Nativity of Our Savior Kindergarten

Just before Christmas break, we got to visit Santa and Mrs. Claus at Nativity! The students were very excited and got to enjoy a candy cane treat after the visit.🎅🏼🤶🏻

We were so excited to have Portage Fire Department visit with us yesterday to teach us about fire safety! 🧯 We loved seeing the fire truck 🚒 and meeting some of our wonderful firefighters 👨‍🚒!

It’s a new school year and we have 4th grade reading buddies!

Somehow I forgot to post our field day pictures. Here they are having fun as usual. Also I want to thank our kindergarten parents who volunteered to work field day. It could not have happened without you!👏👏👏

Even though we had to postpone Field Day due to the weather forecast, we still were able to enjoy the Kona Ice truck. I only got a few pictures of us eating it on the curb. However, I went into lunch and did get some snapshots of colored tongues!

Here are some random pictures from our end of the year field trip. There is a picture of us before we left, waiting outside to go into Dairy Queen, waiting inside for our treats, eating our treats (only one because I was busy cleaning up messes(tables and students!), and playing at Olson Park. It was hot, but at the end of the day they all said they had fun. And that was the most important thing.

We have two more kindergarteners who read to the class today! Daniel read "Ten Apples on Top" and Ali read "Barbie's Horse Show."

Yesterday, we had a great time making our own 3-D shapes using craft sticks, clay, and pipe cleaners. Then, of course, we used those materials to make our own creations. We had a turtle, bunnies, names, horses, a firepit, a unicorn, and some things that were unknown to their creators!

Christian is our newest Kindergarten Reader!

This Teachers' Appreciation Week has been great! In addition to all the great things Home and School has given us, my own students came in with personal gifts for Mrs. Massey and me. A second grader even brought an apple. Thank all you parents who sent gifts-I loved them all.

We are sharing our projects from April-we celebrated our Earth by reusing objects that would have gone in a landfill otherwise. We are so proud to help our Earth!

Isabella is the newest member of the Kindergarten Readers' Club. She read to the class yesterday.

Embyr is our first kindergarten Reader! Each child in kindergarten can practice reading a book at home and then come to school and read it to the class. It is not an ABC book or one that just has a picture and one work on the page. It is a book that the child knows and reads each word in the sentences. Congratulations, Embyr!

We have another April Family Project that will reuse an item that would go in a landfill. Instead it will help our birds!

Our April Family Projects showed that our kindergarten is learning how important our Earth is and how to keep it healthy. Most of them took an item that would go into a landfill and created something useful out of it such as a toy, a bird house, a bird feeder, a watering jug, pencil holders, and a fork, spoon, and napkin holder with a pretty centerpiece for the table. Others made a poster showing us how important the Earth is and how to take care of it.

Today the third quarter Outstanding Effort and Rising Stars were presented with their certificates. As you can see, they were VERY proud.

Last week, the "Earthdome" came to our school. It was sponsored by the Home and School for during Catholic Schools Week. Unfortunately, a snowstorm prevented that and this was when it was rescheduled. Our presenter was lively and very knowledgeable. He had been to many of the places he showed us on the huge blow-up globe. It was even more fun when we went inside!

We raised butterflies from caterpillars this spring. Our caterpillars ate and ate and grew. Then they journeyed to the top of their cup and made a J shape. Two days later and they were all in a chrysalis. They came home with me for Spring Break and the last Friday and Saturday of that week they began to emerge. They came back to the classroom and the children enjoyed a little time with them in our big butterfly tent. We waited for a day over 55 degrees and released them at the Grotto with a prayer that they live a long and happy life.

Every year after we had read and done puzzles in our igloo for the couple of months after it is finished, we demolish it. The children all get to kick down the walls and then flatten the milk jugs. We pack them up into large trash bags and drag them to my car. I then very cautiously drive to a recycling bin outside the Chesterton Stracks to empty the bags. When you see how loaded my car is, you will understand why I say that I drive cautiously. It is a highlight of their kindergarten year and many say they remember all the fun they had when the igloo came down.

