Almost there! ;) The only thing they need to bring to school tomorrow is a water bottle (if they want one at the park) and a snack. If they want to bring them in their backpacks, that's fine. I know we haven't seen the sun in awhile, but it is supposed to come out tomorrow. If you would like me to put some sunscreen on your kiddo before we head to the park, feel free to send some along. They brought everything else home today. We said good-bye to Grace today, since she won't be at school tomorrow, and also wished Oliver a happy birthday!
We will be celebrating our last day of school Mass tomorrow. The kids will be sitting with their family groups since staff will be leading Mass. Join us if you are able. At 12:00 we will grab our lunches and head to Memorial Park. If you are walking with us, meet us in our room @12:00. You are also more than welcome to just meet us at the park. We will be there until about 2:00 where we will walk back to school and dismiss from there. Report cards will be mailed next week.
It has been my pleasure getting to know your children this year. I am so fortunate to be a part of one of the biggest steps in their lives--their first year of school! To be able to watch them grow academically and spiritually is truly a blessing. I was especially blessed this year to have such an amazing group of parents who were so supportive. You have no idea how much that means to me. THANK YOU for everything! Have a wonderful summer!
Blessings- Mrs. Busch
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
We are in the home stretch! Tomorrow we will be walking to the NP library for a little tour and a chance for them to see where the books are for them to check out this summer. She will tell us about the reading program as well. We will also be cleaning out our lockers (there are some interesting things in some of them.) ;)
We finished our unit on magnets today! They were surprised at some things that were not magnetic. Our TFK was all about how to keep fit and healthy.
We also had music and phy.ed today!
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Monday, May 22, 2017
First and foremost I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who contributed to the gift cards I received last Friday! WOW! I am SO lucky to have such wonderful, thoughtful families. I am so appreciative for all of it and very excited to try the Jordan Supper Club! :) I'm sure the kids told you I cried!
I still can't believe these are our last few days of school! We put one more poem in our poetry books today and then I sent them home as well as their math journals, extra folders, and extra supplies. I also sent home their Memory Books I made.
We had "move up" day today too! They got to go up to Mrs. Wetschka's room and experience what 1st grade will be like! I think they are ready! :)
On Wednesday I will be sending home their pencil boxes as well as their reading level sheets. They will NOT need to bring their backpacks on Thursday, if they have nothing to bring to school, since we will be cleaning out their lockers on Wednesday as well. They can still bring water bottles to take to the park and if they are bringing a lunch from home. On Thursday we will be picking up our bag lunches at 12:00 and heading to Memorial Park. We will eat lunch there. Please join us if you can! If you would like to walk with us, meet us in the classroom shortly after 12:00.
Our TFK was all about ocean zones. In religion we talked about Adam and Eve and how they disobeyed God and that was a sin. We also talked about not disobeying our parents and that we need to make sure we ask God for forgiveness when we do.
We also had phy.ed and music today.
Have a great night and enjoy the sunshine!
Thursday, May 18, 2017
Phew!! We have a lot of stored up energy that needs to be released. Rain, rain, go away....well you know the rest! ;)
I forgot to mention on Monday that Beau is our shining star this week! We learned that his favorite sport is soccer and he wants to be a pro soccer player someday.
We worked on some addition this morning in math and did our last letter sheet for qu! They did a really good job writing their letters today.
We learned all about magnets today too! It was fun to watch them try to match up two north sides of magnets. Ask them about how it felt. We then did some testing of things that are/are not magnetic.
We also had music, library, and phy.ed.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
I have slowly been sending home some "Memory Books" that they have been working on. I have been sending them home as they finish them so some have already brought them home and others will come home by the end of this week. There is also some art work in their folders today. Their crosses that we made after Easter as well as their flower and a weaving project that they had been working on in art. They also have their extra crayons from art class. I will be slowly sending stuff home over the next few days (extra supplies, notebooks, name tags, etc.) so that they don't have to bring everything home in one day.
We watched preschool graduate after Mass today. It was hard to believe that some of them were up there a year ago already!
We did a lot of catch-up stuff today and played some war in math today. We also finished up our last person to be drawn in our writer's journals. We now have all 22 of our friends in our journals!
Tomorrow will be our last day for library so please return all books. Mrs. Stavos will still be collecting books next week as well. We also had computers this afternoon.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Tuesday, May 16, 2017
Even though we only have 7 days left (but whose counting) we worked really hard today!
We learned a new math concept today with our number lines. We talked about greater than and less than and practiced hopping forward and backward on the number line. It is hard for some of them to remember to count their first "hop" as 1 and not the number they are starting on.
We are working on the letter q as our last letter this week. We learned that you have to have "u glued to q" in order to make the sound.
Our TFK today was about kid heroes. It brought our discussion to raising money for the poor and I was so impressed at the ideas they came up with on how they want to be able to help as well! Learning to do God's work!
We also had music and phy.ed today.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Friday, May 12, 2017
TGIF! We made it through one more week! FYI - part of your Mother's Day gift is in the brown paper bag. We "lost" some at the end of the day when they tipped over so you might want to make sure your bag is not leaking!
Just a reminder that Monday is our field day. This is an out-of-uniform day. Please make sure they have tennis shoes.
We read from our readers and wrapped up our letter W. I will NOT be sending home any more book bags next week. I like to take at least a week so that they can slowly start to filter in and I can collect them all. Please have them all back by next Friday. I will still be sending home sight words this week, but any that come home this week DO NOT need to come back. They can keep the little folder as well. They will get new ones in first grade.
For math today, we reviewed line segments and measuring with linking cubes. They measured the table, the fish bowl, my desk, and the bulletin board.
In computers today we worked on our base ten blocks. They are getting really good at counting tens and ones. Some of them even started the hundreds place.
Happy Mother's Day to all you wonderful mothers!! I can see how happy and loved these children are and that is a true testament to the love they feel at home.
Have a great weekend! Mrs. Busch
Thursday, May 11, 2017
Just a reminder that they can wear their marathon t-shirts to school tomorrow. If they have not handed in their form for next year yet, please do so tomorrow or let me know so I can send a form home tomorrow.
We spent the morning working on using our counters to figure out how to make 10 as well as working on our sight words. We put the poem "Happy Birthday" in our notebooks and practiced writing the word "are."
This afternoon, the 4th graders presented "The Great Leaders." They taught us about some of the most influential people in the world! The kindergartners sat very well for their performance.
We also had music and library today.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
The 2nd graders led us in a beautiful Mass today as they celebrated their 1st Communion in front of the school today. They looked great!
Last call for book orders! I will be putting in the order tonight when I get home from picking up my daughter from her first year of college! Wow, this year flew by!
We also had family groups today. The 8th graders are gone on a retreat so we wrote them some good-bye/thank-you notes for being such great leaders this year and wishing them luck on their next journey.
We continued working on the letter W as well as greater than/less than in math.
For art today, they went to the computer lab to create some ladybugs using the tux paint. They turned out really cute!!
We also had computers today and continued working on some math skills.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch Monday, May 8, 2017
My apologies on a lack of updates, spring is a very busy time of year! Book orders will be due on Wednesday.I need to make sure the order will be in before the end of the year.
We had a VERY busy week last week with our Mass, special visitor day, family groups, and a show from the middle school pop choir! This week has a few extra activities, but a little more calm. We will be watching the 4th grade great leaders presentations on Thursday as well as the piano/voice recital tomorrow. Wednesday will be our last family group of the year. We will be making cards for the 8th graders as they will be gone on their retreat that day.
We are wrapping up the last 2 letters (w and q) and really trying to get our handwriting down a little better. We are definitely starting to get lazy when it comes to writing, especially our names.
Last Friday for math I taught them the game "War." They loved it! We will be playing some more this week. It is a great game to learn greater than and less than.
There homework tonight is to go home and see if they have a Bible somewhere in the house. We talked about it being God's words and how much the Bible can help us when we need him. There was open adoration in the chapel today and some of them chose to go down there for a short time. They did a great job of knowing when they were done and quietly walking back to class.
Blakely is our Shining Star this week! We learned that her favorite food is spaghetti and she has had surgery!
Looking ahead...Next Monday is field day. They will be with their family groups as we go outside to play some games set up by the teachers and staff. It will be an out-of-uniform day, but please make sure they wear tennis shoes. We will then get together as a school in the gym to say good-bye to our 8th graders. Move-up day is Monday, May 22. The kindergartners will go up to Mrs. Wetschka's room to see what their desks will look like and meet Mrs. Wetschka as well. We have an all-school picnic in the park on the last day of school. I will be looking for volunteers to walk with me to the park as well as come and chaperone. More information to come.
