St. Joseph Catholic School

Placeholder text, please change
Mrs. Kris Beyer » Home

Home

      

 

 

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

Peek at Our Week October 24 - October 28, 2022

PreK 

Religion - God Made Me Good: I Can Share. The children will show a willingness to share with others. They will express an understanding that God the Father wants them to share. They will explain that sharing makes people happy.

Social Studies -  Me Bags: learning about our friends at school to help facilitate development of relationships. Building/supporting friendships in the classroom. Holidays: Halloween traditions, songs, 

Language/Literacy -  Recognizing our name in print. Connecting spoken words to words in print. Using language to communicate ideas. Halloween rhymes, songs, fingerplays to help introduce rhyming, patterning, and vocabulary.  Letter Focus of the Week: Ff. Home/School Connection: Bring an item that begins with “Ff” from home.

Math - Comparing size: big and small, short and tall. Counting Color Focus of the Month: Orange.

PreK 4

Religion -  Unit 2: God Made Holy Things - God Made Water. Water is necessary for life, just as God is. The children will thank God the Father for the gift of water. They will understand that water is needed for life. The children will explain that water is used in the church.

Prayer Buddy Get-together: The children look forward to meeting with our fourth grade Prayer Buddies from Miss Parney’s class. They will enjoy creating a Halloween-themed item.

Social Studies - Friendships inside and outside our classroom community. Teaching tolerance, kindness, acceptance. “Strictly No Elephants” book, by Lisa Mantchev. Friendship Soup Preschoolers will coolaborate to list  all the special ingredients it takes to be a good friend! They will engage in a fun, hands-on activity to help reinforce those idea and special traits! Team Building Activities with Mrs. Feely’s Class: Building skills in communication, cooperation, listening, and self-esteem as preschoolers work and play in different groups.

Language/Literacy Unit 2 Week 2 Caring and Sharing. “How do family members care for one another?” Oral Language: Expand concepts, What’s My Word?. Phonological Awareness: onset and rime, blend syllables, segment compound words, rhyming. Alphabet Knowledge: letter naming. Concept Words: baby, care, child, grown-up, hug, tear. Amazing Words: gently, learn, lullaby, pediatrician, sob, whisper. Concepts of Print.. Letter Focus of the Week: Ff  Home/School Connection: Bring an item that begins with “Ff” from home.

Math - Numbers and Operations: use a model for subtracting 1-5/adding up to 5 objects, know objects can be counted, count with one count per item, demonstrate that last count is how many, sequencing numbers 1-10. Writing numbers 1-5. Data analysis: sort objects and describe similarities and differences between groups. Color Focus of the Month: Orange.

Preschool+Plus - 

STEM -  Haunted House Using a variety of materials, preschoolers will collaborate with their team mates to build a structure for their Spooky Ghost! Criteria are: the ghost must be able to fit inside the house, and the haunted house must be able to stand up!  Frightfully Fun! 

Book Club: “Room on the Broom”, by Julia Donaldson. This Halloween selection will involve the children in  story sequencing, story retelling using recurring phrases,  rhymes, and ordinal numbers. The children will learn new information during repeated readings.

 

Peek at Our Week October 17 - October 19, 2022

Pre-K 3

Religion - Unit 2 - God Made Me Good: I Can Clean. The children will express an understanding that God the Father wants us to care for our world. They will tell ways that they can clean. They will express a desire to help clean things. 

Social Studies - Me Bags: learning about our friends at school to help facilitate development of relationships. 

Language/Literacy - Halloween rhymes, songs, fingerplays to help introduce rhyming, patterning, and vocabulary. Identifying our name in print. Letter Review: Aa - Ee. 

Math - Naming basic shapes. Comparing and identifying similarities among objects. Shape Focus of the Month: Square

PreK 4

Religion -  Unit 2 God Made Holy Things: God Made Music.  The children will express an understanding that music is a gift from God the Father. They will express an understanding that song and music can praise God. They will Sing songs that praise God. 

Pumpkin Prayer: The children will recite our Pumpkin Prayer as we carve our classroom pumpkin. They will create their own Pumpkin Prayer project to take home.

Social Studies  Scholastic My BIG World  “Part of a Pumpkin”. Science Focus: plant parts. Theme Vocabulary: stem, shell, seed, pulp, flesh. Skills: group discussion, critical thinking, vocabulary, relationship skills, fine-motor skills.


