Welcome to Kindergarten!

There is a wonderful sense of home when you walk through the front doors of Samsula Academy. I deeply believe that your child will find our school to be a warm and friendly place. I am very proud to be a part of the Samsula Academy School family. Once you have opened those doors you are a member of our family too.

I wish to welcome you to Kindergarten. Kindergarten is a new and exciting time for you and your child. It’s a time of change… new beginnings, new friends, new challenges and exciting discoveries! I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere appreciation for allowing me to be a part of your child’s life during this precious time of growth and discovery!

This is my honor to welcome you and your child into Kindergarten and into… my life. I will do my best to make this year in Kindergarten enjoyable but also filled with academics. My motto is: “The seeds I plant today will blossom into a flower tomorrow.” It will be my pleasure and privilege to watch your child’s personality and learning abilities blossom and unfold day by day.

I run a very effective classroom which is well structured but allows for fun and growth. I hold high expectations for all my students. Furthermore, I strongly believe in differentiated instruction. Research reveals that all students learn differently. Therefore, I plan my lessons to meet the needs of all students. It will be my honor to expand the growing minds of tomorrow and encourage them to become the great leaders of the new generation.

You will find very useful information on this blog. I will update it with events that are happening in our classroom, student work, and other related events. If you have any questions, you may contact me at cgibbs@readingedgeacademy.org

-Mr. Christopher Gibbs

Happy Valentine's Day

Posted by Mr. Gibbs on Friday, February 12, 2010

Happy Valentine's Day


Wow. I was so amazed as to how creative our Valentine's Day boxes were. Above is a video of the boxes. One box was made into a truck. Another was a dino. We also had one made into an actual mailbox. Enjoy our video!






We had a fantastic week! We celebrated our friendship this week and learned more about being good friends. We are trying very hard to get along. We have recently had a problem with bullying. This was a great week to talk more about bullying. We read "Billy the Bully" this week which was about a bully named billy who was very mean. Because of his actions, he had no friends. Billy decided to make better choices and become less of a bully. At the end of the story, everyone became friends. It was great and really hit home to our class. Hopefully our problem is solved. With that being said, here is what we did this week:




In reading, we worked with the -ig word family. We built and read words that have the -ig word family. Children spelt words such as: pig, twig, and strig. We had a great week. We also finished our primer words. Children should now be able to recognize all of pre-primer and primer words. We will review the primer set next week. By Friday, your child is expected to know all pre-primer and primer words. Remember to practice with your child daily. "I am practicing every night," said Trevor M. I am so proud of him. He was able to identify all of the words this week. He is trying so hard, as is everyone. We read several books this week about friendship and Valentine's Day. We are learning about character traits, sequencing, and making connections.

We write everyday! We had a district writing assessment this week. The scores were sent home only if your child was not making adequate progress. Students should be writing four or more sentences on their own correctly. This is a challenge to many. Please make every night a writing night in your home - even five minutes will do!


In math, we reviewed our number words by completing several Valentine's Day activities. On Friday, we sorted Valentine candy and graphed them. We found out that we typically get more purples and pinks than any other color. Next week, we will be moving on to a new unit on graphing. This was a great way to kick off our unit!


Afternoon workshops were fun because we made special crafts for our fantastic parents! Hopefully you had the chance to go through your child's folder and pull all of these special crafts out. Keep them in a safe place - your child made it with love and care.






Remember to send in $5.00 for the Jack Hartmann field trip. We need to reserve the tickets as soon as possible. We will have early release on Wednesday. There is no school on Monday. We will be doing afternoon workshops next week on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. We could use some help on T, Th, and F from 1:00 to dismissal and Wednesday at 12:00 to 12:30... We could use one or two parents for each day. If a time works for you, come on in! We love our parents!



We are currently in need of some gallon size Ziploc bags and brown lunch bags. Anything else would be greatly appreciated. We have 75 days left. If you have not sent in twistable crayons, please remember to send them in ASAP.





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