We also had phy.ed and music today.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Monday, May 1, 2017
Happy May Day! It sure doesn't feel like May outside, but it sounds like it is going to warm up this week. We sure have A LOT of energy to burn. We started our morning with concert practice and some other interruptions and they never fully recovered. Hopefully we can get outside this week!
We did get our calendar done as well as reviewed some patterns and learned some harder ones as well. We wrapped up the letter J and read the story Leo the Late Bloomer, which is a story about a little lion that just learned to read, write, and draw a little later. We talked about how everyone learns at their own pace.
We had our last Mass practice today for Wednesday's Mass. Again, you are more than welcome to sit up front.
If you have a special visitor coming on Thursday, please hand in your form by tomorrow.
Brody is our Shining Star this week. We found out he wants to be an astronaut AND got a new baby brother this weekend! Welcome, Beau!
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Friday, April 28, 2017
Monday is our last month of school! Yikes! Just a reminder to send in the form for special guest day next Thursday if your child is bringing a special visitor to school. We also have our kindergarten Mass on Wednesday, May 3. We will be singing another special song after communion.
We are starting some of those end-of-the year activities. Throughout the week we drew our portraits as well as our family pictures. We drew them in September and again this week and it is AMAZING to see the progress they make in adding details to their pictures! We also started our "Memory Books."
Yesterday we talked about living and non-living things and today we went outside with our clipboards and found some things outside that were living and non-living.
In writing we worked on our sentence writing and reviewed punctuation.
For math, we reviewed nickels and counting by 5's
Have a great weekend! Mrs. Busch
Thursday, April 27, 2017
My apologies for not updating this week. I had meetings and appointments right after school this week.
We have been very busy this week though! In reading, we are working on the letter J as well as different genres of books.
In math, we have been reviewing our money, especially nickels and dimes. We have also been talking about 3-D shapes and yesterday and today we worked on the cylinder. We made a rocket ship out of a cylinder.
We are learning about living and non-living things. We learned about the things that make something living. Does it grow? Does it breath? Does it require nutrients? I had planned on taking a walk outside to discover more living and non-living things, but the weather didn't cooperate. We will try next week.
We also had music, library, and phy.ed today.
Have a great night and stay warm! :(
Mrs. Busch
Monday, April 24, 2017
I can't believe this is the last week of April! Yikes! We practiced at Mass today. PLEASE practice Mass parts with your child at home as well. We only have so much time here during the day to learn their part as well as their music.
The last book order for the year will be coming home this week. I will put in the order @May 8.
We read the story Red Eyes or Blue Feathers. It is a story about animals adaptations. Last week we read Chameleon, Chameleon and learned about all the different colors they can change to adapt to their surroundings. We have been talking a lot about different genres of books as well. We reviewed fiction and non-fiction and today we talked about informational text. We also added Kate to our writing journals.
We started our reading part of our NWEA testing this morning as well as having phy.ed and music.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Friday, April 21, 2017
It was SO nice to see the sun today we spent some extra time outside. We walked around the school to check out all the flowers blooming. We also spent some free choice time outside.
We continued working on the letter V today and practiced spelling some 5 letter words. In math, we worked on our ABC pattern using our pattern blocks.
Mrs. Higgins (a former St. Wenceslaus teacher) came in to read us a story and talk to us about the importance of Earth Day. She helped us remember all the things we need to do to keep our Earth healthy!
We finished up our math portion of our NWEA testing, but we will be doing reading first thing Monday morning!
Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the sunshine! Mrs. Busch
Thursday, April 20, 2017
Just a reminder of STEM night tonight! It is an open house from 6:30-8:00 tonight in the gym. Come and do some super fun engineering, math, and science activities! This is an ADULT-CHILD run activity so please make sure you stay with your child at each station. Hope to see you there!
We spent most of this morning doing some measuring! We talked about the different ways of measuring things and then did our own measuring using linking cubes. They measured chairs, tables, books, blocks, and the rug. We found out it is 161 linking cubes long!
We read The Legend of the Easter Egg this afternoon and practiced our Mass song.
It is severe weather awareness week and today we practiced our tornado drill. I told them to talk to you tonight about where they should go in the house if their is a tornado or severe storm. We practiced being in our crouch position with our hand over the back of our heads.
We also had music, library, and phy.ed.
Hope to see you tonight! Mrs. Busch
Wednesday, April 19, 2017
We are back in the full swing of things! We had our first round of NWEA testing this afternoon. We started the math portion and will finish up on Friday for those who did not finish. Next week we will do the reading portion. We are scheduled for 8:00 on Monday morning!
We have been talking a lot about Earth Day over the last couple of days and Mary Higgins will be coming in on Friday to wrap up our week. Yesterday we made our planet "Earth" and today we started writing how we can help take care of our Earth. We talked about the 3R's (reduce, reuse, recycle.)
In math, we used our geobaords to talk about line segments. We then took it to the next level and they had to copy designs onto their boards using their geobands. I added the pictures to Shutterfly.
We started the letter V this week as well as read the story called The Incapacitated Capitals. The capital letters had lost their will to write and the lowercase letters had to help them get it back. We worked on punctuation as well as did some sentence scrambles on the SmartBoard.
We also had Mass and art today.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Monday, April 17, 2017
I don't know if you OR your child are ready to go back, but we have the "home stretch" ahead of us! I can't believe we only have 29 days left! Yikes! Mrs. Langfield did a wonderful job filling in for me and she said the kids were great! I am so ready to get back to school and to our routine. In the next few weeks we will be doing our spring NWEA testing, getting ready for our next Mass on Wednesday, May 3, practicing for our all school spring concert, and celebrating Grandparent's Day! Enjoy the sunshine and I will see everyone tomorrow!
Monday, April 3, 2017
Just one last reminder that I will be gone the rest of this week so any change of plans needs to be in a note or call/email to the office. Mrs. Langfield will be checking notes from folders so that will work as a line of communication as well. THANK YOU so much for all the well wishes I have received. They tell me it is a quick surgery and recovery. That's the plan! ;) I tried to keep the week pretty normal as possible. They will be starting a new letter (D) and doing a lot of money review. The 8th graders will be performing the Stations of the Cross in church on Friday at 1:30 for anyone who would like to attend.
We worked on some sentences today and writing some sight words to fill in those sentences. In math, we practiced writing some tally marks by counting the number of pattern blocks we used for each of our designs.
We also went over to the church to see the Stations of the Cross statues that are on the outside walls by the pews. They did such a great job remembering what happened at each station.
I have updated the "popcorn words" on the webpage. These are all the words that we have done thus far.
Drew is our Shining Star this week! We found out that Drew likes to run in kid races and wants to be a fisherman when he grows up!
We also had phy.ed and music today.
Have a great rest of the week and a WONDERFUL spring break! Mrs. Busch
Friday, March 31, 2017
Wow! We are already heading into April! We had a special presentation today from the Science Museum of Minnesota that taught us all about fossils and dinosaur bones! The kids loved it! It was made possible by a grant that we won a few months ago. The 4th and 5th graders had an overnight there last month. This took a large part of our morning.
I did NOT send home a volunteer calendar for April. Since I am going to be gone most of next week and we don't come back until April 18, it was kind of left to the last week and a half. I will definitely send out an email for some extra help here and there for those last weeks in April. Thanks!
I have heard from a few people that are going to be gone for part of the week next week. If possible, can you email me and let me know if your child will be gone any days next week so I can let Mrs. Langfield know. Thanks!!
I sent home Mass parts this week with the exception of some song announcers. Those will go home on Monday. Our next Mass is May 3 and with Spring Break and me being gone, I wanted to get them home from them to practice. We had a short turn-around for Mass! ;) Yearbook forms also went home this week. They are due Wednesday.
The 6th graders are doing a fundraiser for one of their cousins. If they would like to participate, they can bring in $2 or more and then they can wear their pajamas to school next Thursday. If possible, please send in the money on Monday so I can collect it before I am gone. If they choose NOT to participate, then it is just a regular uniform day. Let me know if you have any questions.
We worked on some more C-V-C words as well as blends on our whiteboards today. I am also going back and concentrating on each vowel sound so today we worked on the short O sound.
Our Promise magazine was all about our feelings.
Jan Ruhland, Isabelle's mom, was our Mystery Reader today. I forgot to mention that Dr. Smyth, Peter's dad, was our Mystery Reader last week.
We also had computers today and checked out the PAC with all the Auction baskets and decorations. Looks great!!
