Knowing Jesus, Growing in Faith, Serving God’s Children

October 18, 2010
Dear Parents,
We’re back to a full week! Conferences are in a few weeks. A note is coming home today so you can choose the time that works best for you. Put all your children on the one note. Thursday, Nov. 11th, is a half-day, ending at 11:15AM and Friday the 12th, we have no school at all due to conferences.
This Thursday is Family Math Night!! It should be fun and informative. We will have childcare. It is from 6 to 7PM. Let us know if you are coming so we can be ready for everyone!
Everyone will have little books in their homework bag now. Look at the suggestion sheet for things to do and questions to ask when they are reading. Those times together with a book are very important. Everyday when we read books together at school I model comprehension strategies; how I think about what I’m reading. I teach them to make connections with what they already know, with other books, and with the world around them. They love to make connections! Children today have many experiences that help them understand God’s wonderful world. We’re also making predictions as to what will happen next. These are all things readers do when they read to understand!
This week we will learn about “Gg.” We’ll work on the hard sound “g” makes, as in “gum.” We also learn about the “g” sound as in “giant,” but will emphasize the hard sound first. Integrating “g” into our days, we’ll play a math game with goldfish crackers, learn a poem about gum, thank God for many things, and work on geoboards in math. Don’t forget to send items that begin with a sound “g” makes for tomorrow. When practicing at home they should be able to recognize and write the letter, say the sound or sounds it makes, and think of things that begin or end with that sound. If your child finds this hard please practice a little each night.
We don’t actively celebrate Halloween at Zion, but we do enjoy God’s harvest season. If the children want to share their costume for Show and Tell this week or next, they can bring it to show us on their day. We will have a “Trunk or Treat” event on Halloween, Sunday, Oct. 31st, from 5 to 7PM in the parking lot. You can come in costume, or without, to enjoy all the games, activities, and especially the candy! They’ll have a place to park and then a different area for the activities and trunks full of candy. If you were planning on attending it would be appreciated if you could bring a bag of candy for each child you are bringing. These can be left in the church office any time this week or next. We almost ran out of candy last year because it was such a hit with the community!
Thank you to everyone for returning their book buddies, library books and take-home folders so promptly! You are awesome! They are learning to be so organized and responsible! It is important to let them do these things themselves as much as possible. They can carry their backpack and such.
We’ll be using them to make magnets for our church friends and ourselves next week.
We will plant seeds this week and will let these grow a bit so we can experiment with them. They decided they needed to try some with water and some without to see if they really do need water. We’ll try a light/no light experiment, too. We’ll be drawing the parts of a plant and learning about the things plants need to live.
Our Bible lessons this week are about Joshua and the battle of Jericho, a favorite of children. There will be no new Bible verse, as we need time to practice and review all those we’ve learned.


God’s blessings,
Roxi Withee