Mrs. Westlund's Kindergarten

Catholic Schools Week 2012 is here!

2012-01-29T22:36:00.000-06:00

Hello! Happy Catholic Schools Week!! We've got lots of fun things planned for this week to celebrate our wonderful school!! It's sure to be an exciting week. The kids have been getting really excited with all the activities we have planned!

Monday:
Dress as your favorite movie/book character day!
For Language Arts, the Kindergarteners are going to focus on Jan Brett's story of 'The Mitten'. We will read through it and point out the beginning, middle and end. We will also be practicing to act this story out. We will have headbands with the different animals and other props to help us. We'll be practicing this all week and finally doing for an audience during the Variety Show on Friday!

The afternoon fun will be gathering together with other classes to watch a movie in the library!

Tuesday:
(will run with Wednesday's normal schedule)
Red & White Day!
Mass with the Bishop at 10 AM...please feel free to join us for this wonderful occasion!

Wednesday:
(will run with Tuesday's normal schedule)
Crazy Hat Day!
Language Arts:
We'll continue to practice 'The Mitten'. We'll also be reviewing our sight words and our word families and writing in our journals.
Religion:
We'll be focusing on learning about Jesus as a storyteller and teacher. We'll listen to many stories from the bible that guide us in learning how Jesus wants us to live our everyday lives. The big lesson this week will be: LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR!

Thursday:
Spelling Bee Day!
Happy Groundhog's Day!
We'll be hearing stories of Phil the Groundhog and what the whole meaning behind this day is. The children will pretend that they are groundhogs and decide if they would want to see their shadow or not and write about why they would choose what they did. We'll also do an groundhog art activity in the afternoon to go with this.
In the afternoon, we'll go to the Social Hall to watch the Jr. High students do the Spelling Bee!

Friday:
Favorite Team Sports Day!
We'll have a final practice for 'The Mitten', as we get ready for the Variety Show in the afternoon. The Variety Show is at 1 PM, in the Social Hall. All are welcome to join us...we hope that you can make it!

Saturday:
Home & School Bake Sale

Sunday:
All School Liturgy at 10 AM Mass
Pancake & Sausage Breakfast by the KC's...benefits go to support our school!

That's all for now!
Thanks for stopping by!!
~Mrs. Westlund =)

January 23rd - 27th, 2012

2012-01-22T22:54:00.000-06:00

Hey All!
Hope the 2012 is treating everyone well! The year is moving right along and we're off to a great start in this new year! The children have really enjoyed a new song I found for our mimio board about the 12 months of the year...ask them to sing it for you...it's a great tune!

Here's what's happening this week:

Language Arts:
We'll meet our new alphafriend for the week: Fifi Fish! She'll teach us all about the letter/sound of Ff! We'll revisit some of our stories that we've been reading - all counting stories! We'll compare/contrast them and talk about what we liked and didn't like. Our strategy focus this week is on asking questions during a story to check for understanding. Our reading comprehension focus will be on recalling the beginning, middle and end of the story.
We'll review our sight words that we've learned so far and we'll also review our word families: -at and -an. The children are really moving right along with their reading progress! I have just completed all of the children's Guided Reading levels and they are all doing so so well...well on the way to being ready for 1st grade!

Math:
We have finished up our section on numbers 0-10 and are taking a break for numbers for awhile to work on GEOMETRY! =) We'll review shapes and then go onto harder ones...sphere, cone, cylinder and explore some other early concepts to geometry.

Religion:
We'll finish up our section on learning about God's wonderful gift of our world and how it is our duty to take care of it. I can't wait to see the posters they will make about caring for God's world. We'll then move onto learning about Jesus as a teacher and how he teaches us many lessons through stories from the bible.

Science/Social Studies:
We'll learn all about the Chinese New Year (celebrated on Monday, Jan. 23rd) and make a dragon puppet during Center times with helpers Mary Jane Grande (on Monday) and Mary Jo Gingras (on Wednesday).
We'll be learning about Polar Animals...focusing on the Polar Bear and the Penguin.
I'll be working with them in Centers to learn about Polar Bears from their National Geographic for Young Explorers magazine.
The 2nd Grade have buddied up with us to learn about Penguins. We'll be doing a penguin book with them on Tuesday and a Heart Shaped Penguin Art Project on Thursday.

Please keep your eyes open for FEBRUARY Snack & Center Calendars and also information concerning Catholic Schools Week.
Last year the Kindergarteners and I decided to to a short little play for the Variety Show and I'm planning on doing that again (different story this year.) Hope you can plan to attend this!

Keep those Movie Themed Items coming! We've got a good start on our basket...thanks for your donations for our Silent Auction basket!

Have a wonderful week!
Thanks for stopping by!
~ Mrs. Westlund =)

December 12-16

2011-12-11T23:39:00.000-06:00

Hard to believe we've started the third week of Advent already and have gotten to our pink candle on our advent wreath! The students add a paper 'flame' to their individual wreaths that they made at the beginning of advent that are hanging on their lockers. We're all anxiously waiting to celebrate the birth of Jesus!

Here's what we'll be doing in school this week:

Language Arts:
Last week we started with our first word family! How exciting!!! We will continue to work with the -at word family this week. We will also learn a new sight word: 'to'. Our Alphafriend this week is Vinny Volcano and we'll learn all about the consonant Vv! Now that we've started word families we've begun to talk about our 'helper letters', the vowels. Use the words 'consonants' and 'vowels' when talking with your child at home about different letters.
Our story will be "My Dad and I" and will focus on the friendship we find in our families. We've been talking about friendship last week and will continue it through this week and next in all of our stories. We've also discussed character, setting and plot/problem in stories and are continuing to do so when we read new stories. Predicting is also something important to do to help understand and inquire about what's happening in the story. Encourage your child to predict what may happen next while you read stories at home.

