons!
ABC Centers Week Three
We’ve worked our way through half the alphabet and had some extra fun this week. For letter Ww we got out a new school tool… our watercolors! Visit our webpage to see the video of the kiddos exploring with their brushes and colors. Enjoy the cute conversation at the very beginning about the use of white paint on white paper!
Picture Day
Check out the cuties on picture day!
and
Happy Birthday, Mary
We made pretty cards for Mary’s birthday and hung them in the hallway on her special bulletin board. Father Kipfer also let us come up on the altar to sing Happy Birthday to her at church!
ABC Centers Week Two
We continued with our ABC unit but changed out our centers. We introduced some fun activities like Lego letters, mystery letter bottles, textured letter rubbings, and iPad QR code ABC songs.
Our First Library Visit
We were so excited to take our first trip to the school library. Miss Kim told us all about how to choose books that are the right size for us and how to take care of them properly. We all picked out two books and couldn’t wait to get them home to share with our families!
August News
ABC Centers
We began our ABC unit this week and the kinder-kids had fun with our new letter trays. They could practice the letters in all sorts of cool ways, like: sand writing, playdough, blocks, pop-its, stamping and puzzles. They could use Q-tips or daubers to make letters and clip card or hole punches to match upper case and lower case. We’ll continue to work with these centers for several weeks as we work on proper form and the sound of all the letters.
Happy Birthday!
We celebrated another birthday!
Visits from Father Kipfer
Father Kipfer enjoys stopping in and chatting with the kinder-kids and the kiddos love seeing him too…but we think Benny is pretty cool too!
Playing in the STREAM
Our kindergarten centers are set up to facilitate activities that span and integrate all areas of the curriculum. We call our centers “The STREAM” :
S ~ for science
T ~ for technology
R ~ for reading
E ~ for engineering
A ~ for art
M ~ for math
The kiddos played in the STREAM for the first time this week. Such fun!
Our First Unit
We started our year off with, of course, a mini unit on monkeys. We read all sorts of fun fiction stories (with Curious George being our main character of study) and we added some nonfiction too, learning about what real monkeys do. We played all sorts of monkey games, which became our first center activities as well. Our main focus was the concept of “balance” as we played with a balance scale, a balancing monkey and stacking monkeys. And of course, we had to add some fun monkey themed snacks!
Happy Birthday
We celebrated two more birthdays this week!
Click here for the birthday boy
Click here for the birthday girl
Happy Birthday!
We celebrated a birthday this week!
Can You Find Your Monkey?
We had fun making monkey masks during our first week together.
Can you find your little monkey?
Welcome Friends
We had a super first day.
We have a great group of sweeties this year! Can’t wait to get to know each one and have a wonderful year together.
Unpack Your Sack
Join us at the school as we prepare for our new school year!
Bring your supplies and check out your classroom.
Tuesday, August 16
5:00 – 6:00
Please gather in the gym at 5:00 for a welcoming by Mr. Kieswetter.
See everyone there!
2021-2022 Archives
May News
Ice Cream
Our last unit of the year was “Ii is for Ice Cream” and we had a ton of fun with all things focusing on this cool, yummy treat. We made ice cream cone fact families, ice cream cone word families, CVC banana splits, and place value sundaes. We wrote a story about the ice cream truck coming to town and made some fun ice cream art. We even ended our week with an ice cream party!
(Thank you to Ruby’s Grandma & Grandpa for supplying the yummies!)
Snow Cones!
Who loves snow cones? We do!!
Thanks PTO!
Field Day Fun
We had a blast with our teams on Field Day! We loved the three-legged race, the sponge toss, the bean bag toss and the water balloon toss. It was a beautiful day and all the kiddos did a great job!
Bugs Everywhere
One of my favorite units of the year is our Insect Unit as we revisit letter Ii. We had all sorts of fun learning about the life cycle of insects, observing their body parts and learning about how they live & protect themselves. We learned all sorts of cool, junior high vocabulary…like…”metamorphosis, thorax, antennae, larva, pupa, bioluminescence, and carnivore. The kids used their new knowledge to write daily reports on a particular insect, then they invented their own insect!
Bug Recipes
One of the best parts of the insect unit is the daily recipe. We get to have so much fun using food items to assemble the critter of the day, and then eat it of course! Who knew insects could taste so yummy!
Art in the Park
We had a fun-filled day with our Junior High friends out at Black Partridge Park taking part in Art in the Park. After the loooooong walk out there, we enjoyed making sand art, spray paint nature posters, hammer art and coloring with various plants and flowers. We also played team building games with our buddies and had a picnic lunch. Considering the horrible weather we’ve had this season, we lucked out with a pretty decent day and boy, were we tired when we got back to the school! Thanks goodness our PTO had an ice cream snack waiting for us so we could reenergize!
Team T-Shirts
We received our team t-shirts just in time for Art in the Park. They all turned out so cool!
April Showers bring May Flowers!
The tulips around the school are in bloom and it made for a great picture place to celebrate May Day!
Earth Day Everyday!
Although we were a bit late, we celebrated taking care of our earth with some fun Earth Day activities. We learned that Earth Day should be every day!
April News
Really Cute Rabbits
The Easter Season was a perfect time to revisit letter Rr and learn all about rabbits. Can you find your cutie?
We Love Mrs. Harper!
We celebrated the best school secretary anyone could ask for! We love you Mrs. Harper!
Happy Birthday
Another kiddo turned six!
The Empty Tomb
He is Risen! We spent our week back from Easter Break with the story of the Empty Tomb and had some fun with Easter Eggs (all for Ee week!)
Roller Skating!
For the last two weeks, Mrs. Cowling has been teaching the kiddos to roller skate! Today was our last day.
Under My Umbrella
We picked a perfect week to work with rain, the rain cycle and revisit the letter Uu with some fun activities about umbrellas. It rained every day this week (except for Friday when it SNOWED!) The kids had tons of fun learning how rain forms in clouds and especially enjoyed learning junior high words like: evaporation, condensation and precipitation. They also had fun creating a riddle about what was under their umbrella. Be sure to check out our YouTube channel to see the videos of the kiddos reading their riddles.
Tie-Dying Fun
We began preparing for Field Day by tie-dying our team T-shirts with our 8th grade team captains. It was so messy fun and we can’t wait to see how they turn out!
March News
Let’s Fly a Kite
To celebrate the first week of Spring, the kinders learned all about kites. We read about and watched several videos about how to make and fly a kite, then we designed and created our own kites. The kiddos had to consider all sorts of things when making their kites: size, shape, weight, wind catch-a-bility, and length of string. They came up with some amazing ideas! After creating our kites, we waited for the rain to stop, and we were able to test our kites on Friday. We discovered that although you want a windy day to fly a kite, you can have too much wind (as we found out after one kite ended up three blocks away)!
But we certainly had fun with kite week!
The Feast of the Annunciation
In preparation for the Feast of the Annunciation, the kinder-kiddos have been working on The Angelus Prayer. What sweet souls!
Happy Birthday!
Here’s our newest six year old!
St. Patrick’s Day
We had a fun week learning all about the patron saint of Ireland. We read several books and watched a movie of Patrick’s life & we made a neat folder book about him. We also learned about some traditional Irish things, like Irish music, Irish dancing and of course, leprechauns! We lured a leprechaun into our room and we were so surprised to find what he left us the next day!
Click here for the video of our leprechaun visit
Celebrating Dr. Seuss Part One:
The Cat in the Hat
In honor of Dr. Seuss’ birthday, we spent a week with all his funny books. What a great opportunity to explore real vs. nonsense words and rhyme! We started with the all-time favorite ~ The Cat in the Hat. Can you find your cat?
Celebrating Dr. Seuss Part Two:
Green Eggs and Ham
Would you eat them? These brave kinder-kids tried them and then collected & organized data to see who liked them and who didn’t. The results? Green eggs are not a favorite! Go figure!
Juggling Fun in PE
Mrs. Cowling is teaching the kinders to juggle. What a hoot!
Ash Wednesday
We began the Lenten season with a school mass to receive ashes and created a little paper version of ourselves with our ashes on our foreheads. I just love the sweet kinder self-portraits!
Mardi Gras
We had a fun day learning about the background of Mardi Gras and how it relates to the upcoming Lenten season. After watching a kid-presented movie about many of the traditions of Mardi Gras, like masks, jester hats, King’s cake and yummy foods, we had our own celebrations. We made jester hats and enjoyed ice cream sundaes with our friends!
February News
Fun in Music
The kiddos have had a blast learning about beat, rhythm and tempo with Mrs. Nobel.
Happy Birthday
Another kinder-kid turned six!
Cats and Dogs
For the last two weeks of February, we had some fun with a couple of our favorite fictional characters: Pete the Cat (that groovy feline with the cool shoes and crazy buttons) and Dog (the mischievous dog who had a very colorful day). We used these cool characters to explore character studies & story mapping. We also read lots of nonfiction and had the experience of writing our first factual report.
Happy Valentine’s Day
What a fun day!
How to Make Hot Cocoa
Through the month of January, the kiddos worked hard to earn a hot cocoa party and they reached their goal right at the end of the month…so…We spent a special, fun day dedicated to this yummy treat! It was fun to learn all about how to make hot chocolate and then putting the steps together to make it ourselves. The hardest part? Waiting for it to warm up in the crock pot so we could drink it!
Hot Cocoa
Once that cocoa was done warming, we couldn’t wait to drink it up! Although, I think the kinder-kids were more interested in all the marshmallows than the hot cocoa itself. Who knew there were so many different kids of many different sizes of marshmallows. Can you guess which one was the kinder-favorite?
Snow Days!
February brought our fist BIG snow and a couple of snow days, but do you know what’s even better than getting to stay home for a snow day? Coming back to school and getting to play on the biggest snow mound in town at recess!
Catholic Schools Week
Although the weather tried to put a damper on our Catholic Schools Week celebrations, we still had a couple days of fun! At least we got to show spirit for our school on Silly Sock Day. Check out these crazy feet!
January News
100th Day of School
We finally made it! We spent a great day in celebration of hitting this special milestone! We made t-shirts, flags, hats, necklaces and snack mix all with the number 100 front and center.
Click here to watch the creation of our T-shirts
Happy Birthday!
Here’s our newest six-year-old!
Polar Pals
To finish out January, we took a trip to the north and south poles! We visited Antarctica and learned all about penguins. Then we headed north and focused on polar bears. We loved all the fun facts we learned about each of these cool creatures and their special habitats. We made cute little penguin report and we wrote our own fictional stories about polar bears. Be sure to follow the link to listen to us reading our stories.
Click to listen to hear our Polar Bear stories
Let it Snow!
We created a winter wonderland in our hallway with all things frozen! We made marshmallow snowflakes, snowman sequence art & process writing, and snowmen as big as we are! We wrote a great story about our snowy creations and read them to the class. Check out the pictures, the video of our creations and each student reading in all the links below!
Click here to see the construction of our snowmen
Click here to listen to all our great readers
The Feast of the Epiphany
For our first week back from Christmas Break, we focused on the Feast of the Epiphany. We learned all about the three wise men from the east. We learned their names, the gifts they brought and where they found the baby Jesus. We wrote a little book about them, made a cool folder book and had a great little activity book with all sorts of fun Epiphany puzzles and games in it.
December News
The Feast of St. Lucy
The kiddos loved hearing about this brave young saint and had a fun time making a finger puppet of her.
Merry Grinchmas
We had a fun day with a “pinch of Grinch” and all things green!
Happy Birthday!
Another kinder-kid turned six!
Little Our Lady of Guadalupe
The kiddos absolutely loved hearing the story of Juan Diego and his visit from Mary in Guadalupe, Mexico & they did a great job making a tilma that looked like Juan Diego’s after the miracle. Father Greg visited our class to read the story called Our Lady’s Wardrobe and when he got to the page about Our Lady of Guadalupe, he was so impressed with how well the kinder-kiddos knew the story!
A Guest Reader
Father Greg visited us this week! He read us his favorite Christmas story and showed us how silly he can be! The kids loved it.
C is for Christmas
For the letter Cc, we learned all about the first Christmas with several stories, a great little movie, and character boxes of the Annunciation, the Visitation, and the Nativity. We also did all sorts of fun crafts. We made our own mini creche and then we made a huge version for our hallway!
