~ Always here for your child - keeping their best interests our priority ~
Ms Lingle, Ms Rumana, and Ms Shurovi
What is that?!! They all asked! Well, what do you think it could be? A sight to be-Hole-d in ...our own Hidey Hole! Keeping tune on to the central idea that 'the cycle of light & dark affects us and the activities we do', each of us took time to reflect on what we do throughout the day, when the sun is at a different part of the sky. We know this because our shadows moved; because light grows brighter through the day but dims towards the end of the day ... look at what transpired from our discussions; what some of them depicted about parts of their day, well done Angelfish! We took time to create and produce our own Shadow Puppetry-Theatre! We learned how light can affect shadows; how we should take note of details when making our puppets, such as the eyes and hair. Children recapture the joy of story-telling, successfully reconnecting and revisiting the central idea in unit 2 that 'stories can be expressed in different ways'. These final weeks of school is all about revising all that we've learned since Aug 2012!!! We revisited numbers, alphabets, songs, putting on our thinking hats as we look at pictures, words, the world around us, and so much more! Finally, our class of Angelfish are busy preparing for our yearend party, to be held Thurs, June 6 - we can't wait! What a busy year it has been so far!!!
~ Always here for your child - keeping their best interests our priority ~ Ms Lingle, Ms Rumana, and Ms Shurovi
1 Comment
This week, we talked about LIGHT ... What is Light? What can you see in the Light? Why do we need Light? Where does Light come from? Why and How do we use Light? and so many more inquiries ..!! We explore through different activities and inquiries, within ourselves, with our friends and teachers. How? Why? What? When? Next, we talked just a little bit about Dark and it's properties. But our class seemed more excited about making their own Shadow Puppets (on a stick). Everyone was so enthusiastic to make their shadow puppets .. there was a sharp learning taking place as most realised you can't design a puppet like a drawing. Much thought has to be considered as to the outline of the puppet .. can we draw stick people or should we draw them 'fatter' so it would stand out when we shine a light on it? So many questions .. so many points of view to consider ... Children were busy re-designing, coloring and then cutting them out to prepare for a shadow puppet. Time to bring in the overhead projector! Look out for the photos and performance next week? As ever, we continue to have ample opportunities listening to stories, what a treat every week! We had our sessions with Mr Prewitt who read 'Alice the Fairy'. Alice isn't a permanent fairy -- yet. But with wand in hand and powers like flying and invisibility, there's little doubt that she knows her magic. Fly into Alice's world and cast spells with her as she dreams of enrolling at the Advanced Fairy School. At the ES Library, Mrs Clarke read to us 'Mighty Max" and we got to borrow books on super heroes right after. On Thursday, MS students came by to read us more stories, yea! We love to listen to stories and look forward to their visits. We ended the week with Keston's Mom, Meng Meng telling us a story of the "Stone Soup". All the children had a piece of ingredient to add to her pot of soup. With Meng Meng's magic stone added, the whole class 'cooked' up a delicious yummy pot of soup and shared it all around. We learned about the moral of the story, to help each other, to share and be caring friends and neighbors. Thank you Meng Meng .. the class was super excited to have her and of course, Keston could not stop smiling! Finally, I would like to share that in conjunction with AISD's coming 40th Anniversary Celebrations, and to raise funds for our building and renovation, our class is coming up with an item for the PTA's Silent Auction. Thanks to Kaushalya, Meng Meng and Oderah for volunteering their time, we are working hard to finish this Mexican Huichol Yarn Art of our class mascot, an Angelfish! Check it out! We seek your support for this great event and children are already talking about wanting to have this fish for themselves! Good luck to the highest bidder!!! All for a good cause! As always, we seek to ensure fun learning for your child ... Ms Lingle, Ms Rumana, and Ms Shurovi!