Math:
We're continuing with our numerals and number words! Keep practicing these at home! We'll continue to work with numerals 0-9 this week and with the number words 0-9! Have them practice writing their numerals and number words at home...remember to remind them to start from the top when forming numbers and letters!

Religion:
We'll focus on the story of Jesus' birth and on learning about the Holy Family. We'll compare the Holy Family with our family and become more familiar with this important bible story. Later in the week we'll be making finger puppets for this story. At home, encourage your child to retell the story of the birth of Jesus at home!
December 13th is also a special day this week...it is the feast day of St. Lucia. We will be partnering up with the 2nd Grade to make special St. Lucia crowns and traditional biscuits as we celebrate and learn about this very special lady. (She is also the patron saint of vision, she holds a special place in my heart for my gift of sight!)

Centers:
We will be having Centers on Monday and Wednesday. Lisa (Hannah's mom) is scheduled for Monday, but I still have an opening for Wednesday afternoon. Let me know if you're interested!

Other Partner Activities this week:
On Thursday we'll partner up with the 4th Grade and decorate gift bags for the Christmas Store!

That's all for now!!! Have a very wonderful and blessed week!
~Mrs. Westlund =)

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-27T23:16:00.000-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving to all! I hope that you enjoyed your Thanksgiving Break as much as I did! It was so nice to spend time with family and friends!

Here's what we'll be working on this week:

Language Arts: We'll revisit some of the stories that we've been reading in this past section all about families. We'll focus on characters, setting, noting details, compare and contrast, evaluating and classifying. We'll also learn about our new alphafriend: Nyle Noodle! Please be sure to look for him and his song on the newsletter going home this week!

Math: We'll be working with numbers and counting and making graphs this week! We'll start to learn some of the number words, so keep practicing them at home!

Religion: We have started the season of Advent! It is the beginning of a new church year. We'll learn about preparing ourselves for Jesus' birth, to be celebrated on Christmas Day! We'll also be learning about prayer. There are so many different ways to pray and things to pray about. Our focus will be on prayer as 'talking' to God. It is important for the children to understand that God hears them and will listen to them whenever and wherever they are!

Science: We'll be starting to learn about our senses! We'll do an activity where we sort out and organize a variety of items, and then we will graph them into which senses we could use to identify them and we'll identify the properties of each object. We'll also talk about how our senses help us.

Social Studies: We'll be learning about a different culture; that of the Eskimos. We will hear a story about the eskimos and how they live and compare/contrast on how it is different from where we live. We'll also try our hand at building some sugar cube igloos!

Centers: Monday & Wednesday:
Center One: The children will make wreaths using green paint hands and red thumbprints. They will each make 2...one to take home and one that we will be sending to the Senior Center in town.

Center Two: Shiny Ornaments! We will use light corn syrup to 'paint' over ornaments cut from tag board. After they are dry we will secure a ribbon on each and they will be sent home to be hung on your tree!

That's all for now! Thanks for stopping by!
~Mrs. Westlund

November 14th-18th

2011-11-13T22:41:00.001-06:00

Hello! What a gorgeous weekend! Ben and I were able to join some neighbor friends down at the Mason park on Saturday for some fun...we sure aren't going to have many more days as nice as that one! Looking ahead, it's hard to believe that Parent Teacher Conferences are this week already, Opening Gun Hunting Season starts this weekend and Thanksgiving is next week!

Here's what we've got planned for the week ahead:

Language Arts:
We are continuing to focus on families. We will read 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears', 'Shoes from Grandpa' and 'Baby Bear's Family'. Our new alphafriend is Benny Bear and we'll be focusing on the letter Bb! Try to ask your child to come up with words that start with the 'b' sound! We'll also continue to practice our sight words: I, see & my. We'll also add to that list of sight words this week with the new word: like. We'll be writing in our journals at school during small group time and practicing these new words with the sentence "I like my..." I'll help them with filling in the blank. I often do this by writing the word that they've dictated to me on a little post it note, and they just copy it onto the page to complete the sentence and then add an illustration.

Religion:
We're starting a new chapter on prayer. We will learn about talking to God and learn about how prayer can be recited with the prayers we memorize, but it can also be just simply talking to God. We'll also talk about how God can hear our prayers always.

Math:
We're continuing with counting! We're practicing counting to 100 at school...practice this (and higher if you can!) at home too! We're also learning about numbers that show more and less.

Science:
We'll have a special treat this week...Brad Gingras (Bradan's dad) will come in on Tuesday afternoon to show us his various animal skins and preserved animals and talk about Hibernation, Migration and animals that 'tough it out' during the winter.

Social Studies:
We'll be continuing to learn about life way back when the first Thanksgiving happened. We've read stories about the Pilgrims coming to the Americas and how the Native Americans helped them to live off the land. We celebrate the different gifts that God has given us and how we can all share them with each other. We'll read a simple story called 'Pilgrim, Pilgrim'. There are some of our sight words in this story, so we will be identifying them, as well as trying to sound out some of the tougher words as we read together. Your child will be bringing this home on Thursday...be sure to read it through with them, they are so excited to be able to read new words every day!