Little Saint Nick
For our first week of December and the first week of Advent, we prepared for the Feast of St. Nicholas! We learned all about this wonderful Bishop and his generous, giving spirit. The kiddos loved hearing his story and watching the movie of his life. They also had fun creating their own miter hat, making themselves look like jolly old St. Nick! See if you can find your little saint behind all those whiskers…
November News
Turkeys Everywhere
Tt is for turkeys! To prepare for Thanksgiving, and to practice the letter Tt, we had lots of turkey fun! See if you can find your little turkey.
Our First Fire Drill
Our first fire drill was this month and the kinder-kids knew just what to do! The firefighters stayed a while and let us take a look at the fire engine.
Honoring Our Veterans
In honor of Veterans Day, our school had a visit from PFC Jose Vasquez of the Army National Guard, son of our Librarian, Miss Kim. The kiddos were great listeners as he explained his job and they asked some great questions. They also made him a card thanking him for his service.
Our class also participated in the Dollar Drive for Wounded Warriors. Our class alone raised $27. Thank you for your donations!
God Bless all our military and their families.
Ff is for Fall Fun
It was the perfect fall week for the letter Ff and all sorts of Fall Fun. The trees in the play yard are in full color and have dropped just enough leaves for piles and play! The kiddos enjoyed a morning gathering leaves for some in class projects (and taking a break to just play together!).
Ss is for Scarecrows
For the letter Ss, we had some fun with scarecrows. We used a couple of little readers, one about the parts of a scarecrow and another “colorful” book about a scarecrow’s hat. We made our own little scarecrow from cut paper and completed our first story-starter about him. The kids did a fantastic job finished the prompt with their own writing! We also made a scarecrow number bond book with the addition facts within five that we have been working so hard on the nine weeks.
All Saints Day
For the beginning of November (and for Letter Ss week), we learned all about All Saints Day and some of the wonderful saints of our faith. So why do we learn about the saints? Because they were normal people (just like us) who did small things for the Glory of God and made it to heaven! We can learn how to make our daily lives holy by living like the saints did. For some All Saints Day fun, we made several fun saint art projects, took home a great All Saints Day booklet, and completed a neat saints coloring book.
Happy Birthday!
We had another kinder-kiddo turn six!
October News
Halloween Fun
I think we had the cutest little ghouls and goblins in town!
Jj is for Jack-o-Lantern
For the week of Halloween we focused on the letter Jj. It was the perfect week for jack-o-lanterns and all things pumpkin.
Fire Safety Month
Thanks so much to Firefighter Wolf for his exciting visit to our classroom! We loved seeing all the equipment & learning about his job. It was a great way to end Fire Safety Month!
And click here for a cool video
Mm is for Monsters
(Kinder-kid friendly of course!)
We read the cute little book “Do You See My Monster”, which helped us practice those new sight words as well as simple three letter words as we found the monster on each page. Then we created our own version of the book, which had us practicing our own great emerging writing skills. These munchkins are great with using periods!! We counted monsters, graphed monsters, patterned with monsters and practiced “one more” and “one less”. We’ve started working with fact families and are becoming pros at counting by fives and tens. And just for fun, we made our own monsters and completed a little graphic organizer to tell about it. We have some great imaginations and our hallway is now filled with some “monstrous” art and writing!!
X is for X-ray
We had so much fun with our review of the letter Xx and all things “X-ray”. In reading, we used X-ray glasses to find hidden words, played an X-ray memory game with our sight words on our big board, and made a book about what our bones can do (which had us practicing writing simple three letter words). In math, we sorted and graphed x-ray bones, used a bone stamper to create sets of a given number, and practiced adding to five to build an X-ray. In science, we discussed the different parts of our body and why our bones are so important. We also learned some great new vocabulary, like: ribs, spine, skull, & pelvis.
Paper Tube X-Ray Creation
We’ve been collecting paper towel and toilet paper tubes for several weeks now and the kiddos have never really asked why! Well, today they were soooooo excited when the baskets full of tubes came out! The kiddos were given the task to work with a partner (using the three C’s of Kindergarten: Communicate, Cooperate and Compromise) to create a life-sized X-ray. The finished products were absolutely amazing and the conversations around the room were fantastic. We asked (and found answers for) things like: How many ribs do we have? How does our skull attach to our spine? Do X-rays show your hair?
Be sure to watch the video of our works in progress and the pictures of the finished projects.
Apples Everywhere
We revisited the letter Aa with Apple Week. We had a great time sorting and patterning with Apple Jacks cereal and tasting, graphing and writing about different types of apples. We read several little apple-themed emergent readers that helped reinforce some of our sight words and we used our sight words to write our own little apple mini story (just a sentence for now…but we’re learning!). We played all sorts of apple themed games and had lots of hands-on apple fun at our centers. We also made apple birdfeeders and a mini apple rosary in honor of some of the wonderful feast days this month (see the next two posts).
Our Lady of the Rosary
October is full of so many wonderful feast days, one of which is Our Lady of the Rosary. In honor of Mary, and to help the kiddos grow in prayer, we made a little decade rosary, learning how we can move a bead each time we practice a Hail Mary or one of our other Kindergarten prayers. We also spent a little time coloring a picture of a rosary, and it was so nice to hear the little prayers being said as the kinder-kids colored each bead!
The Feast of St. Francis
We started October with the feast of the patron saint of our classroom: St. Francis of Assisi. The kids loved hearing the legends of St. Francis, like the wolf of Gubbio and how St. Francis was so close to God, all of creation loved him. Even the birds would come and rest on his shoulders. In honor of this special, gentle man (and as a beginning to our new apple unit), we made apple birdfeeders.
September News
Picture Day
We ended September with Picture Day! Check out all the fun poses and class pics!
St. Michael the Archangel
The kiddos enjoyed learning the story of St. Michael & his friends Gabriel and Rafael and they had a blast making a St. Michael shield in honor of the Feast of the Archangels. They have also done a fantastic job learning the Prayer of St. Michael.
Click here to watch the video of these sweet souls!
Changes to the School Calendar
The Diocese of Peoria has instituted three new Professional Development Days for teachers within the diocese.
Please note the following changes to the school calendar:
Wednesday, October 20: Dismissal at 11:30 ~ No Lunches Served
Wednesday, November 10: Dismissal at 11:30 ~ No Lunches Served
Wednesday, January 26: Dismissal at 11:30 ~ No Lunches Served
Letter Unit : Week Four
This week we worked with letters Oo – Ss. We had fun with Oreos & popsicles, we played soccer and stacked structures with Solo cups, and we had our first Spirit Wear Day! We added to our ABC center with an Alphabet Train that stretches all the way across the room! The kiddos have had a blast working together to get it all put together in the right order.
Click the link below for three new picture pages from the week:
Letter Unit: Week Three
We worked on letters Jj – Nn this week, having all sorts of fun with jewels, kisses, lollipops, mustaches and more! The kiddos enjoyed adding to their Interactive ABC Book and learning about some of the new letter trays at the ABC Center. We now have a mini sand box, some kinetic sand (that smells like Tootsie Rolls!) and some fun pens and pointers to trace the letters at the center.
Happy Birthday!
We had another kinder-kiddo turn six!
Letter Unit: Week Two
ABC Centers
During week two of our Letter Unit, we focused on letters Ff – Ii and we introduced lots of fun alphabet trays into our ABC Center. The kiddos have been working hard learning how to form each letter the “kindergarten way” and these fun centers offer some exciting hands-on ways to reinforce letter formation and recognition. And the kids love them!
Celebrating Mary’s Birthday
The kiddos couldn’t wait to celebrate the birthday of our Mother in Heaven! They colored a beautiful picture of Mary, using many of the different images of her that we have in our classroom. Happy Birthday, Mary! We love you!
Letter Unit: Week One
We worked with our first five letters this week, focusing on Aa-Ee. Each day we created a page in our Interactive ABC book, practiced proper form & handwriting and made a crown with pictures that start with the appropriate sound. We also added some fun work trays to our center shelves so we could create letters in fun ways (like with pattern blocks, links, snap cubes and poms). The kids did a great job picking up on the routine and learning to work independently on each activity.
Happy Birthday!
We began our month with another birthday!
August News
Monkeying Around
We finished our first unit! We loved spending the first two weeks of school doing all-things-monkey! From the many art projects, games, songs, and treats, the kiddos had a blast learning our classroom routines while “monkeying around”!
Our First Work Kit
One of our daily activities is Center Time. During this time the kiddos have various games and trays that they can work with. This week we introduced the first of the kits that the kids can use. They are called name kits and they’re filled with all sorts of fun ways to explore the letters of our names. Some kiddos loved writing their name using beads. Others couldn’t wait to find the letters of their names hidden inside playdough! They also loved digging into the special envelope, finding all the tangible letter manipulative, and using them to spell their names in fun and different ways. Some of the kiddos simply loved coloring their names on the name sheets. Whatever was chosen, it made practicing our names more fun!
Happy Birthday!
We celebrated our first Kinder-birthday!
The Glue Rule
One of the favorite tools in a kindergarten tool box is the glue bottle! This week, Curious George taught us a very important rule about that glue bottle…
Just a Dot! Not a Lot!
The kiddos practiced George’s rule, squeezing just hard enough to make a tiny dot on George’s practice paper. And unlike Curious George, the kinder-monkeys didn’t make a mess!!
Play Pods
We introduced the morning routine of playing in our small groups, which we call Play Pods. For the first few weeks, we will be free exploring with the toys and manipulatives that are in our Brain Bins.
Can You Find Your Monkey?
See if you can figure out all the cuties in the class…
First Day Play
Getting to know our new friends on the playground was a great way to end our first day.
Welcome Monkeys!
We have a great group of little munchkins this year! Can’t wait to get to know each one!
Kindergarten Supply List
Kindergarten Parent Meeting
Wednesday, August 11
6:00 pm
Kindergarten Room
Adults only please.
Feel free to contact me if you cannot attend.
We will discuss all beginning of the year procedures, COVID protocols, lunch program, supply list, uniforms, etc.
Please bring all your questions!
First Day of School
Tuesday, August 17
8:00 – 11:30
I can hardly wait! I’m so excited!
Here’s what you can expect…
7:40 – 8:00 Arrival
Please have your child to school by 8:00.
Please bring your sweetie to the north side of the building to the blacktopped playground area. We have a morning walking program. All kinder-kids will take part in this walking program each morning. I will be present from 7:40 – 8:00 to gather and walk with my kiddos. The church bell will ring at 8:00, at which point we will all gather at the front steps for morning prayers.
I will take the kiddos inside from there!
But…what if there are tears?
If your sweetie is sad the first day of school, you are welcome to walk with us. I only ask that you say your goodbyes after our morning prayer and let me take it from there.
Please do not accompany us to our classroom.
It is my experience that the kids do much better when they are on their own, with their friends and occupied with our routine. Long goodbyes delay the inevitable and make it harder on everyone. Please know that I’ve been on your side myself. My youngest cried for weeks. I had no hair left by September. I will do my best to make the transition easy for your baby.
(And for you!)
Morning Parking Procedures
From Chatham
You may park in any of the spaces along Chatham for drop off. If you park on the church side of Chatham, please USE THE CROSSWALK to walk your child across the street, as it is very busy in the mornings.
You may also pull up to the blacktop in the section from the stop sign to the alley and allow your child to hop out of the car. We consider this a “drive through” drop off. Not usually what the kindergarten families choose for the first day.
You are not allowed to exit your car at this drop off location.
If you choose this type of drop off, you must be traveling east, so your child can exit on the school-side and not have to cross the street.
From Tazewell
You must be heading north on Tazewell to drop off at St. Mary’s. You must park in the preschool parking spaces along Tazewell and walk your child across the street. PLEASE USE THE CROSSWALK
Please note that Tazewell is a bus zone.
Most parents avoid this side of the school during drop off, unless they also have prek kids.
11:30 Dismissal
No buses will be running at dismissal the first day so please plan for pick up.
The kindergarten dismissal area is at the far west side of the blacktop. I will walk my cuties all the way out to that area (even if you are waiting at the front door!).
The kiddos will be dismissed one at a time.
The students will be instructed not to leave my group until I say they can. I will ask each one of them to identify the person with whom they are leaving, so please:
Do not prompt your child to come to you.