We spent this whole week on several matters: 1. Giving closure to Unit 3 with a personal Country Map - indicating our journey through selected countries.... kids took time to be selective of the country they wish to journey to, the friends who they wish to visit, and so on .. a very interesting insight. 2. Reacting to the joy of story-telling through puppetry, through pictures we draw, through books, through interactive listening, through physical participation as the story unfolds, through Mystery Readers and more ... 3. Prepping ourselves for our Student-Led Conference with activities that we could highlight to our parents on our learning in PreK4 .... 4. Prepping ourselves for our Class Silent Auction Project of using the Mexican Huichol Yarn Art in creating our Angelfish ... 5. Learning more about ourselves, our first names vs. last names, our friends' full names .. and relearning and reinforcing all about recognising alphabets and sounds in the whole process ... 6. Remembering our Acts of Kindness and what it means to bring a smile to someone else ... 7. Believing in yourself, being confident to take the unknown step, not copying friends in their work, and sharing our unique personality with each other ... 8. We practise 'thinking out of the box' by doing something against our normal understanding ... we used popcorn (outdated popcorn) to create a picture. Children took a while to accept this mental shift in understanding that popcorn could also be used to make things, not just for eating. A few kids took to it with a flair, most found it a challenge. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the perishable popcorn, I had to dispose of it a day after the activity to prevent ants in our classroom. It was a fun way to challenge our thinking! Vanisha's Mom, Ms Bhawna surprised us all with her physically participative way of telling a story. Children learned to be active listeners as they study the road she made, based on the all-time favorite story of the "Tortoise & the Hare/Rabbit". Everyone had a chance to take part in this race and to verbalise at the end of the race, what he/she could do to win the race. Awesome interaction there Ms Bhawna, thank you very much! We all had a blast! ~ Assuring your child of fun days in school ~
Ms Lingle, Ms Rumana, and Ms Shurovi This past week, we started Sunday morning with a Yoga session. Children learn about breathing techniques, posture and how yoga is about finding the balance within ourselves. We tested this theory in our attempts to do the Tree Pose. We continue this past week and the days after on our presentations of our home countries, with each child talking about their home country, based on the photos that they have on their Country Folder. I could hear the pride in their voices as they narrated, well done Angelfish! This shall be shown to parents during our Student-Led Conference, March 28. We took time off to explore a fun way to recognize numbers through a game of dominoes. Some friends knew how to play this game and was very helpful showing others who were learning it for the first time. What impressive cooperative learning that took place! We learned about Venn Diagrams and it can help us gather information about our home countries, based on commonalities or differences - from colors in our flags to national flowers to transportation, and so forth. By studying a 'pie chart' with indicated colors for each segment, and looking at our graph on ‘Colors in our Flag’, we learn to re-categorize and reinforce our understanding of studying a graph and utilizing a graph. Bravo Angelfish! We learned to put similarities and differences together into our venn diagrams. It was a huge step for our Angelfish and possibly a sharp learning curve, but they took it in their stride and are now so proud of their work! We also worked on creating our class' Number Tree! It was fun to learn about numbers 11 - 20 and how we can check our 'leaf' aka work before saying 'I'm done!' Good job everyone! Ebube brought in his 'Country Map' which comprise all nationalities in his class. It was an impressive piece of work and everyone was so inspired, they want to make a Country Map of their own too. So we shall do this on Sunday, March 3. Look out for more pictures to follow of your child's perspective of his/her Country Map - this is a promising activity and I could not be happier that our Angelfish are making connections and understanding diversity in this unit, Bravo Ebube! Fantastic enthusiasm everyone! Last but not least, Lewis' Dad, Ian, came as our Mystery Reader. He read two books, "Hamish the Highland Cow", and "The Gruffalo" to the class and everyone loved it! In fact, some children were heard asking Ian where and which bookstore should they go to buy the same books! Thank you Ian! It was great having you join us, knowing how busy your schedule is. We greatly appreciate your effort and time!!! Come back again soon! And I shall end my update this week with a problem, a problem which we don't mind having. Our class is running out of display space for our Class Library!! Our children have been bringing books from home to share their joy for reading!!! Now we need to think of another way to display all that love for reading!!! ~ Always here for your child as he/she continues in learn and grow in PK4L ~