Centers:
No Centers on Monday because of the Early Release Day.
Centers on Wednesday will be with Mary Jo Gingras and I. Together we will be helping the children to make Native American Headbands. Also, earlier in the week I will be making Pilgrim hats with each of the children in small groups. The children will be able to choose which hat they'd like to wear down to the All School Thanksgiving Luncheon!

Parent Teacher Conferences!!!
Thursday ~ After school!! Please let me know as soon as you can if you're not able to make it that night. I will do my best to accomodate you and find a time that works for both of us to get together!

November 7th-11th

2011-11-07T06:25:00.001-06:00

Hello!
We're having a great time in Kindergarten and the children are learning so much! They are such good readers and helpers throughout the day! They are very proud of their ability to read some of the stories, calendar words, etc!
Last week we ended our Reading theme on Colors. We are now into the theme of Families! Last week we also finished up our Patterns and Movement section of Math. We're moving right along and doing well!

This week:

Reading ~ We will introduce a new theme and a new Alphafriend: Tiggy Tiger! We are learning lots of new words. So far we've focused on I & see; this week we will add 'my'. Not only are the children excited about reading these words, but also incorporating them into their writing. In writing, we're also working on letter sounds and trying to 'sound out' words to figure out how they are spelled. If a child uses inventive spelling to figure out a word, at this level...it's FINE! =) 'Sound spelling' is completely appropriate for the Kindergarten age level. For instance, if a child spells 'city' with 'sity', they have used the knowledge that they know that the first sound in 'city' can be produced by the letter s. Later, as they get older, they will work on remembering the 'correct' way of spelling the word. If a child asks me if they spelled that word ('sity' or others with sound spelling) correctly, I simply tell them 'I like the way you sounded out the word!' I never want to hinder a child's desire to write, so I hesitate to correct them with their inventive spelling.
All sight words, however, should be spelling correctly...in their writing I will correct them on the sight words simply by calling their attention to it and having them write it over correctly. We have a wonderful word wall in our classroom, and the students know that they are free to go up and use it at any time during their writing. It is color coded, so if a child asks me "How do I spell 'see'" I can easily tell them, "It's under the letter 'S', it's the train track that is red." All of the letters are on train cars, so the words below them are on different colored train tracks.

Math ~ We are on to Counting and Matching. One to one counting can be challenging for a child, so this Chapter is very important. At times children may count too fast or miss a number. This Chapter will focus on the one to one counting; on which number shows 'more' or 'less'; and on rote counting (1,2,3,4...). We've been adding a number to our line every day that we've been in school and have been practicing counting to 100! The children do a great job and are excited for the 100th day of school, which will come sometime in February! =)

Religion ~ We're working on learning about God as our Father in Heaven. The children have enjoyed talking about special people in their lives. We learn about God's love for us through the many gifts that He gives us. The special people in our lives are one of those gifts...and our families are very special people! (This ties in SUPER with our Reading Chapter!)

Science ~ We continue to learn about living things. This week we'll learn about Sea Otters with our National Geographic Young Explorers. Our interactive whiteboard is not quite ready yet, so we'll travel to the 1st Grade room to view the interactive lesson there.

Social Studies ~ We're learning about life 'way back when' in Colonial Times and how it compares to life now. If the children have a chance, visiting with Grandma or Grandpa or another older person and asking about what life was like for them would be a great activity to tie into this!

This week we celebrate being Drug Free! All week the children will wear red wrist bands to remind them of this and Mr. Bell will call off names each day...if the names that he calls off are wearing their bands, they get to come to the office for a prize!

Also...Friday, Nov. 9th we will celebrate Veteran's Day. The Veteran's Program will start at 2 PM, please join us if you can!!

That's all for now!
Thanks for stopping by!!!
~Mrs. Westlund

October is here!

2011-10-06T19:53:00.004-05:00

Hi! Hard to believe that September slipped by so quickly! The Kindergarteners are off to a FANTASTIC start of the year!

Last week we studied APPLES!! On Monday we celebrated Johnny Appleseed's Birthday!! Thank you to Becky, Lahaela's mom, for helping us on this day. We celebrated with hearing the story 'The Little Red House With No Windows, No Doors and a Star Inside'...we then made our own colorful star prints with the apples. To finish up we had some cider and apple slices with caramel. The kids loved it! Earlier that day we watched 'Johnny Appleseed' by Disney (an old favorite of mine from my childhood) and learned the song 'The Lord is good to me, and so I thank the Lord...for giving me the things I need, the sun and the rain and the appleseeds. Oh the Lord is good to me!'

Later that week we traveled north to Bayfield, WI to visit the Bayfield Apple Company. It was an overcast rainy day in Bayfield, but we all piled in the vehicles and went. We were able to tour their facility, watch how they make apple cider and got some fresh apple cider of our own to take home with us. We ended up skipping going to the Coastguard Park in Bayfield because of the weather. We returned home and had a nice picnic lunch on our ocean carpet. We all really did have a fun time that day!

Last week we also received our first letter from our pen pals in Proctor, MN. We will be pen pal-ing with Mrs. Meredith Salus' Kindergarten class at St. Rose Catholic School in Proctor, MN. Mrs. Salus is a good friend of mine and we have both enjoyed this project very much. We did this for the first time last year and it was a HUGE hit. The first couple of letters we send our 'class' letters....the children dictate to me what to write and we make one large letter all together. St. Rose's letter to us is posted in our hallway if you ever want to pop in and take a look. Then, we will break them up into pairs or small groups (she has a slightly larger class than we do). The children, with my help, will write individual letters to their friends at St. Rose. At the very end of the year, we meet each other as both classes come together at the UMD Planetarium for a Space Exploration Field Trip and have lunch together at Playfront Park. I'm so excited to start this again with a new class. I know that they will enjoy it throughout the year!