Have a great weekend and enjoy the beautiful weather! Mrs. Busch
Thursday, March 30, 2017
As some of you already know, I will be out next week Tuesday-Friday. I will be having gallbladder surgery on Tuesday and hoping with Spring Break right after that, I will be back 100% when we come back! I told the kids today I would be gone and why. I just explained to them that I have a little thing inside of me that isn't working very well and they are just going to take it out and I will be all better. I know they have a million questions and worries at this age so I wanted to reassure them that I was going to be fine and the doctors are going to fix me right up! I would love some extra prayers next week. ;) Lisa Langfield will be my sub so please DO NOT email me with any change of plans. You will need to call the office and let Mrs. Hartman know and she will let Mrs. Langfield know.
On another note, we worked on the blend tr- this morning. This one is really hard for them to differentiate between tr- and ch-. We also did some journaling with some tr- words.
In math, we reviewed our pattern blocks and took them a step further. They were given a shape and had to come up with 3 different ways to make that shape using their blocks.
We also had music, library, and phy.ed today.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Since we did not have Mass or art today, Mr. T was able to take them for an extra phy.ed this morning. The longer morning allowed us to make our "stained glass" crosses that we will hang in our room for Easter.
We finished our "Stations of the Cross" coloring books this morning. Most of them finished coloring it, but a few still have some pages left to finish if they would like to finish it at home. We have been working on these off and on since Ash Wednesday. We finished talking about the last 4 stations today and concluded with Jesus rising for us!
We started the letter Y this week as well and put Jesse in our notebooks.
Happy Birthday to Ethan!
We also had computers today.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Tuesday, March 27, 2017
I received some contact paper. Thank you June Andersen! I use this to make some "stain glassed" crosses for Easter.
This morning we did some poetry writing, played some games using our CVC words, and wrapped up our letter E unit.
We also talked about landforms such as mountains, rivers, and oceans.
This afternoon we had another prayer service for Lent.
We do NOT have Mass tomorrow due to grades 2-8 holding reconciliation services.
We also had music and phy.ed today.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Monday, March 26, 2017
It is so nice to finally see the sun! I told the kids that they don't need to bring their snow bags anymore unless the weather starts to get much colder or it would snow.They should still bring a hat and mittens just in case.
I am looking to see if someone would be willing to donate a roll or two or clear contact paper for a project. I need 2 rolls, but if I can get at least one, I would appreciate it. I think you can buy it at Ace Hardware. Thanks!
Our TFK this week was all about "plant power." We have been studying the different parts of the plant as we journal the growth of the ones we planted. We noticed today that since we used the same container to plant our flowers as we did to carve our pumpkins one of the pumpkin seeds got planted and we are now officially growing a pumpkin!!! How fun!!
In math, we played our dice game and practiced more addition.
Ethan is our Shining Star this week! We learned he likes basketball and wants to be an engineer when he grows up.
We also had music and phy.ed today.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Thursday, March 22, 2017
I had to leave a little early yesterday due to an appointment so I did not get notes, but wanted to mention what a FABULOUS job the kids did leading Mass yesterday! I have received an overwhelming amount of compliments on what a great job they did. From the readers, to the singers, they were great!! We practice and practice, but you never know if it has "sunk in" until you see them in action. SO PROUD of them!
On another note, we started working on our last vowel this week. We are working on the letter e. For now, we will only focus on the short vowel sound in large groups and once I feel they have mastered that, we start working on the long vowel sounds.
In math, we have been doing a lot of adding and subtracting using different formats and manipulatives.
We are also still talking about our wants and needs, parts of a flower, and signs of spring!
Mrs. Alladin came in today to talk to us about being a gracious winner/loser and how to be a "team player."
Today was their last day for rollerskating so they do not need to bring their helmets anymore. We also had library today.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
Tomorrow is our Mass! I have asked the 1st graders to move back some pews so that you can sit in the front. Feel free to sit in the front left pews facing the altar and closest to the choir area.
We worked on a lot of math and social studies today. We learned all about wants vs. needs.Food, shelter, water, and clothing are all things we NEED to survive. An XBox, a phone, a football are all things we WANT. We read The Berenstein Bears Get the Gimmies and watched a BrainPop Jr. short video about the things we want versus needs.
We also observed our plants and wrote about it in our journals.
In math, we played "Roll and Write" where they had to roll the dice and then practice writing that number on their sheet.
We also had phy.ed and music today. Thursday will be our last day of rollerskating.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Monday, March 20, 2017
Happy 1st Day of Spring! The leprechaun has gone back to Ireland...phew!! I forgot to mention that I will be putting in the book order on Thursday so that I have some buffer time to make sure I receive them before Easter break.
We should be able to have some normal routine here for the next few weeks. I am really starting to "push" them now that we only have a few weeks before we get a big break. I know it will be even harder for them to focus after Easter break. We are only 42 school days away from being 1st graders! Where did this year go?!?!
I was able to get everyone's reading groups done today. Yay!
We are continuing our unit on plants. Today we made a flower and labeled all the parts. There are 5 things that a flower/plant needs to grow. Ask your child if they can name them.
Gabe is our Shining Star this week! We learned his favorite food is spaghetti and he wants to be a music teacher when he grow up!
We also had phy.ed and music today.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Friday, March 17, 2017
Happy St. Patrick's Day! We were all things green today! Our day started out with some clean-up due to that tricky little leprechaun that really made a mess! He did leaves us a treat though since he felt bad about the tricks he played. ;)
It was so nice to see everyone and visit at conferences. I truly do love what I do and enjoy watching your children grow in their faith and academics.
In computers today, we used TuxPaint to help us draw and color in a leprechaun. Mrs. May led showed them a guided drawing and then they did it all on their own. They turned out adorable! We also finished our leprechauns that we started on Wednesday. We painted then and today we added the rest of it.
We worked on the letter C and the rules to determine if we use a k or a c. We also practiced some blends and digraph sounds.
We practiced for our Mass today as well as had an all-school prayer service. Due to all the extra things we had going on today, I did not get to book bags. I have quite a stack! I love it!! Happy reading! :)
Happy Birthday to Isabelle tomorrow!
Have a great weekend! Mrs. Busch
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
The leprechaun strikes again!! He managed to avoid some traps and reek some havoc in our classroom! The kids are having a blast with this. When you come in for conferences, you will see some pretty elaborate traps that are being built in order to try and "catch" this little stinker. Sketches have been drawn with plans as well as traps made from blocks, Legos, and some counters. I LOVE to have conversations with them to see how they can change their traps and make them better. They are VERY engaged as to how to make that happen!
We read the story Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato and learned those leprechauns don't always tell the truth. We played some more flyswatter game today to help us practice our sight words as well as some sight word BINGO. We also worked on counting syllables today and adding our dice cubes.
Our TFK was all about the different helpers we have here at school.
We also had music and phy.ed today.
Have a great night! I will see some of you tonight! Mrs. Busch
Monday, March 13, 2017
Well the leprechaun has arrived! That naughty little leprechaun turned our books upside down, hung things from the ceiling and turned our calendar upside down! We made some "traps" to try and catch that little leprechaun. We will see if it works! ;)
We are starting the letter C this week. It has some rules that we need to learn to follow to help us remember if we use a k or c.
In math, we are working with our balance scales. We talked about the different types of scales and weighed some things in our classroom using teddy bear counters on the other side.
We also practiced for our Mass today. Please keep practicing those parts at home.
Gardner is our Shining Star this week. We found out that he loves hockey, the color pink, and exploring!
We also had phy.ed and music today.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Friday, March 10, 2017
TGIF! Well we made it through accreditation! They did a very good job of being respectful to our visitors. We are working SO HARD on using our manners and using kind words to others.
We practiced vowel sounds today. Some have really got them, but others are still really struggling to hear the different sounds. This would be a great thing to keep practicing at home.
In math we reviewed cubes and especially dot cubes. We also reviewed counting by 10's.
Just a reminder that the weather is still pretty cold but it sounds like it should warm up by next weekend. Please still send their snow gear if the temperature is still cold. Even without the snow, they need their boots and snowpants to keep them warm. I am seeing a lot of kids come in with cold legs and feet and trust me when I say they are NOT having fun out there when they are cold. Thanks!
I hope you had a chance to check out the rollerskating pictures on Shutterfly.
We also had computers today.
Have a great weekend! Mrs. Busch
Thursday, March 9, 2017
Sorry for not updating the last couple days, it has been VERY busy around here. We have been working hard though and being on our best behavior.
We have been really working on our ch and sh digraphs as well as all our new popcorn words.
In math, we are working on number bonds. We played a fuzz bugs game with number bonds yesterday and we have been using our number lines to help us count the "hops" to add and subtract.
Mrs. Alladin came in today and did another lesson on personal space. She read us a great story and reminded us that we all have "bubbles" that we need to be invited into.
This morning we prayed a Noveno to St. Julie Billiart. We will be doing these weekly through Lent. We gather in the PAC with our family groups during this time.
