Hello! My name is Ginger Schantz and I am a kindergarten teacher at Renfro Elementary. I am so excited about all of the learning that takes place in room 9. I graduated with a degree in Early Childhood Elementary and Elementary Education from Eastern Illinois University and have been teaching at Renfro for 10 years. My husband Jim and I have three children- Kaitlynn is 11, Emille is 9 and Nicholas is 5. We enjoy traveling and laughing!!! I am currently enrolled online beginning my masters program and will graduate in February. Wish me luck!
BATTY! We are all just going Batty this week! We've been completing our lessons this week while focusing on BATS! We have learned new words including Echolacation, Hibernation, Mammal, Migration, Colonies, and Pups. We finished up the week with one of my favorites, Stellaluna.
Report Cards will go home next Friday!
DON'T FORGET Parent / Teacher Conferences scheduled on October 27th and October 28th. Please let me know if you are not able to attend at your scheduled time!
TARDIES: Please remember to get your child to school by 8:00. Excessive tardies will result in your child having lunch detention.
Information about the Halloween classroom party will be going home very soon.
PLEASE remember to practice address, phone numbers and birthdays this weekend!
Have you heard about Sammy the Seal, Minnie the Mouse, or Reggie the Rooster? These are our new Alpha Friends. Review this letters and their sounds with your child.
We enjoyed a great week of learning more of our letter sounds, counting, and practicing our writing. Be sure to check our papers to see all of our progress!
This week we also practiced several songs to share with our families when they visited us for GRANDPARENTS DAY! We were so excited to have special visitors in our room on Friday...we could hardly wait until they arrived. We also cheered our St. Louis Cardinals on the playoffs on Friday by wearing our favorite Cardinals and red gear! We even got to wear our Cardinal ballcaps to school that day to help cheer our beloved Cards on to victory!
Be sure to check out our pictures to see all of those who were able to make during the school day. We are SOOO lucky to have had such a great turnout for our event. The weather was beautiful, just like the love our families have for us!
What a great week! This week we prepared several songs to share with our grandparents and special guests who came to visit on Friday as we celebrated GRANDPARENTS DAY!!
Be sure to check out our wonderful photos of all of the families who have shared so much with us! We love you all very much and know we are SOOO lucky to have so many people who love and care for us.
Wow! What a fun week of Happy Apples! We used apples this week as part of our lessons and had a great time reading Johnny Appleseed, doing apple math, apple art, and more! We are really getting good at our letters and sounds and we are eager to learn even more next week. Be sure to check out our Pictures and Activities pages to share some of the fun!
Next Friday, Sept. 30th is our class celebration of Grandparents. We are honored to have these special people in our lives whether they are our grandparents, aunts, uncles or other older people in our families who love us and we love SOOOO much!
We began to focus on Nursery Rhymes this week. We do this in Kindergarten because children this age often know many of the rhymes by heart and are comforted by familiarity. During the week we focused on tracking the rhyme while reading as well as questioning, "why do you think that happened?" We also deciphered some of the tougher vocabulary words like 'nimble' and 'crown' We jumped over a lego candle like Jack as well as talked about things that were quick and slow.
Math - We did number walk, finger counting fun, a shape collage and writing numbers 1, 2, and 3.
Big Book - Here are my hands. Begin to identify words that have the same beginning sound. Keep working on Color sight words.
Don't Forget: Send in an apple next Friday, Sept 23rd, for our Apple Party!!
CANDY BAR MONEY IS DUE NEXT WEEK AT THE LASTEST!
This week we are reading CHICKA CHICKA BOOM BOOM by Bill Martin Jr. The theme is developed around an alphabet book and does a fabulous job of engaging children with the letters. Ask your child if they liked the book. This book is often available via the Scholastic Book Fairs and is also available at The Collinsville Memorial Public Library.
DON'T FORGET!! Katherine Beich Candy Bars are going home today, Sept 2nd! This fundraiser allows us to continue many great activities and programs for our students. Please help if you can. Additional boxes of bars are available via the Main Office.
This week was a great week of learning a little bit more about ourselves. We read the story, FACES, and hopefully a copy went home for you to read with your child. In our reading series we are continuing to introduce letters as well as we will beginning more reading from our big books. As the month progresses, there will be less free exploration in the centers and more of a focus and rotation model.
Yeah!! October is one of my favorite months during the school year. I love all the themes and discovery that goes on during the month. We will begin focusing on letters and the sounds they make with our reading series. Your child may be talking about different "Alpha Friends". They are alphabet animals that go with different sounds. Hopefully, your child has been singing some of the songs we have been doing in class. If you would like to words to some of them, please feel free to let me know. This month we will focus on changing leaves, pumpkins, bats, and Halloween.
REMINDER: Please remember to send in a store bought packaged snack to share with the class at AM snacktime. Feel free to send in a non-perishable snack during the first week of the month. Thanks!
STAR OF THE WEEK! - Starting in the month of October we will begin our "Star of the Week". On the monthly calendar, a child will be designated to be a star for that week. I am asking that you put a poster together with a picture of your child, family members, favorite vacations, holidays, etc. The poster is due the Monday of that week.
CONTINUE TO WORK ON ADDRESS, PHONE NUMBER AND BIRTHDAY INFORMATION
Reading Log - Calendars are going home with your child to help them keep track of the number of minutes they read with a family member this month. Each month, your child will have an opportunity to win a cool "prize" for being the biggest reader!
Scholastic Book Order - If you would like to purchase books from Scholastic, an order form along with the deadline for ordering, has been sent home with your child. PLEASE know that ordering from Scholastic is Optional and is not required. However, they really do have some fun and exciting books for your Kindergartner! A new book order will be sent home monthly so if you don't order one month, there is always next month to add some books to your student's reading library.