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Welcome to Preschool at St. Joseph Catholic School! 

I am so excited to be your child’s preschool teacher this year!

This is my ninth year at St. Joseph Catholic School and I am looking

forward to helping your child grow, and learn,

and have fun this year.

I have been a preschool teacher in Libertyville for almost 30 years,

and am passionate about helping young children learn.

I believe children learn best with hands-on experiences and

help facilitate their many different learning styles

in a kind and nurturing setting.

We will have an amazing year together meeting new friends, sharing new

discoveries, and learning new skills everyday.

Our instructional aide, Mrs. Tina Truskowski, has much experience in the classroom

after being a aide at St. Joseph Catholic School for 22 years!

Together, we help build positive relationships with children to help foster

growth and confidence in a caring classroom community.

We are both looking forward to sharing a wonderful year with your child.

 

*Please remember to subscribe to my website for updates including fun photos

and videos of our classroom!!

Welcome to Our Bunch!

 

 

 

 

Posts

Happy Birthday to Ellie and her brother Monroe! To celebrate they created these beautiful Birthday Boxes for the SJ Food Pantry!! Thank you so much for supporting preschool’s service project that benefits the guests of the Food Pantry and for sharing your birthday joy with others!
Art in the Box with Mrs. Valentine - Eric Carle
Preschoolers were all familiar with this amazing children’s author’s stories and illustrations! They enjoyed listening to Mrs, Valentine read a fave, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and using one of Eric Carle’s paper-layering techniques to create their own beautiful butterflies! These look just amazing displayed on our classroom windows! Thank you so much Mrs. Valentine!
Buddy Time with our Prayer Buddies from Mrs. Baysore’s class! What a great time we had rotating through 3 different activities together! ❤️ Thank you 4th grade for hosting such a fun time!

Peek at Our Week March 2 - March 6, 2026

Preschool 3’s


Religion -  God Made Me Active: I Can Make Things. The children will explain that God the Father made everything. They will show satisfaction for making things. 


Social Studies - Read Across America! Preschoolers will be introduced to children' s author, Theodore Giesel, and be introduced to several of his stories. Expanding awareness of the world around us. Help develop an understanding and make connections between the author and his life.


Language/Literacy - Read Across America Day. Enjoy listening to and discussing storybooks. Print awareness during read alongs. Using books to engage in pre-reading behaviors. Sequencing letters in our name. .


Math -  Graphing: Using a graphic organizer to answer questions and sort by multiple attributes: shape, color, size.  Matching. Counting. 


Science - “Green Eggs”. The children will be involved in using their senses  to gather information, investigate materials, and observe the process of our Fizzy Green Eggs Experiment. The children will be introduced to tools a scientist uses such as safety goggles and pipettes. 


Specials - Music with Mr. Showstead, Media with Mrs. Hoglund


PreK 4


Religion - Pflaum Gospel Weeklies: Good people do good actions. The children will recognize that every person is special. They will recognize that their actions are like a tree’s fruit, and learn a prayer to the Holy Spirit.


Social Studies - Read Across America! The children will be introduced to a collection of books written by Dr. Seuss. They will learn that his motivation to write was to help young children learn how to read. Listen with understanding to stories. Forge a deeper connection to books. 


Science -  Oobleck: Sink or Float? The children will  be involved in  preparing the Oobleck: measuring ingredients, listening and following directions. They will make predictions and test the surface tension of the Oobleck by placing various items in the substance. “Will it sink or will it float?”


Literacy/Language - Dr. Seuss-abration. Alphabet knowledge: produce letter sound, recognize letter names. Print awareness. Oral language: Seussical rhymes and inventions. Writing: independently using upper/lowercase letters to make words.  

Heggerty- Lesson Overview: Weeks 19-27

  • Students will recognize and produce words that rhyme
  • Students will hear words that begin with the same sound and generate words that begin with a specific sound.
  • Students will learn to blend two phonemes into a spoken word
  • Students will continue to practice phoneme isolation with the final and medial phonemes in spoken words.
  • Students will learn to segment a spoken work into two phonemes.
  • Students will manipulate the initial phoneme in a spoken work with adding and deleting activities
  • A new skill will be introduced: Students will learn to substitute the initial phoneme in spoken word.

Math - Measuring with non-standard units. Patterns: recognize and create patterns. Create and extend patterns: sound, color. Number & Operations: use concrete models or make verbal word problems for subtracting objects from a set. Number recognition 1-15. Writing numbers.


STEAM -  Cat in the Hat Building Challenge: Build a Seuss-inspired hat using cups and paper. The children will engage in designing, building, measuring, and reflecting.


Specials - Music with Mr. Showstead, Media with Mrs. Hoglund


Process Drama Class with Mrs. Hansel: Seuss-a-Palooza

Preschoolers will recognize the 3 actor’s tools that they have with them every day!

They will engage in active listening to move through large group warm-ups. The children will follow step by step directions while using their bodies and voices to

collaboratively tell a story. They will demonstrate physical control and active listening skills through a number of Seuss challenges.The children will engage their imaginations in creating their own class story!