I took some pictures of them rollerskating today and will get them on Shutterfly. I am pretty sure they spend more time on their knees and bottoms than on their feet!!
We also had music and library today.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Monday, March 6, 2017
This is a big week for St. Wenceslaus School! The accreditation team will be here Wednesday-Friday this week checking out our school to make sure we are being held to the highest standards of education. We will be cleaning up our room tomorrow to make sure everything looks ready to go! :)
We are starting the letter Z this week and I also introduced digraphs. We will be concentrating on ch and sh this week.
In math, we are working on number lines. Today we practiced using our number lines and teddy bear counters to help us "jump" forward and backward on our number lines to help us solve our math problems. We will be doing some more of that this week.
We also read the book Never Talk to Strangers. To wrap up our safety lessons, we talked about a stranger being anyone that we don't know. Almost all the time, strangers are very nice people but you never know so we must always be careful. Again, this is a great lesson to reiterate at home.
We had our first Mass practice today. If your child has a reading part, they should have brought it home either last week or today. Again, if they don't have a part in this Mass, they will have one for our Mass in May. We ALL will be singing though. PLEASE practice their reading at home. Our Mass is on Wednesday, March 22.
Grace is our Shining Star this week. We found out that Grace wants to be a vet when she grows up and was born in Texas!
We also had phy.ed and music today.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Friday, March 3, 2017
Happy Friday! This week seemed to go by very fast! Due to unforeseen circumstances (nothing to do with the kids) we didn't get to free choice time today so I promised them some extra on Monday. They sure LOVE their free time! ;)
Most of them finished their President's Day books and took them home today. A few of them have a little left to finish and will do that on Monday and take them home. They turned out so cute!
We did a lot of review the last couple of days with sight words and ending sounds. In math, we are starting to talk about fact families. During calendar time each morning I will be giving them 3 numbers and they can only use those 3 numbers to come up with 4 different problems (subtraction and addition.)
We talked about making a sacrifice for Lent or doing something good for someone. I told them their job this weekend is to think of something that they can either give up or help with at home. We talked about what a sacrifice is and what it means. Since Jesus sacrificed his life for us, we can sacrifice something as well. Playing with your siblings or helping with extra chores is something they thought of that they could do. Our Promise magazine was all about making good choices!
We finished up our safety lessons and today we talked about good touch/bad touch. We talked about our private parts are the ones that are covered up by bathing suits. This would be a good lesson to follow-up with at home.
Grace's grandma came in today as our Mystery Reader! She read us How to Babysit Grandma, Pete the Cat, and Peanut Butter and Cupcakes.
We also had computers today.
Have a great weekend! Mrs. Busch
Thursday, March 2, 2017
Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!! Today was all about Dr. Seuss. We made some "Cat in the Hat" hats, and did a guided drawing of the Cat on the Hat. They turned out adorable! We also read The Hair Book,The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, and To Think I Saw it on Mulberry Street.
In math, we are working on making problems to 10. This is a harder concept for some of them. We will keep working on it.
Our new counselor, Ms. Alladin, came in today as well to talk to us about listening and following directions. She did a lesson with them and reminded them about whole body listening.
We also had music, library, and phy.ed today.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Wednesday, March 1, 2017
I can't believe we are already in March! Today revolved a lot around Ash Wednesday and Lent. We started our day with Ash Wednesday Mass and then talked about what Lent is and some of the things that go along with Lent including not using the word Alleluia again until Easter, when Jesus rises from the dead.We are coloring a stations of the cross booklet and will be reviewing each of the stations a couple at a time. We will also go into church to look at them there as well. This afternoon we met with our family groups and with our buddies, they each made 2 pictures to represent 2 of the stations. Each teacher then has all 14 stations represented on their door.
I forgot to mention on Monday that we started talking about wanted and unwanted touches. We have a lot of unwanted touches in our classroom. This is a different lesson than good touch/bad touch which we will be talking about on Friday. This is just going up to someone and hugging them even when they aren't wanting or expecting it or pushing someone on the playground. These are just touches that people may not want or asked for. We have been struggling in here with quite a few that have a very hard time keeping their hands to themselves so this would be a great lesson to cover again at home.
We have a very busy few weeks coming up in kindergarten. Tomorrow we will be celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday and making some projects to go along with that as well. We will also be talking about St. Patrick, who he was and why we celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Our kindergarten Mass is on Wednesday, March 22! Mass parts will be going home tomorrow/Friday. We have another Mass in May so if your child does not have a part at this Mass, they will have a part at our Mass in May but they ALL will be singing and leading Mass at both Masses. We also have some STEM experiments that I would like to try and doing some more science units including planting some plants and journaling their growth.
With all that being said, I am in search of a couple of things if anyone would like to donate. I am in need of 3 rolls of CLEAR contact paper, potting soil, and some small clear cups (I believe they are 16 oz.) If you can help me out with any of this, please let me know.
Phew!! Sorry about the long update.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Monday, February 27, 2017
Happy Monday! Since February is "I Love To Read Month", we got together with our family groups and read this morning with our buddies. Each teacher read their favorite book to their family group.
We wrapped up the letter U today and practiced writing all `16 letters up to this point.
In math, I introduced the geoboards. They loved them! They had so much fun making different patterns and shapes with the rubber bands. We will be working with them some more over the next few weeks.
Hannah is our "Shining Star" this week. We found out that her favorite color is black and that she likes rabbits!
They started rollerskating today in phy.ed! Well, at least they practiced getting them on and standing up. They will be rollerskating for the next few weeks so please make sure they have high socks. Thanks!
We also had music today.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Friday, February 24, 2017
Well that storm was a bust! ;) Oh well! It would have been nice at least for them to have something to play in if we already have to get bundled up to play outside anyway. Next year...
We continued working on our American Symbols book as well as played some games with our blends. They had to match up the beginning blend with an ending sound and see who could come up with the most words on their white board!
In math, we are starting to talk about 3-D shapes. Today we started with the cube. We use our dice or dot cubes to help us. We also found any cubes in our classroom.
Starting today and going into next week we will be starting our unit on Dr. Seuss. Each day, I read a different book and we will be doing some projects to go along with them.
Just a reminder that they will start rollerskating in phy.ed on Monday so please make sure they have long socks. If they want to bring their helmet and keep it in their locker, that is fine, but they do not have to. There are enough helmets.
We also had computers today.
Have a great weekend! Mrs. Busch
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
We are back at it!The 3rd graders led us in a beautiful Mass about the number one commandment (there are actually 2) that Jesus wants us to follow. Love God with all your heart and love your neighbors. We can't do one without the other. We had a great discussion about who our neighbors are and not just the people that live next to us! We also talked about loving people that we may not really like and making sure we forgive others who may have hurt us just like Jesus forgives us when we do wrong.
We are working on the letter U this week and really starting to work hard on our blends as well as double vowel sounds, such as oo, and ou. We also played a game with partners called "Race to the Pond."
In math, we have been working a lot in our journals. The love to write math problems in their journals!
Henry is our Shining Star this week! We learned that he loves the color green and has 8 people in his family!
Next Monday they will be starting rollerskating in phy.ed. Starting Monday, please make sure they have tall socks on or bring them with to keep in their locker at school. They will skate for a couple of weeks.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Thursday, February 16, 2017
Today was catch-up day! We cleaned out our work folders and finished up a lot of "work" that was still out there so their folders might be pretty full. This took the majority of our morning as well as calendar.
We wrapped up our unit on dental health by talking about foods that would make our teeth happy and foods that would make our teeth sad. We then cut out some pictures from magazines and put them on our "teeth."
We also had phy.ed, music, and library today.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
I am thinking we are coming down from a sugar high! We just seemed really "off" today. We had everything from tears to arguing. I would highly suggest some early bedtimes tonight. In their defense, it was school-wide. Fr. Kevin gave a great homily today on having God be our helper and make good choices, but I don't know how well it sunk in. We are going to talk some more about how God can help us be that little voice inside of us to help us be kind to others and make good choices.
With that being said, we did get a lot done today. In their folders is a picture of a "monster." In the computer lab, we are continuing to play "Teach My Monster to Read." They were able to design their monsters and so we printed them off and they gave them a name. They LOVE playing this! Each time they complete a certain level, I get a letter that I will print off for them. At the end of a complete level, they get a certificate. It is software that is free thanks to the Usborne Foundation. It is on the SWS webpage under kindergarten if they want to play it at home or if you want to check it out! I also love it because I can differentiate for the different levels where each child is reading. They can play a beginner, middle or challenging level.
We are starting our unit on United States Symbols. Today we talked about the Liberty Bell, the American Flag, and the Bald Eagle. We are making a book to show the symbols.