October 3rd - 7th:
We've been continuing to work on recognizing and writing our letters. We are learning about starting our names with capital letters and writing the rest of our name in lowercase. Also, we've been focusing on reading and writing going from our left to our right.

In Math we have been working on classifying and putting things into groups based on different attributes such as color, shape and other similarities. We are now starting patterns and the children are having a really fun time with this using different items and colors. We'll also be exploring our left and our right, which I'm confident will go well because I notice that when we all stand for the Pledge of Allegience that our right hands are where they should be! =)

I've really enjoyed doing Science with the children. We've just started our new National Geographic for Young Explorers and the kids were eager to look through them. October's issue has three themes...A Tree's Life, Spiders, and Animals that Columbus Saw. The pictures are amazing AND National Geographic has interactive whiteboard lessons to go with their magazines. As of right now, we don't have one in the Kindergarten room (but please help us raise money for this during our Pancake Breakfast on October 16th after Liturgy!)

In Social Studies we've been learning about our families and our friendships. This months core value is Respect, which ties in nicely with our Friendship theme. We'll soon be talking about Christopher Columbus and what life was like a long time ago. A couple of weeks ago now we celebrated Native American Cultures and had a special Liturgy. The Kindergarteners really enjoyed seeing the Native attire that was worn during this Liturgy and we were able to watch a couple of nice videos on some different dances...the jingle dress dance and the hoop dance. We talked about traditions that we have in our own families and traditions that others may have.

In Religion we've been learning about God as our Creator. We've read the story from Genesis about Creation and shared the things that God has given us that we are the most thankful for. We also discussed our many talents and gifts that we have and how we can and should share them with others.
***If you have a special talent or hobby, please let me know. I'd love to have you come in and share during some time throughout the year.

This upcoming week we have TWO days off. Monday, October 10th ~ Teacher Inservice at our school AND Wednesday, October 13th ~ Diocesian Inservice at Rice Lake.

On Tuesday, October 11th, we'll be learning about Christopher Columbus. We'll also get to do an October activity with the 4th graders. We've worked with them before...in September we worked together to make our Apple Core mobiles and both the Kindergarteners and the 4th Graders did a great job and had a wonderful time!

We'll finish off that week (Thursday and Friday, October 14th and 15th) by learning about Fire Safety. Friday, October 15th we'll get a Fire Safety Presentation from our local fire department. The children will get a goody bag of Fire Prevention items to take home. One will be a map for an escape plan for your home...make sure to go over what to do and where to go if there would ever be a fire in your home!

Later this month, we'll be traveling to Don's Pumpkin Patch and Corn Maze with the 2nd Graders. This will be on Friday, October 21st. Please watch your child's folder for more info.
The following week we will have a "It's the Great Pumpkin" night with Kindergarten and 2nd Grade. We'll be doing Pumpkin Math, having pumpkin treats and end with some pumpkin carving (with mom and dad's help, of course).

That's all for now!!! Have a great week! Thanks for stopping by!
~Mrs. Westlund =)

Off to a great start!

2011-09-20T19:41:00.002-05:00

It's hard to believe that we're halfway through September already! The students are doing wonderful!! I am truly blessed with another fabulous class this year! Thank you parents for choosing to send your children to our wonderful school!

During the first few weeks of school we have been busy learning about the routines of our school day. We've really acclimated well to our morning routine, beginning with Mr. Bell leading us all in prayer and the reading of the gospel message and then leading us in the Pledge of Allegience. After this is finished, we have our 'lunch tally' helper make tallies as I go through and check who is having hot, cold or a salad for lunch. Great math skills! Our 'office helpers' then take any notes, attendance and lunch count to the office. The 'milk helpers' take the count down to our cook, Ms. Sherry, and she fills their bag with the milk that we'll need for snack later in the morning.

After that is finished, we all head to the carpet area to do calendar and weather. We have helpers for both. Our job board is located next to our calendar and this year it's a Dalmation themed one entitled "Job Squad". The children have all enjoyed rotating through different jobs throughout the weeks.
We have started Show-N-Tell; we have 2 children do this each day. We do this right after calendar/weather time.

We then get into Reading. I love starting this time with a fun song or a poem. One of the children's favorite right now is 'Hip Hop Alphabop' by Jack Hartmann. I picked up this CD last year when I attended the Wisconsin Kindergarten Conference that was held near Madison.
We'll then get into our lesson, listening and reading a story and discussing the focus that we need to have while we read. Last week we focused on using the pictures to help read the story. This week we are focusing on noting details and discovering characters.

After Reading, we go to use the bathroom and wash up for snacks. Thank you for all the wonderful snacks that you've brought! I send home a 'OLL Kindergarten Snack Bag' with each child the night before it's their turn for snack...this seems to be working wonderfully!

After Snack we have a special...depending on the day we may have Computers or Gym class. Wednesdays are a bit different...due to Liturgy, we go to Liturgy at 9 AM, THEN we have Snack.

When the children return from their specials class of that day we do Math! They've been breezing through our Sorting and Classifying Chapter...we'll be into a new chapter next week! The children really enjoyed when we sorted by colors, as I treated them to M&Ms and had them sort them into color groups before they could eat them. Today we learned about Venn Diagrams and sorted by color AND shape. They all did wonderfully on this activity and enjoyed my use of hoola hoops to show the different sections. They also enjoyed fishing into the bucket during their turn to find a shape and tell which section it belonged to.