Ms Lingle, Ms Rumana, and Ms Shurovi Whoa! This week flew by in a wink! We miss Keston since the start of the week, and ended the week missing Mia too! Come back soon Keston and Mia! Highlighted below are the learning that took place starting from today, Thurs Feb 14. Our Mystery Reader, Kaushalya (Gaayathri's Mom) was super-duper creative in her approach to telling a story. Not relying on the traditional method of reading off a book. Based on the book, 'The Dragon Who Couldn't Breathe Fire', she used finger puppets to emphasize on the moral of the story through the main character, Little Dragon. Instead of spewing fire, her Dragon spews flowers, fish, love and more. Her story had the children entralled so much so that Ebube asked, 'Show us the pictures from the book!" This way of telling a story was so different that Ebube added, 'Why don't you read from the book?" and that started off a round of discussions on 'the different ways we could tell a story', the different ways we could listen to a story or have a story read to us. This experience is in line with the central idea of our year long unit 'How We Express Ourselves' - thank you Kaushalya, you nailed it perfectly for our deeper understanding! On this same day earlier in the afternoon, MS kids came by to read us stories from the titles they have selected specially for our age group. Enjoy the pictures below - I am so proud of our children for being such good listeners! We loved these MS students, come back again soon! We practice our knowledge at Alphabet Bingo with Ms Rumana - it was very competitive to be a good listener and listen out for letters in our given grid. It was very satisfying to shout BINGO! when we completed our grid. At the Library, and in celebration of 'I Love Reading' this week, we went to the library three times, what a treat! Sun, Feb 10 >> The first time was just our class to enjoy to ambience of being in The Tent - a specially created environment conducive for reading. Our class each chose a book and read quietly, then exchanged books with each other and read some more. Tues, Feb 12 >> The second visit was with our 3rd gr buddies and we shared big books with them. It was very rewarding to see our children so engaged and focused with their buddies! Wed, Feb 13 >> Today we went back to the Lib again for our regular Library Day and Mrs Clarke read to us 'Hooray for Reading Day!'. What a week of reading to be had by all! Thurs, Feb 14 >> We ended the week with Mr Prewitt reading to us 'I just forget' by Mercer Mayer, an all-time classic about a character who keeps forgetting when he should try to remember and how he dealt with each forgetful situation. Borrow it from the library and read it again with your child! Better still, have your child retell the story to you and enjoy the bonding. Challenge your child: can he/she recall the many stories heard this week? Which story was their favorite? In PE, we had A WIGGILY FUN TIME through tunnels, doing body rolls and balancing on a crooked beam .. Fun! Fun! Fun! ~ As always, creating fun learning experiences at all times ~
Ms Lingle, Ms Rumana, and Ms Shurovi In this update, I included activities from the last week of January till now. This is because the activities are/were on-going and so the dates overlapped into February - just that you are aware :) As we continue on our current understanding of where we come from in place and time - we started developing an understanding of how we are connected to Bangladesh through the way we arrived in our host country (ie. forms of transport). Moving along the unit, we asked ourselves 'where/what is my home country'? I know how the flag of my home country looks like; I know the colors now. But how does the map of my home country look like? What is the shape? Does it have a shape? Can we picture it in our minds? We learned that some countries are surrounded by water/sea, some countries have the sea on one side or more, some countries are surrounded by land and/or mountains, and so on. Most importantly, we learned that some friends have two home countries, why is that? We talked about where we come from and why it is different with each friend in class. The activities took over two weeks from start to finish and everyone enjoyed getting pink finger tips and nails at the end of it, a totally fun hands-on learning process! This week, we surprised ourselves with two Mystery Readers! Adam's Dad, Robert managed to find time to be with us, though in the early morning on Feb 7. Later that same day, Mia's Mom Gitte showed up. The class was totally amazed to have two Mystery Readers in one day. I'd say parents, we did a good job shaking them up! Thank you Robert and Gitte ... it's always a treat to listen to stories!! We can't seem to get enough of readers this week! The MS students came by and read to us selected titles which they have picked out from the ES Lib, specially to read to us. What a treat! Thank you MS