Nest Week

WOW! We have a lot going on next week. First of all, I will not be at school Monday. We are going to see Lucy and see a play that my son and daughter are in. I guess you could say that Nathan produced the play. It's called The Birth. Check it out on www.thebirth.net.

We finished painting our sweatshirts. I will keep them at school and Thursday morning when the children come to school they will change into the shirts.
We are busy making gifts for you too!!
Then Friday the school will present the Christmas program.

And don't forget early release day is Tuesday.
Have a great weekend!

Friday

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. My children and grandchildren were all here, so we had a great time!
Friday is Pajama Day!! We will be watching Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas in the afternoon.
It looks like everyone will walk the Red Carpet again this Friday!!! We hope to see all of you.

Friday

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We certainly did. All of our children were here, and our 3 grandchildren. Our daughter is still here, but leaves tomorrow to go back to Rome, Ga. where she is in school.
See everyone Monday.

If you haven't already sent in a sweatshirt, try to do this next week.

Red Carpet

WOW!!! All of our class will be walking the Red Carpet this Friday morning at 8:45! You are invited.

Our Week

Sorry I haven't posted in a week.
I thought I would share with you some of the things we will be doing this week. We will be painting scarecrows, making a scarecrow sight word slide, making several scarecrow booklets and reading them, dressing up like scarecrows, reading AR books and taking AR quizzes, learning our Bible verse, reading Bible stories, and reading the Psalms (child's edition). As always we will write in our journals daily with publishing on Friday. You would be surprised at how well the children are doing in their writing, using conventional spelling as well as invented spelling.
Our math activities will have us making patterns with fall colored unifix cubes, creating sets to 18 with candy corn, matching number words to numerals, doing a problem solving activity with a scarecrow, and our calendar work. The list below shows you the type of skills we cover when doing our morning calendar work.
1. Sequencing numbers
2. Learning days of the week
3. Patterning
4. Addition
5. Graphing
6. Odd and even numbers
7. Months of the Year
8.Counting by 5's and 10's

I think you can see that we cover a LOT in kindergarten every single day. The above list and the activities in the paragraph above don't even include all of the skills we cover on a daily basis. If I listed every skill and concept we address daily, I would still be writing... and still be writing...and still be writing.

The Lord is laying it on my heart to share with you how I came to be at Wynnbrook, and why I think I'm here. I know I have shared some of this with a few of you but, if you will, indulge me.
At the beginning of last school year,the beginning of my 30th year, I had no plans to retire. None. I still loved everything about what I was doing. Then in January a few little things happened at school that caused me to decide that it was time to leave full time teaching in MCSD. I began the paperwork, etc. that goes along with the retirement process. God put up no roadblocks.
I REALLY wanted to teach part time in MCSD at my school, so that I would be free to go visit those grandbabies. I thought I had found someone to do that with me and then that fell through.
I began to turn to Jeremiah 29:11, "I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope, and a future." I began to say that verse to myself daily. I could have backed out of retiring, but I knew I was supposed to, because I KNEW God had some other plan for me.
So when school was coming to a close, and it appeared that the part time was not going to work out after all, I was not upset. In fact, I was very much at peace, because I had faith. Faith that the Lord would put me where He wanted me. I prayed specifically (and friends prayed specifically) that God would close doors and open the right door.
I am not a "sit around and wait" type person. I immediately contacted Wynnbrook and St. Luke. I had taught for the principal at St. Luke and I knew that she would want me, if there was an opening. At first, there wasn't an opening there and then, out of the blue, she e-mailed me to say she had a 1st grade and was I interested. Well, yes I was! I decided that God must have opened that door, and that was where I was supposed to be! I went to talk with her (on a Friday) and had the impression that the 1st grade was mine if I wanted it; and if a few things she thought were going to happen happened there. I got excited!
In the meantime, Dr. Boone called about an interview. I put him off because I was waiting to see if St. Luke worked out. Well, lo and behold, I got an e-mail Monday afternoon saying that she had promised a parent a job and had the opportunity to hire a great 5th grade teacher (to fill her other slot). So the parent got the 1st grade that I had gotten so excited about. I was crushed. My feelings were hurt, and I began to wonder why.
Well, guess who had closed that door. Not the principal. The Lord closed that door because, for some reason, He wanted me at Wynnbrook.
I continue to believe I am at Wynnbrook for a reason. I think one of those reasons is to help the school grow and heal. Another reason is to allow me to grow as a Christian, which I am doing.
I guess I say all of this because I believe that if God closed those other doors on me and opened this one, then we are meant to prosper because He told me himself in Jeremiah 29:11.
I know last year evidently was hard on many of you, but I have such faith that this school is going to prosper and grow.
I hope you will have that faith with me. God never told us that things would be easy, but He did tell us that he would always be there, and I believe Him. Faith. That little thing we can't see but that the Lord calls on us time and again to have.
"I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope, and a future." Jeremiah 29:11.
Thanks for indulging me in the long post!

