St. Joseph Catholic School

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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 sixth 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 over 25 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 over 15 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

Classroom Countdown 

                                       Preschool’s Summer Celebration


It has been an amazing year of preschool, and we are excited to count down the days til summer vacation! We look forward to sharing this fun list of activities with your preschooler during our last full week together! 


Monday 5/29 - No School


Tuesday 5/28 - Sidewalk Chalk Painting (PreK 4)

                         Dress to make a mess!


Wednesday 5/29 - Beach Day (Preschool 3’s & PreK 4)

                              Get ready for some FUN in the SUN!

                              You are invited to wear hats and sunglasses!


Thursday, 5/30 - Bubbles & Buddy Visits (PreK 4)

                         Let’s celebrate with freezy pops & playing at the 

                         park with our Prayer Buddies!


Friday 5/31 - Aloha Preschool 3’s & 4’s

                    Dress Hawaiian and let’s learn a HULA dance!

                    Hula Hoop Fun!


Monday 6/3 - Bye-Bye Breakfast - No Class

                      PreK 4 @ 8 am

                      Preschool 3 @ 9:15 am


 

Super Scientist with Jack W. and Mrs. Williams! Preschoolers enjoyed observing the colorful reactions as Jack and his Mom combined only 3 simple ingredients: vinegar, food coloring, and baking soda! 🌋  Super fun one to do at home this summer!
“How does a butterfly eat?” Our hands on discovery had us understanding how a butterfly uses their proboscis to drink nectar from colorful flowers! 
Y is for Yahtzee! This one has been a fun one in both small group and choice time! Preschoolers team up with a buddy to practice number sense skills such as subitizing and combining numbers (addition)! Super fun!
Happy Birthday Dean! Mrs. Forlenza helped us celebrate with a fun read by Karma Wilson! Bear Can’t Wait was the perfect birthday read!
Birthday Boxes for the Food Pantry❤️ Thank you, Dean, for sharing your birthday joy with others! So special!

Peek at Our Week May 20 - May 24, 2024

PreK 3

Religion - Special Lesson 10 - Special Seasons and Days: Father’s Day. God gave us fathers. The children will appreciate what their fathers do for them. They will know that God loves them like a good father. The children will identify Joseph as the man who was like a father to Jesus.

Social Studies - Exploring our outdoor environment: sounds and smells of nature.

Language Literacy - Focused Letter Study: Zz. Home/school connection: bring item from home that begins with Z.

Math - Puzzles to develop spatial sense.  Shapes: Using math language to identify the number of sides and corners on each basic shape. Classifying objects: making sets

Music w/ Mr. Showstead. 

Media with Mrs. Hoglund

PreK 4

Religion - Special Seasons and Days - Special Lesson 10: Father’s Day. God gave us fathers. The children will know that God gave them fathers. They will appreciate what their fathers do for them. The children will show love for their fathers.

Social Studies  - Scholastic: My BIG World “Baby Shark”  Science Focus: animal behavior. Theme vocab: lemon shark, blue crab. Skills: group discussion, critical thinking, vocab, number recognition, counting. Preschoolers will also be introduced to some other animal babies and Daddies, and gain an understanding of the role of a father in the animal kingdom!

Language/Literacy -

Heggerty Lessons 28-35. Students will:

  • produce words that rhyme.
  • isolate the initial sound in spoken words
  • continue to practice phoneme isolation with final and medial (vowel) phonemes in spoken words
  • learn to blend 3 phonemes into a spoken word
  • learn to segment a spoken work into 3 phonemes
  • manipulate the initial phoneme in a spoken word with adding, deleting, and substituting

Focused Letter Study: Zz. Home/school connection: bring item from home that begins with Z’.

Math  - Geometry: comparing/moving shapes, name common shapes, create a picture graph. Numbers & Operations: counting to 20, making 10, writing our numbers 1-12, comparing numbers.

Music w/ Mr. Showstead. 

Media with Mrs. Hoglund

Preschool+Plus

World Travelers - Summer at the Beach!! Ahoy, Maties! Get ready to hit the high seas for adventure during our May month-long study of all things OCEAN!  Our seafarers will be introduced  to concepts and features of the beach and ocean, including properties of salt water. Preschoolers will be introduced to new vocabulary such as fluke, anemone, and tide. They will  identify and classify sea animals. We will integrate skills such as addition, by playing the fun game, “Get on My Boat”! 

Pirate Pete’s Phonics: Preschoolers will count and categorize syllables, identify beginning/ending sounds, match rhyming words, and gain confidence in alphabet knowledge during fun games and activities.