We want all of our students to get into the habit of being formally dismissed rather than just running off. We can, therefore, be assured that they are all accounted for and safe.
Thank you for your support in this!
Dismissal Parking Procedures
Until I am familiar with all your faces and cars, I would ask that you please park your car in a designated parking space and walk to our dismissal area to gather your child. After I have gotten to know everyone better, feel free to use the parallel parking “drive up” spaces along the blacktopped area between the stop sign and the alley. That area is for parents that do not wish to exit their cars.
Please note: The east side of the building on Tazewell is a no pick up/ no parking zone during dismissal as it is a bus zone.
I realize that was a ton of information!
Are you overwhelmed?
Don’t be.
It makes so much sense once you do it!
And don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns!
309-367-2528
309-383-2970 (home) 309-357-1290 (cell)
Second Day of School (and beyond!)
Wednesday, August 18
First Full Day of School
All procedures are the same except dismissal is at 3:00 and buses will run.
!! Important !!
Please make sure I know how your child will be getting home. I will take all my kinder kids to the playground dismissal area unless I am informed by you to put them on the bus or send them to aftercare.
Instructions should please be in writing.
I ride the transfer bus the first two days to make sure the kinder kids know how to find their home bus at the high school. We will also pair any transfer riders with an older student buddy,
Do not hesitate to contact me if you have any concerns about busing.
2020-2021 Archives
Kindergarten Morning Prayer
These Kinder-cuties start each day with a Morning Offering.
Such sweet souls!
May News
Field Day Fun!
We looked great in our new tie-dyed field day shirts and we had a great day with our teams!
We Love Ice Cream!
Our last mini-unit of the year was ice cream and what fun we had! We made the tallest ice cream cone we could, adding scoops with sight words on them. The more sight words we could read, the taller our ice cream cone became! We had some TALL ice cream cones! We wrote about eating ice cream on a hot day and made a mini book about ice cream. And, of course, thanks to a generous donor from our school auction, we were able to have a yummy ice cream treat! It was a fun way to end the unit.
Happy Birthday, Little Monkey
Bugs Everywhere!
We started May with our mini unit on bugs! Each day, we conducted a mini-study of a different kind of bug. We learned life cycles, vocabulary, diagramming, and made a cute snack that resembled the day’s critter. Monday we focused on caterpillars, using Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar as our starting point. Of course on Tuesday, those caterpillars turned into butterflies, and we had the fun of borrowing the first grade butterflies for the day. We were able to get a close-up look at some of the cool body parts of a butterfly, like the proboscis! We even saw what a butterfly egg looked like…so TINY! On Wednesday, we learned all about ladybugs and on Thursday, we focused on fireflies. Of course, Eric Carle has fun books about those critters, too, so we had some fun stories to read. On Friday, we used all that we learned to create our own critter! It was a great week!
April News
Earth Day Fun
We had an “Earth Week” in kindergarten, learning all about how we can protect the our home! We learned vocabulary, like: “reduce”, “reuse”, “recycle”, “compost”, and “renewable energy”. We learned about ways we can utilize all of those things and we spent our Friday morning having an Earth Day Celebration. We played Earth Day Bingo, made an Earth Day collage and had a special snack!
“Donut” wait! Save the earth today!
Happy Principal’s Day
We love our principal, yes we do!
Under My Umbrella
April brings showers so we got out our umbrellas and had some rainy day fun with the letter Uu! We played several partner games that helped us practice the skills we’ve been learning, like: turning CVC words into CVCe words, fluent adding within 10, and determining the number of syllables in words. We also did some creative writing, which included writing three clues to a riddle about what might be “under our umbrellas” and a complete story about a rainy day adventure. The kiddos did a great job using transition words!
Check out our Under my Umbrella riddles on our You Tube channel.
Check out our Rainy Day Adventure Stories too!
We Love Mrs. Harper
Happy Administrative Professionals Day to our favorite person in the whole world!
Rabbits!
We couldn’t get through the Easter season without a mini unit on rabbits, especially our favorite: Peter Rabbit! We had so much fun digging into his story to talk about characters, setting, problem and solution. We also read some nonfiction rabbit books and used the information to create a great rabbit report. We made marshmallow rabbits and learned to draw a rabbit too. It was a fun week!
Click here for our marshmallow rabbit video.
Eggs Everywhere
We revisited the letter Ee with Eggs, Eggs, Eggs! We played several games from our game binder using Easter Eggs, practiced adding and subtracting with eggs in a basket and read a great, challenging story about the Easter Bunny and his lost eggs. We even made egg prints. Be sure to watch the video!
Click here for our egg printing video
The Empty Tomb
Our first week back from Spring Break had us finishing the Easter story with the Empty Tomb. We read the story of Jesus’ resurrection from the Bible, made an art project to go with it and even made an “empty tomb” snack. It was a great way to get back into the swing of school after our week off.
March News
Jelly Bean Day!
We spent the week before spring break learning all about Holy Week and everything that happened to Jesus during His last week of life here on earth. To finish out our week, we switched gears and had a jelly bean fun day on our last day of school. We did all sorts of crazy fun things with jelly beans. We connected all that we had just learned about Holy Week to our bag of jellies by learning a nice jelly bean prayer, which told how each color represents something Jesus has done for us. Then we used our bag of jelly beans to add, subtract, estimate, measure, sort and graph. We built different shapes with them and of course, we ATE them! It was a fun way to end our week!
Happy Spring Break to all the Kinder-Families! See you in April!
St. Patrick
We loved learning the story of St. Patrick’s life. We read his story, made a great folder book of facts, and watched a movie all about him. Ask your kinder-kid to tell you some of the interesting facts and legends about this great missionary to the Irish people.
We finished our unit by making a bishop hat and learning a cute little song about Patrick. Be sure to check out the link to the cuties singing!
Little Leprechauns
Can you find your little leprechaun?
An Outdoor Adventure
The power company was in town working on some low hanging wires in front of the church, so we went out to check out all the excitement!
The Cat in the Hat
We started March with a celebration of Dr. Seuss in honor of his March 2 birthday. Check out these cute Cats and see if you can find your cutie.
Thing One and Thing Two
Cutest craft ever!
Click here for the video of the kids painting the hair!
Bartholomew and the Oobleck
In The kids enjoyed the story of Bartholomew and the Oobleck, not only for the crazy, Seuss-ical story, but also for the great lesson it teaches. Everyone needs to say they’re sorry from time to time! And then they had a blast making some oobleck of their own! How can something be hard and solid, sticky and runny all at the same time? Pretty cool stuff!
February News
February Birthdays
We had two birthday celebrations in February.
and
Pete the Cat
Who doesn’t just love Pete?! We had a fun three-day week reading about and watching Pete in action and using what we learned to discuss character traits. What a character Pete is! We explored subtraction using his lost buttons and his missing cupcakes too. And we learned that when things go wrong…
Do we cry? Goodness no!
Valentine Party
We ended our week with a Valentine Party! Many thanks to all the families that contributed to the fun with the crafts, plates & napkins, chips, cookies and PIZZA! What a special treat!
We had so much fun delivering cards & goodies to all our friends.
Valentine’s Day Fun
We had tons of fun during Vv week preparing for the Feast of St. Valentine. Aside from learning his story, which helped us all understand why we send little cards to each, we also played some fun Valentine skills games. We added dice and used the sum to color a cute Valentine picture. We spun Cupid’s arrow and made real or nonsense words depending on what letters we landed on (which became hilarious!). The kiddos began creating meanings for their nonsense words and it was simply comical! We also used candy conversation hearts to sort, count, tally, graph, analyze, add and compare using greater than/less than symbols. We even wrote some sentences using the phrases on them. (We also ate some, of course.) It was a super fun week!
100th Day of School
We made it!
We are 100 days smarter! The kiddos celebrated this fun milestone with a party. They made 100th Day T-shirts, hats, necklaces and flags. They did everything the 100 way and ended the day with a yummy cupcake.
Now the big question…
Will we make it to 200?
Catholic Schools Week
Catholic Schools Week is always a fun way to show how much we love our special school. The kiddos had the opportunity to help out those in need with a collection for the Friendship House, they made cards for the residents of Snyder Village, and participated in Class Color Day
(which was also Pizza Day!).
January News
Marshmallow Snowflakes
We had a fun week of winter activities and the kiddos loved learning about snowflakes. We learned that they are made from ice crystals and that each one has six sides. We took this new information and tried to create a six-sided “crystal” from toothpicks and marshmallows. It was yummy fun because we, of course, munched some marshmallows too!
Snow Fun!
We had a winter wonderland in the play yard for our first week back. Outside recess was a blast! So good to see all the monkeys having so much fun together!
December News
Virtual Spirit Week
Our Student Council organized a school-wide spirit week as a fun way to celebrate Christmas “together” while we’re apart! We had days like: crazy hat day, Christmas clothes day, bring your pet to “school” day, and pajama day. The kinder-kids had fun and it was great to get pictures of their participation from home!
G is for God’s Greatest Gift
For our third week of E-learning we practiced the letter Gg, which had us focusing on God’s Greatest Gift: Jesus of course! We had several nativity crafts, some fun games with gift boxes and a ZOOM meeting where we played “What’s in the Gift Box?” (It was Baby Jesus!) It was also a perfect week to learn about Our Lady of Guadalupe, with some fun videos about St. Juan Diego and his vision of Mary, as well as some fun projects. Great job learning at home kiddos!
N is for Nicholas!
For our second full week of E-Learning we focused on the letter Nn and it was the perfect time to learn all about St. Nicholas. Thanks for sending all the pictures of your St. Nick fun and all the hard work you are doing at home. I’m proud of you!
November News
Christ the King
Thanks to all of you that sent in pictures of your kiddos making their Christ the King Crowns! Loved seeing their sweet faces!
Our First Week of Virtual Learning
The Kinder-kiddos (and their families!) did a great job transitioning into Virtual Learning this past week. I am so proud of how hard everyone worked and love seeing the great pictures of all of you working at home!
Happy Birthday, Little Monkey
We had the chance to celebrate with this little monkey on our last day before transitioning to virtual learning.
Welcome to our New Friend
We’re so excited to have a new friend in our class!
Fall Fun
The trees that line the play yard have to be some of the most beautiful anywhere in town this time of year and when they dropped their leaves, we couldn’t resist to spend some time outside playing in them! What fun!
SAINTS AND SCARECROWS
Saints in the Making
We began November with the letter Ss and a week of learning all about All Saints Day. We had so much fun with a saints coloring book, coloring page and matching card game. We focused on several of the saints that we learn about throughout the kindergarten year:
St. Mary, St. Michael, St. Francis, St. Therese, St. Anthony, St. Lucy, St. Nicholas, St. Patrick, St. Bernadette and St. Faustina.
Why do we learn about the saints? Well…so we can become on ourselves of course! They are beautiful examples of regular people, just like us, who loved God by living a life of prayer and service others. If we can be like them, we can be a saint too!
Scarecrows
Letter Ss week was a perfect time for some fall scarecrow fun! We read about a shy scarecrow, a lonely scarecrow and a scarecrow begin built. We built our own and wrote about him (or her!) using words we know like: he, she, is, by, do & you. We played some number bonding games and made a number bond book to help us practice our math fluency to five. We also learned some funny dances! Have you ever danced like a scarecrow? We have!
October News
JACKS EVERYWHERE!
Happy Halloween
The kinder-kids are just too cute to be spooky! Check out all the fun costumes from our Halloween party.
All Things Jack-o-Lantern
Our mini jack-o-lantern unit came to an end right as we prepared to celebrate Halloween! We had fun all week with the letter Jj and all things pumpkin! We read a little book about Jack the Jack -o- Lantern and all his emotions (helping us practice the word family /ad/). We made a Five Little Jack-o-Lanterns setting and added candy characters to retell the story together and practiced our CVC words and sight words in another easy reader. We also carved a jack-o-lantern, planted the seeds and talked about the life cycle we hope to watch happen in our root garden. Lastly, we had tons of fun in our game binder with jack-o-lantern equations, place value and number bonds.
Jack!
To start our Jack-o-Lantern mini unit, each kiddo created his or her own little Jack! They turned out super-cute and were very creative. Some used marker, some used felt, some used plastic pieces…And some used all three!