We are also continuing to work on our dental health unit. We watched "The Dental Avengers" today and finished our Dental Health books. In their folders is a toothbrush and a toothpaste sample donated by Colgate.
The last thing I wanted to mention is to PLEASE make sure to practice the sight words that are sent home with your child. I have had a few come back and then when I test them on them they don't know them at all. DO NOT send them back until they have mastered them. If you have had them for more than a week and they just can not seem to master it, please send them back with a note and I will work with them here and send different words home. Sometimes there are just words that are harder for them to memorize. It happens! Thank you for your help with this. It takes a village!! ;)
We also had art today.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
Happy Valentine's Day! I apologize for not updating yesterday. I was getting ready for kindergarten round-up! I attempted to get some work in this morning and we did, but I could tell their brains were not quite with me. ;)
We passed out our valentine cards this morning, ate some popcorn and juice boxes, and played a few games. I let them eat one treat from their bag and the rest they are bringing home.
We are working on the letter B this week and really working on our blends.
Our TFK this week was all about building bridges. We had a great discussion and worked with our blocks to help explain how a bridge works!
We also had music and phy.ed today.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Friday, February 10, 2017
We made it! We actually had a very productive day today! We wrapped up our letter R, wrote another journal entry in our notebooks, and worked on our sight words.
In math, we reviewed positional order (before, after, in-between) and practiced writing out number 9. They are finally starting to look pretty good! Yay!
We read a story about Valentine's Day and talked about Jesus being in our hearts and how he will always love us no matter what we do. We painted a heart with a white cross in the middle to symbolize his love for us.
We also read the story No David and did a guided drawing of David. They are pretty cute! I hung them in the hall.
We did have computers today as well.
Have a great weekend! Mrs. Busch
Thursday, February 9, 2017
Ha!! I found out last night that there is a full moon tomorrow as well as a lunar eclipse AND a meteor shower. That explains SO much! ;) We actually had a pretty good day today. This morning we had the honor or seeing the first performance of "Peter Pan!" If you are able to, they are performing tonight at 6:00 as well as tomorrow night at 5:30 and 7:00, I believe. Check the website for more details.
Next Tuesday is Valentine's Day! Since we have had so many interruptions and "fun days" in the last few weeks, we are going to keep it very low key. We will make Valentine bags and the kids can pass out valentines to each other, but we will probably just play a few games and pass out valentines. We will do this before recess because we have phy.ed in the afternoon. I could use a few volunteers to help pass out cards and play a few board games. Let me know if you are available from 10:00-11:00 on Tuesday. Thanks!
We read the story Zebra's World that followed the life of a foal. We talked about it's habitat and behaviors in the wild. In math, we reviewed our pennies and our number 9.
Our journal entry today was about our favorite food! Since it is National Pizza Day (don't ask why I know this trivial information) we had a lot of pizza lovers in our classroom!
We also had library and phy.ed today.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Wednesday, February 8, 2017
Did someone say "full moon!" I can always tell when one is about to appear! We had a tough time keeping our bodies in control during Mass today and it seemed to spill over in the classroom this morning. We sat down and had a really good discussion on our behavior since we are almost going to be 1st graders! We brainstormed some things that we all decided we needed to work on and are going to all sign it as a reminder of how we can be kinder and more respectful to each other and to Mrs. Busch. Listening and respecting others were high on the list. "Do to others as you would have them do to you." Luke 6:31
We started a new game in the computer lab today that they seem to really enjoy. It is called "Teach Your Monster to Read." I am going to look into it even more to see if it is something that they could play at home as well. I know you have to have a computer to be able to play it for free.
In our writer's notebooks, we drew our friend Grace and added another journal entry. "If I had $100, I would buy... I definitely had some interesting answers.
Our math today was reviewing patterns and practicing the number 9. A lot of them are struggling writing them backwards, so please keep practicing at home.
We also had art today and they made some valentine animals.
Tomorrow morning we will be going to see the jr. high production of "Peter Pan." Can't wait!!
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
The awesome thing about teaching at a Catholic School is the fact that I am allowed to teach the "whole child." I have noticed lately, probably due to the fact that we have been cooped up inside so much lately, that we have been not as kind to each other as we should be. This afternoon we had a "come to Jesus" moment where we talked about how we can be kinder to others because that is what Jesus wants us to do. Tomorrow we will be brainstorming some more specific rules that we will all agree to follow in our classroom.
We read the book What Do You Do With a Tail Like This? and talked about animal's body parts and what they need them for. For example, an elephant's trunk is use for eating as well as bathing himself. We also reviewed the letter R and added some more popcorn words. In math, we reviewed our patterns such as AB, AAB, AABB, and ABC patterns.
We also had phy.ed and music today.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Monday, February 6, 2017
Happy 100th day of school!! We did all things 100 this morning! We made 100 day crowns, we read Miss Bindergarten Celebrates the 100th Day of School , 100 Day Worries, and 100 Snowmen, we made 100 day books, and wrote our numbers up to 100!!
This afternoon, we did our calendar math and worked on our money.
We also had phy.ed and music today.
Have a great night!
Mrs. Busch
Friday, February 3, 2017
We made it through the week! Now on to the 100th day of school, Valentine's Day, Kindergarten Open House....I guess it doesn't slow down. ;)
We had a pretty normal morning. Mrs. Smisek read their Promise magazine with them this morning so I could meet with some readers. We also started the letter R and worked on some more words using our letter tiles.
I am starting our safety lessons that are mandated by the Archdiocese. Today we talked about wearing our seatbelt, how to safely cross the street, and not to play with fire. We will be getting into "good touch, bad touch" over the next few weeks as well so your kids may have questions. Just want to you to be prepared.
Monday is our 100th day of school!!! We will be be spending the majority of the day doing all kinds of 100 day activities. I could use a few volunteers that morning if anyone is able to help. I will be sending home a master volunteer calendar on Monday for those that sent it back for the rest of the month.
We will be having some kind of celebration for Valentine's Day, but I am not sure what that will be yet. I am waiting to hear if we are doing an all-school celebration or not. We WILL pass out Valentine's cards though. Please DO NOT put the child's name on the valentine, but rather just address it to "friend" and have them sign their name. With 22 kids, it is very difficult for each of them to find that person's bag. Thank you for your help with this.
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Busch
Thursday, February 2, 2017
Today was a little calmer than yesterday. We had phy.ed right away this morning due to the gym being used in the afternoon for the play. We worked on calendar math this morning as well as our letter tiles. We really worked on making words with blends, such as skin, slap, smog, slip, flip, etc.
At 10:00 we met in the PAC with our boxes of cereal and Fr. Kevin did a blessing over all the cereal boxes. We then lined up from the gym door to the Peace Center and passed each box one-by-one all the way there. The kindergartners mixed in with the 5th graders so they had an older student on each side of them. Joan May took some pictures so they should be on the Facebook page and website. The NP Times as also there so check for that story as well.
This afternoon we worked on our Respect Life Curriculum. We listened to the story Horton Hears A Who and talked about how we started as small as a mustard seed, but that we were still a person because "A person's a person, no matter how small." They made some adorable "Horton" elephants that are in their folder. I wouldn't be surprised if some more questions arise tonight.
We also had music today.
Tomorrow is pajama day and we will be watching "The Prince of Egypt" as a whole school tomorrow afternoon. I am hoping to get as much curriculum in tomorrow morning as I can so that we can just take a break in the afternoon. I told them they can bring a small blanket, pillow, or stuffed animal with them tomorrow to snuggle with during the movie. Let me know if you have any questions.
One last reminder that I have had a lot of kids coming without snack lately. I have been very thankful to those parents who have donated extra snacks because I have been going through them quite a bit lately. Please help your child pack a small snack either in the morning or before bed each day. They are still little and need that snack to get them through the morning. Thanks!
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
Wowzers!!I would be very surprised if your child was not falling asleep earlier than usual this week. Today was another whirlwind day. We started off our day with Mass and then headed into the PAC for BINGO! Some of them won multiple times while others didn't win at all. We then headed back to our classrooms where we made some Chinese drums (sorry about that.) They certainly were fun to make though! :) The beading was such a great fine motor skill.
After lunch, we met in our family groups to learn about all the different New Year's celebrations that each grade was studying. We also made some Chinese Lanterns and each child received a red envelope with a gold coin and a special prize. The gold coin was put into a well by the office where they got to make a wish. Some of the prizes in their red envelopes were a treat from the office, an-out of-uniform pass, or an extra dessert. If your child received a treat from the office, it is in their backpack. If they received an out-of- uniform pass or an extra dessert pass, I stapled it in their folder so they wouldn't lose it. They also were handed a tangerine as a sign of good luck!
