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Mrs. Jennifer MacRitchie » Welcome to Kindergarten!

Welcome to Kindergarten!

Welcome to Mrs. MacRitchie's Kindergarten!


I am so excited to be a part of the St. Joseph Catholic School community. After receiving my bachelor’s degree and completing the master’s program at St. Mary’s University in Minnesota, my first teaching job was here at St. Joseph Catholic School, where I taught kindergarten. I taught at St. Joseph for seven years and then stepped away from teaching after the birth of my first child. When my children were in school, I returned to teaching at a public school in Geneva, working with children with special needs. After 6 years in the public school system, I decided to return to the Catholic School Community and started teaching kindergarten at St. Mary School in Elgin. In 2024, I moved back to the northern suburbs and feel so blessed to be back at St. Joseph Catholic School.

We are fortunate to have a full-time instructional kindergarten aide, Mrs. Graziella Bosco, working in our classroom this year. Mrs. Bosco has been a kindergarten aide at St. Joseph School for 18 years!

Together, we will develop a caring classroom community that will foster growth and develop a love for learning. We are both very excited to work closely with each student to ensure a successful Kindergarten year!

 




 

Posts

Thank you, Mrs. Brill, for organizing the Prumpkin Patch today. We had so much fun, we didn't even notice it was drizzling. I look forward to talking with everyone tomorrow.
Today was a busy day in kindergarten.  In reading/social studies, we learned all about King Tutankhamun when we read the book Treasures of King Tut.  We could not believe that he became pharaoh at age nine.  In science, we cut open an apple and labeled all the different parts. We also finished our weather unit and get to bring our science notebooks home for you to see all the wonderful things we learned. 

Week at a Glance October 13th to October 15th

Math Objectives: The students will be able to use ordinal numbers to tenth to describe the position of an object. The students will be assessed on all the objectives taught in Chapter 2, Numbers to 10. 
 

Science Objectives: The students will be able to name the four seasons and describe at least two key characteristics of each season, such as the weather, typical clothing, or changes in nature. The students will be able to identify and label the basic parts of an apple and understand the life cycle of an apple. 

Reading Objectives: To be able to recognize, write, and produce the correct sounds for the letters t, b, f, n, m, i, u, c, o, a, g, d, and s. To continue to work on blending the learned sounds to make words. To identify the correct initial sound in words.  The students will be able to read the sight words red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and pink. The students will work on being able to identify the setting of a story.

Social Studies Objectives: The students will continue to develop communication and problem-solving skills. The students will be exposed to the discovery of King Tut’s tomb and how some of the objects found in the tomb are on display in museums. 

Religion Objectives: To be able to pray the Sign of the Cross Prayer and the Guardian Angel Prayer independently.

Writing Objectives: The students will be able to explain that the “setting” is where and when of a story. The students will be able to identify the setting of a story by using evidence from the story.

There is no school on Thursday, October 16, and Friday, October 17. I look forward to talking with all of you at conferences. 

Thank you to the Boston Family for the super cool set of classroom Doodle Boards. We had so much fun using them for the first time today. We got to write CVC words.
Today was a great day! We had not one, not two, but three friends redeem their show-and-tell coupons. We also learned what makes weather severe and what we can do to prepare for severe weather.  
Today, we learned the sound the letter d makes.  We used our Play-Doh to make things that start with the letter d. Maggie made me an awesome dinosaur.

Week at a Glance October 6th to October 10th

Math Objectives: To be able to name, recognize, write, and count quantities 1 to 10. Students will use one-to-one correspondence and counting to compare groups and determine which group is greater than, less than, or whether the groups are equal to each other. To be able to use “one more” to identify a number that is one larger using numbers to 10. 

Reading Objectives: To be able to recognize, write, and produce the correct sounds for the letters t, b, f, n, m, i, u, c, o, a, g, d, and s. The students will be able to identify the correct initial sound in words that start with t, b, f, n, m, i, u, c, o, a,  g, d, and s. The students will be able to read the sight words red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and pink. The students will begin to blend individual phonemes (sounds) of a consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) word to say and write a whole word. To work on observing, wondering, and asking questions when reading. 

Science Objectives: The students will be able to name the four seasons and describe at least two key characteristics of each season, such as the weather, typical clothing, or changes in nature. The students will be able to identify common types of severe weather and describe simple safety actions to take during an emergency.

Social Studies Objectives: To be comfortable with firefighters in full gear to help alleviate fear and help prevent hiding during an emergency. To know what to do when a fire/smoke alarm sounds.

Religion Objectives: The students will understand that Mary said yes to God’s plan. The students will be able to identify Mary as Jesus’ Mother and Jesus as the Son of God.

Writing Objectives: The students will be able to explain that the “setting” is where and when of a story. The students will be able to identify the setting of a story by using evidence from the story.

Today, we learned all about the letter G and got to make things that begin with G using our Play-Doh. A few of the things my creative kindergartners made were guitars, ghosts, games, gum, and Sloane made a girl. Great work today!
We learned about how, in 1974, Chinese farmers accidentally discovered portions of ancient statues. Archaeologists were called in, and they unearthed an entire army of Terra-Cotta warriors. We then each got a wordless picture book to retell the story, promoting our understanding of basic story elements and expanding our oral language and retelling skills. You might also find you have some future archaeologists, as they all wanted to go home and see if they might be able to find some type of ancient statues in their backyards today. 
Since we have learned the names and sounds for the letters t, b, f, n, m, i, u, c, o, and a we are working hard at making words on our magnetic letter boards. today we spelled  cob, tub, fin, and mob.

Week at a Glance September 29th to October 3rd

Math Objectives: Students will recognize and write the numerals 6, 7,  8, 9, and 10 and represent a number of objects with a written numeral. 

Reading Objectives: To be able to recognize, write, and produce the correct sounds for the letters t, b, f, n, m, i, u, c, o, a, and g. The students will be able to identify the correct initial sound in words that start with t, b, f, n, m, i, u, c, o, a, and g. To be able to sing the color songs for purple. The students will begin to blend individual phonemes (sounds) of a consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) word to say a whole word. To work on observing, wondering, and asking questions when reading. The students will be able to identify the main character in a story and recognize some of their character traits. 

Science Objectives: The students will be able to name the four seasons and describe at least two key characteristics of each season, such as the weather, typical clothing, or changes in nature.  

Religion Objectives: The students will be able to identify that green is the color of Ordinary Time and that this is a time to learn Jesus’ teachings and how to be a good disciple, and that it is a season of thanks and praise.

 Writing Objectives: The student will be able to identify characters in a story and describe their characters’ traits.

Social Studies: The students will be exposed to the archaeological treasure discovered in 1974, the Terracotta Army. The students will be able to identify John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed) as an American historical figure who planted apple trees and describe one fact about his life.

There is no school on Friday, October 3, 2025

Charlie used his show-and-tell coupon today to share his collection of baseball cards with the class. As a special gift for his classmates, he also gave every student one of his baseball cards and a baseball score sheet.  Thank you Charlie.