Many thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Schaidle for donating the pumpkins from their farm.
The First Snow
What a perfect first snowy day we had! We couldn’t resist grabbing our coats and heading right out into the thick of it!
MONSTERS!!
Monster Math
We had fun with all sorts of math concepts during our monster mini unit. We counted on and back, focusing on “one more” and “one less”. We played a fun monster game called Monster Equations ~ We rolled dice, subitized the number of dots and used the counting on strategy to add them together. Then we recorded the equation. The kiddos did a great job! We also made a really cool monster using all sorts of shapes, then recorded which shapes we used. We learned new shape words like: trapezoid, octagon and hexagon.
Monster Readers
The kiddos have been working so hard this new quarter learning all sorts of sight words as well as learning to blend sounds together to read simple, three letter words. It was fantastic to see them use these new skills in all of our reading activities during our monster mini unit. They played a game called Feed the Monster, which had them reading story strips and finding the correct animal (pig, cat, hen, bug, dog) to “feed” to the monster on their game boards. They also had two great books to read during this unit that had them practicing new sight words, CVC words, as well as color words. The kinder-kids are becoming “Monster” readers!
Writing about Monsters
Readers become better readers by reading and writers become better writers by writing! The kinder-kids were challenged this week to use some of their new sight words in a full sentence, as well as use what the know about counting sounds to spell a word they don’t know. It was a HUGE process and the did a “MONSTER” job! Each kiddo was given a picture of a CVC word (jet, pan, fox, sun, wig, etc) and they used that to write the sentence:
My monster is by the _____.
Then they illustrated their story board to match.
I hope you can zoom in so you can see each kiddo’s fantastic writing. And keep in mind, they did this all on their own. No copying from a board, no help from me!
WOW! Way to go kiddos!
Mini Monsters
Making mini-monsters from Play-Dough was so much fun!
X is for X-Ray
Since it’s almost Halloween, we skipped to the end of the alphabet for our review of the letter Xx and had some fun with X-rays (since they look like skeletons!). The kiddos had fun learning the Skeleton Dance as well as some vocabulary about their bones. We made Q-tip X-rays and practiced words in the “at” family by looking at the x-rays of a “cat”, “bat” and “rat”. We also practiced addition while building the parts of a skeleton based on the answer to simple equations. It was a short week, but filled with Halloween fun!
Fire Safety Month
We had our first fire drill for Fire Safety Month and the kiddos did a great job finding our safe place! Then we had a chance to talk to Firefighter Sluga, learning all about the fire engine!
Our Lady of the Rosary
October is the month of the rosary and we had a fun day celebrating the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. We made an edible rosary using chocolate chips (for the Hail Mary) and marshmallows (for the Our Father). We practiced the prayers, colored images of the rosary & the Blessed Mother, and even got to choose a special rosary all our own to take home (to remind us to pray a Hail Mary every night!)
Mother Mary, Pray for Us!
Apples Everywhere
After finishing our 5 week long ABC unit, we’ll now have weekly mini units to focus on reinforcing one letter each week. This week was letter Aa and our mini Apple unit! We had apples everywhere! The kiddos enjoyed several apple games in their green binders, created fun apple projects in their center baskets and had a fun day of apple tasting. We graphed our favorite type of apple and even practiced our great emergent writing skills by writing a sentence about which apple was our favorite. We had a little reader about apples that helped us practice lots of our sight words and number words. It was a fabulous week!
September News
Number and Pattern Play
As we continue to work our way through the alphabet, we always take some afternoon time to work on math skills as we play in our green binders. This week, our games focused on number and pattern play activities. The kiddos practiced matching numbers, recognizing combinations to ten using groups of pencils and extending all sorts of patterns.
K is for Kool-Aid!
We focused on the letters Jj – Nn this week and took some time out from all our hard word to enjoy some “Kool-Aid” on “Kk” day!
Picture Day
Take a look at these gorgeous kiddos!
Happy Birthday Little Monkey!
We celebrated another birthday this week!
Fun with Letter “Ii”
On Friday of this week, we practiced the letter Ii. It’s a bit tricky to find snacks, activities and fun ideas for the letter Ii, but to end our week and our day on Friday, we enjoyed some “ice” pops. And since it was a rainy day, we had to eat them “inside” (another “Ii” word) so I guess it worked out!
Letter Challenge
After practicing several letters on paper and on our little marker boards, we played a fun game with some of our desk toys. We tried to see what kinds of letters we could form using our tiles and links. We discovered that the tiles were good for making letters that had straight lines and the links were good for letters that were curved. Some kiddos got creative and blended the two tools so they could create letters that had flat sides and curved lines.
Happy Birthday Little Monkey!
We had a birthday celebration this week!
Green Binder Math and Letter Games
This week’s Green Binder Games had us practicing the letters and numbers of the week. We focused on numbers 1-5 in concept and proper number form, as well as patterning. We also practiced letters A – E, learning how to write them each the kindergarten way. We worked on those letter sounds, and began making several books that we will add to throughout the month of September. They include: I Can Write My Letters, The Alphabet Action Book, and I See the ABC’s. For one, we have even starting learning to write a full sentence!
August News
Happy Birthday Little Monkey!
We had a birthday celebration this week!
Introducing: Green Binder Games
It just wouldn’t be kindergarten without center time, but with COVID issues we are unable to play in centers with shared materials. So to make the time that would normally have been reserved for centers more fun, we now have a really cool alternative: Green Binder Games. Each kiddo has a special green binder with all sorts of fun, colorful and interactive print and play games. Each day, we learn a new game, but at center time, the kids can play any of them they want. And next week, we’ll learn to start recording our game results, adding an extra level of learning to the fun. This week’s games were, of course, monkey games!
Feed the Monkey
Five Monkeys Jumping on the Bed
Monkey Tails
All three monkey games reinforced number recognition, subitizing and counting.
Monkey Monkey Who Do You See?
We made cute little monkey masks. I wonder which kinder-kid is hiding behind each.
Our First Unit: Monkeys!
Of course we started our first full week with a mini unit on ~ what else ~ MONKEYS!
We had all sorts of fun reading silly monkey books, as well as some informational nonfiction. We made monkey crafts (a stick puppet and a life-sized monkey) and played some neat little monkey games. We also had some great monkey snacks, like monkey bread, a monkey cookie and mini monkey cupcakes.
Outdoor Learning
We were very blessed to have received a donation of some cute little portable desks and the kids absolutely love going outside for some of our lessons. We usually take about a half hour each morning to sit in the shaded portion of the playground and another half hour in the afternoon to work out under the sycamore tree in the play yard. What a wonderful way to get some fresh air and still be able to get some activities done!
Washing Those Germs Away
Our last day this week was spent learning all about how to wash our hands here at school, making sure to get all those icky germs down the drain! We played a funny game, sorting things we need to wash our hands (like soap and paper towels) and things we don’t need (like a bathtub and toothpaste!). We also created two little hand prints: one dirty with germs and one clean after washing, and as a special treat, the kiddos got to choose a “clean hand clapper” at the end of the day. And of course we can’t forget the icky germ cookie we had for snack. It was a great day to end our fantastic first week of school! Great job, Monkeys!
Making Masks More Fun!
Our second day of school was even better than our first and we had some fun with our masks! We read a funny little book, danced to a funny little song and designed a mask of our own. We even had a snack that looked like a mask (sort of!). It was a great day to be wearing a mask!
Welcome Back Monkeys!
We have a great group of kiddos this year!
Hard Workers Learning Our Class Rules
Our first day was spent learning all about what it means to be a kinder-kid. The kiddos enjoyed playing a game to sort appropriate and inappropriate behaviors and color in a class rules coloring book.
First Day Fun Outside
Needed a mask break on our first day! Had a fun time on the play set.
2019 -2020 Archives
May News
End of the Year Video
Have a great summer Kinder-Families! Enjoy our End-of-the-Year Video!
E-Learning Pictures: Week Six
Lots of our monkeys have received visits from the Tooth Fairy lately! Their new smiles are awesome! We also had lots of fun making special gifts for Mom for Mother’s Day and enjoying “Shark Week”! Check out what you’re friends have been up to in these great pictures (and keep sending!)
E-Learning Pictures: Week Five
It was fun to see what some of our friends were up to this week. It was definitely a great week to explore rain (but we also had a warm, sunny day thrown in there for all of the little monkeys who have swimming pools!). Check out our great pictures and keep sending them!
April News
E-Learning Pictures: Week Four
Looks like the kinder-monkeys had tons of fun this week. In honor of Earth Day, we had kiddos planting herb gardens and writing poetry about nature. Many kiddos also enjoyed the Pet the Cat activities that were sent this week. We had cupcakes, Cool Cat Boogie, cat masks & puppets. Some kiddos had fun with The Good Shepherd religion activities too! From doing school work in pajamas, to working in shorts, to getting all dressed up to go to “work”, we had a great group of kinder-workers this week! Enjoy the pictures!
E-Learning Pictures: Week Three
Another great week of learning from home. We had some kiddos who had a great time with the “egg drop challenge” and some that created their homemade set of resurrection eggs. We also had our first Zoom meeting! It was so fun to see all my sweet kinder-monkeys! We’ll plan to do that every Friday.
Keep sending pictures. I love to see what you’re up to each week!
E-Learning Pictures: Week Two
We had fun with Holy Week and Jelly Beans this week! Thanks for sending in some more fantastic pictures. I love seeing your kiddos enjoying our lessons at home. Keep up the great work and I hope you all have a wonderful Easter!
He is Risen!
E-Learning Pictures: Week One
Our first full week of E-learning is officially behind us! Thanks to all of our wonderfully supportive parents (and great kiddos, of course!) who made it a tremendous success. Keep up the good work.
I miss you all terribly and hope you are all staying safe and healthy.
Thanks for sending pictures of the fun you’re having at home. Please continue to do so! Each week, I’ll make a collage of all the pics I receive so we can “visit” with our friends from afar!
Click here for this week’s pictures
March News
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Sad to not be able to see all my little leprechauns/monkeys for a while. Everyone stay safe and healthy and we’ll hopefully see you back soon!
Did We Catch that Leprechaun?
Well….Sad to say that the Leprechaun was too clever for us! But we did get a surprise when we came to school Friday morning!
Building a Leprechaun Trap
What fun we had researching different types of Leprechaun traps and then working together to choose the best parts of each one in order to design our own. The kinder-monkeys decided we needed to use the “trap door” design and “lure” the leprechaun using lots of rainbows, gold glitter & coins, shamrocks, and little leprechaun images (so he wouldn’t be scared). One monkey even thought to bring some Lucky Charms cereal as “bait”.
On construction day, each friend had a special job. We put all the pieces together and…SUCCESS! Our trap was amazing! Now we had to just wait to see if it was clever enough to fool a leprechaun!
Some Seussical STEM!
We had such fun throughout the first week of March as we celebrated the birthday of Dr. Seuss. We combined his wonderful stories with some exciting STEM activities and challenges. The kids had a blast trying to create the Cat’s hat using Solo cups and paper plates. It was harder than it looked, and after many rounds of trial and error & strategy changes, some of our groups were able to get quite a stable stack. One measured almost 30 inches tall! The following day, they used what they learned from that challenge to try to stack “10 apples up on top”. Now that was tricky! Our little engineers learned quickly that bumpy things need something flat to help them stack, so we decided to add one additional tool. The teams had to choose their tools carefully, and then we discussed which tools worked well and which didn’t.
We also had fun making Oobleck (after reading Bartholomew and the Oobleck) and testing several different kinds of fish (after reading One Fish, Two Fish) to see if they would sink or float. Both of those activities had us discussing types of matter and comparing weights & densities. We learned words like: matter, solid, liquid, gas, buoyant, submerge & dissolve.
And, of course, we had to make green eggs (just because it’s gross).
It was a great week of combining literature, science, math, engineering and FUN!
February News
Happy Birthday, Little Monkey!
Science with Skittles
We conducted a really cool science experiment that went along with our color unit perfectly! We used Skittles (Dog’s spots!), placing them in a rainbow pattern around a plate. We discussed predictions about what might happen if we covered them with water. The kiddos had some really interesting ideas. The kiddos recorded what they thought might happen, and then we tested our predictions. It was exciting to see all their faces as the colors began to bleed off the skittles and stay in rainbow form. We discussed some new science words like:
disintegrate, dissolve, and stratification.