Tomorrow is neon day. If they don't have anything neon, then just wear a bright color. We will be making our food chain to the Peace Center with our cereal boxes @10:00. That is the only big thing scheduled for tomorrow so I am hoping to get in a little normalcy.
I sent home a volunteer sheet if you would like to come in and help. Now that I am getting more of them independently reading, I like to have more time to meet with them one-on-one so I could use the extra hands.
I have updated the Shutterfly website with pictures so check it out!
Have a great night!
Mrs. Busch
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Day 2! We had a great day bowling this morning! They did a great job walking to and from the bowling alley as well as behaving while we were there. They shut the lights off for awhile and turned on the disco ball lights! Very cool! I will get pictures on Shutterfly tonight.
We did get some math and calendar done this morning. In math we are working on number lines and identifying numbers before, after, and in-between.
Jesse is our Shining Star this week! We learned that when he grows up he wants to be a Myth Buster! Cool job!
Tomorrow is dress-up day. NO JEANS or SWEATPANTS. If they don't have dress pants, they can wear their uniform pants with a different shirt. If your child has a special guest coming, please have them meet their special guest in the back of church before Mass. We will find them and then they can sit with them at Mass and go play BINGO afterwards. If your child does not have a special guest coming, they will be sitting with Mrs. Schoenbauer and some 8th graders during Mass as I will be singing in the choir. At BINGO, they will either play with me or sometimes I will pair them up with some other students and their special guests.
We did have a short music today as well as phy.ed.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Monday, January 30, 2017
Phew!! CSW is always quite a whirlwind, but it is also so much fun to celebrate what we have and what we are about! We had a little normalcy right away this morning where we read a story about habitats and how different animals need different types of habitats to survive.We continued to work on our letter K as well as took a little spelling test practicing some CVC words.
This morning was also our reader's theater time with the 5th graders. I introduced the story of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" to them last week and so today we read the play with the 5th graders and then broke into some groups to make some "coats" to put on our door.
After lunch we worked on some math where we had to put or number cards 1-20 in the correct order and then took turns with our partner pulling out a card and the other person had to figure out which one was missing! We also did our calendar time.
The rest of the afternoon was spent in the gym at the dance! We also got an ice-cream treat! They did A LOT of dancing so I am expecting some early bedtimes tonight!
We did not have any specialists today. We WILL have phy.ed tomorrow afternoon so make sure they have tennis shoes.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Friday, January 27, 2017
I forgot to mention a couple of things about CSW. On Monday, we will be having a dance in the afternoon and the "ticket" to the dance is a box of cereal that we will be bringing to the food shelf.I also need your child's shoe size. It makes it easier to get shoes for them for bowling without having to guess sizes. At some point before Tuesday, could you please send it in with your child's money or email it to me? Thanks!
Our Mystery Reader today was Julie Pumper, Gabe's mom, who read us some "snowy" books.
We reviewed ordinal position today in math and following directions. We also practiced writing our number 8. This seems to be a VERY hard number for them to write so extra practice at home would be great!
In computers today we worked on telling time.
In reading this morning, we practiced putting scrambled sentences back together and I worked with some reading groups.
Don't forget to come to Mass this weekend at St. Wenceslaus and WEAR YOUR UNIFORM!! Pancake breakfast afterwards sponsored by the K.C's.
Again, please let me know if you have any questions.
See you Sunday!
Mrs. Busch
Thursday, January 26, 2017
Next week is Catholic Schools Week and there are a lot of activities going on to celebrate our wonderful school! CSW officially kicks off on Sunday during Mass times. The students are asked to wear their uniforms to Mass at either Mass times on Sunday. After Mass is a free-will breakfast put on by the Knights of Columbus. All proceeds go back to our school! Please check the newsletter for all the different dress up days as well. Monday is Sports Day. They can wear anything sports related for any team. We will be having some family group activities that day as well.
Looking ahead, we will be bowling on Tuesday at Strike Force Bowl. I will be in need of volunteers to help me walk them down there as well as putting on shoes, etc. Please let me know if you are available to help. The cost for bowling is $6.00. You can send it in anytime now through next week. Wednesday is BINGO day. All students are invited to bring a special guest (grandparent, aunt, uncle, neighbor, a parent) to Mass that day and then stay for BINGO directly following Mass. The students will be sitting with their special guests. If they do not have a special guest, I will be playing BINGO with them or an older student. Those are the big ones and I will update each day next week as to what to expect.
The book fair is currently going on in the atrium here at school. We went down and looked at books today. If you would like your child to purchase a book, you can either send money with them to school and myself or Mrs. Rademacher will take them down there or you can purchase books before or after Masses this weekend. It will be open until Tuesday of next week.
We have been really working on our Diversity country of China this week. Saturday is the Chinese New Year so we have been making dragons that are a symbol of good luck. Yesterday we painted a dragon using symmetry and today we made a mask. We also read the book Sam and the Lucky Money. Ask your child about it.
We continue to work on the letter K as well as adding new blends. In math, we are still working on time and the different types of clocks.
Next week when we are with our groups, we will be doing a reader's theater on the story of Joseph and The Technicolor Dreamcoat so we have been watching a video about Joseph and his brothers to familiarize ourselves with the story. We had a very good discussion about jealousy and being happy for others.
We also had music and phy.ed today.
Have a great night!
Mrs. Busch
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
The calendar for Catholic Schools Week came out today. This can be a very confusing week so please let me know if you have any questions. I will update each day about the events coming up.
We added two new words today (many and where) and also started the letter K. When we write our uppercase and lowercase letter K, we talked about writing large "duck mouths" and small "duck mouths."
Kate is our Shining Start this week! We learned her favorite food is candy! Me too.... ;)
We will be focusing on the story of "Joseph and The Technicolor Dreamcoat" during CSW so today we watched a movie about Joseph and his brothers.
We also had music and phy.ed today.
Have a great night!
Mrs. Busch
Friday, January 20, 2017
We had a great field trip! The kids really enjoyed all the hands-on activities we got to do. They especially loved making their "slime." It's pretty cool! I downloaded the pictures and will get them on Shutterfly soon.
Report cards went home today. It didn't appear on there so I wanted you aware of everything that was assessed. Pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters were assessed for money. Identification and values. Counting was assessed to 100 by 1's, 5's , and 10's and to 30 by 2's. All letters were assessed and high frequency words were our first 20 words. If you have any questions about their report cards or what was assessed, please let me know.
Reminder that there is NO SCHOOL on Monday due to a STEM workshop. See you Tuesday!
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Busch
Thursday, January 19, 2017
Happy Birthday to Matt!
Our class basket theme for the auction is "game night." It could be anything from family games, kid games, card games, board games, hand held games etc. If you can help out and send something in sometime in the next few weeks, that would be great! We are also collecting monetary donations to purchase items for our basket.
Tomorrow is our field trip to The Works. This is an out-of-uniform day. We will be leaving @9:00 and returning @1:15. If you signed up to bring lunch from home, please make sure to send it with them tomorrow.
We started telling time today in math and they are loving it! We used our little analog clocks to practice.
We did a lot of make-up work today that had been stacking up in our work boxes as well as writing some journal entries.
We also had music, phy.ed, and library today.
Have a great night!
Mrs. Busch
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
The 1st and 2nd graders led us in a wonderful Mass this morning.
This morning we added 3 more sight words to our pile (I have updated all our words so far on the webpage.) We also worked on some more blends and reviewed all our counting by 2's, 5's, and 10's. Tomorrow we are going to start working on telling time. This can be a hard concept for some kids. We will first start with just the hour but then will continue on to half-hours.
We mostly did testing this afternoon. I gave them some extra free time this afternoon since they did such a good job sitting and testing for a longer time today. We should finish up testing for the majority of them tomorrow. Only a few will probably have to finish up next week.
Our field trip to The Works is on Friday. This is an out of uniform day.I will send out a separate email to parents who volunteered to help. We will be having a workshop on "Chemical Changes" and then will have time to explore all the hands-on stuff there. The information in the workshop covers a part of our science standards.
Reminder that book orders are due on Monday, January 23.
We also had art today.
Have a great night!
Mrs. Busch
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
I'm back! It was SO wonderful to visit with my daughter and son-in-law while taking in some of my son's baseball games. I truly feel refreshed and ready to get back to it! :) With all the weather delays for our flight, the 2-hour delay was very much welcomed.
We started our NWEA testing today. This is for mine and our school's benefit so that I can see approximately where they are at and what we are missing in our curriculum. Please be aware that testing children at this young of an age can have very mixed results depending on their mood that day, if they are tired, or if they just don't want to answer any more questions. It is meant to be used only as a guide. We will finish up the math tomorrow and some will start reading. We will then finish up reading next week.