Students! Do visit us again! On Day 4, our 3rd grade buddies came and helped our Angelfish to make connections with Bangladesh. Gathered in four different groups, we brainstormed and agree/disagree on what we know of Bangladesh. Then we drew pictures to represent the words we agreed on. This is the start of a collaboration with our buddies in helping us with this unit ... more to come in the near future! We ended our week re-visiting our Love for Stories and tried out our Puppet Theatre. Check it out! And on this note, we wish you many more viewings of your child's learning in the weeks and months ahead as we head to our final semester in PreK4!! ~ Always giving our best to and for your child ~ Ms Lingle, Ms Rumana, and Ms Shurovi Our class of Angelfish continues in their quest to understand and enjoy our current unit on Where We Are in Place and Time. We spend time looking at pictures of our home countries, browsing through books about where we come from. We took more time to look through pictures and learn about where our friends came from. We acquaint ourselves with our country's flags. What colors are in my flag? How does the world look like? Is it Flat or Round or another shape? Why? We shared country books with our 3rd grade buddies; after which they shared with us on where they came from. So much to talk about, so much to share about each other. We found that some of our buddies has the same home country, some different. All in all, a very interesting and investigative 9 days of learning where we come from in place and time! We visited the ES Library and Mrs Clarke read to us the book "My Granny Went to Market", which shows the items/ingredients that Granny needed to buy. We learned about sequence and steps to follow when we set about on a task, ie. marketing. The next time we visited the library, Mrs Clarke read, "How to make an apple pie and see the world!" We learned about the different ingredients required to make an apple pie and where the ingredients came from; which country did it originated from eg. Milk came from the cows in England, apples came from the fruit farm in America, and so forth. A fun book to read and even bake an item or two with your child at home, borrow the book and try it! In Life Skills with Mr Prewitt, we listened to the adventures of "Ricardo's Day" and his way of life, which is different from us, and how so. The book introduced to the children how Ricardo spends his day in the rural countryside; so different from our typical city life. Yet there are moments of his day which is similar to ours, ie. getting up, brushing our teeth, helping out, making friends, etc. The next time Mr Prewitt visited our class, he read "Joey runs away" where we learned that home is the best place to be. But Joey, the baby kangaroo needed to leave home in search of another home (find out for himself the different ways other animals live), before he learned and realized that Mommy's pouch is the best place to be; a classic Home Sweet Home story - an instant hit with our class! Finally, we have our Mystery Readers : Ayesha (Sabir Ali's Mom on Jan 15. Ayesha read "A Silly Story of Bondaland" which got the whole class laughing and wanting to have their own Bondaland! What is 'Bondaland?" Ask your child about it? It would be interesting to hear how much they may have remembered or could recall! We appreciate having Ayesha and especially because it was such a precious gesture to take time off her busy work to surprise us with a favorite story of Sabir Ali's. Thank you very much for sharing with us! Neeraj (Ahaan's Dad) was our Mystery Reader 'appearing' on Jan Neeraj read 'The Jungle Book', a classic favorite among young children and handed out specially printed color pictures of the characters in the story. Most of us ended up more excited at the reflective surfaces of the backing instead of the picture; it was rather hilarious! But thank you all the same Neeraj for the pictures; it's a good visual reminder for the children on the story read! Thank you Neeraj! Our next Mystery Reader turned out to be Eri (Yukino's Mom) who showed up on Jan 30. Eri read 'Tokyo Friends". That day, we learned that in Japanese books, we read from Right to Left - opposite to what we already know and are writing in class, so interesting! Eri also talked about using the chopsticks and we surprised her with our class' giant chopsticks which we have been practicing in class to improve on our fine-motor skills. It was fun showing our Mystery Reader our knowledge in return! Eri ended her session giving out Origami Paper Hats to every child! We are hoping Eri will return once again and maybe she could teach us a simple origami to make, won't that be fun?!!! Thank you Eri! Lastly, we had PE where we demonstrated our knowledge of positions - left, right, front, back/behind, under/through, and so forth. We pretended we were going on a trip of obstacles and the various positions we had to be in. It was a physical exertion that the children thoroughly loved! We shall do this a few more times in the near future, for sure! ~ Taking good care of your child at all times ~ Ms Lingle, Ms Rumana, and