Margaret Kiel's Webpage

Welcome to Kindergarten! I am so excited to be part of your child's entry into the elementary years of school and the Carondelet family. 

  A large part of the kindergarten experience is social and emotional growth. Our students work hard at learning how to make good choices all day long every day.  Our Kindergarten Behavior Plan deals with basic respect for each other so that children can learn in this large group.   Kindergarten children are learning how to take direction from a new adult, how to be in a large group and how to be at our  school.

  They are learning:

    How to respect each other

    How to respect all adults

    How to be considerate and polite with each other

    How to use self control

    How to handle problems and conflicts appropriately

    How to control their own emotions

    How to wait their turn and share

    How to listen and follow directions’

    How to respect and care for their environment

    How to think…if I do this, what will happen next?

    How to think…this happened by accident, what should I do now?

    How to say “I am sorry”.

 Every day, all day long, it is the teachers goal to help the children to shape their behavior towards these shared social interaction goals.  We know that you as parents are doing the same thing at home. This is a long list! These are high expectations and they are very important. Some children come already knowing how to think this way.  Others come ready to learn. Our group is doing very well.

  During these first weeks of school we have been stressing:  friendship, helping the group learn, fixing and solving problems and why we do this at school.  I am hoping, that with explanation and consistent recognition, when they’re remembering how to behave in a respectful and responsible way that they will learn how to be in school.

  Along with this friendship theme we use Responsive Classroom.  Responsive Classroom is a classroom management system that promotes the principles that social learning goes hand in hand with academic learning.  A hope of the teacher in a Responsive Classroom is that we all learn how to take care of each other.

  We have a meeting everyday where everyone is greeted, we share our story, we play and sing a game and read daily news; which promotes a feeling of building community and that every single person is important.  We unwrap the classroom through guided discovery, where things are deliberately  explored for creative use and care of the item.  We use practice and modeling  with the children for routine procedure.  We show, notice and practice how things should look.

   We will write and draw about our Hopes and Dreams about this year, as well as write our own rules or agreements  that we will generate ourselves.  Our rules will be formed around the main rules of the school.  After we finish this important work, you will get a copy of our classroom rules.  Please take time to talk to your child about them.

  During these first weeks of school, learning procedures and teaching children self-control are so important.  If we can learn this well we will save so much time all year. We practice this all day. One way Responsive Classroom redirects children is by asking them to “take a break”, which is a time a child will be asked to sit away from the group.  This consequence is used if they haven’t followed procedures or haven’t used self-control. During these first weeks everyone gets a chance to practice taking a break so they know how it feels.  The whole purpose is to help them realize that we all need to help the group learn.

  Right now verbal reminders and verbal recognition of you are “doing it right” is working well.  During the year, if a child has made a big mistake and needs to work harder on making good choices we may send home a Behavior Alert or an Improvement Plan.  A Behavior Alert, will be a written alert that a child made a mistake, or is continuing to make a mistake.  It is an alert to you that, this is happening in school and would you have a conversation with your child about this behavior.  An Improvement Plan will be a monitoring system that will indicate if improvement is being made on a daily basis or if the problem is not changing.  If we believe a child needs an Improvement Plan we will give you a call first, so that we can discuss the issue and proceed from there.

  Kindergarten is such an important year for setting the tone for school.  Kindergarten is such a fun year!

Thank you for letting us be partners with you in educating your child!

Margaret Kiel

Weekly Newsletter 9/25/2020:

Carpool is a new routine/procedure for everyone at Carondelet and it is improving every day. To help us keep everyone safe, please make sure your child stays with their teacher until we get to our carpool/pick up spot outside. Check in with me before you take your child with you. Also, please stay on the sidewalk and avoid walking in the parking lot through the carpool line. This also models safe behavior for your child. Thank you!


Highlights: Johnny Appleseed Day, Fire Drill, GoNoodle, Mystery Doug videos.

Lower Campus Parent Night (Grades PreK-2)
Tuesday, September 29, 2020

6:30-7:00 PM:  Grade PreK-2 Homeroom Presentations (Respective Homerooms)*

7:15-7:45 PM:  Grade PreK-2 Homeroom Presentations (Respective Homerooms)*

*Parents can attend either (identical) presentation. You pick the time that works best for you!