After Math, the children break up into small groups. I have Small Groups each day. Each day the children are broken up into 5 groups and rotate to do each activity throughout the week. This is wonderful because it really allows me time to work with one group closely each day to improve their reading skills.  The group that I work with usually does some Guided Reading. It really gives me a great opportunity to work on each child's individual needs.

At 11:00 Mrs. Levings comes to our room and I go to her room to teach the 1st Graders Religion. The Kindergarteners go with Mrs. Levings as she takes them to use the bathroom and wash up to get ready for Lunch. The Kindergartners eat lunch at 11:15. I return to them down in the lunch room at 11:30, after Religion with 1st Grade is done and I've brought them down for their lunch time.

We eat lunch together and then go out for Recess around Noon.  Recess is done at 12:30, and they come in and use the bathroom, get a drink and get ready for Rest Time. Rest Time is usually 20-30 minutes and I play some nice calming, quiet music. I let the children know that they don't HAVE to go to sleep, but they can if they want to, and I'll wake them when rest is done.

After Rest, we have Kindergarten Religion. We've really enjoyed talking about Creation and God's love for us.  We've discussed all of the wonderful gifts that God has given to us and how we need to be thankful for them EVERY DAY! Along with Religion class, the Kindergarten go to Liturgy (Mass) on Wednesday mornings. Our Mass Buddies are the 5th graders. I must say that I am very impressed with how well the children are doing. Sitting still for Mass for 30-40 mintues can be hard for them! It's been so helpful that the 5th graders have been there to be good examples and help us know when to sit, stand and pay attention. We're all excited to buddy up on Friday to walk to Kreher Park with the 5th graders and get to know our Mass Buddies more and look for signs of God's creation (for religion), signs of Autumn (for science) and things that are Living and Nonliving (also for science).

After Religion, on Mondays and Wednesdays, we have Music; on Tuesdays and Thursdays we have Science or Social Studies.  In Science we've been having lots of fun looking through our National Geographic for Young Explorers. This month we've learned about the weather, names of different animals groups and about living and nonliving things. In Social Studies we been talking about ourselves, our families and about the symbol of our flag for our country and saying the Pledge of Allegience.

At the very end of the day, the children then have Free Time. During this time they may choose to play with the blocks, cars, games, puzzles, dramatic play area, art area, paints, stamps and more! I love observing the children during this time...it's a great time to see how they interact with each other. It's also a great time for them to learn some problem solving skills and communication skills. It allows them the chance to practice what we talk about when we talk about using our words instead of hurting; compromising and getting along with others.  And that's just the social/emotional aspect of playtime...they learn so much more with each different station or set of manipulatives.

When Free Time is done, we sing our little 'Clean Up' song and go back to our seats. I pass out their folders and notebooks and have the children go to their mailboxes and get their mail. Before they leave, I stamp each of their notebooks with either a green (for a good day), yellow (for an okay day) or red (for a 'not so good' day).

If you ever have any questions about school or about our day...please let me know! I can be reached at school during regular school hours at 715-682-7622 or by email at awestlund@ourladycs.org.

Please remember to get our Walking Field Trip permission slips in for this Friday and our Bayfield Apple Company Field Trip permission slips in by next week for Thursday's trip! We're still looking for drivers, so please let me know if you can! Thanks!!!

Have a blessed week!! I'm certainly enjoying the cooler temps and the Fall colors starting to emerge!
~Mrs. Westlund =)

Summer is here!

2011-06-27T22:11:00.000-05:00

What a wonderful year we had! I'm so proud of all of the Kindergartners!! At the end of this year we had an awesome time meeting up with our pen pals from St. Rose Catholic School in Proctor, MN. We went to the planetarium in Duluth and then had lunch together at Playfront Park. It was a very windy and cool day, but the kids had a great time.

Blessings to all over the summer! Have fun, stay safe!! I can't wait to see everyone again in the fall! =)

~Mrs. Westlund

December 6th-11th

2010-12-05T18:03:00.000-06:00

Hello! Here are some notes on what we'll be doing in the Kindergarten room this week!

Language Arts:
This week is a big one...we will start learning word families!! This week we will explore and learn the -at word family. The letter of the week is the letter Hh. Hattie Horse is our alphafriend. We'll also be reviewing our sight words: I, like, see, my; and we'll learn our new sight word: a. When reading to your child at home have them read these words to you or point them out and find them. Also, pointing out that the first word in the sentence starts with a capital letter and that sentences end with a punctuation mark.
We are in a new section of our Reading Series that focuses on friendship. Our story this week is Aaron and Gayla's Alphabet Book. Throughout this book we will also be finding different positional words: on, in, at, under.

Math:
We'll review our numerals and number words: 0 - 10. We'll also move on to larger numbers this week: 11 - 16. Counting one to one with larger numbers can be difficult for children if they try to rush...when counting with your child at home, remind them to slow down and take their time. On their work pages I will often encourage them to put an 'X' over the object that they counted, that way they will not loose their place and count it again.

Religion:
We will talk about St. Nicholas (Dec. 6th) and continue to talk about Advent. We'll here about the story of Jesus' birth and talk about the Holy Family. We will also be watching a video "God Loves Me" that will help us understand that God gave us the wonderful gift of our bodies and will help us learn what we need to do to stay safe and stay healthy. (This is part of our Safe and Sacred Training for our children.) At the end of the week we will also watch a video about responcibility, which is our character trait focus for the month of December. Congratulations to Viddy Wabindato for getting the student of the month for Honesty in Kindergarten for November!