The kiddos drew the results of the experiment on their recording sheet and then we revisited the experiment 30 minutes later. It was interesting to see that the stratification had disappeared and all the colors had mixed to create brown. Our little scientists were most interested, however, in the fact that the “S” on the top of each Skittle did NOT disintegrate. They were all floating on the top of the water.
Wonder what they’re made out of!
Learning to Bowl in PE
Mrs. Cowling’s bowling unit is always one the favorites! It’s so fun to see the kiddos learn to correctly set the pins and to hear them begin to use the correct vocabulary, like “strike” and “spare”. And it’s just FUN!
Happy Birthday, Monkey
Happy Valentine’s Day
Thanks to our Room Moms for a great party! It was worth the wait!
STEAM and Valentine’s Day!
We had all sorts of fun with Valentine candy hearts as we explored several different STEAM challenges. The kiddos had a blast (literally) creating and testing candy catapults. The first test launches didn’t go very far, but after some collaboration & redesigns, they became very successful. I think we’re still looking for some of the pieces of candy that landed somewhere around the room!
We also had some fun STEAM challenges using candy hearts for stacking, making 2D and 3D shapes, graphing and exploring symmetry.
Some Silliness is Always Good!
Wednesday we looked out the window and could hardly see the playground! It looked like a blizzard outside, so we decided to bring the fun snow inside with an indoor snowball fight! Sometimes you just have to get a little silly!
Our Lady of Lourdes
The story of St. Bernadette and her vision of Mary is always a favorite! After reading the story, we watched the movie of Bernadette’s life. We made a pretty art project of the grotto and had a yummy recipe too!
Groundhog Day
We had such fun learning about Phil & Gertie and predicting if either of them saw their shadows. We made a graph of our predictions and analyzed it. Then we watched some video footage of each groundhog to see if we were right. Interestingly, Phil did not see his shadow, but Gertie did! We read some groundhog nonfiction, learning several facts that we used for an informational writing activity. Then we made a fun little groundhog art project and even a yummy groundhog snack, complete with a little groundhog coming out of his burrow.
Smart Grid Science
Junior High has been using the Smart Grid Energy System to learn about power plants, electricity, and circuits. It is an amazing hands-on program, and we had a chance to experience it when the 5th and 6th grade asked us to join them. We broke into small groups, with each group being taught by a junior high friend. We were shown how to set up a circuit with ground wires and charges and then tested it to see if it would make our town “turn on”. What a fun experience!
January News
January Work of Mercy
To end the month of January, our Corporal Work of Mercy was outreach to Snyder Village. We made “Snowman Soup” care packages (hot cocoa!) for the folks at the local retirement home. It fit in perfectly with the end of our snowman unit too!
Catholic Schools Week
We love our fantastic school! We had so much fun celebrating it during Catholic Schools Week with all sorts of special events: Team Color Day, Disney Day, Muffins with Mom, Donuts with Dad, Dress Up for Jesus and a fun Movie Day!
100th Day of School!
We celebrated the 100th Day of School with all things 100! We made special hats, glasses, flags and T-shirts and then we had a parade! We visited all the classrooms to let them know it was a special day!
Some More Snowmen!
With all the snow lately, it was only fitting that we make some more snowmen! These were made of paper, though! We broke into groups and had to follow the three C’s of Kindergarten:
Communicate
Cooperate
Compromise
Each person on the team was responsible for a certain part of the snowman and then it was assembled. They turned out very cute!
After making them, we wrote a story about them. The kiddos did a fantastic job using sight words in their writing and remembering to proofread for punctuation & proper use of upper case letters. Our snowmen and our stories made a great hall display for Catholic Schools Week Open House this weekend! Hope everyone can stop by and see them!
Do You Want to Build a Snowman?
With the first snowstorm of the new year, we decided to build some snowmen!
Our Junior High friends are busy working on their projects for the upcoming Science Fair, so we decided to turn our snowman fun into our next STEAM project, as well as use it as our own display board at the Science Fair.
Our project is titled: “Sun Power”
Here’s what we did…
We broke into four STEAM TEAMS. Each team created a snowman that had to be 6 inches tall. We used rulers to make sure they were the right size. Then, back in our classroom, the teams chose a material to make a house for their snowmen. We discussed each material and made predictions about their abilities to “insulate” the snowmen or collect the “solar energy”. We then recorded our predictions about how each material might change the snowmen. We placed our snowman houses around each of our snowmen and let the sun do its work.
After 4 hours, we observed the changes and compared the results to our predictions.
All our findings will be on display during the Science Fair Exhibition on January 26 in the school gym (during the KC Pancake Breakfast).
Happy Birthday Little Monkey!
December News
Merry Christmas Little Monkeys!
My little monkeys looked adorable in the new monkey hats that they got for Christmas and they had a blast at our Christmas party. What a fun way to end 2019 and get ready for our new year together!
Merry Christmas, everyone! And Happy New Year!
See you all in 2020!
Angels Everywhere!
Our classroom was filled with angels as we performed our yearly Kindergarten Advent Play. The kiddos were so cute in their angel costumes and did such a great job singing & reciting from the gospel of Luke.
A Visit From Santa
It’s always fun when Santa makes his way through the school! What a surprise it was for our class to get to sing some songs with him and get our pictures taken with him!
An Elfin Visit!
We had a surprise visit from Grandma Elf and her cute little helper, Annie the Elf! Such fun!
All-School Christmas Program
Mrs. Noble worked so hard putting together a fantastic Christmas Program this year! Everyone did a wonderful job and the kinder-kids were especially cute!
December Outreach: Mittens of Mercy
For December, our Work of Mercy was “Clothe the Naked”. The kiddos put their faith into action by doing a special chore at home to earn $1.00. They then donated that dollar to our “Clothe the Naked” fund. We all walked to Dollar General and used our fund to buy children’s hats and mittens to donate to families at the Eureka Heart House. Some of the kiddos pooled their money so they could buy larger sets of items. The gals at Dollar General fell in love with our cuties! They were so polite and well-behaved. We came back with 14 items to send to those in need. It was a great experience!
St. Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe
The kiddos were enchanted by the story of St. Juan Diego and his visit from the Blessed Mother on the top of Tepeyac Hill in Mexico. After watching a quick clip movie about the story, we made St. Juan’s tilma, with the image of Our Lady on it. We added pretty sparkling roses, too. The kiddos learned the story so well that when we went to church on Thursday (which was the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe), the kinder-kids were the ones that answered ALL of Father’s questions! He was so proud of them (and so was I!).
The Feast of St. Nicholas
We had such fun waiting for St. Nick to arrive and fill out shoes! We also watched a movie about his life, made a little St. Nick stick puppet and went home in St. Nick miter hats (complete with white beard!). Too cute!
Classroom Nativity
After reading the story of the first Christmas, the kiddos worked very hard to retell the story in their own words. We learned about story structure having a “beginning, middle and end”, as well as setting and characters. After rewriting the story, we created our own nativity scene. Each kiddo made one character and we put it together to create our own version of what the first Christmas looked like. It looks super cute in our hallway!
November News
Give Drink to the Thirsty
As we continue to learn the Corporal Works of Mercy, we stopped this month to give thanks for all we’ve been blessed with and help out those we are less fortunate. Our work of mercy this month was “Give Drink to the Thirsty”, so we collected boxes of juice that we delivered to the church collection box for the Weekend Snack Pack Program. This program gives children in our area small bagged meals on the weekends when they are not at school to have a hot lunch. We collected 13 boxes of juice to help out the program! While we were at the church making our delivery, we stopped in to visit Jesus and prayed for the kids who will receive our donations.
Christ the King Sunday
Our church year is ending this weekend with the celebration of Christ the King! The kiddos enjoyed this quick project, especially adding the jewels to Jesus’ crown. They are very excited for the fact that Father will begin wearing his violet vestments soon!
Turkeys Everywhere
We’ve spent the last two weeks with tons of turkey fun! We’ve measured turkeys, patterned their feathers, counted them, written stories about them, practiced color words with them and made word families using their feathers. Next week we will all construct a turkey trap to see if we can catch one!
Fall Fun!
What a beautiful fall day! Check out the fun we had!
All Saints Day
To help us celebrate some of the fantastic saints we’ve learned about this year, we created a fun little “Saint Cube” and Saint Paper Dolls for All Saints Day. Our Saint Cube had six of our favorite saints on it: St. Therese, St. Mary, St. Michael, St. Francis, St. Nicholas, and St. Patrick. We turned it into a game by rolling it and saying the name & a fact about the saint it landed on. We also made Saint Paper Dolls. It was fun to see how they were holding hands after we cut the doll shape! We decorated each doll to look like a special saint. If we were really careful, we could get them to stand up in a little circle…too cute for the center of the kitchen table or by our bedside!
October News
Happy Halloween!
Definitely the cutest ghouls and goblins in town!
Our First Snow!
What’s more fun than Halloween? Snow on Halloween!
National Candy Corn Day
October 30th is National Candy Corn Day! In honor of this yummy candy, we spent the whole day with candy corn. There are so many different kinds and we tried several to see which was our favorite. We had a jarful of candies and estimated how many there might be. Then we counted them all by making groups of ten. There were 598! WOW! That was a lot of counting! Then we sorted, tallied and graphed a smaller set of our own. We even made a funny little candy corn man! It was a fun day!
STEAM Team Monsters
We had our first STEAM Team activity this week and it was so much fun! Each team had a “recipe” they had to follow in order to create a paper monster. They had to include certain shapes and physical characteristic, and they had to use a measuring tool to make sure it was the right size. The kiddos did a great job communicating and cooperating with their partners in order to complete their task. The finished products were very creative!
Monsters Everywhere!
As we approach Halloween, we had a fun week filled with friendly monsters! The kiddos had a blast using many of our recent sight words in their reading, writing and partner games as they looked for, counted, created and wrote about monsters. We made monster hats, monster puppets, a “Do You See My Monster” book, and a monster cookie. We also practiced recognition of and counting to various teen numbers by adding eyes to paper monsters. We played Monster Mania, which reinforced our reading of number words one – five, and we worked with a partner to create a big monster. It was a fun week!
Can You Find Your Little Monster?
Who can be scared of monsters when they’re as cute as these little ones?
Works of Mercy: Feed the Hungry
Our class is focusing on learning the Corporal Works of Mercy and putting our faith into action in a special way each month. This month our work of mercy was “Feed the Hungry”. Each kiddo packed three or four Halloween treat bags for our local food pantry.
School Carnival Fun!
We got to visit the school carnival as a class! We all ended up in the jail!
Pumpkins Everywhere
We filled our short, three-day week with all things pumpkin! We read an emergent book entitled Pumpkins Everywhere and practiced the reading strategy of matching picture clues to beginning sounds by pairing the mixed up pictures to the correct text. We also created our own version of the story by putting pumpkins by all sorts of crazy things! We enjoyed an interactive poem of The Five Little Pumpkins and made a yummy snack to go with it. We also made a cut-paper pumpkin and wrote a fantastic riddle about it, focusing on the traits of color, size and shape. We used the words we’ve been learning this week to write the riddle: do, you, it, & is. We also counted pumpkins and made several different number pumpkin lines (most of which had us focusing on the teen numbers). In science, we learned about how a pumpkin grows and compared it to the sunflower life cycle that we learned last month.
Columbus Day
We had a little lesson to help us understand why we have an extra day off this weekend!
Fire Safety Month
We had a visit from the Fire Department this week as we practiced our first school-wide fire drill. The kinder-monkeys remembered exactly what to do and no one panicked! After the drill, Fireman Mike let us check out the fire engine. It was so cool!
Fall Fun on the Farm
We spent a fun week on the farm! We had several little books about the farm that helped reinforce the sight words we’ve been learning. Then we used the patterned text of those books to write our own version them, practicing proper spelling of our sight words too! We also introduce our first “word family” and used it in our writing. The kiddos did a fantastic job! In math, we focused on number recognition and counting on “one more” than any given number. We played several games from our math center using little farm animal counters to help practice this skill. And of course, we made a fun farm snack…a little corral with a horse inside! It was almost too cute to eat!