Weighty Water Measurement: Preschoolers will compare the attributes of length, weight/mass, capacity. They will use comparative language to solve problems and answer questions. Preschoolers will compare two objects according to weight/mass (heavier than, lighter than, or equal to).

 





Peek at Our Week May 13 - May 17, 2024

PreK 3

Religion - God Made Me: I Can Love. The children will express that God the Father loves them. They will state a desire to love others. The children will tell ways to express love.

Social Studies - Our classroom family. “How can we show love to our friends at school?” Role playing situations. Categorizing those that show love and those that do not.

Language/Literacy - Rhymes: building phonological awareness. Letter knowledge: matching letters. Identifying letters in our name. Focused Letter Study: Yy. Home/School connection: bring an item from home that begins with ‘Y’.

Math - Comparing objects: similarities & differences. Matching to build one to one correspondence. Counting to 10. Identifying/naming numbers 1-10. Numbers 1-5, 1-10 with Wormy!

PreK 4

Religion -  God Made the World: God Made Butterflies. The children will demonstrate an understanding of the life cycle of a butterfly. They will express an understanding that forms of life change. The children will praise and thank God.

Social Studies - Scholastic My BIG World with Clifford: “Watch Me Change”  Science Focus: butterfly life cycle. Theme vocab: caterpillar, butterfly, chrysalis. Skills: group discussion, critical thinking, vocab, gross motor skills, fine-motor skills, shapes.

Science - “How does a butterfly grow?” Life cycle of a butterfly. Children will “fly” through a series of activities to help them build knowledge about these amazing creatures!. They will explore stages of metamorphosis of these fragile animals first hand.They will be introduced to new vocabulary such as metamorphosis, chrysalis, and symmetry, insect.

Literacy/Language Alphabet knowledge: naming letter sounds. Motivation to read: engage in pre-reading and reading-related activities, use books and other written materials  Oral language: use language in discussion, respond appropriately, categorize words, demonstrate meaning of words.Comprehension: answer questions about a book. 

Heggerty Lessons 28-35. Students will:

  • produce words that rhyme.
  • isolate the initial sound in spoken words
  • continue to practice phoneme isolation with final and medial (vowel) phonemes in spoken words
  • learn to blend 3 phonemes into a spoken word
  • learn to segment a spoken work into 3 phonemes
  • manipulate the initial phoneme in a spoken word with adding, deleting, and substituting

Focused Letter Study: Yy. Home/school connection: bring an item from home that begins with ‘Y’.

Math  - Geometry: comparing/moving shapes, name common shapes, create a picture graph. Numbers & Operations: counting to 20, making 10, writing our numbers, comparing numbers.

Preschool+Plus

World Travelers - Summer at the Beach!! Ahoy, Maties! Get ready to hit the high seas for adventure during our May month-long study of all things OCEAN!  Our seafarers will be introduced  to concepts and features of the beach and ocean, including properties of salt water. Preschoolers will be introduced to new vocabulary such as fluke, anemone, and tide. They will  identify and classify sea animals. We will integrate skills such as addition, by playing the fun game, “Get on My Boat”! 

This week, preschoolers will gain a better understanding of the BIGGEST creature God created, the Blue Whale. They will conduct a hands-on investigation to gain knowledge of how a blue whale eats. They will listen to recordings of blue whales communicating with each other. They will be introduced to several different kinds of whales, and know there are characteristics unique to each. 

Scholastic My BIG World: “How Would It Be to Live in the Sea?” Science Focus: ocean life. Theme Vocab: otter, seahorse, octopus, crab, seal, dangerous, choppy. Skills: group discussion, critical thinking, vocab, gross-motor skills, number recognition/counting, handwriting. 





Preschoolers were so excited to decorate first grade lockers with their special flowers! We asked for help from Mrs. Wente to make sure the coast was clear! Our Secret Agents of Kindness worked quietly and quickly! You should have seen their excitement when they got back to the classroom! 
Plant a Seed of Kindness
Preschoolers learned an origami paper folding technique to create 45 colorful tulips! They added sweet words of kindness to each one! They chose to place these on the first grade lockers since many have siblings there! 
Such a special book! The pictures are stunning! But the message is even more beautiful! “If you plant a carrot seed, a carrot will grow. If you plant a lettuce seed, lettuce will grow” But what happens when you plant a seed of kindness or selfishness? We had a beautiful discussion after reading this story about how are own seeds of kindness spread