Social Studies:
We will talk about the holidays and also about different traditions around the world. We'll explore the map and various different cultures that celebrate Christmas, Hannukah and Kwanza.

Science:
We will be writing and drawing thank you letters to Brad Gingras. Brad (Madison's dad) was able to come in last week and bring in various animal furs and a mounted duck to talk about the three things animals do during the winter: migrate, hibernate and tough it out! The children really enjoyed his presentation and learned a lot about the different animals in our area and what they do in the winter. They were very excited when I mentioned writing stories back to him...they all had so much to share, but we were limited on time so I decided to extend this activity and write/draw them out.

Centers:
In our centers this week we will be making snowflake ornaments, being completing a Black Bear Booklet and making hand-made presents for our parents.

Important Dates to Remember:
December 10th ~ Christmas Store...be sure to send an envelope with a list of names of who your child needs to buy for and 50 cents per gift.

Have a great week...thanks for stopping by!!!
~Mrs. Westlund =)

November 15th-19th

2010-11-13T21:06:00.000-06:00

Hello! Hard to believe that the week before Thanksgiving is already here! Time is sure going by quickly, but we're having lots of fun! The children are excited not only for Thanksgiving, but for the predicted snow arrival this weekend. I'm at home in Mason and we have a good thick ground cover of snow...I've heard Ashland had rain/snow mix. Interested to see what we'll have on Monday! Please remember to send your child's boots, snowpants, hats and mittens to school with them every day!

Here's what we'll be doing for the week:

Language Arts:
Our Alphafriend this week is Benny Bear and we'll focus on the letter Bb. Our new sight word this week is 'like' and we'll also review our other sight words: 'I', 'see' and 'my'. We work on a letter each week, but also take time to review past letters and sounds as well as review recognizing all of the alphabet. Please continue to do this at home with your child. When they work on their 'homework' in their notebooks, go over each letter or number or other skill with them so they practice not only writing them, but recognizing them.
Our story this week will be "Shoes From Grandpa", which will help us work on remembering sequence of events, and predicting and drawing conclusions about different parts of the story.

Math:
We'll continue to work on numbers 6 through 10. We'll review numbers 0 through 5 also and continue to work on number order. We'll play various math manipulative games, which helps the children gain a more solid, tangible understanding of the numbers.

Religion:
We'll be focusing on God and how He sent us His Son, Jesus. This will be a good bridge into talking about the upcoming Advent and Christmas seasons. Advent begins on Nov. 28th, the Sunday after Thanksgiving. We will focus on the waiting and preparing for the birth of baby Jesus.

Science:
We will discuss animal habitats. Our Weekly Reader will help us talk about different habitats and the animals that live there. We'll also talk about animals and what they do to get ready for the winter; focusing on migration and hibernation. We'll also talk about what some animals do that do not migrate or hibernate over the winter.

Social Studies:
We'll continue to talk about Thanksgiving. We'll focus on what happened during the first Thanksgiving and the importance of all of the gifts we have to share with each other. We'll talk about being thankful and list things that we are thankful for. This will also come into play as we talk about things we have now and things they had back then.

Centers:
Centers 1 and 2 will focus on Thanksgiving games that have the children take turns picking picture cards and recalling the different sounds that we've learned so far: S, M, R, T and B.
Center 3 will be making a "I'm Thankful For..." Thanksgiving turkey centerpiece that the children will take home to put somewhere to show what they are most thankful for.

*Please remember we have Show-N-Tell on Mon, Tues, Thur, and Fri. I do not have the list of who is on what days infront of me right now, but I will send a reminder home on Monday with that information. Please help your child come up with at least a couple clues about their item and if you can, send in a bag (plastic, paper). Thanks!

**Don't forget...Parent Teacher Conferences on Tuesday afternoon/evening!

That's all for now...thanks for stopping by!
~Mrs. Westlund

Nov. 7th-11th

2010-11-07T19:58:00.000-06:00

Another week is here! This is what we'll be doing this week:

Language Arts:
New letter focus/alphafriend: Tt for Tiggy Tiger
New word: 'my' Review: 'I' and 'see'
We'll read a story about a spanish family: Tortillas and Lullabyes. We will learn some spanish names and words and focus on how the story makes us feel. We'll also focus on the characters and the setting.

Math:
We'll continue to work on numbers 0-5 and their order. We'll also move into the next chapter on numbers 6-10.

Religion:
We'll finish up practicing for Liturgy for Wednesday and then move on to talk about honesty and obeying our parents.

Science:
We'll talk about energy from the sun. We'll explore and discuss how the sun helps us and can sometimes hurt us (sunburn.)

Social Studies:
We'll talk about Thanksgiving and traditions. We'll discuss our own family traditions and what we are thankful for.

Centers:
We'll be making Thanksgiving hats in Centers this week. Center 1 will make Native American Hats, Center 2 will make Turkey hats and Center 3 will make Pilgrim hats. We'll save these for next week and wear them for our All School Thanksgiving Dinner (at lunchtime next Thursday.)

Art:
We'll be getting into our watercolors! We will make a class Thanksgiving story and the children will then illustrate what they think a good setting would be for it using their watercolors.

That's all for now...be sure to check their folders for other important items throughout the week! Thanks for stopping by!
~Mrs. Westlund =)

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-31T10:32:00.000-05:00

Happy Halloween! What a gorgeous day! I hope that it lasts and stays nice for all of the trick or treaters this evening. I know my Benjamin is very excited for tonight!
Hard to believe that it's the last day of October though. November is here and with it comes the end of our first quarter! Please be sure to check your child's folder for information on Parent/Teacher Conferences coming up soon!