Our Lady of the Rosary
October is the month of the Rosary and we learned all about Mary, the Mother of God and our example of how to say “yes” to Him in all things. We learned about the prayers of the rosary, colored a beautiful image of Mary and discovered a special place in our classroom atrium dedicated to Mary. We also made a beautiful little heart-shaped rosary so we can practice our prayers at home or use them as sacrifice beads, just like St. Therese did!
Super Sunflowers
The sunflowers in our school learning garden were very ready to be picked, so we went out as a class and chose the biggest one we could get out of the ground! We brought it in (and it almost touched the ceiling!) for some fun science and math activities. We estimated how tall we though it was, then we actually measured it with one inch unifix cubes. It was 151″ tall ~ way taller than all of us! We talked about all the parts of a plant and the important job each part has. Then we created our own sunflower with all those parts. We even brainstormed for words that could describe a sunflower, and we used this list for our first writing activity. We also made a sunflower cookie using candy corn! And we can’t forget that we dug the seeds out of the head of the sunflower and planted some in our classroom terrarium as we learned about the flower’s life cycle. We can’t wait for them to sprout!
The Feast of St. Therese
October is full of feast days for some amazing saints and it all starts on October 1st with St. Therese. We learned all about this wonderful young lady and how she lived her life as a sacrifice for Jesus. The kiddos heard the story of how Therese used little sacrifice beads to keep track of all the things she did throughout her day that could be given as a gift to Jesus. What a wonderful way to become a saint!
The Feast of St. Michael
Even though The Feast of the Arch Angels is official in September, we started our month of October learning all about our Protector, St. Michael. We made a St. Michael shield and began learning his prayer.
September News
Happy Birthday Little Monkey!
MTHS Day
As part of the high school homecoming activities, groups of high school students visited area businesses and schools to perform service. We had a fantastic group of young men and one super young lady (an STM alum!) visit our classroom and help us with our end-of-the-unit activity. We made ABC T-shirts and then went on an ABC walk. Because of the weather, our walk had to take place inside, but it was so fun! We enjoyed getting making some friends too!
ABC Unit: Part 5
We finished our ABC unit with letter T – Z. We had to squeeze two letters into one day on Tuesday and Thursday but the kiddos have gotten so good at handwriting that it was easy as pie! Probably the favorite (too bad you can’t detect sarcasm through typing!) was our activities for letter Vv. We made Veggie Varmints and sampled various vegetables. I have to say, the kiddos preferred the xylophone and zebra activities using Little Debbie Snack cakes better!
Our other recipes included:
Tt is for Tony Tiger.
Uu is for Under the Umbrella.
Vv is for Veggie Varmint.
Ww is for Wacky Walrus.
Xx is for eXciting Xylophone.
Yy is for Yellow Yo-Yo.
Zz is for Zany Zebra.
We also started ordering all our ABC book pages so that we can take them all home!
Happy Birthday Little Monkey!
Picture Day
Take a look at these cuties!
ABC Unit: Part 4
For our 4th week of ABC practice, we focused on letters Oo, Pp, Qq, Rr & Ss. We added all five letters to the books we’re making and practiced how to make each one. We are getting so good at our handwriting skills! Each day had some special games to reinforce each letter sound, but the favorites were our selection of big floor “puzzles” and the “super soaker” fun we had on Friday to finish the week. We also added recipes for each letter:
Oo for Ollie Octopus.
Pp for Pretty Penguin.
Qq for Quirky Quail.
Rr for Rascal Rabbit.
Ss for Slippery Snake.
Map Testing
We completed our MAP tests! The kiddos followed directions so well. All results will be available during parent/teacher conferences in October.
ABC Unit: Part 3
Our third week of ABC practice focused on the letters Jj-Nn. We had fun with jellyfish and jumping on letters, kangaroos and working in the kitchen, lions, Legos and choosing a rest time “lovey”, mice and monkeys (of course) as well as a fun Mystery ABC Game. We ended with narwhals (and I was surprised how much the kiddos already knew about that strange creature)! We added all these letters to our touch and feel ABC book, and we learned to write them properly. We had some super-fun recipes, too!
Jj is for Jolly Jellyfish.
Kk is for Kicking Kangaroo.
Ll is for Leo Lion.
Mm is for Mini Mice.
Nn is for Nice Narwhal.
Music with Mrs. Heiple
It’s always fun when Mrs. Heiple joins us for some fun music time. So far she’s taught us two songs about our great school!
ABC Unit: Part 2
For our second week of our alphabet unit, we focused on letters Ff – Ii. We had some fun “fishing” for letters, playing a “garbage game” and creating “houses” for different letters. For the letter Ii, we played with “itty” bitty letters and enjoyed some ice cream! We continued making our “touch and feel” ABC book and had lots of fun with some more recipes too!
Ff for Funny Fish
Gg for Goofy Gorilla.
Hh for Happy Hedgie.
Ii for Icky Insect.
We also celebrated Mary’s birthday with some yummy cupcakes made by our fabulous lunch ladies!
ABC Unit: Part 1
We began our ABC unit with the letters A – E. The kinder-monkeys have jumped right in with some great activities to help them with letter recognition, sound associations and kindergarten handwriting. We have started making a couple of fun ABC books ~ one that is “touchy-feely” and one that goes with a song we’ve been learning. The kiddos brought some furry friends to school for some cool activities that reinforced each letter as well. For Bb, we all brought our “bear buddies” and did some sorting and graphing activities. For Cc, we brought our “cute cats” and made a classroom cat castle from colorful cups! And for Dd, we brought our darling doggies and did a doggie dance to “Who Let the Letters Out”! The kids had a blast!
We also had so much fun with some alphabet recipes.
Aa for Apple Andy.
Bb for Buddy Bear.
Cc for Cutie Cat.
Dd for Darling Dog.
Ee for Excellent Elephant.
We’ll be putting all our recipes into a recipe book at the end of our unit!
It was a great first week with the alphabet, and we can’t wait for next week!
August News
Our First Unit: Monkeys!
Of course, our first instructional unit was MONKEYS! We had all sorts of fun reading several Curious George books, as well as other books about monkeys. We introduced two important literary terms: fiction and nonfiction. The kiddos are already getting good at identifying a book as one or the other. We practiced some fine motor skills, practiced writing our name, and practiced following directions in order to make some cute monkey crafts (one that was almost as tall as us!). Probably the most fun, though, was our afternoon snack each day… Monkey cookies, cupcakes and of course, bananas!
The Breakfast Club
One of my favorite classroom routines is “The Breakfast Club”. Every morning, as soon as the kiddos come into the classroom, they choose a work tray that has one of our skill-based games on it. The tray also has a small breakfast snack for the kids to munch on while they play their game. This week’s games focus on learning the names of all our new friends. Each week, the games on the trays change. And the kiddos look forward to seeing what their breakfast snack will be each day!
Getting to Know Our Classroom
The kiddos had some fun investigating all the areas of our classroom as they completed a “Classroom Scavenger Hunt”. Searching for things like blocks, markers, alphabet letters and rosaries helped them learn where all our fun tools and toys are located. Plus it was a great opportunity to learn how to put things back where we found them!!
Sliding Into a Great New Year!
Having fun on the playground with our new friends is a perfect way to get to know each other and start the year off right!
Welcome Back Monkeys!
What a great group of little monkeys we have this year!!
Back to School Picnic
Sunday, August 11
Black Partridge Park
3:00 – 6:00
Games, Food, Fun and Fellowship to kick off our new year together!
Provided:
pulled pork & hot dogs
condiments
lemonade, tea, bottled water
table service
What to bring:
chairs
a dish to share
Please contact Alicia Hermann at 309-264-9019 for questions or to RSVP.
Hope to see you all there!
Unpack Your Sack
Wednesday, August 14
5:00
Bus Service Meeting in the PreK building.
If your child is new to the school and riding a bus, you may wish to attend.
5:30 – 6:30
Bring all your school supplies to our classroom to unpack your sack, meet your classmates and check out our room!
First Day of School
Thursday, August 15
I can hardly wait! I’m so excited!
Here’s what you can expect…
7:30 – 8:00 Arrival
Please bring your monkey to the north end of the building to the blacktopped playground area. We have a morning walking program. All kinder-kids (including those students that are bridging) will take part in this walking program each morning. I will be present from 7:30 – 8:00 (until Labor Day) to gather and walk with my kiddos. The church bell will ring at 8:00, at which point we will all gather at the front steps for morning prayers.
I will take the kiddos inside from there!
But…what if there are tears?
If your sweetie is sad the first day of school, you are welcome to walk with us. I only ask that you say your goodbyes after our morning prayer and let me take the kiddos in on their own.
Please do not accompany us to our classroom.
It is my experience that the kids do much better when they are on their own, with their friends and occupied with our routine. Long goodbyes delay the inevitable and make it harder on everyone. Please know that I’ve been on your side myself. My youngest cried for weeks. I had no hair left by September. I will do my best to make the transition easy for your baby.
(And for you!)
This year is slightly odd as our first day of school is also a Holy Day of Obligation. Please note that I will not be taking the kinders to church until next week.
Morning Parking Procedures
From Chatham:
You may park in any of the spaces along Chatham for drop off. If you park on the church side of Chatham, please walk your child across the street, as it is very busy in the mornings.
You may also pull up to the blacktop in the section from the stop sign to the alley and allow your child to hop out of the car. However, you are not allowed to exit your car at this drop off location. It is more of a “drive through” drop off.
If you choose this type of drop off, you must be traveling east, so your child an exit on the school-side and not have to cross the street.
From Tazewell:
You must be heading north on Tazewell to drop off at St. Mary’s. You must park in the preschool parking spaces or the church parking spaces along Tazewell and walk your child across the street at the crosswalk.
Please note that Tazewell is a bus zone.
Most parents avoid this side of the school during drop off, unless they also have prek kids.
11:30 Dismissal
I will dismiss all the kinder kids (including bridge kids) on the first day.
No buses will be running at dismissal so please plan for pick up.
There are dismissal boxes drawn on the blacktopped area on the north side of the building. My dismissal box is at the far west end, closest to alley gate. I will walk my monkeys all the way out to that box (even if you are waiting at the front door!).
The kiddos will be dismissed one at a time.
The students will be instructed not to leave the box until I say they can. I will ask each one of them to identify the person with whom they are leaving, so please:
Do not prompt your child to come to you.
We want all of our students to get into the habit of being formally dismissed rather than just running off. We can, therefore, be assured that all are accounted for and safe.
Thank you for your support in this!
Dismissal Parking Procedures:
Until I am familiar with all faces and cars, I would ask that you please park your car in a designated parking space and walk to our dismissal box to gather your child.
After I have gotten to know everyone better, feel free to use the parallel parking “drive up” spaces along the blacktopped area between the stop sign and the alley. That area is for parents that do not wish to exit their cars. Please be aware that if you do pull into those spots, you must NOT exit your car. It’s a drive-through!
Also note: There is no parking along the east side of the building on Tazewell on the school-side of the street during dismissal.
That is a bus zone.
You can park in any of the designated spots around the school, preschool or church. This includes the parking spaces on the preschool side of Tazewell and all spaces on Chatham.
Wow! That was a ton of information!
Are you overwhelmed?
Don’t be.
It makes so much sense once you do it!
And don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns!
309-367-2528
309-383-2970 (home) 309-357-1290 (cell)
Second Day of School
Friday, August 16
First Full Day of School
All procedures are the same except dismissal is at 3:00 and buses will run.
!! Important !!
Please make sure I know how your child will be getting home. I will take all my kinder kids to the playground dismissal box unless I am informed by you to put them on the bus or send them to aftercare.
Instructions should please be in writing.
If your child is bridging, he or she will be dismissed from the PreK building.
If your child is a bus rider, he or she can begin riding the bus on Friday, August 16.
I ride the transfer bus the first two days to make sure the kinder kids know how to find their home bus at the high school. We will also pair any transfer riders with an older student buddy.
Do not hesitate to contact me if you have any concerns about busing.
2018-2019 Archives
April
Holy Week
The kinder-kids have learned so much about the last week of Jesus’ life as we spent Holy Week focusing on each day’s events. They can tell you all about Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. With several art projects, Atrium works and Bible stories, these kiddos became little experts!
Easter Fun!
We had a fun day in first grade coloring Easter Eggs!
