Pre-Kindergarten
Mrs. Jenny McInroy
Years Experience: 25 years
Years at Holy Cross: 4
Continuing Education: Adelante Conference, Notre Dame
Welcome!
Hello! My name is Jenny McInroy. I am so excited to be the Pre-K teacher at Holy Cross Catholic School. I have been a preschool teacher in North and NE Portland for over 25 years. I am passionate about teaching preschool and daily incorporate my love of art, reading, building with natural materials, teaching our learners about God. I have a Reggio background and also trained in Handwriting without Tears.
I have lived in St. Johns most of my life. It is an amazing place to live! My husband and I have raised three amazing children here and are very active in our community. I am so excited to be teaching here in St. Johns once again.
Student Learning Expectations
As a school, we have a set of learning expectations that we strive to instill in all our students from Pre-K to 8th grade. They are:
Life Long Learners: Throughout Pre-K we are going to be starting to recognize our letters, letter sounds, and numbers. Through small groups activities and class projects we will build up our number and letter bank and be ready for reading in K! Other skills we are going to begin building upon are one-to-one counting, fine motor, book handling, and word sound skills.
Science and other STEM lessons and projects will be worked on this year as well. With this we will be learning about engineering and building, working out and improving solutions to problems, animals and plants in different areas of the world, motion and movement, planets and Outer Space, and much more. STEM allows Pre-K age children to use their observational skills and work on reasoning and problem-solving skills.
Faith Filled Christians: We will learn about how God made all things good through prayers, service, and bible stories. We are focusing this year on how God made the world. As we to go to mass every Friday, we are focusing more and more about the church and our church family. Their curiosity for the church and our faith is growing everyday.
Responsible Students: Our service project this year is working with the St. Vincent De Paul food bank (located right next to our classroom). We will be collecting "Birthday Bags" to be distributed throughout the year. This will provide people with a bag full of items to bake a cake, decorate it, enjoy birthday napkins, candles, and others items important to celebrate their special day. As well as service, we build upon our communication skills. Our classroom is continually working on skills to help build our communication skills with peers and teachers. We work on our social skills during recess, PE, and Discovery time. This helps us all clearly express our ideas, thoughts, and feelings.
What to work on at home...
- Read, Read, Read!! Read to your child as much as you can. Build their imagination and their love for reading! A great way to start reading more is to set a goal, like one book per day. After a week, try adding another book to everyday. The local library always has great reading programs for these little guys that will make reading fun for the whole family.
- Identify letters in everyday items and adventures. Your can identify letters on anything from street signs to cereal boxes. Need a fun in the rainy day activity? Spray some shaving cream down on a plate and practice writing letters and numbers with your finger!
- Explore. Spending time outdoors in nature with your child will open their hearts to exploration and love of the nature around the. The Zoo, The Forestry Center, OMSI, and The Children's Museum are all great places to experience. Talking about the different plants, animals, and bugs at your local park or even your own garden will pump up those observational skills!
- Go check out that public library and find some new books to try out.
Practice one-to-one counting. I try to incorporate counting anywhere and everywhere I can. Focus on touching each item you count. - Practice writing their name and other letters! We write our name everyday in Pre-K but any extra help at home will help them this year and next!
Did I mention how awesome reading is?
