Note from Admin:

Salaams Families

We have just one month left of our school year! We have so much to celebrate. The children are looking forward to sharing all they have learned with our families and friends at our Awards ceremony on May 10th! They have been rehearsing daily as they prepare for an amazing celebration of the 2024-2025 school year at Shine.

This month we celebrated Eid with a pizza party on April 1st. Our Kindergarten - 3rd graders enjoyed learning how to do magic on April 2nd at a magic workshop.

We are so proud of our 3rd graders. They completed their IOWA state testing during the week of April 7th-11th. Official scores will be sent before the end of the year. We all enjoyed a fun Space Day at Ifocus on April 18th. Thank you, Ms. B and all her staff for creating a fun learning experience for our students.

On April 22nd, our school celebrated Earth Day wearing green and completing activities that taught us about keeping our earth clean and safe. The students learned how we need to reduce, reuse, and recycle every day.

Prek

April has been a month full of discovery, excitement, and hands-on learning across all our Pre-K classroom! From exploring healthy habits to diving into early literacy and math skills, our students have been busy building a strong foundation for the next stage of their educational journey. This month, our theme was Health and Fitness, and our little learners had a blast! They explored the five food groups, talked about making healthy choices, and even rolled up their sleeves for some fun in the kitchen. Whether they were sorting foods, tasting new snacks, or getting moving with fitness games, our students learned that taking care of our bodies can be both important and fun. In Social Studies, students took a virtual road trip across the United States! They learned fun facts about Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, and New Hampshire through stories, maps, songs, and creative activities.

Our Pre-K 4 students have made fantastic progress this month! They’ve been sharpening their sight word recognition, mastering vowel sounds, and confidently reading CVC words. In math, they’ve been comparing objects, using ten frames, and continuing to strengthen their number sense.

Pre-K 3 has been hard at work recognizing uppercase and lowercase letters, learning their sounds, and practicing letter formation. In math, they've been counting, identifying numbers up to 20, and developing number recognition skills through fun, hands-on activities.

Our youngest learners in Pre-K 2 are thriving through playful, interactive learning! They’re developing key early skills through sensory play, group activities, and engaging tasks that spark curiosity and creativity in every lesson.

Kindergarten

In math, we learned how to count by 5’s and 10’s up to 100. We also completed chapter 13 regarding how to read clocks tell time to the hour. Then, we started chapter 14 regarding pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.

In Islamic studies, we learned and discussed about verses in the Quran regarding helping others, making fun of others, making dua, speaking calmly, establishing prayer, consulting others, etc.

In social studies, we learned about and created a booklet about the reason and significance behind various laws and rules, various authority figures, and how to be a good citizen and make responsible decisions. Students also created suncatchers, Earth day crowns, and bridges out of playdough, construction paper, and pipe cleaners.

In ELA, students read various stories about ducks in a truck, a makeshift sled, and a monster who loves baths. We also learned how to identify and read open and closed syllables, and we wrote a story and drew a picture of our pet dinosaur.

Grade 1 and 2

Salaamun Alaykum Parents,

In Science, we have been exploring our Energy unit! The students learned about different forms of energy including kinetic energy (energy of movement) and potential energy (stored energy). We discussed different types of energy resources like the sun, water, and wind and how we use them in everyday life. We had many hands-on activities where we measured temperatures using both scientific thermometers and household thermometers, comparing how they work. Students learned how heat energy moves from hot to cold objects (heat transfer) through fun experiments like measuring how fast water heats up and cools down.

One of our highlights was making solar ovens, where students used the sun’s energy to cook s’mores and mini pizzas! Through this, they experienced how the sun’s heat can be captured and used. We also explored how light and sound are forms of energy and did activities to observe how energy travels. It has been a wonderful unit filled with discovery, experiments, and lots of excitement!

In Islamic Studies, we are continuing to strengthen our daily prayers (Salah), working on understanding the meaning behind our actions, and preparing for our end-of-year play, where students will showcase their learning and growth throughout the year, inshaAllah.

Grade 3

This month was a busy one, starting off with our standardized testing. We spent one week taking practice tests, getting familiar with the format and process of taking a state test. Students did really well and we had no issues during testing week itself. I have full confidence that everyone will pass. The hardest part of third grade is over, congratulations.

We also finished up our class book this month as we worked on finalizing our drafts and illustrating our stories. Students are eager to share their works with each other and their peers.

In math the world kept turning and we shifted gears into geometry. Students learned to identify angles, diameters, radii, triangles and quadrilaterals. Students also practiced how to use a compass. We are now applying that information towards finding the area of rectangles and composite shapes.

In science we began our Islamic science unit on the atmosphere. We’ve discussed the difference between sky and atmosphere and key facts about the first two layers of the atmosphere. We have tied in our discussion of the ozone layer with our discussion on Earth day about what we can do to help our home. We had a lot to cover this month but there is still more to learn. Keep up the great work, let’s have a productive month of May!

Library Fun for May: