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Mrs. Jennifer MacRitchie » Welcome to Kindergarten!

Welcome to Kindergarten!

Welcome to Mrs. MacRitchie's Kindergarten!


I am so excited to be a part of the St. Joseph Catholic School community. After receiving my bachelor’s degree and completing the master’s program at St. Mary’s University in Minnesota, my first teaching job was here at St. Joseph Catholic School, where I taught kindergarten. I taught at St. Joseph for seven years and then stepped away from teaching after the birth of my first child. When my children were in school, I returned to teaching at a public school in Geneva, working with children with special needs. After 6 years in the public school system, I decided to return to the Catholic School Community and started teaching kindergarten at St. Mary School in Elgin. In 2024, I moved back to the northern suburbs and feel so blessed to be back at St. Joseph Catholic School.

We are fortunate to have a full-time instructional kindergarten aide, Mrs. Graziella Bosco, working in our classroom this year. Mrs. Bosco has been a kindergarten aide at St. Joseph School for 18 years!

Together, we will develop a caring classroom community that will foster growth and develop a love for learning. We are both very excited to work closely with each student to ensure a successful Kindergarten year!

 




 

Posts

Week at a Glance September 2nd to September 5th

Reading Objectives: To be able to recognize, write, and produce the correct sounds for the letters t, b, and f. To identify the correct initial sound in words that start with t, b, and f. To be able to sing the color songs for orange. To work on observing, wondering, and asking questions when reading. The students are working on being able to define the roles of the author and the illustrator of a book.

Math Objectives: The students will understand the relationship between numbers and quantities when using objects and illustrations to count 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. The students will recognize and write the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 and represent a number of objects with a written numeral. The student will use one-to-one correspondence to determine whether groups are equal to each other. The student will use one-to-one correspondence to determine whether one group is greater than another group.

Writing:  The students will continue to work on the illustration process to help them build confidence in the writing process. They will continue to explore how to use shapes to help them create illustrations.

Science Objectives:  The students will be able to identify and describe different types of weather (sunny, partly cloudy, cloudy, rainy, snowy) by observing and recording daily weather.  The students will understand how the weather affects people’s clothing and activities.

Social Studies Objectives: The students will work on being able to work together by showing kindness to everyone.

Religion Objectives: The students will work on being able to correctly make the Sign of the Cross and be able to recite “ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit while touching their head, chest, and shoulders. The students will understand that prayer is talking to God.

Art: The art teacher has asked that each student have one oversized t-shirt to keep in their locker and wear as an art smock.  At this point, only about ½ of the class has them.

We did an awesome job predicting what would happen when we added food coloring to the water of white plants. We have been amazed observing how fast some of the flowers changed colors, and also how long it is taking the carnations to change. Science is so cool!
In writing today, we read the book The Shape of Things by Dayle Ann Dodds and explored how we can make things out of shapes. 
Happy Friday! Today, we read Our Class is a Family and Our School is a Family by Shannon Olsen. We talked about how we have our home family and our school family, and made friendship bracelets for our class family. It was a great day. Can't wait to see you on Monday.

Week at a Glance August 25th to August 29th

Math Objectives: The students will understand the relationship between numbers and quantities when using objects and illustrations to count 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. The students will recognize and write the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 and represent a number of objects with a written numeral.

Science Objectives: Students will work on making predictions and develop critical thinking by observing what happens when they add food coloring to the water of a white plant.

Social Studies Objectives: Students will participate in collaborative activities to build a positive learning community.  

Religion Objectives: The students will be able to explain that God created the world and everything in it. The students will explore ways we can take care of the world for God. Students will work on praying the Sign of the Cross and making the cross with their right hand.

Reading: To be able to recognize, write, and produce the correct sounds for the letters t, and b. To identify the correct initial sound in words that start with t or b. To be able to sing the color songs for red. To work on observing, wondering, and asking questions when reading.

Writing: The students will be introduced to the illustration process to help them build confidence in the writing process. They will explore how to use shapes to help them create illustrations.

Art: The students will have art class on Monday, and the art teacher has asked that each student have an art smock or oversized t-shirt to keep in their locker and wear to art.

Our first full day of Kindergarten was awesome! We read Pete the Cat Rocking in My School Shoes. Then Pete the Cat took us on a scavenger hunt around the school.
We had a wonderful first day of Kindergarten. We read The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn and met Chester the raccoon, who told us about the secret of the kissing hand.
We have been working very hard learning about opinion writing. We decided it would be fun to write about what we believed to be the best snack. First, we did our prewriting on a graphic organizer. Then we met with a teacher and made revisions. Today, we completed our final copies and added illustrations. 
Today, we got to go over to the parish garden and plant, water, and mulch the vegetables we grew from seeds. The parish will care for the plants over the summer and when we return next year we will go back to the garden to help harvest the vegetables for the food pantry. 

Week at a Glance May 26th to May 30th

Math Objectives: The students will work on mastering the concept of subtraction. They should be able to solve simple subtraction problems using objects, number lines, and drawings.

 Science Objectives: The students will observe caterpillars transform into butterflies to help them understand the concept of metamorphosis and the life cycle of a butterfly. They will be able to name the stages of the butterfly's life and understand how the needs of the butterflies change as they progress through these stages. The students will also be able to identify the different parts of the butterfly.

Reading Objectives: To be able to recognize, write (upper and lowercase), and produce the correct sounds for all 26 letters plus all the long vowel sounds. The students will be able to identify and produce the sounds of the digraphs ch, sh, th, wh, ck, and ph. The students will continue to work on blending the learned sounds to read and write words. The students will be able to identify the correct initial sound, middle sound, and ending sounds in words. The students will be able to read the 47 sight words. The students will practice being able to identify and produce words that rhyme. The students will work on being able to sequence events that occurred in their reading, as well as being able to identify the main topic of a story.  The students will work on being able to observe, wonder, and ask questions when reading. The students will practice reading fluently with the expression. 

 Social Studies Objectives: The students will understand that Memorial Day is a day to remember and honor those who served in the military, especially those who died to protect our country.

Religion Objectives: The students will be able to explain the concept of forgiveness. The students will learn that we need to forgive others just as God forgives us when we make bad choices. 

Writing Objectives: The students will continue to work on developing writing skills, starting with capital letters, stating a complete thought, using the correct punctuation, and adding spaces between words. The students will write an opinion paragraph on what their favorite snack is.