Hallway Play Day
Each year, the elementary wing has a hallway play day. All the kids gather in the hall with all sorts of different games, toys and building materials. They work, play and collaborate with friends from all the grade levels as they create fun structures, teach each other new games and just have some good old fashioned fun!
Roller Derby!
Mrs. Cowling turns the gym into a roller rink during the month of April! She has enough skates and helmets for everyone and the kids have a blast learning how to skate! What’s the first thing they learn to do properly? Fall down!!
March
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
You don’t have to be Irish to love this super saint!
Bowling in PE!
Mrs. Cowling has the kiddos bowling in PE class! It’s been fun watching them go from setting up and trying to hit four pins to learning how to set up & hit all ten pins. They’ve learned some new vocabulary too…especially STRIKE!
February
Dog’s Colorful Day
Learning to read and write color words is fun with the crazy dog in Emma Dodd’s story of Dog’s Colorful Day. The kinder-kiddos also practiced retelling the story using beginning, middle and end story structure, and they created their own story about Dog, sending him on an adventure of their own making. They also used colorful spots (just like those Dog had) to sort, count, tally and graph.
Happy St. Valentine’s Day!
Our Room Moms prepared a fun-filled afternoon to help us celebrate this “lovely” day! Thanks Room Moms! We love you!
Our Lady of Lourdes
The kinder-kids loved hearing the story of sweet Bernadette and her visions of Mary. They made a pretty little grotto art project to honor Our Lady of Lourdes.
100th Day of School
We made it! Even though the snow days delayed us a bit, we finally made it to the 100th day of school! We celebrated with a parade and a fun day of all things 100!
Muffins with Mom and Grandma
A yummy morning for a Catholic Schools Week tradition!
Donuts with Dad and Grandpa
Yummy morning number two!!
January
Super Science Fun
The kindergarten and first grade participated in the Junior High Science Fair Exhibit this year! What great little scientists we have!
Snowman Soup
The all-school virtue for the month of January is stewardship. To help the little ones internalize this virtue, we made care packages of Snowman Soup for the residents of Snyder Village. The monkeys loved coloring a snowman picture for the front of the package and adding the yummy ingredients (hot cocoa!). Of course, we also added a special prayer for the friends who will receive our packages.
The Feast of the Epiphany
For our first week back after Christmas break, we learned all about the Twelve Days of Christmas and the visit of the Wise Men. We made some fun art projects, like a king’s crown complete with jewels and a silhouette of a king also with jewels (but those jewels helped us practice using symmetry!). We also made a “fold-able”… a book of folded construction paper that holds several mini-books inside it. Our fold-able held all the secret codes of the song The Twelve Days of Christmas. It turned out so cool! We also wrote a “Kings” book, using our own great emergent writing and our fantastic illustrating skills. We had a wonderful week back and an amazing start to our new year!
December
Merry Christmas Everyone!
Our Christmas Program this year was a huge success! The kiddos did a wonderful job and of course, Mrs. Pemberton did too! Thanks to her for all her hard work again this year. Merry Christmas to all!
A Visit from Santa
The monkeys were so excited to be invited to first grade for an afternoon visit from Santa. They had the chance to tell him what they would like for Christmas this year and he even stayed to pose for pictures!
The Feast of St. Nick
The kiddos had a great time learning all about this wonderful saint. They had the chance to watch a movie about his life, create a little ornament, and make cool miter hats in his honor! They even received a special treat for his feast day!
Art at the Bodega
Many thanks to the PTO for bringing this great event to the school. The kiddos had a great time creating their bodega art and the plates looked amazing when they were finished. What a fantastic experience!
November
Happy Thanksgiving
Thankful for these cute little turkeys!
October
Happy Halloween!
Check out the cutest goblins in town!
National Candy Corn Day!
Did you know there’s a whole day dedicated to candy corn? October 30 is National Candy Corn Day and the kinder-kids had a great time with this sweet and tasty treat. There are so many different kinds of candy corn now-a-days, which made for great opportunities to sort, count, tally, and graph. We also tasted several different kinds to graph which was our favorite. (fun fact: the chocolate harvest corn was an overwhelming winner!) We also had an estimation jar, filled to the top with candy corn. We estimated how many were in it and then counted them ALL! There were 300 pieces! Wow! Counting them was easy when we grouped by tens. To end our fun day, we made a cute little candy corn man and had a great cupcake that looked like a candy corn when you bit into it! YUM!
Oh, Lovely Mud!
The kinder-kids had a fun visit to a fictional farm this week! We visited Mrs. Wishy-Washy, a silly farmer gal with some even sillier animals who LOVE the mud! We made “wishy-washy snack” by dipping animal crackers in chocolate pudding mud and then “washing” them in a cup of milk before munching on them! What fun! And we couldn’t resist exploring the mud ourselves (although our mud was much more kid friendly than real mud!). We made some “homemade mud” (chocolate pudding) and compared it to real mud using adjectives. We wrote about the mud and created fun “mud” sentences using the sight words we know. Then we graphed whether or not we would play in the mud. It was a fun and messy week!
Sunflower Fun
Since we only had three days this week and we spent the mornings with report card assessments, we decided to have some afternoon fun with sunflowers. We started out in the sunflower house in the school garden. We pulled one and observed its many parts. Then we measured it. Believe it or not, it was 186 inches tall! It touched the ceiling!! We used that measurement to create a life-size version of our own sunflower. It was so cool, and it looks great in our hallway. We picked out all the seeds, tried to count them (but there were just too many), so we decided to plant some in our science center instead. We learned about adjectives and used them to write our own little sunflower book. Then we made a yummy sunflower cookie. It was a fun week!
Our Lady of the Rosary
After hearing from Father Vien that we should be praying a Hail Mary every night, it was only fitting to talk about the rosary & all its prayers. The kiddos had a great time figuring out just how many prayers that is! They used this new knowledge to count out chocolate chips and used them to make an edible rosary! Yum!! Each Hail Mary was a chocolate chip and each Our Father was a marshmallow. The day got even better when each kiddo got to take home a real rosary from our special treasure box. Hopefully they will use it to pray that Hail Mary every night, just like Father said!
The Feast of St. Francis
The kinder kiddos loved the story of gentle St. Francis, especially hearing how he saved the town of Gubbio from the wolf. They made a fun little diorama for St. Francis filled with the nature and critters of God’s creation he loved so much. And they totally loved the snack…wolf paw cookies.
Exploring with Christopher Columbus
In preparation for our day off next week, the kiddos read some great non-fiction stories about Christopher Columbus and his journey to the new world. They learned the names of his ships and made a “hand”-made Santa Maria out of their hand prints.
The Feast of St. Michael
Even though the Feast of the Archangels is actually in September, the kinder-monkeys took a little time in October to read all about St. Michael and their own guardian angel. They began learning the prayer to St. Michael and will soon be able to say it in church with the rest of the parish. They also loved hearing the story of powerful St. Michael’s defeat over Lucifer and making a St. Michael shield to take home. The best part of the day was probably the “devil’s food” donut that they could eat with a St. Michael sword!
The Feast of St. Therese
October is filled with so many wonderful saintly celebrations, so we kicked the month off right with one of my favorites: St. Therese! The kiddos enjoyed hearing her story, learning all about her “little way” to heaven and her “shower of roses! They were excited to make a St. Therese “Cross of Jesus” and even used the art center to make their own version of it! Some of them loved the story so much, they decided to make their own sacrifice beads using materials from the art center.
I think we have little saints in the making!
St. Therese, Pray for Us!
September
ABC Unit
We finally made it all the way to Zz! For the past four weeks, the kinder-monkeys have been working on some very fun letter activities to help introduce the name, formation, and sound of each letter. Although we’ll continue to reinforce these skills throughout the entire year, the introductory unit is officially over. We’re sad to see it go! It was filled with games, songs, books, toys, snacks (and even a critter during Tt week) for each letter. The kiddos’ fine motor skills have grown by leaps and bounds, and most of them have almost mastered naming every single letter & sound now! Way to go monkeys!
Picture Day!
What a great group of cuties! Aren’t they just adorable out of their uniforms?
Just Some Reminders
We have two “Out of Uniform” days coming up!
Tuesday, September 25
Picture Day!
Students may wear non-uniform clothing. Please be sure to check the guidelines for “Out of Uniform” days in the student handbook.
Most importantly: Please make sure all shoes are close-toed!
Friday, September 28
MTHS Homecoming!
Students can help us cheer on our hometown team by wearing MTHS red & black or St. Mary’s Spirit Wear on Friday. If students will be participating in the parade, they may wear the jersey or uniform representing the team float they will be on.
Jeans or casual shorts may be worn as well.
Please remember your $1.00 donation to take part in spirit wear days!
This month’s spirit wear donations benefit our STM Student Council.
Playground Fun!
What kinder-monkey can resist an extra recess? Especially when the weather is so gorgeous!
Happy Birthday, Mary
The Kindergarten kiddos were invited to the First Grade room to join in their celebration of Mother Mary’s birthday on Friday afternoon. Who can say no to cupcakes and ice cream?
Thanks for inviting us, First Grade!
Happy Birthday, Mary! We love you!
Learning About Our Classroom
The Kinder-monkeys have had a great time learning about all the fun centers in our classroom. Center Time is always the best part of the day, when the kiddos can move about the room and learn through hands-on, cooperative free exploration.
We’ve now opened all of our first quarter centers:
Math (Construction and Number Toys)
Learning Library (ABC Games and Beginning Reading Games)
Atrium (Prayer and Bible Story Center)
Art Shelf (Junk for the Imagination!)
Snack Table (Self-Serve Snack Time)
Additional centers will open as the year progresses and our skill focus changes.
August
Monkeys Everywhere
Our first week was everything monkeys! We used our favorite fictional monkey, Curious George, and his many antics & stories to complete lots of fun activities. We made monkey masks, stick puppet monkeys, a full sized monkey almost as big as us, and we even tired our hand at drawing Curious George. We spent some time coloring him, learning his “glue rule” and we also had some fun monkey cookies and cupcakes! Oh! Who can forget the bananas? We ate lots of bananas this week, because that’s what monkeys do!
Welcome Monkeys!
Meet this year’s sweeties!
and
Back to School Night
Wednesday, August 15
Welcome Back Munchkins!
Join us for our school-wide
Back to School Night
Wednesday, August 15
5:30 – Mr. Koehler’s address in the gym
5:45 – Light Meal
Visit the Classrooms
Bring all your school supplies and have fun meeting all your new friends!
7:00 – The Assumption of Mary Mass
(Holy Day of Obligation)
See everyone there!
First Day of School
Thursday, August 16
I can hardly wait! I’m so excited!
Here’s what you can expect…
7:30 – 8:00 Arrival
Please bring your munchkin to the north end of the building to the blacktopped playground area. We have a morning walking program. All kinder-kids (including those students that are bridging) will take part in this walking program each morning. I will be present from 7:30 – 8:00 (until Labor Day) to gather and walk with my kiddos. The school bell will ring at 8:00, at which point we will all gather at the front steps for morning prayers.
I will take the kiddos inside from there!
But…what if there are tears?
If your sweetie is sad the first day of school, you are welcome to walk with us. I only ask that you say your goodbyes after our morning prayer and let me take the kiddos in on their own.
Please do not accompany us to our classroom.
It is my experience that the kids do much better when they are on their own, with their friends and occupied with our routine.
And please know that I’ve been on your side myself. My youngest cried for weeks. I had no hair left by September. I will do my best to make the transition easy for your baby.
(And for you!)
Morning Parking Procedures
From Chatham:
You may park in any of the spaces along Chatham for drop off. If you park on the church side of Chatham, please walk your child across the street, as it is very busy in the mornings.
You may also pull up to the blacktop in the section from the stop sign to the alley and allow your child to hop out of the car. You are not allowed to exit your car to help this form this drop off location.
It’s like a “drive through”.
If you choose this type of drop off, you must be traveling east, so your child can exit on the school-side and not have to cross the street.
From Tazewell:
You must be heading north on Tazewell to drop off at St. Mary’s. You must park in the preschool parking spaces or the church parking spaces along Tazewell and walk your child across the street at the crosswalk.
Please note that Tazewell is a bus zone.
Most parents avoid this side of the school during drop off, unless they also have prek kids.
11:30 Dismissal
I will dismiss all the kinders on the first day.
This includes the bridging students.