 

Preschool+Plus


Read Across America Celebration continues!                                                                                              


“Hop on Pop” - Popcorn science: Preschoolers will begin to develop an understanding of matter. They will learn that a physical change is one that affects an object’s size or shape. The children will observe the physical change that occurs when heat is added to popcorn, air is added to a balloon, and cold is added to water. They will use their 5 senses to examine and describe popped corn. Popcorn math: Preschoolers will begin to understand that volume is the amount of space occupied by an object. They will make comparisons between the volume of unpopped vs. popped corn. Popcorn literacy: The children will identify matching lower/uppercase letters. Hop Til You Stop - Preschoolers will “hop” out rhymes to their given word. They will develop an understanding of real and nonsense words.


Seuss-ical Landscapes - Art integration: Preschoolers will describe the fantasy look of the places found in Dr. Seuss books. They will use materials to create their own 3-D scuptures to resemble this magical style. The children will be involved in folding, crimping, twisting, curling, rolling, stacking, gluing… They will add characters to their landscapes and enjoy telling their own stories to develop oral language skills and foster creative thinking.


 






Peek at Our Week February 23 - February 27, 2026

PreK 3

Religion - Unit 4 Chapter 18. God Made Me Active: I Can Make Things. The children will explain that God the Father made everything. They will show satisfaction in making things. 

Social Studies -  Facilitating relationships with others: recognizing others emotions. Welcoming new friends into our play. Using language to communicate, problem solve, interact with friends.

Language/Literacy - Letters in our name. Enjoy listening to and discussing storybooks. Using words to communicate with our friends at school. Focus on Letter of the Week: Qq. Home/school connection - bring an item to school that begins with the Letter Qq.

Math -  Number recognition 1-5. Counting to 10. Recognizing/exploring basic shapes.

PreK 4

Religion -  Seeds Pflaum Gospel Weeklies: Jesus prays to make good choices. The children will recognize that they make many choices every day. They will recognize that Jesus made choices and identify Lent as a time to make loving choices. The children will try to make good choices.

Prayer Buddy Get-together. Preschoolers will enjoy connecting with their Buddies on Friday!

Literacy/Language  Heggerty- Lesson Overview: Weeks 19-27

  • Students will recognize and produce words that rhyme
  • Students will hear words that begin with the same sound and generate words that begin with a specific sound.
  • Students will learn to blend two phonemes into a spoken word
  • Students will continue to practice phoneme isolation with the final and medial phonemes in spoken words.
  • Students will learn to segment a spoken work into two phonemes.
  • Students will manipulate the initial phoneme in a spoken work with adding and deleting activities
  • A new skill will be introduced: Students will learn to substitute the initial phoneme in spoken word.

Focus on Letter of the Week: Qq. Home/school connection - bring an item to school that begins with the Letter Qq.

Math - Patterns: recognizing patterns in sound, repeating patterns. One less. Making 5.  Number & operations: demonstrate that the order of the counting sequence is always the same. Use a model for subtracting 1-5 objects from a set. Count with one count per item. Identify common shapes

Art in the Box  -  Eric Carle.  Art-in-a-box is a program where volunteers come in and teach a lesson about a particular artist or author/illustrator, and then lead a hands-on project based on that artist’s work. These lessons are tailored specifically for preschoolers and give parents a special opportunity to help out in our classroom! The preschool students will have 4 lessons with 4 different artists. We look forward to sharing this special St. Joseph Little Knights unit with our preschoolers.  This month’s parent presenter: Kelly Valentine (Kinsley’s Mom).

Preschool+Plus

No Bones About It! - Our healthy hearts investigation this month had children asking questions and wanting to know more about how our bodies work! Preschoolers will be introduced to bones and their role of protecting us and giving us shape and structure. They will become familiar with such terms as bones, muscle, and joints.They will understand the importance good foods have on keeping our bones strong and healthy. Children will see x-rays of bones to help them gain more knowledge of a bone’s appearance. They will understand that Halloween characters such as witches and vampire s are not real, skeletons are. Preschoolers will work together to assemble a skeleton.







Guess Who’s Smile! Such an awesome way of integrating literacy and social skills! Preschoolers identified friend’s smiles and wrote their name in the recording sheet! Our winners receive a special treat for correctly identifying all classmates smiles and writing all 13 names! Stay tuned for more winners!
Gung Hay Fat Choy! We loved our visit to China this week, and learning about their culture and traditions surrounding the Chinese New Year! The Dragon Dance is an important part of the celebration and symbolize the beginning of spring! The children enjoyed creating their own Chinese Dragons!
We watched a video of two amazing Lunar New Year Dances: one he,d at Disneyland and the other in Hong Kong! We recognized some of their traditions during this dance. Such as feeding the dragon lucky red envelopes! We all agreed that the performers had to be strong and have lots of energy!
The children enjoyed performing their own Dragon Dance to Chinese drum music used in this celebration! Remember, always keep the dragon moving!
Today preschoolers worked together to build their own Great Wall! Our brick-builders, and wall constructors did an amazing job of weaving around and under obstacles (tables and chairs were tricky!), repairing damage when needed (bags often tipped over), and not giving up (they continued with this even after lunch!)!
February is Dental Health Month! 🪥 🦷  Learning about dental health is important for our young learners to begin good habits, and foster responsibility! Preschoolers had so much fun with this hands-on activity that had us brushing and flossing our “teeth”!
Scholastic’s My BIG World reviewed ways to take care of our teeth, such as brushing, flossing, and eating healthy foods. But also showed us one more thing we can do to take care of our mouth and teeth! Brushing our tongue! 
Preschoolers viewed real dental x-rays to get a glimpse of what’s happening beneath the surface of the teeth and gums!