Accelerated Reader

I sure would like to hear from you about your views on Accelerated Reader, for example, it's importance in the kindergarten, your past experience with it with your older children, how much instructionional time do you want devoted to taking AR tests. I look forward to hearing from you.

A new week

We started our week off great! The children are working hard and are so cooperative. We started talking about spiders today and learned some interesting things! Did you know that spiders can have as many as 8 eyes?!

Our Families

We have two families in our class traveling. The Misamores are on their way to Tennessee. And the Layfield's are heading to Brantley, Ala. tomorrow. Jack Layfield's great-grandfather passed away. This is Jack's mother's (Laura), grandfather. We express our sympathies to the Layfields and ask for traveling mercies for both families.
We will be glad to have Will back tomorrow. He has been out for 2 days with strep throat.

I love Wynnbrook!

I just want to say how much I love teaching at Wynnbrook Christian School! I enjoy going to work every day, and spending the day with your children. They are sweet, smart, precious children, and I thank you for sharing them with me. I also want to thank you for all of your support, and for trusting me to teach your child.

Little Books

I hope all of you are keeping the little books that the children bring home in a shoe box or some sort of special place so that the children can go to them and read them again and again. Some of the books are meant to be returned, but many of them are to be kept at home. The more the children read their books, the more confident and self-assured they will become in their own ability to read. And once that happens... watch out! They will be wanting to read EVERYTHING!
Be sure to have fun with your child on this adventure to becoming a reader.

Oct. 7, 2008

We had such a good day today. The children are working so hard in reading and in math. This week at Math Stations we are sorting jack-o-lantern painted beans, ordering numerals to 12, and working on more and less. During Reading Stations, the children are writing about pumpkins, working on word families, filling in the beginning sound on word cards, working with sight words, and reading with me. Watch for a little book to come home with your child for him/her to read to you.
We began taking AR tests yesterday. We read the book "I am an Apple" and Kelly Kinsaul helped the children take the test. We had problems getting 3 of the children into the program but, hopefully, that problem will be resolved by tomorrow.

Cooking Applesauce

Thank you Laura Layfield so much for helping us peel and slice apples for the children to chop on Friday. We had a great time chopping apples and then smelling the sweet concoction for several hours while it cooked. Jack was the only one who ate all of his up! Way to go Jack!
This week we begin our study of Pumpkins!

Field Trip

What a great time we had at The Farm House field trip today. The children were SO good! I just LOVE these children and my new school, Wynnbrook Christian School!
Thanks to the parents and grandparents who went with us today and helped out. I really appreciated it!
Jack's Mama is helping with the applesauce in the morning. Thanks, Laura!
I hope everyone has a great weekend! We are going to Rome, Ga. to see our daughter,Kate. Saturday is her 22nd birthday!

Field Trip

We are so excited about our trip to The Farm House Pumpkin Patch on Thursday. I am so glad that so many of you will be joining us. Be sure to bring your cameras!

Cooking Applesauce

We will be making applesauce in class Friday. We could sure use a few Mamas to help out. If you are available around 9:00 to help peel apples, please let me know.