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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!

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PreK 3

Religion - Advent: The children will know that Christmas is Jesus’ birthday. They will understand that sometimes we show our love by giving gifts, and God’s gift to us is Jesus.

Language/Literacy - Shared book experience. Building oral language through repeated readings of favorite stories to encourage children to “read” along on parts of the story they remember. Use of rhyme and alliteration to build phonological awareness. Focus on Letter of the Week: Jj.

Science - Santa’s Magic Milk Experiment. Our favorite kitchen chemistry experiment! The children will make observations as bursting colors appear as the fat in the milk reacts to our catalyst, soap! They will use language to describe the changes.

Math - Observing similarities and differences of attributes to sort and classify. Focus on Shape of the Week: Star.

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

PreK 4

Religion - Advent: The children will be excited about preparing for the birth of Baby Jesus. They will know that at Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus. The children will desire to prepare for Jesus’ birthday and think of several kind acts they might perform as a gift for Jesus.

Seeds Lesson Theme: We prepare for Jesus' coming. The children will connect the celebration of Jesus' birthday at Christmas with the celebration of their own birthdays. they will recognize that the Advent wreath is a reminder that we are getting ready for Jesus' birthday. The children will recognize that, during Advent, we prepare our hearts and our homes for Jesus' coming. They will recognize ways we prepare for Jesus' coming at home and at church.

Special Religion Lesson: “The Story of the Candy Cane”: the legend of the candy cane shows us that the candy cane was designed to be a delicious reminder of what Christmas is all about - Jesus.

Science - Candy Cane Slime - Slime introduces kids to the scientific concepts of polymers, non-Newtonian fluids, viscosity and more. Preschoolers will begin an understanding of how 2 different liquids can come together to form a new substance! The children will follow directions as they mix and measure ingredients to form slime! We look forward to trying a new slime recipe so we may compare/contrast with our slime recipe from last month!

STEM - “Jj” is for Jingle Bell Lego Maze: The children will collaborate in groups as they engineer a maze using Legos. Their challenge will be to navigate a jingle bell through the maze.

Literacy - Heggerty Lesson Overview: Weeks 13-18. Preschoolers will:

Recognize rhyming words from non-rhyming words.

Isolate the initial sound in spoken words.

Learn to blend two party into a spoken word

Learn to isolate the medial sound in a spoken word.

Learn to segment a spoken word into two parts, onset and rime.

Manipulate the initial phoneme in a spoken word by adding and deleting the first sound.

Alphabet knowledge: name letters and recognize letter sounds Concept of print. Oral language: demonstrate understanding of words, categorize words, demonstrate meaning of words. Gingerbread Man Unit: We will explore this holiday folk tale by comparing/contrasting different versions focusing on characters, outcome, and repeated phrases. Focus on Letter of the Week: Jj. Bring an item begins with ‘J’.

Math - Geometry: Name and describe attributes of common solid shapes: cone, cube, sphere. Identify and combine solid shapes to create new ones. Create common three-dimensional shapes. Demonstrate that the order of counting sequence is always the same. Extending patterns. Graphing 2-D flat shapes. Sorting by size. Focus on Shape: Star.

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

Preschool+Plus

Christmas Around the World! We will be celebrating diversity as we learn about other cultures and traditions. Activities involved will help foster enthusiasm and curiosity for other customs and celebrations around the world. Our holiday unit will focus on: Christmas celebrations in Holland, England, and Germany, Las Posadas in Mexico, and Hanukkah in Israel.

Our lil’ turkeys did an amazing job of listening and following directions to assemble their Turkey Headbands! Our fine motor station today featured “beaded” necklaces to create! Some preschoolers even created patterns by alternating different colors or different shapes! Just super!

Preschoolers made a cornucopia of God’s many gifts during our Thanksgiving Religion lesson! The children worked so hard and did an amazing job coloring their harvest fruits and vegetables! Their horn of plenty’s unfortunately did not make it into the backpack today. Please let me know if you would like to come by tomorrow morning to pick your’s up!

Look at these! Introducing scented markers at the easel today was a big hit! The vertical surface was both a novelty and amazing for that fine/gross motor work our young learners need!

November is Picture Book Month and this group has really been gobblin’ up our Thanksgiving story selections this week! 📕

Preschoolers designed colorful patterns, using both color and shape, to make their “beaded” necklaces! They used AB, AAB, and even ABC patterning! Super skills, preschool!

More sensory table fun!

Thanksgiving means remembering all that we are grateful for ! Today preschoolers drew pictures of what they are most grateful for this Thanksgiving! We love the illustrations of our SJ families!

Cranberry Bog sensory table! So fun pouring, ladeling, sorting, and spooning this seasonal fruit today! We made discoveries such as cranberries FLOAT!

💛🖤💛

Cranberry STEM: Math Circle! FLAT shapes! We discussed that these geometric shapes each have a certain number of sides and corners! Using toothpicks and cranberries preschoolers were challenged to create these flat shapes!

The children gained experience building shakes today using cranberries for corners and toothpicks for sides! Building and constructing shakes gives preschoolers the necessary hands-on experience they need to form knowledge! Then back to our circle to discuss FAT shapes!

Building FAT Shaoes! We have been using math language to describe our 3-d shapes, such as pyramid and cube! Preschoolers did an amazing job of constructing shaoes that have a top, a bottom, and sides!

Brown Day Sensory Table: Forest Theme

Brown Day Fine Motor Station 🌰

Introducing paper circles on dot marker sheets is awesome! Whole new group of fine motor skills being used here as we use the pincer grip to pick up small pieces, and use eye hand coordination to place them inside each circle shape!

Name: Mrs. Kris Beyer
Position: Preschool Teacher
Email: Send email
Phone: (847)362-0730 x304

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