This past Monday we finally got the sunny day we needed to do our St. Patrick's Day Science experiment. We put water in a clear glass and watched as the white light turned into different colors when it came out onto our papers. We colored these rainbows that we saw.

Here are the March Family Projects. Students had a choice of decorating a rainbow or building a leprechaun trap. Some did both! We put the traps out on our floor the night before St. Patrick's Day in hopes of catching a leprechaun. However, all we caught was a big mess!

Our kindergarten was attacked by a leprechaun overnight. We left our traps out to catch one, but somehow he managed to get out of all of them. We came in this morning to overturned chairs, emptied Kleenex boxes, mixed-up pencil boxes, and numbers taken out of our calendar and 100 chart. The contents of our recycling bin were strewn about and drawers were opened. He even turned the rocking chair over and climbed up to pull down our windsock. It took us awhile, but we finally got out room back in order.

Today was Read Across America/Dr. Seuss' birthday so we celebrated. We made blue jello fishbowls to eat, Thing 1 hats, made and experimented with Oobleck, blew blue paint for Thing 2's wild hair, worked with rhymes in Rhyme Time, decorated socks, and sorted and graphed colored goldfish (and then we ate them). And this will continue tomorrow morning, because we didn't finish our activities. We started our day going to Ash Wednesday services and got ashes on our foreheads.

Here are pictures of our class learning from Portage High School Dental program students. We learned what foods are good and bad for dental health. Then we practiced brushing the puppet's teeth and colored a picture of Gigi the giraffe.

This morning we put together the Blessings Bags for the needy. Thank you all so much for your generous donations of toothbrushes and toothpaste. We even had a donation of floss too. Fourth grade, who spearheaded the All-School Catholic Schools Week project, helped us fill them by holding the bags for us. 🙏

Today the children showed their February Family Projects, which were our Valentine card boxes!

Here are today's costumed kids! We had several from the 70's, three from the 80's, and some that I wasn't sure when they were from-lol. I usually take two pictures: a serious one and a goofy one. I also let them take their masks off if they want, since it is a short window of time. I also have a picture of Andres, who was the kindergarten winner in the "Keeping Christ in Christmas" contest sponsored by the Knights of Columbus.. The children worked in Art on their drawings.

Today's Catholic Schools Week theme was "patriotic." Here are our USA-loving children. Here are two pictures: serious and goofy.

Miss Sandilla, our third grade teacher, has been training her dog, Kali, as a comfort dog and brings her to school twice a week and tries to come in each morning to see our class. Kali was wearing a valentine's headband and I thought it would make a cute photo opportunity. So here is Kali and our loving kindergarten class.

Here is another donation to our class service project for the all-school project to make blessings bags for the needy.

We have two more big contributors to our Service Project of collecting toothbrushes and toothpaste!

We worked with our eighth grade buddies on Winter posters. Then we loved eating snow-cones together.

We have another student who donated to our Service Project today and here is a picture of the children who dressed as a Catholic hero today. We had St. Patrick, St. Francis, some sisters (nuns maybe) and a couple of Mrs. Masseys and one child dressed as her mother!

Each quarter two students are honored in our class for their outstanding effort for the previous quarter. Several students are also picked as "Rising Stars." They are students who have raised grades in 3 areas while not losing any ground in other areas. In kindergarten, Aubrey and Embyr received the "Outstanding Effort" awards and Mia, Olivia, Angel, Daniel, Ali, Victoria, and Revaya were "Rising Stars."

Here are some 100th day of school pictures: 100 year old students, students with shirts covered with 100 items, and posters with 100 things.

Those toothbrushes and toothpastes are coming in every morning now. Some students are bringing some in more than once!

Our igloo is starting to reach for the sky!

Today is career day-our first themed day for Catholic Schools Week. We have many students who have already decided their future occupations (or just like to wear the clothes!)