rgsda kindergarten

This week was Book Week at Rivergate. My class made some great book covers in Eric Carle's style. They had a fun time reading with their buddy class. They read a little book with their 4th grade buddy and then the 4th grader read an Eric Carle book to them.  They made their own book about oviparous animals.  And they brought a book from home to read to the class for show and tell. This class has some amazingly awesome readers. 

It has been another great parent teacher conference day.  The children are showing their parents how well they can read, count, and write.  It is amazing how much they have grown and learned since the beginning of the year. Their ability to make more mature choices has blossomed as well.  It has been great to watch them develop in their relationship with Jesus too. One parent said that their child read from the Bible in church. Yea, God. We can thank Him for all of the good things that my dear children are learning and doing in school.

We had fun with school spirit week this week. This is a picture of us on hat and sunglassess day.

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Our last winter sports event of the year was bowling. Today the kids and parents had a great time throwing, rolling, pushing and racking up those scores in bowling.  One boy told me, "You know why I have such a big score in bowling, Mrs. Hamstra. It's because I went bowling so many times when I was a kid." Keep it up kids!

My class all went into Mr. Smith's first grade room for Round Up day today.  They were a bit apprehensive and excited at the same time.  We had visited his room several times recently and they were ready to give it a try. The children have learned so much and seem so capable and soon it will be time to let them go to the next class.  Under Mr. Smith's expert direction they will continue mastering more life long learning skills.

I had a new crop of 14 delightful  propsectiive kindergarten children for Round Up Day.  They are God's children to guide for service here on earth and for eternity.

Hurray for the 100th day of school!  It was almost a disappointment. When we counted the 99th day of school, I found that my new package of numbered children had two 99's and no 100. How could we celebrate 100 days of school without the special 100th child? One child came of with a very good answer.  She said, "We could pray about it." So she prayed for me, for the class and for our special celebration that we could find the 100th child. After school I called the store where I purchased the package of 200 numbered children and explained the situation to the clerk.  The clerk said that there was no need to take down all of the children that I have taped to the wall and exchange the package for a new one.  Just bring in the second 99 and we'll give you the 100th child from another package.  Thank you child for being an inspiration to turn things over to God in prayer.  Thank you God for answering a child's prayer.  Thank you Lakeshore Learning for being such a great store to do business .

For our winter sports activity we went ice skating at Sherwood Ice Arena today. We dressed in layers, snapped up our ice skates and had a lesson on how to fall, how to get up and how to skate.  All of the children who came had perseverance and learned how to ice skate.  Some went fast; others skated slowly.  Some skated by the edge and others did turns in the middle.  They charmed the retired folks who were shared our rink. 

After skating everyone came to my house for lunch.  We had all kinds of shapes and colors of food.  The children were good guests.  They ate neatly and played kindly and showed lots of respect.  Everyone had a great day.  I think that we'll all sleep well  tonight.

We have started a new unit on having a health body.  This week we learned about the digestive system, the food pyramid and how to make healthy choices from each food group.  Some comments that I heard the children make today at lunch time were "Mrs. Hamstra, I know where the esophagus is."  "I know where my food is in my body right now." One girl was looking at lher unch items and was counting up the number of different things from each food group that she had today. These little minds do absorb and learn so much.  What an awesome responsibility and delightful reward teachers have!!

The children watched the inauguration of our 44th president in the gym with the rest of the school on Tuesday. It was a historical event to see Barack Obama become our 44th president. They were a bit wiggly during the music and preliminaries, but when the president spoke they sat still and quietly listened.  Then they came back and wrote about what they saw in their journals.  Someday when they are older they will look back in their journals and remember where they were and what they saw on January 20, 2009.

One of our community outreach projects this Christmas is to provide gifts for a local organization called Fill a Stocking, Fill a Heart.  The children brought toiletries, clothes, school supplies and toys from home.  Today Patty and Jim Sweet from Fill a Stocking came to pick up our 10 filled stockings plus extra things for more stockings. Patty, a former school teacher, had tears in her eyes as she left with our things as the need is so great in our area.  Thanks to everyone who brought something for our class project.  The children are learning that when you give to someone in need it is the same as giving it to Je

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