In math today, we worked on reviewing the penny and practicing writing our number 7. We also worked on some more blends and our "popcorn" words.
Last week we had 3 birthdays to celebrate! I wanted to wish a happy birthday to Gabe and Brody and a happy 1/2 birthday to Henry!
Sarah Gullickson was our mystery reader last week as well.
We also had phy.ed this afternoon.
Have a great night!
Mrs. Busch
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
Last reminder about the Snowman Celebration tonight from 6:00-7:15. Please make sure they wear their best uniform tonight. We will be singing 2 very short songs at the end of the night. If the roads are bad, please do NOT feel bad about not making it. Be safe!
Another reminder that I will be gone the next 3 days. I WILL be at school tomorrow, just not in the classroom, but will be checking email. I will be heading to California tomorrow night and will be checking email on a more limited basis. Please call the office with any questions or changes.
I sent home some book orders today. I will be putting in an order on January 23.
We continued working on blends today. We are starting with bl- and st-. We also worked on writing our letter F.
In math, we worked on addition problems to 10. Using our teddy bear counters, we filled in the missing squares to help us figure out how many more we needed.
We also had music and phy.ed today.
See you tonight!
Mrs. Busch
Monday, January 9, 2017
I sent an earlier email about the Snowman Celebration tonight. Please have the students wear their best SWS uniform to the event. We will be singing a short song at the end of the event so if you don't plan on staying for the whole event, please come towards the end.
Just another reminder about your field trip form. It is due by Friday.
We have been working really hard lately. This week we will be starting to work on blends in our writing and we have done a lot of reviewing with our CVC words. They practiced writing them in their writing journals. We have also been working with a new IPAD program called OSMO. It is an interactive game that allows them to use hands on activities on the IPAD. Ask your child about what we did with it today!
In math, we worked on positional order (first, second, third, etc.) We are also working on using our counters to help us with our addition problems.
With MLK day next Monday we read the story today about Rosa Parks and some of the segregation that happened. Ask your child about our story and how they felt about it. We will be learning more about Martin Luther King, Jr. this week.
Dane Nelson is our Shining Star this week! We learned that he loves Legos and his favorite color is green!
We also had phy.ed and music today.
Have a great night!
Mrs. Busch
Thursday, January 5, 2017
Happy New Year! Welcome back! I apologize for not updating recently. I am still transitioning myself into the routine! I told the kids that we are almost 1/2 way through kindergarten so I am going to have a lot more expectations for them and we have a lot of stuff to get through now. We are now writing our first AND last names on all our papers. Today we practiced really hard on the whiteboards. There are still a lot of them using uppercase letters in their last names. In order to save some paper, we also practiced writing CVC word on our whiteboards.
I am currently working on testing for report cards so I apologize if words and book bags aren't coming back as quickly. Starting next week, they will be coming home more frequently.
Just an FYI - I will be gone next week Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I will be in the building on Wednesday though checking email regulary, but will be working on curriculum for accreditation. Thursday and Friday I am heading to California to visit my daughter and watch my son play in a baseball tournament. Very excited to see her since I haven't seen her since the wedding. MRs. Gorr will be subbing all 3 days.
A field trip form went home yesterday for The Works Museum on January 20. This is a great field trip to help incorporate our STEM curriculum. If possible, please send your forms back by Monday or Tuesday next week so that Mrs. Gorr does not have to be responsible for collecting them. Thank you!!
We have been practicing with Moby Max in the computer lab to help prepare us to take the NWEA tests in the computer lab coming up in the next few weeks.
Yesterday we read a story about St. Francis and talked about how God loves everything he made on this Earth, even the icky spiders and bugs that we are not so fond of and how St. Francis followed God in that love.
We have also spent a lot of time reviewing our rules in our classroom since the long break!
Happy Birthday to Drew today!
Have a good night and stay warm!
Mrs. Busch
Thursday, December 22, 2016
I can't believe we are already at Christmas Break! I want you to know that each and every one of your children are a true blessing to me. Just like your own children, they have days when they drive you CRAZY, but you still love them and that is truly how I feel about your children. Thank you for all the wonderful gifts, cards, and treats. I am truly blessed!
I love the Christmas Season, but it will be nice to get back to some normal everyday routine.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas break and I will see you next year!
Mrs, Busch
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
Tomorrow is our big day! Please see list from yesterday as to what they should wear to school tomorrow. Hopefully we will be able to see most of you tomorrow afternoon.
We attended the 3-4 Christmas program today and spent the rest of the morning making some giant Santas! We also did calendar math this morning.
Happy Birthday to Landyn!
We also had music and phy.ed today.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Monday, December 19, 2016
This week is a little crazy for our schedule and otherwise! ;) We worked on some reading and writing today as well as put our "December" poem in our poetry notebooks. We went to watch the pre-K Christmas Concert and we will be going to the 3-4's program tomorrow.
This afternoon we did a full dress rehearsal of our play. Mrs. May taped it for us to watch. Reminder that our play is at 1:00 on Wednesday in the church. It will last about 20 minutes. If you are able to make the play and want to take your child home afterwards, you are more than welcone to do so. I got the o.k from Ms. Doyle to let us go out of uniform on Wednesday. I have clothing suggestions that I would like your child to wear on Wednesday. Please do NOT go out and buy anything just do the best with what you have.
Ruler (Drew) - Nice pants and a t-shirt Mary (Landyn) - a white shirt and a light pair of leggings, capris or shorts to wear under costume. (White is preferred.) Joseph (Gabe) - has a full costume. No special clothing needed. Donkey (Henry) -gray long sleeve shirt or sweatshirt Innkeepers (Kate, Lauren, Mya) - Leggings/sweatpants and t-shirt or long sleeve shirt Sheep/Lambs (Hannah, Dane, Matt) - white shirt and light colored pants Cow (Isabelle) - has a full costume. Maybe leggings and a t-shirt for underneath Star (Blakely) - long sleeved black shirt Shephards (Ethan and Brody) - tan/khaki pants and a t-shirt. They have a full costume so not much shows. Wiseman (Jesse, Mateen, and Oliver) - same as Shephards Camels (Gardner, Peter, and Beau) - Brown/Tan Pants Angels (Grace and Coco) -a white or VERY light pair of leggings, shorts or capris, and a white tank to wear under costume.
Thank you for your help with this!
We also had phy.ed and music today.
Have a great night! Mrs. Busch
Thursday, December 15, 2016
They did a GREAT job during this afternoons concert! They sat so nice in the pews while we waited as well! Please be here tonight between 6:00-6:15.
I normally have bus buddies quit after Christmas, but they all seem to be ready to do it on their own! If your child is still nervous and wants their bus buddy to come get them, please let me know.
It was Mrs. Schoenbauer's birthday today (Big 5-0) so we made her a short little Happy Birthday video and showed it to her this morning. She is the 8th grade teacher and a close friend of mine so she often comes down just to get my kids all riled up! She said it was the highlight of her day!
We also had library and music this morning as well as calendar time.
See you tonight!
Mrs. Busch
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
What does a full moon, a polar vortex, indoor recess and days before Christmas get you?? You guessed it!! ;) I can't just blame them, the whole school seemed a little "off" today! Please pray for warmer weather next week so we can at least get outside!
Reminder that the concert is at 1:00 and 6:30 tomorrow. Please be in the classroom betwen 6:00-6:15 tomorrow night. I will be here shortly before 6:00, please do not drop them off unsupervised. Thank you!!
We did celebrate a beautiful Mass this morning led by the 5th graders and did a fun little painting project to help us learn our sight words. I have updated the page with our words so far. I know I haven't been sending home practice words due to all of the other important things we have been working on in the classroom. After the first of the year, we will be getting back to it on a regular schedule. Most of theirs were dry, but some are still drying and will go home tomorrow. Have them read you their words.
We started the letter S today. We will start to add consonants together and work on blends after the new year.
I will be sending home a sheet in the next couple of days of some clothing items that I will be asking your child to wear on the day of our Nativity Play. I will check with Ms. Doyle if we can have that as an out-of-uniform day so they don't have to change too much. For example, if your child is a camel, I might ask that they wear brown pants. PLEASE do not go out and buy anything. We will make it work with whatever you have. Watch for the list tomorrow or Friday as we finish up trying on costumes tomorrow. THANK YOU!
We also had art and computers today.
Have a great night!
Mrs. Busch
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
First off let me apologize for the mix-up yesterday. I was having internet connection issues, but it told me it had published when apparently it had not! I did mention yesterday that we would be having indoor recess for at least Wednesday and Thursday of this week due to the windchill being below zero. We will have to see what Friday brings. If they don't want to drag their snowpants to school (and don't ride the bus) then they wouldn't have to. Thursday is an out-of-uniform day. They should dress in nice concert clothes.