This past week we've been very busy with Halloween fun. We've been learning about Mimi Mouse and the letter Mm. Thanks to all the parents who were able to help this week...we had helpers in each day! In centers, we worked on spiders and numbers 1-8, monster paper bag puppets and the growth of pumpkins. Some of the children still have some to finish up, those who weren't done will finish and bring them home this week.
On Tuesday we had a fun day with real pumpkins! The children predicted their pumpkins weight, circumference and number of seeds; then they measured and counted each. I was hoping that the smaller pumpkins would maybe have a bit fewer seeds (easier for us to count) but I was wrong.....the pumpkins still had a lot of seeds. With parent helpers some got up to 100 and still had more to count...so we decided to just say 100+ (we were starting to run out of time!) Then, the children decorated their pumpkins with glow in the dark stickers...they did a great job! They were so creative! I did get a nice group photo that I'll put in our Kindergarten Collage at the end of the year.

On to this week.....

Language Arts: Our new alphafriend is Reggie Rooster. We'll be learning all about the letter Rr. We'll read a pourquoi tale (a pourquoi tale tells why something is the way it is...fictional)- "Why the Birds Got Their Colors". In this story we will continue to work on predicting what will happen next and with the sequence of events.
We'll review the stories that we read the past few weeks for this theme of colors...."I Went Walking" and "In the Big Blue Sea". We'll also review and continue to work on our sight words: I, see.

Math: We'll be working more on numbers, specifically zero and five. We'll also do some graphs to show these numbers.

Religion: On Nov. 1st we'll talk about All Saints' Day and hear some stories about them. We'll also be learning and focusing on "The Lord is my Shepherd" this week. This is the focus of the 1st Graders Mass coming up next week on Nov. 10th. The Kindergarteners will not be joining the 1st Grade with this Mass, but we will have the opportunity to join them later in the year. We'll take some time to help the 1st Graders practice throughout this week. It will be a good opportunity for us to learn some new songs and more of our Mass parts.

Science: We'll be learning about Healthy Foods. We'll learn and talk about the food pyramid and do a collage of healthy food we like to eat. This ties in well with talking about what living things need to survive.

Social Studies: We'll read our Weekly Reader about Thanksgiving. We'll talk about the food we eat and the traditions we have. We'll hear a story about the first Thanksgiving and talk about the differences and similarities between then and now.

NO CENTERS THIS WEEK! After a busy week last week, we need some time to cool down before we start Centers again. A calendar will go home this week. If you are able to fill in a blank spot, please be sure to write me a note in your child's assignment notebook.

IMPORTANT DATES:
Nov. 2nd: End of 1st Quarter
Nov. 5th: Early Release Day

That's all for now, thanks for stopping....please be sure to take our online poll for this week!
~Mrs. Westlund =)

October 18th-22nd

2010-10-17T18:35:00.000-05:00

Hello! Another week is ready to start! Hope you had a great weekend!

Here's what we have planned for this week:

Language Arts:
Now that we've completed our overview of the entire alphabet we're ready to get more into learning our sounds and some sight words.
This week's letter is: Ss Our alphafriend is Sammy Seal. (You're child may come home singing a tune about him.) Help your child recognize the beginning sound of 's' in different words while at home.
Our sight word this week is: I (as in "I went walking.")
We'll read a story called "I Went Walking" which includes our sight word of the week and color words.
This week we'll also get to spend some reading time with the 4th Grade. They will read to us and we will read "5 Little Pumpkins" to them. This story will go home with the Kindergarteners on Tuesday, so they can read it to you at home as well!

Math:
We'll continue working on counting and our numbers. On Monday we'll look at a Shapes Weekly Reader magazine and later in the week we'll also make a graph of favorite colors (be sure to vote for yours online here!)

Religion:
October is the month that Pope Leo declared as the month to honor and celebrate the rosary. This week we'll be talking about this special prayer and be learning about some of the mysteries. We will briefly talk about the Sorrowful and the Luminous mysteries and focus more on the Joyful and Glorious mysteries. Fr. Paul and Fr. Gary will be away at a conference for our usual Mass on Wednesday, so the teachers will be leading the rosary. Following direction from Pope John Paul, we will do the Glorious mysteries for the Wednesday prayer service (certain mysteries are said on certain days of the week.)

Science:
We'll be learning about bats! We'll do a Weekly Reader about bats and also talk about daytime and nighttime and the different activities we do during each. We'll also be learning about echolocation and play a fun game for the children to experience it for themselves.

Social Studies:
We'll be talking about families. We'll talk about our own families and make a graph of where we fit in (oldest, middle, youngest, only). We'll draw a picture of our families and create our own classroom family tree. Next week we'll be doing more about families and our project will require a family photo....a note for this will go out soon!

Art:
We'll be completing a 'Halloween Colors Book". On each page the children will follow the instructions for a different color. On the back of each page you will also find the sign language for each color. We will practice these in class.

Centers:
Our three centers this week are: Bats, Candy Corn Math (estimation) and Pumpkins (Let my light shine for Jesus!). Thank you so much to our helpers!!

Look for a note to go home this week concerning Show-n-Tell and Star Students of the Week. We will start both of these in November!