Waite House:  Carondelet partners with Waite House, a nonprofit organization in the Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis providing community support to those in need. One of Waite House’s services is an emergency food shelf.  Each month, our students collect food and personal items to donate to Waite House. Around 1300 individuals use this food shelf each month and each person is allowed only 15 pounds of food per month.  We are the largest organization which donates to them on a regular basis. 
We hope that you will consider helping with this important service to this organization who truly needs and appreciates our assistance. Please consider sending in a bag labeled Waite House or individual items that can be placed in our classroom donation bag/box or can be placed out in the hallway. Please consider making a donation by Sept. 29th as we haven't donated to them since June and we are their largest donation.  The students can just set them in the hallway outside of our classroom.  Any questions about Waite House please let me know. 

Please double bag. 

Non-Perishable Food Items
corn flour, flour, rice, pinto beans, black beans, soups, spaghetti sauce, ketchup, chili, sstews, canned vegetables, canned fruit, peanut butter, cereals, pancake mix, syrup, mayo, coffee,  salt, pepper...

Personal Items:
toilet paper, deodorant, shampoo, hand soap, toothpaste, tooth brushes, tissues

Baby:
diapers, baby wipes, formula, baby food

Dear Parents, We have had such a wonderful third week of school! Here are some of the things that we have been learning and doing!


Snacks: We have had nice snack times.  Thank you for sending the delicious fruits and vegetables each day! The children love eating outside. They loved having apples on Friday for Johnny Appleseed's Birthday! 

Religion:  This week we read stories from our children's bible about The New Beginning and Noah's Ark. We also started our Promise News Magazine(s). Promise News...is a weekly magazine that focuses on Gospel stories that we hear at Mass on Sundays. This week we read a story about God is Generous. We also learned that we belong to a church family. We pray at the beginning of our day, before lunch and snack, and in the afternoon. We are learning the Sign of the Cross. Every month we will learn a new prayer for morning meeting. For September we are learning "Angel of God."

Communications: We keep rhyming and reading.  This week we learned about letters and sounds of Dd, Ee, Ff, and Gg. I started to put stars next to their best letters and we would talk about why they were their best letters. Please keep helping your child to make all letters starting from the top. We also learned about how to write our names "the Kindergarten Way:" Capital letters for the first letters of our first and last name, and lowercase letters for the rest of our letters. The children know that I will be asking them to write their names the Kindergarten way and are always so proud to show me their names! They are working hard at making the transitions from using all upper case letters in their names.  We are enjoying journaling and remembering to use lots of colors to make our pictures more interesting. 

Mrs. Moening our reading specialist has started taking children in small groups to assess skills. She will continue for the next few weeks, and will let us know soon about inviting children to work with her.  She will work with children three times a week for about 20 minutes. 
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We are learning to use and take care of our tools, which will help us write.

Believe and Read: We worked on drawing cureves and with the letter and sound of Cc. 

Kindergarten Tip:  We always start printing numbers and letters from the top.  We also print our names the “kindergarten way,” which is the first letter is capitalized and the rest lower case.

Literature we read: Elmore, Apples Apples Apples, The Apple Story, The Wolf Story, The New Beginning (Noah's Ark. The children absolutly LOVE reading stories from our children's bibles! We have a student copy and they all want a turn with it!), Science Outside, Look, Listen, and Learn, Science Outside

Library Days are...on Wednesdays. Children checked out one book this week.  Please keep the book in a safe place and return it by next Wednesday.

Math: This week we are assessing children’s knowledge of numbers.  We are counting as we go through the day and keeping track of the days of school and what day it is on our calendar. We have been reading Anno's Counting Book. We have been working hard on our numbers and looked at number scenss and started making our very own number books! We have also been working with our number tiles and using them to help us learn about addition, subtraction, and new words such as greater and larger. We also created a birthday graph. Whenever a child turns six they get to move thier name down to the graph that says "six year olds." They loved working together to create the graph! 

Social Studies:  We continue to learn routines. We continue learning how to solve problems. Knowing that our classroom and our school as a "Peace Zone." We have discussed school rules. We have been practicing "Take a Break." This is a Responsive Classroom technique to give a chance to think about what they are doing that isn't helping the class learn.  We do not consider this punishment. It is a time for a child to think about their behavior and change it for next time. We are learning how to be at school in a way that makes everyone feel good. 
We continue to talk and practice being superheros in the classroom and in all parts of our school. 

Art: We make things every day. The paint easel is open.  We made beautiful apple prints and apples and Johnny Appleseed birthday hats by gluing and cutting different pieces together.

