Thank you for buzzing by our class blog! I have had a wonderful time meeting with you all these last few days and bragging about your busy-bee! Thank you for taking the time to listen about all the progress your children are making! This is an amazing class and talking about all the hard work they do is so much fun for me. Because we had a short week and were wrapping up some testing, our story, sight words, and spelling words in our Journeys reading program will be extended into this week. Here are our sight-words:

We listened to an awesome message from Mrs. Warner in chapel and two students were awarded with the Fruits of the Spirit awards for Patience, Addison Randall and Noah Lee!

Our Bats and Spiders week was a blast! Mr. Batty made a visit and took Mr. Buzzy's place at sharing time! With Mr. Buzzy's permission, of course...

We even did a fun 10-frames spider activity in our play-doh math center!

In November, we will be focusing on the Fruit of the Spirit of "Joy"! I will be on the lookout for students who approach new activities with enthusiasm and spread the Joy of the Lord to others through their deeds and words.

This week, I will begin reading from Mary Pope Osborne's Magic Tree House book, "Thanksgiving on Thursday". We will be having a special Thanksgiving celebration coming up at the school and I will need some volunteers to help with making a craft in my classroom. We also need help in preparing our special "feast". Please send me an email if you are interested. More details on the celebration to come!

Please help our school collect items for Operation Christmas Child Shoe Boxes by donating hygiene items. The deadline for donations is November 13th. You can learn more about this fabulous ministry here: http://www.samaritanspurse.org/what-we-do/operation-christmas-child/


 Our verse for this week:

 Thank you and have a blessed week!

Farewell, First Quarter!

How has an entire school quarter gone by? The time with these busy-bees is buzzing by too quickly! I adore this Hive so much!!! I wanted to share some things we have been doing and what is coming up in our 3-day-school-week next week.

These are the cutest bees ever! Love their enthusiasm!!!

 The bees were introduced to Work Folders this week! Woo-hoo! Now that they have the Take-Home "B.E." (Bring Everyday) folder procedure down, they are ready to start storing their work to be finished and checked in a bright red, happenin' folder they can call their own!

And...more introductions! The busy-bees met the "Cones of Excellence"! These little cones get placed on the desks of students who are demonstrating excellent behavior, work, or bucket-filling! It gets to sit on their desk for the remainder of the day after it is rewarded. We start fresh the next day and cones are handed out to bees who are stepping up to excellence! Hard-working bees need to be acknowledged! All of these students are striving towards excellence during their day and it is important to let them know that I notice it!

We did a "sweet" activity with the "fall mix" of candy corn featuring different kinds of candy corn. Each student received a handful and proceeded to sort, tally, and write the number of types they had. I won't lie, these bees love a special treat!

The bees have had some assessments this week to help sum up what they have been learning this first quarter. Due to this, and the shorter week we have next week, some studies will be extended. For example, we will continue our study of Moses during Bible time. In math, kinders will focus on numbers 10-20 and firsties will be practicing stories involving subtraction. Whenever we have an assessment, I let students know we "Don't stress about the test, but simply try to do our best!" And a test is just an opportunity to "show what you know!"

I am super excited for our "Bats and Spiders" week ahead! We will have some fun word work, writing, art and library books all about both of these fun creatures!

Our story coming up in Journeys this week is one that falls into the genre of Realistic Fiction:

Our essential question is one these little bees will be able to answer quite well, I do predict! They love music and are provided with amazing music opportunities from Mrs. Warner in chapel as well as music class!

Spelling words coming up:
on, got, fox, pop, not, hop

Sight-words coming up:
her, now, our, she, today, would

A verse we will be focusing on next week will be Phillipians 4:6. This is a busy time of year, and with the holidays fast approaching (yep, I said that), it is bound to get busier. But God doesn't want us to stress. Let us remember that we are "too blessed to be stressed"!

 I am looking forward to conferences this week to share the progress your child is making and identify a goal or two for the school year. I encourage students to attend conferences with you if it is possible. Please return the conference confirmation slips that went home today. If you cannot locate yours, please contact me so I can let you know what day and time your child's conference will be. Let's look on this time as an opportunity to slow down a bit and reflect on the wonderful things your child is doing here at Sonshine!

God has certainly blessed us here at Sonshine! Counting my blessings with these busy bees and all of the support from you, parents! You are the apples of your child's eyes, and so loved by the Lord!

 

Grandparent's Day!

 Hello, terrific K/1 parents! I hope that you are all off to a wonderful start to your weekend! As always, the bees have been super-busy! I want to share some highlights of our week, what we will be working on next week, some important dates to remember and some things that will be sent in your child's home folder this week.


Something I love about our chapel time is how interactive it is! Students often participate in the messages. This week they built a Tabernacle. What little designers we have here at Sonshine! 

The bees have "buzzed" and the consensus is that we need a weekly show-and-tell share time. This will happen every Monday afternoon and can include a few small items from home (please don't send anything that is costly or not easily replaced). Students can also share work they are proud of during this time or something they have worked on at home (numbers, words, stories, artwork). They could even share a meaningful story. While we do have a short share time during morning meeting on a specific topic and we share our writing, this extra share time will provide students an opportunity to share items that help us to learn more about them, lead into talking about an adventure they had, or give them a chance to elaborate on a special event in their lives. These bees love to share!!

 Recess is a special time to play with our friends. We will be revisiting our outside rules this week and brainstorming ways to include others in our games. In addition, we will practice getting our friend's attention in a safe and friendly manner and how to introduce ourselves to people in other classes.

Nyahana and Wyatt demonstrate great skill in tether-ball as well as taking turns!