Yesterday we wrapped up the letter I and worked on adding up to 10. We played a game on the SmartBoard and did a Christmas adding doubles sheet. Today we worked on money. We have been doing a lot of coin recognition activities. I have now introduced the penny, nickel, dime, and quarter. We will continue throughout the year with counting multiple coins together as well as making sure they can identify each coin and its worth (that can be tricky!)
We have been working hard making your Christmas gifts and we finished them up today! I hope you love it as much as I do!
We went to chapel again today to observe the 3rd week of Advent...Joy! They do a wonderful job of being silent when they want to! ;)
We also had phy.ed and music today.
Have a great night and stay warm!
Mrs. Busch
Friday, December 9, 2016
So now that the weather has hit, we are having to change into boots and then back into shoes. After Christmas, Mrs. Smisek will start working on tying shoes, but we will need your help. PLEASE practice with your child at home. It takes me a long time to get all the shoes tied and we would like to get to lunch on time. Thanks for your help with this!
Yesterday we celebrated the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. We talked about how God knew he was going to have Mary be the mother of Jesus even before she was born!
Our Promise magazine this week was about our Lady of Guadalupe. Ms. Doyle has seen the shrine and came to our classroom to talk to us about it. We also practiced our play this afternoon.
We continued with our -at packets as well as worked on our short i sound while I worked with reading groups.
We had a lot of extra energy, but we were also pretty productive! Not having Mass this morning allowed for some extra reading and Math time. We will have Mass tomorrow to celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception since this is a holy day of obligation.
We worked on the short vowel I sound with our letter tiles and practiced putting together C-V-C words.
In math, we played a new dice game to practice counting with one-to-one correspondence, working on greater than and less than as well as counting with tally marks. They took turns rolling the dice and whoever had the higher number received a tally mark. We also practiced writing our number 5's. When I threatened that I would make them practice with me at free choice time, they started to write them much neater! ;)
In computers today, we worked on coding. This was really tough for a lot of them. A few of them got pretty frustrated but coding is a great problem solving skill and when they couldn't quite figure it out to move on, they weren't so happy about it. Coding is a program where they have to put pieces together to get the object on the screen to move. For example, today we had a dog and they had to get him to his bowl by making him run and jum over things. I think we will still try it again on Friday but I will have them work with partners to collaborate learning. They received a certificate and sticker to say they at least tried it.
We also had art today and practiced our play.
Have a great night!
Mrs. Busch
Tuesday, December 6, 2016
Even though we do not have any snow on the ground, please still send their snowpants and boots (unless they have warm shoes) to school each day. It is getting very cold and they need to wear them for warmth. There were a lot of cold legs and feet at recess today.
They made a Christmas Book today to help practice writing numbers and color words. Their homework tonight is to read it to someone at home.
Half of our class went to the chapel today to pray and do a short meditation. The other half will be going tomorrow. We have been talking a lot about finding peace and quieting ourselves for short periods of time (we have been struggling with this.)
Book orders are in their folders. Again, I will be putting in the order on Sunday.
We also had music and phy.ed today.
Have a great night!
Mrs. Busch
Monday, December 5, 2016
Yikes! It was definitely one of those domino effect days! The day started with a giant spill in the hall and just seemed to go downhill from there! I managed to get a little teaching in in between many other issues. ;)
I completely forgot to send home the book orders today! I apologize for the late notice, but if you are still interested in ordering some books (I will send the book orders home tomorrow) please plan on doing so by this Sunday. I will be putting in the order that evening to ensure delivery before break. You can just go to the Scholastic link http://www.scholastic.com/home/ and look at the flyers online as well. My order code is: 1EIRA
We started talking about St. Nicholas today and made a picture to put in the hall. We will be talking about him some more tomorrrow. I know some families have some St. Nicholas traditions and others do not so we tried not to go into that too much.
If your child still wants to shop in the "Santa's Workshop" tomorrow, feel free to send money tomorrow and Mrs. Smisek will take them down.
We did manage to get calendar done today as well as some math where we worked with our pattern blocks. We still need a lot of practice writing our numbers so we will be continuing that this week.
This afternoon, we practiced our Nativitity Play as well as having music.
Have a great night!
Mrs. Busch
Friday, December 2, 2016
TGIF! This week seemed to go so fast! It must be the business of the season. Speaking of season, our Promise magazine this week was all about the season of Advent and the waiting that we need to do and preparing for the birth of our Savior. We had our first play practice this afternoon and I was so impressed at what a great job they did! Thank you so much for helping them learn their lines. I truly appreciate it.
We wrapped up the letter M this week by reading 2 stories about monsters. One was called Monsters Love Underpants and the other one was called The Monster Who Lost His Mean. We then made our own monsters and we will be finishing them on Monday as we write about them. We also reviewed our -at words and drew our friend Ethan.
Drew's dad, Garrett, was our Mystery Reader today! He read 2 Christmas books for us. Thanks Mr. Ykema!!
We also had computers today.
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Busch
Thursday, December 1, 2016
Wow! I can't believe we are already entering December! We will be spending a large part of this month learning about Advent and the true meaning of Christmas. We will be doing a lot of practicing for our Nativity play as well. I feel that this is intregal part of our faith and so important to who we are as Catholics so I do spend a lot of time with it in the classroom.
We are working on -at families and today we made a book to help practice our words. I told them that they are to read it to someone at home. We also worked on our letter M.
They also might tell you that we painted their feet today, but it is a secret so don't ask why!!! ;)
Yesterday we made some Christmas trees using small, medium, and large triangles and made our ornaments out of pattern block shapes. They look great hanging in our classroom. They are talking about small, medium, large in art with Mrs. Zvanovec as well so this was a great extension of that.
There is a picture retake form as well as a Christmas Angel Program sheet in their folders.
We also had phy.ed and library today.
Have a great night!
Mrs. Busch
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
The kids have a Santa Shop flyer in their folders. Please DON'T SEND MONEY until the day of shopping. They will be bringing home an envelope on Friday. This is an OPTIONAL fundraiser that is put on by the 7th graders going to Washington D. C next year. Let me know if you have any questions.
We practiced writing some sight words today as well as read the book What Would We Do Without Wheels? We talked a lot about what our world would be like without wheels. We realized how difficult it would be!
This afternoon we were entertained by Mrs. Gorr an Mrs. Gallagher's music groups. They did a wonderful job!
We also had music today.
Have a great night!
Mrs. Busch
Monday, November 28, 2016
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving break! We are now entering into my favorite liturgical season..the season of Advent! We started our day with family groups this morning and an all-school prayer service in the PAC. We talked about our first candle, Hope. They had to color their hope star, and with the help of their older buddies, they wrote one thing that they are hopeful for this Advent season. All the stars are hanging in the hallway in the atrium area by the PAC. Our Promise magazine from last week was all about what the upcoming weeks of Advent means to us.
We started the letter M this week and it just so happens that Mateen is our Jesus' Shining Star this week. We found out that he spent last summer in New York with family members and the summer prior to that he spent a month in Ghana, Africa! Very cool!
In math, we are working on position and order (first, second, third...) We are also practicing writing the number 4.
Reminder that we are collecting new or very gently used books for the Adopt-A-Family program. We will be collecting until Friday.
We also had phy.ed and music today.
Have a great night!
Mrs. Busch
Tuesday, November 22, 2016 Your child's pictures are in their folders. I believe there is a re-take form in there as well if you feel the need.
With it being a part-time day as well as early vacations and sick children, we were down quite a few kids today so we did a lot of reviewing and some extra fun stuff! We worked on some extra calendar stuff this morning as well as did some yoga with a new "Yoga Kids" DVD that I found. We also watched "The Berenstein Bears, Count Your Blessings" as well as "Garfield's Thanksgiving."
We practiced our ABAB patterns and writing our number 4.
We also had phy.ed and music today.
Have a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving break! We will be kicking off the Advent Season first thing Monday morning.
Mrs. Busch
Monday, November 21, 2016 Just a reminder that we only have school Monday and Tuesday this week. We are spending these 2 days doing some reviewing as well as talking about being thankful! We made some giant "turkeys" today after reading the story Gracias the Thanksgiving Turkey. We also watched "Veggie Tales Madame Blueberry." It is one of my favorites! It's a lesson on thankfulness. Madame Blueberry thinks that more stuff will make her happy until she sees others who have way less than her are happier than she is! She wants a "happy heart" and realizes that only by being thankful for what God has given her that she can have that happy heart.
I did get to some reading groups this morning as well as having phy.ed and music.
Please remember to practice your child's part for the nativity play. Most of them have almost their whole line memorized and others haven't even started!! I will need your help in order for our play to be successful. Thanks!!