Other special lessons: Lunch Lesson, Recess Lesson, Music, Makerspace. Library and Gym. Everyone was able to check out one book to have and read for a week from Library. All library books are due on Wednesdays. We visited our "kindergarten tree" which the children will observe and learn about throughout the entire year. After visiting the tree the children painted beautiful pictures of our kindergarten tree. 

Guided Discovery:  We deliberately unveil the classroom piece by piece.  This week we discovered our picture journals, pencil sharpening 

Science:  We discuss the weather everyday and notice if it has changed from the previous day or not. We celebrated Fall by taking a hike and collecting things in the yard to make Fall crowns. We also talked about the inside and outside of apples.
We also watched Mystery Doug videos:  The Biggest Apple, How do Germs get Inside of our Bodies, How do Scientists Know so Much?

Choice Time Activities Were... animals, drawing, coloring, reading, puzzles, treehouse, dollhouse, barn, kitchen, gears, cars, painting, puzzles, games, building connectors, blocks

Apple Day: We had fun with apples this week and celebrated Johnny Appleseeds birthday. We picked and drew apples and leaves off the kindergarten apple tree which grows in front of our school.  We drew and measured our apples and guessed how many seeds were inside. We worked with a balance scale and found out who had the heaviest and lightest apples. We drew apples and found their stars! We painted and made apple prints.  We made Johnny Appleseed Hats and learned an apple song and how to make applesauce. We were busy!

FYI

The children have loved sharing their summer souveniers! If your child has not returned their summer souvenier please have them bring them on Monday so that they can share them and have them hanging up on the wall.

Remember to send a fruit or vegetable snack with your child. Snack is in the afternoon and the children look forward to it each day. Please make sure to tell your child what they are having for their afternoon snack. If your child brings a lunch from home make sure to tell them what part(s) are for lunch and what is for snack. If the snack does not need to remain cold, it can be placed in a front pocket of their backpack.

Please remember to check your child's backpack daily.  I know they are excited to show you what they are learning.

If you have not already, please send in a family picture to hang on our family tree. Please also send in the pink and blue forms on Monday. 

Scholastic Book Order Packets were sent home. The book orders are due online on Friday October 16th, 2020.

Please put your child's name on their lunchboxes, water bottles, sweaters and coats. This is such an important year to do this. Many of the children have the same items.

I am very excited to be working with you and your children, and anticipate an exciting year. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns. 

Enjoy your child's adventures in kindergarten!

Ms. Kiel

For Your Calendar

9-26-20 Johnny Appleseed Birthday
9-29-20 Open House Virtually
9-29-20 Waite House Food Due
10-16-20 Scholastic Book Orders Due Online


 

Here are some  super important notes for kindergarten parents:

Dismissal Procedures:  A big part of every day is going home.  We have your transportation plans on file and in the classroom.  It is so important to us and to your child that they know where they are going after school. Often there are changes, such as doctor appointments, piano lessons or play plans with friends.  If you have a change in plans, other than what you indicated on forms, we MUST have an Email before 3:00, please copy Holly on to the Email.  

Post the monthly  kindergarten calendars your child brings home. 

If your child has “ kindergarten tummy” (is missing you, which is normal, and often it happens more the 2nd and 3rd week of school) help your child by putting a photo of you in their backpack or pocket.  They can take a peek whenever they want to. 

Sometimes children have food allergies in the kindergarten class, as is becoming the norm in schools.  If a class has a student with allergies, that class will follow allergy awareness procedures and will not bring any food or drink besides water into the classroom. An exception is on days we cannot eat in the cafeteria, safe procedures will be in place on these days as well. To help encourage good hygiene and prevent the spread of germs, the children will wash their hands before starting their day. This will help in reducing illnesses. 

Kindergarteners have an  afternoon snack: fresh fruit or vegetable (parents provide).  You may want to chat with your child about saving that afternoon snack food in their lunchbox. We will supply snack the first week of school. 

Birthday Celebrations:  Out of concern for students’ overall wellness, Carondelet has decided to eliminate birthday treats from the school day. Instead, students will be given an out-of-uniform day on their birthday and will also be invited to lunch with the Principal during their birthday month. Teachers will also have their own classroom traditions.  We celebrate summer birthdays during the last week of school with a classroom piñata. We love Birthdays!!

Communication/Newsletters:  Parents must read the important details from the  Classroom newsletters that are posted online each Friday (end-of-day, around 5:30). The  All-school on-line  newsletter is emailed to parents each Friday. 

It's going to be a GREAT year!!

 

Kindergarten Behavior Plan:

To read the Kindergarten Behavior Plan   click here.