Science - Pumpkin Science Investigation : “What does the outside  and inside of a pumpkin look like”? Preschoolers will make predictions and observations as we use our senses to investigate a pumpkin!  Identify the pulp, seeds, shell, and stem of a pumpkin. Life cycle of a pumpkin. 

Language/Literacy -  Concepts of Print. Phonological awareness: segment sentences, delete word from a compound word, segment words, rhyming. Alphabet knowledge: concept of a letter, letter naming. Shared book reading: responding appropriately during book discussion. Oral language: demonstrate meaning of words. Letter Review Aa-Ff.

Math - Numbers & Operations: know objects can be counted, count with one count per item, demonstrate that the last count is how many, use a model for adding up to 5 objects/subtracting 1-5. Data Analysis: sort objects and describe similarities and differences between groups. Graphing: AB patterns. Using a graphic organizer to record and analyze data. One to one correspondence. Shape Focus of the Month: Square.

Preschool+Plus

Math - Pumpkin Reporting. Children will use a combination of drawing, language/vocabulary, and data to journal about their pumpkin. They will observe a pumpkin using their senses and learn to make a drawing from observation. Preschoolers will be involved in using non-standard units to measure, using attributes to sort/compare, practicing concept of shortest to tallest, learn to use a balance scale and interpret results.

Grandparent Mass - We look forward to attending church with our Preschool Plus class for this special Mass. Please review previous email if a Grandparent will be attending this service with your child.



Firefighter Puzzles 1-5! Choice time gives our preschoolers experience with structured unstructured time! It gives our young learners experience with autonomy, exploration, and self-initiation!
Corduroy’s visit with Sasha! 🐻💚🐻
Our Traveling Bear has had another amazing week with our preschoolers! Corduroy accompanied Sasha to her weekly swimming lesson, and enjoyed shopping for blueberries! 🫐 They visited the park, and Sasha enjoyed pushing Corduroy in the swings! Sasha and her sister, Layla, had fun taking our favorite bear to gymnastics class! So much fun! We look forward to seeing where our bear travels to next week!
Fire Fighter Centers Today! 🚒🔥🧯👩‍🚒
Preschoolers did an amazing job of teaming up in their small groups to navigate our 4 centers today! These centers gave them experience with following directions, completing a task, working together, and skills! Mrs. Truskowski’s table was a fave for many today! Preschoolers put the finishing touches on this week’s  911 song!
Hurry, hurry, put the fire out! 🔥🔥 We had fun spraying lettered flames, and coloring the matching letter on our recording sheet! Great letter recognition and naming going on here! Our fire extinguisher sprayers were also great for fine motor development! 🧯 
Roll It, Count It, Color It🔥🔥🔥 Preschoolers counted dots on a die, and then colored the corresponding flame number! We love this for the numeral and fine motor practice, and engagement!
Firetruck Build a Ladder 
Preschoolers identified numbers and used one to one correspondence to represent numbers 0-9! We love how they arranged their cubes both vertically and horizontally! 🚒👩‍🚒🚒
Our day centered around this special story today! The Color Monster shows our preschoolers that we all have lots of different feelings and all these feeling are ok! God gave us different feelings. No matter how we feel, God love us!
❤️💛💚💙
Color Monsters coloring! What a fun day we had reading our story, learning our 5 Little Monsters finger play, and playing our fun Shape Monster game!
Preschoolers enjoyed doing our finger play again as a gross motor movement with lots of jumping!
5 little monsters jumping on the bed
One fell off and bumped his head.
Mama called the Monster Doctor
Monster Doctor said,
No more monsters jumping on the bed!
Even. Ire fun using our monster voices!
Color Monster marble painting! Our storybook lesson also intiated a fun lesson in creativity today! We love marble painting for teaching eye-hand coordination, tracking, and focusing, looking forward to completing these on Friday! 
Fire Safety Week continues! We reviewed several fire safety lessons we learned from yesterday, such as what to do when there is a fire! Get out, and stay out! Preschoolers worked together to create an amazing list of items that are hot! They understood that great care has to be used around items that are HOT!
What is Hot and what is Not? Preschoolers followed multi-step directions to complete their work today! Awesome!
Hot/Cold Science: “How will temperature affect our balloon?”
Preschoolers understood that our bottle was filled with air! We wondered what would happen when the bottle was placed in hot water. We tested this and were amazed to watch the balloon inflate! As the bottle was placed in the cold water, the balloon deflated! The children discovered that molecules inside the cold bottle moved very FAST, and this energy filled up our balloon!Ob the other hand, molecules in the hot bottle moved very slow, and created little energy.
Another fun one to try at home!