Also, for your information....I will be gone on Thursday (all day)....Mrs. Urling will be my substitute. I've already informed the kids and they are all very excited! (They love her...as do I!!!)
Thanks for stopping by! Have a great week!!!
~Mrs. Westlund

October 4th-8th

2010-10-04T10:02:00.000-05:00

Good Monday morning to everyone!
I hope that you had a fabulous weekend- there was so much going on in the area! My sister came up for the weekend and we enjoyed spending time in Bayfield, as did A LOT of other people! =)

Thank you for voting on our apple poll. The Kindergarteners favorite was the red, second favorite was the yellow and least favorite as the green. Our online poll showed that the favorite was red, next favorite as green and least favorite as yellow. Thanks...I'll put another poll up soon!

Here's what we're working on this week:

Language Arts:
We'll read "The Gingerbread Man" on Monday and focus on characters. We'll also continue to work on practicing our alphabet. Our story for the week is "Here Are My Hands". This story is fun to talk about the gifts that we have and the responcibilities that we have (cleaning up our room, washing our hands, etc.) We'll also focus, again this week, on reading top to bottom and left to right. I will be checking the children's reading level with our Guided Reading Series to get a good feel for where all the children are at and what lessons I need to do to help each individual learner.

Math
We'll finish up our left and right section and move onto counting. We'll focus on understanding one to one matching. Often times children may get into a hurry when counting objects and they get off count with how many items they may actually have. Have your children count objects at home slowly, making sure they say one number for one object.

Religion
We'll continue talking about God as our Father. We'll learn about St. Francis of Assisi, as it is his feast day today. Well also talk about the different ways we can pray to God and how he hears us.

Social Studies
We'll focus on a Weekly Reader dealing with Fire Safety. We'll have a special presentation from the firefighters on Friday morning. Be sure to go through your fire exit plan with your child at home!

Science
We'll be talking more about matter. We'll be learning the different attributes of big/little and heavy/light.

Art
We'll be making an Autumn Mobile.

Centers
We'll be working on some Fire Safety projects and be doing some patterning (Math.)

***Don't forget that Wednesday is Grandparents' Day!!! If a grandparent is not able to make it, a special friend will do too! For more info. check your newsletter or give Miss Sara in the school office a call!!!

That's all for now....Thanks for stopping by!!! I'll post pictures from Grandparents' Day and the firefighter visit when I can!
~Mrs. Westlund =)

September 27th-October 1st

2010-09-26T12:51:00.000-05:00

Hello! It's Sunday afternoon and such a beautiful day! I hope that this weather continues throughout the week ~ it's great to go out and get some fresh air with the kids when we can!

Here's what we've been doing so far this year:

We started off the year getting into the routine of school- our daily schedule, going to Music, Gym, Library and Computers, Lunchtime & Recess routines and much more! The children have done a wonderful job and are really getting acclimated to our school day.
We also began with an overview of the alphabet, which we're still going through now. It's just a quick refresher on each letter before we get into learning each sound and using these letters to form words. Many of the children are reading already and that is awesome! Throughout the year I will be helping them using our Guided Reading series. This series is really wonderful in that it meets the child at their level. This is done in a small group. The groups are not always the same, changing to meet the needs of the different learners and what my lesson pertains to that week.

In Math we've started with learning about patterns and sorting and classifying. We'll finish that up this week, and next week move onto learning numbers and counting.

In Science we've learned about matter and it's different states: solid, liquid, gas. We've also talked and learned about the difference between living and non-living things. As we get further into the fall season we will start to talk about migration and hibernation and what different animals do to get ready for winter.

In Social Studies we've learned about ourselves and how we fit into our community. We have talked about our friends at school and have started talking about our families at home. We will continue to work on our families for the next couple of weeks. Coming home soon will be a 'family tree' poster for you to fill out and decorate and return to school.

In Religion we've been learning about Creation. We've heard the story from Genesis in the Bible about how God created the earth and how God made all living things. We are now talking about our responciblity to take care of this great earth that God has given to us. We will continue this through this week and then move on to talk about God as our Father, which will nicely tie into our lessons on family in Social Studies.

Our Center Times are going nicely- THANK YOU to those who are able to help! I could not do these without your help and the children LOVE having you here. I know that many are not able to participate this way due to work, and I understand, as I am also not able to participate with my son's activities as much do to my schedule. Please know that there will be other opportunities to help out throughout the year - Halloween time, Christmas time, maybe working on some cutting or other prep work for a project, chaperoning for a field trip...I will try to give you plenty of notice for the extra special things to help make time for them in your schedule.
*Speaking of extra special things...Grandparents' Day is coming up in October. Please look for our October newsletter coming out soon for this date...if a grandparent is not available on that day, a special friend would do nicely to come and visit also.
***I am still looking for one more helper on Mondays and Wednesdays for Centers. I will send home a calendar for October this week.

Field Trip to the Orchard
Our field trip went well! I was so afraid we'd have to reschedule but the weather held out for us and we made it back to school just in time. The children really enjoyed the tour, filling their jugs with cider and picking apples. THANK YOU BAYFIELD APPLE COMPANY FOR YOUR HOSPITALITY!!!

That's all for now...thanks for stopping by!
May God bless us all with a wonderful week!!
Love,
Mrs. Westlund =)

Welcome to OLL Kindergarten 2010-2011

2010-08-25T13:09:00.000-05:00

Hello! It's hard to believe the summer is over and it's school time again! I am very excited to be back teaching Kindergarten here at Our Lady! Please be sure to check in on my blog every week to see what we're working on and the fun we are having!

Thanks!
Mrs. Westlund =)