There are dismissal boxes drawn on the blacktopped area on the north side of the building. My dismissal box is at the far west end, closest to alley gate. I will walk my munchkins all the way out to that box.
(Even if you are at the front door!)
The kiddos will be dismissed one at a time.
The students will be instructed not to leave the box until they have been told that they can. I will ask each one of them to identify the person with whom they are leaving, so please:
Do not prompt your child to come to you.
We want all of our students to get into the habit of being formally dismissed rather than just running off. We can, therefore, be assured that all are accounted for and safe.
Thank you for your support in this!
Dismissal Parking Procedures:
Until I am familiar with all faces and cars, I would ask that you please park your car in a designated parking space and walk to our dismissal box to gather your child.
After I have gotten to know everyone better, feel free to use the parallel parking “drive up” spaces along the blacktopped area between the stop sign and the alley. That area is for parents that do not wish to exit their cars. Please be aware that if you do pull into those spots, you must NOT exit your car. It’s a drive-through!
Also note: There is no parking along the east side of the building on Tazewell on the school-side of the street during dismissal.
That is a bus zone.
You can park in any of the designated spots around the school, preschool or church. This includes the parking spaces on the preschool side of Tazewell and all spaces on Chatham.
Wow! That was a ton of information!
Are you overwhelmed?
Don’t be.
It makes so much sense once you do it!
And don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns!
309-367-2528
2017 – 2018 Archives
September
Happy Birthday Little Monkey
Celebrating Mary
The Kindergarten and First Grade kicked off September with the celebration of Mary’s birthday!
August
Happy Birthday, Little Monkey!
Can You Guess Each Monkey!
Each little afternoon kinder-monkey made a monkey mask. Can you tell who’s who?
Happy Birthday Little Monkey!
Welcome Monkeys
Meet the new kiddos of kindergarten! Looking forward to a great year with these little sweeties!
Unpack Your Sack Night
Welcome Back Monkeys!
Join us for our school-wide Back to School Night Friday, August 18 at 6:00
Bring all your school supplies and have fun meeting all your new friends!
See everyone there!
2016-2017 Archives
February News
Happy Birthday, Monkey
We celebrated this little monkey’s “un-birthday”!
Our Lady of Lourdes
The monkeys loved the story of St. Bernadette and her visions of Mary at the Grotto. They also loved making their own little grotto with a holy card to remind them of the story.
Catholic Schools Week
Our PTO planned a great week for us, including fun dress up days and an all-school movie!
Groundhog’s Day
Did Phil see his shadow? All the monkeys made their predictions and graphed them. Then they made a little setting for Phil with (or without) his shadow, depending on their guess. It was fun to watch the festivities on-line to see who predicted correctly.
100th Day of School
The monkeys had a 100-ful day, doing everything the 100 way! They counted to 100 by ones, fives and tens. They drew 100 objects, wrote the numbers 1-100, made trail mix with 100 pieces of yummies. They drew themselves as 100-year-olds and made a 100th day keepsake T-shirt. It was a super day!
January News
Happy Birthday, Monkey
We celebrated one little monkey’s half-birthday this month!
Snowman Soup for Snyder Village
As a kick-off to Catholic Schools Week and to reinforce our call to serve one another, the Kindergarten Monkeys took some time to create care packages for the folks at Snyder Village. The kiddos each made three packages of “Snowman Soup”, which included a packet of hot cocoa, marshmallows, a spoon and a Hershey’s kiss. The kiddos also added a picture and a prayer card.
December News
A Visit with Santa
It’s always a treat when the man in red stops in our classroom!
Klaus and Nutmeg
We had a great time at the Snowman Reindeer Farm in Canton. What a great opportunity to learn about and meet real reindeer!
Little Angels
The annual Advent Play is always a hit, especially with such a great group of little angels!
The Feast of St. Nick
We all placed our shoes out for a visit from St. Nick and we had fun learning about this amazing bishop.
November News
Magic with Ronald
Thanks to our wonderful Preschool friends for inviting us to the great magic show put on by McDonald’s! We had a great time!
October News
Happy Halloween
The monkeys had a blast at their Halloween party this year!
Our Lady of the Rosary
The monkeys are doing a wonderful job learning to pray the Rosary during this month of the Rosary, and what’s more fun than learning how all the prayers fit together by making a Rosary out of skittles candies!
St. Francis
Everyone loves the story of gentle St. Francis, especially when they learn of his love for all of God’s creation. The monkeys had fun making a diorama of St. Francis with his woodland friends for their tables at home.
St. Therese, Teach Us the Little Way
The month of October brings so many wonderful feast days and it starts off perfectly with St. Therese. The monkeys learned the story of this wonderful young girl and how she used little things to become holy. Our goal: to try to do five little things each day to get closer to heaven.
September News
Field Trip Fun!
Our end of September trip to Ackerman Farms was the perfect way to kick off our October farm unit. The monkeys had so much fun learning about all the different types of pumpkins, going on a hay rack ride, and visiting the animals! Although it was very cold, it was a great autumn day of farm fun!
St. Michael, Pray for Us!
The end of September brought the Feast of St. Michael and a chance for the kinder-monkeys to make St. Michael shields as they begin learning the prayer of St. Michael!
Learning Trees
September was dedicated to learning the letters of the alphabet and, along with Curious George Learns the ABC’s, we used an all-time favorite: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom! Check out our fun alphabet trees…
Happy Birthday, Mary!
We celebrated the birthday of the Blessed Mother by making a beautiful card for her!
August News
Happy Birthday, Monkeys
We enjoyed celebrating some August birthdays with our new friends!
Can You Guess Each Monkey?
See how many you recognize behind that funny little mask!
Welcome Monkeys!
We have 10 curious little monkeys in our classroom this year!
Welcome to all our sweeties!
2015-2016 Archives
February News
Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday Little Monkey!
Catholic Schools Week
The kiddos enjoyed a week to celebrate our wonderful Catholic school by focusing on the Corporal Works of Mercy. All families contributed to a clothing drive which was taken to the local Friendship House, and each kiddo in the school created a Blessing Bag, which was filled with goodies for the homeless. The 8th grade students distributed these while conducting their service project working at the local food pantry. We also enjoyed breakfast with our families, a magician, the addition of a Friendship Bench on our school playground and school scarves! We love our school!
January News
2016-2017 Kindergarten Registration
Calling all monkeys!
We’re getting ready for our next group of cuties. All kiddos who will be 5 years old by September 1 should plan to attend our Kindergarten Registration Night on February 4 from 6-7. This is a great opportunity for the kiddos to see their classroom, meet their classmates, and be introduced to their teacher. Parents are, of course, welcome too!
Hope you can all swing in!
Please contact the school office for questions.
367-2528
The 100th Day of School
We made it! We’ve worked hard all year, counting those days and we’ve finally reach the BIG 1-0-0! We had a 100-ful celebration of this fun-tastic milestone!
Spreading Winter Warmth
As a kick-off to Catholic Schools Week the kindergarten monkeys are spreading warmth this winter by creating care packages of “Snowman Soup” for the folks at Snyder Village. Our care packages include some yummy, hot cocoa mixes, hot tea and coffee singles along with a special prayer card. The monkeys love knowing they are brightening someone’s day! What a great way to serve others.
December News
A Special Visitor
Kindergarten enjoyed a fun visit from the big guy with the red suit and long beard!
Our Annual Advent Play
Every year our little monkeys become the cutest angels ever as we recite the nativity story from Luke Chapter 2 for our family and friends.
Our Lady of Guadalupe
We combined our celebrations of St. Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe, learning the story of Juan Diego’s life and making his tilma with the beautiful image of Mary on the front.
The Feast of St. Nick
The monkeys had such a fun time setting out their shoes and waiting for “St. Nick” to fill them with a special treat! What a fun tradition to honor this important saint in our Church.
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday Little Monkey!
November News
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday Little Monkey!
Honoring Our Veterans
School was in session this year and it was a great opportunity for the students to learn about the sacrifices of those who serve. Many thanks to the two area vets who visited our school for a special assembly.
God Bless Our Veterans!
October News
Happy Halloween!
Check out these great costumes!
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday little monkey!
Farm Fun!
October is harvest time and the monkeys in kindergarten had the opportunity to take a wonderful field trip to Obery Farms. Mrs. Cowling helped arranged this trip to her family farm where we all experienced combine rides & auger wagon rides, weighing of the corn and visiting the elevator. Plus it was just fun to play in the field! What a great way to end our farm unit!
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday Little Monkey!
The Feast of St. Francis
A special day to learn all about the feast of our patron saint!
Blessing of the Animals
In honor of St. Francis of Assisi, Father Greg invited animals of all kinds, big and small, for a morning blessing on the playground. He had an extra-special blessing for that little piggy that ran wee-wee-wee all the way down the road!
The Feast of St. Therese
What better way to begin October than with the Feast of St. Therese! The monkeys loved listening to the Glory Story CD of this beautiful young woman’s life and we all agreed to try to be just a bit more like her by following the “little way” to heaven.
September News
The Feast of St. Michael
What a great way to finish out the month of September!
Picture Day
Don’t we look cute in our fancy clothes?
Honoring Our Heroes
Father Greg dedicated a recent school Mass homily to celebrating some of our local heroes (and dad’s of our own students!) in honor of the memorial of 9/11.
What a great day!
Thanks for all you do!
Chicka Chicka 123
We moved out of the coconut tree and into the apple tree with some crazy number activities using the book Chicka Chicka 123.
Happy Birthday
We had our first birthday celebration!
Happy Birthday Little Monkey!
The Chicka Chicka Boom Room
Our first unit of the year is our alphabet unit based on the fun story Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. The monkeys had all sorts of fun practicing and playing with letters in our fun classroom environment. The kiddos loved the games we played on our Promethean Board and digging for letters in our science center sand box. We even talked about the parts of a palm tree, with all the monkeys making their own at our project center. It was a fun introduction to letters and writing!
August News
Our First Week Together
It’s tons of fun to monkey around in Kindergarten, especially during the first week of school! We learn all about how to be curious….with Curious George! We read as many of George’s books as we can. We explore all the nooks and crannies of our classroom (because we are sooooo curious about them all!). We make some fun crafts, like a George puppet and mask, and we have some fantastically yummy monkey snacks. It’s a great way to ease into our year and all the little monkeys in Kindergarten just love it!
Welcome Monkeys! Our First Day
What a great group of little monkeys we have in Kindergarten this year and we enjoyed a fun first day together!
Movie Night
It was a great evening to gather with our St. Mary’s family as we all prepare for another year together! I know I’m so excited to get started with my nine, cutest-ever monkeys.
See everyone again on Monday!
The Big Day!
August 17 ~ First Day of School
Many new Kinder-Monkeys (and their Moms & Dads) are uncertain of what to do on the first day of school.
Well…as Jesus always says: “Fear Not!”
Drop Off
When you arrive at school (prior to 8:00 please!), bring your monkey to the north side of the building. That’s the church side, where the front doors are located. We have a morning walking program. All the kids gather on the blacktop and walk with friends until the church bells ring at 8:00. For the first week or so, I will be on the blacktop too, collecting my little monkeys and walking with them. At 8:00, Mr. Dansart will lead us all in a morning prayer, and then we will all head inside.
I will ask that parents please say their goodbyes at the front door and do not accompany us into the building. Believe it or not, the longer Mom or Dad is around, the harder it gets to say goodbye. For those of you who love to capture these moments, please attend our Unpack-Your-Sack Night to get some great pictures of your monkey in his or her new classroom!
Dismissal
For safety reasons, please park in the lined parking spots along Chatham, exit your car and walk to the blacktop to get your child. I prefer to see the person with whom I am sending my monkeys home. The little ones are, of course, not allowed to cross the street on their own.
Dismissal is at 3:00.
My monkeys are dismissed first, so we don’t get trampled on the stairs! I will bring the monkeys out to the far end of the blacktop, into our Kindergarten “box”. They will be dismissed one at a time, as I identify the person with whom they are leaving. Thank you for being patient as I learn all your new faces! Please inform me if someone with whom I may be unfamiliar is picking up your child.
Unpack-Your-Sack Night
Friday, August 14
4:15 Mass
5:30 Principal’s Presentation
6:00 Classroom Visits
8:00 Movie on the Yard
( Big Hero 6 )