 We learned more about the scientific method this week and practiced the steps of making observations and recording data. Our subject was fall-inspired-nature and our data was illustrating what we saw, writing words about it, and telling others about our observations.

Addison is a thoughtful scientist.

Evaleen thinks about how to best record her observation.

Makenna examines carefully.

Wyatt, Dante, Hadley, and Aiden are serious scientists!

 We love our Spanish class with Ms. Monica! Practicing common phrases, how to introduce ourselves, times of the day, colors, names for animals, and counting in Spanish are lesson topics that she has engaged the busy-bees in. Gracias, Ms. Monica!

 

 Grandparent's Day was a blast! We started with some wonderful chapel songs, worked at centers in the classroom with our grandparents, had recess with them, made an awesome art project together, and they even joined us for lunch! We are so thankful for our grandparents other people that play big roles in our lives and support us!

 

Saturday, October 24th is our Harvest Festival. Please let us know if you can help. There's lots to do, including set-up, running booths, and cleaning up. Also, students may come dressed in costumes (nothing scary). It will be a fun event for the whole family! It starts at 6:30 pm.

Things to be on the look-out for in your child's green folder:

*Journeys Home-Letter, Sight Words, and Spelling Words List (please review these at home).
*Information on Operation Christmas Child Shoe-box, which each class will be participating in.
*Conference Confirmation Times

We will be studying more about Fire Safety, being a Bucket-Filler, how animals grow in Science, how animals communicate as a focus in our Journeys reading text, and Moses in Bible. In math, kinders will be writing numbers up to 10, practicing counting, and reviewing the concepts of greater than/less than. First-graders will be working on subtraction.

Our Journeys Anchor-Text This Week:

 Spelling words this week:

 Sight-words this week:

May God bless you and your family this week with opportunities to spend time enjoying one another as a family. We are here to lift one another up and help to lighten the loads we carry in life. If you have a need or a prayer request, please do not hesitate to let me know. I am praying for you as you go into your week, as well as these precious little "bees" that He loves so much! 

Our verse this week (Psalms 50:15):

Greetings, lovely K/1 parents! Well, we have been having so much fun in The Hive lately! It started with an invitation for a special treat from Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Palmer's class. We celebrated a birthday with them and all the busy bees stopped for a moment to enjoy the frosting! I was very impressed with the manners and how helpful all the students were. We love doing things with our neighbors in the Lee/Palmer bunch! And after that, the bees got to buzz into Ms. Jones' class to do a special assignment on Community Helpers (focusing on teachers!). We were so thankful for that wonderful opportunity! We certainly have a Christ-centered community here at Sonshine and it really shines in the collaboration and cooperation of the teachers and students!

Matthew and Veronica enjoy their cupcakes!

We had a wonderful Chapel with lots of worship songs led by Mrs. Warner and a wonderful message from Pastor Cary!

Pastor Cary and a sheep...or bear? Or sheep? (;

Love these little bees!!!

The Busy Bees learned a fun song about marching pumpkins in music class! Look at them go!

Go, go, go!

 

 

 

We went on a word-search in our "write-the-room" activity during our Daily Five time. Students had to find different community helpers and write them down. They were hidden all over!

Number-of-the-Day is an activity we do a few times a week. Students write the number (based on what day of school we are on), tally the number, stamp it, and draw an object the same number of times as the daily number. They love it and are getting so good at it!

Veronica works on the Number-of-the-Day! 

In addition to our "MyMath" curriculum, students get to work on math centers too! They have special rules for this time: 1. Quiet Voices (as I am teaching another group); 2. Take Turns; 3. Share and "bee" kind; 4. Talk about numbers, patterns, shapes, and what they notice.

Noah, Wyatt, and Aiden diligently count objects!

On Tuesday, students learned the names of colors in Spanish, made paper kits in various colors, and focused in on the names of the colors on their kites! We decided to go "fly" our kites on the playground!

On Wednesday, we had a ton of fun at the Pumpkin Patch! We started out petting some adorable farm animals, then climbing a hay stack, going for a hay ride, and picking out our perfect-pumpkins! I was really proud of how well all the busy bees behaved away from The Hive and how kind they were to one another. I saw many examples of lending a helping hand and being friendly!!!

Sammy searches for a pleasing pumpkin!

Noah found his favorite pumpkin!

Nyahana and friends wash their pumpkins!

Hay maze!

You can't catch a busy bee!

Sonshine friends!!!

 I really appreciated all the field-trip help from the chaperones and drivers!!! We couldn't have done it without your help! And if you were hoping to be a chaperone but couldn't make it, rest assured that there will be more opportunities to chaperone. Another wonderful opportunity coming up is the Harvest Fest in which you can elect to help with set-up on Friday or at the festivities on Saturday. We also need cake donations. The fun begins on Saturday, October 24th at 6:30 pm.


                                   
Things to look forward to over the next week are learning more about pumpkins (specifically, the pumpkin life-cycle), revisiting community helpers, and Grandparents Day on Friday, October 16th!
We will be reading the Journeys text "Jack and the Wolf", studying folk tales and fables, and what it takes to make a complete sentence. We will focus on reading with expression in fluency, and summarizing in comprehension.

                                                    

The sight words for the week are:

                                                   

The spelling words for the week are:

We have been seeing something we almost forgot about...rain! While we do some indoor recesses depending on the weather, if it's drizzling or just a little rainy, we still go outside. Please make sure your busy bee has a coat or sweatshirt with a hood.

                                                  

                                                        

May you all have a wonderful weekend and know that I am praying for each of the busy bees and their families (that's you)! Parenting is the hardest but greatest job in the world and He knows the love we have for our children, as well as the challenges we face.