Happy New Year from Junior Kindergarten!
We had such an amazing holiday season, full of surprises and fun. Our gingerbread people ran away and we had to go on a treasure hunt around the school to find them! We finally caught up with them after following clues back to out classroom, where we decorated them, played pin the carrot nose on the snowman, holiday bingo, decorated snow globes with our families, and laughed with our friends. Thank you to everyone for your help, and for the amazing holiday gifts and caring through the year!
We have been busy in the classroom sorting, counting, writing, telling and acting out stories and learning more about our friends and how to fill their buckets by helping and caring. Social and Emotional learning is an integral part of Junior Kindergarten, and is a part of our daily learning. The reading groups are all working on sight words, beginning sounds of letters, and blends of letter sounds as more complex ideas are made possible through their development.
Our narrative writing continues as we complete journal pages based on our interests and experiences. Each child practices their sentences and the upper/lower case letters in sentence structure. All of these foundations are critical as they develop at their own pace and grasp the idea of writing and stories.
Elke Kenyon will be (formally) joining our classroom daily as an Assistant Teacher. She has been with us for the past month regularly but we have made it official beginning January 2. She is also an alumni of Roycemore school so has a long history here both as a student, a parent, and a great supporter. I know you will love her as much as we all do. She has her Master's Degree in Clinical Psychology and has been volunteering at Roycemore in the lower and middle school for various classrooms this year. She has two children at Roycemore, Ella (3rd Grade) and Kai (8th Grade). Please join me in welcoming Elke. We are thrilled to have her, as an amazing resource and teacher.
I am excited to jump into part two of this school year, as we begin our Winter and Penguin unit of study. Look for more information on our science experiments, math progression, language arts learning, and fine and gross motor skills development.
Happy New Year!!
Mrs. Massey
