Primary News – September 2023

September was full of excitement, new routines, and new friends. Our primary students gathered at our flagpole with their lions (older ‘mentors’) to pray for our school, participated in Bubble Day (learning how to walk by the office quietly), and so much more.

Our Creator Crew and Explorer Crew encountered many new things this month! A new school for many of our preschool students, a new teacher, new friends, new routines, and a new classroom design. They jumped right in working on their letters. You should see their classroom wall starting to fill up with their letter artwork!

Preschool and kindergarten learned and incorporated our MZ WAYS through their new routines. They demonstrated love, responsibility, and excellence by making and walking in a line, learning and following their class rules, behaving in the bathroom, learning to show kindness to others, taking care of their classroom, and learning and using people’s names.

Kindergarten began their year reviewing letters, letter sounds, how to write each letter, and practiced words like at and it. Each week, they focus on three to five letters. This month they also worked on isolating each sounds in words like “at” and “dog” while learning how to read and write these words. Rhyming was the name of the game. kindergarten students are masters at identifying the beginning and ending sounds of words.

In Bible, kindergarteners read a few chapters in their Jesus Storybook Bible. They learned about the Garden of Eden and the story of Joseph and his brothers. They also work on memorizing a verse together. One verse can take several weeks, but this month they learned Genesis 1:1 and Romans 8:28. They also learned about Isaiah 40:28 and 2 Timothy 1:7 through songs from Saddleback Kids. They love the motions that go along with these songs. We can’t wait to see all of the verses they memorize next month!

Math took a lot of problem solving, counting, and writing. Kindergarten students built a bridge out of several different materials; counted forward, backward, and by tens to 200; and learned the meaning of equal.

Kindergarten and first grade learned all about apples this month. Kindergarteners used their senses to describe apples. They sampled four different kinds of apples and described how they tasted. Both grades learned the parts of an apple and the life cycle of apples (K) or apple trees (1st). First graders also learned how to make predictions. You’ll have to ask your first grader what those predictions are!

First grade learned so much this month and began settling into their routines. They reviewed their alphabet, letter sounds, and book skills. They learned the better alphabet song which they love to sing every day! Did you know that Mrs. Simoneau’s favorite author is Peter Reynolds? This month, first graders focused on reading stories written by him. Students also worked to identify the parts of the book including the title, author, spine, cover, and back. They finished their first reading unit all about games. They developed an understanding of sports, friendly competition, fiction versus nonfiction, and that multiple texts can represent the same theme. Mrs. Simoneau completed the students’ beginning of year reading and phonics assessment which will help create their reading groups starting next month. First graders worked on written responses in their writing journal and workbook. As a class, they worked to answer questions about the text they read each day and develop a deeper understanding of their stories. They also began learning about the important parts of a sentence- subject, predicate, punctuation, and capital letters. 

In math, first grade focused on number fluency through ten, counting, comparing numbers, writing number words, and number handwriting. During their morning meeting they began doing number of the day in which students practice a variety of number skills! They also learned their addition and subtraction facts within ten.

First grade Bible was all about our identity in Christ. They learned about how precious we are in the eyes of the Lord and how He made us so special and unique. Students created self portraits for their Deep Hope board in their classroom. More will be added to this board thoughout the year. They learned about the story of Abraham and Isaac and the obedience of Abraham. They learned about how this story was a hint for the sacrifice Jesus would make for us as well. 

Way to start the year off strong, primary! We are so proud of you.