Ms Shurovi What a whirlwind of a week! Jan 6 - 10, 2013 In the blink of an eye, we are almost starting on our 2nd week back from our Dec break, incredible! The whole class shared on the different holiday spots each went, be it overseas or here in Bangladesh. It was informative and a helptful prelude to our next Unit 3 on 'Where We Are in Place & Time". Looking at the Central Idea of 'Through exploring our connections ... we can learn about the places we are from", we first learned about the meaning of the word 'connections' in so many different ways. We talked about connecting simple toys, like LEGOs and floor toys, blocks, etc. We talked about how we connect with what we see to what we will draw; how do we connect with what we visualize in our minds to paper;, we talked about how we are able to travel/connect from point A to B, ie. in our Dec break - how did we travel? (by airplanes, car?). Thanks to you too, dear parents, your response to the Unit 3 Questionnaire and coming activities is helping us to put our background information of each child together as an informational session everyday that we are at school. We are learning about Connections and where we come from; our connections to Bangladesh as a common ground where we are all based now. Some interesting topics included discussions on our world/globe and whether we think it's Round or Flat. Sahan brought in a toy to share one day and it had a little satellite dish attached on the back. This sparked off an interesting off-the-cuff discussion about satellite dishes out in space and what do they do; what is their function? We talked about how Cartoon Network could be transmitted because of satellite dishes. What is the connection? How are the different ends/parts of transmission connected? What a coincidental tie in to our unit discussion! We talked about how you could call Grandma and Grandpa so far away on the other side of the world and yet could hear them so clearly over the telephone - why is that so? Thank you Sahan! Inbetween excitement in learning our 3rd Unit, we took time to re-learn and revise our acquired knowledge from before the Dec break. We had to re-acquaint ourselves with the layout of our new classroom, new routines and new toys, manipulatives to play with! Even new books to read, yah! In our first session with our buddies after our holiday break, we brought them to our new gym and enjoyed the spaciousness and comfortable room. Pracitisng on our listening skills, we Ms Stacy played some selective music and our buddies led the way in mimicking movements of animals and the sounds they make, such as elephant, giraffe, fish, etc. We learned about body awareness and how to move to slow or fast tempo/music ... we had moments of hilarity and laughter! Check out the movie! In Library, Mrs Clark convinced us that dogs could talk, seriously! Her book, "RRRalph" and her doggy cries and yelps and barks kept the children spell-bound right to the last word! It was a doggone good time with Mrs Clark! Finally, we ended the week with a visit from Mr Prewitt who read about "Let's Care About Caring!" and we discussed about ways we show we care and how we carry that out to our family, friends and everything around us! We ended the session giving Bunny & Teddy caring hugs! Thank you Mr Prewitt for always reminding us on such basic skills, we love hearing your stories! Dear Parents! In our final school week to the end of this calendar year, our Class of Angelfish were extremely exuberant everyday of this week! Not only did I begin to doubt for a moment if they have forgotten class expectations, I actually thought they were way over-stimulated and I have not even done anything out of the ordinary??!!!! They had so much energy - where did that come from?!!! It must be their inner sense and awareness that the holidays are round the corner :) We had so much fun getting to know our new environment and classroom all over again; it's like starting PreK4 all over again, but with so much more confidence! Each child had a magnifying glass, enabling them to a whole new perspective, fun!! So let me try to recap how we spent this week, especially the highlights! Sun, Dec 9: Although I was out sick, my sub teacher, Ms Shailini made sure that our children practise their knowledge of adding and counting with a game of BINGO. Mon, Dec 10: We reinforced our understanding of the AB patterns and also tried out the ABB patterns. Using smiley stickers of 2 different colors, we attempted our own ABB patterns. For some, we needed to refresh our memories with the AB pattern first, then attempting the ABB pattern. Everyone participated and gave their best - I could not find words to describe my astonishment at their ability to grasp this concept so quickly this time round! It was simply amazing!!! Needless to say, I am so proud of each and every child for all the efforts they put into our learning. At Library, Mrs Clarke read to us "Mrs Wishy Washy's Christmas". We were also reminded on the responsiblity and importance of returning library books on time so that the next person will also have a chance to read that book(s). We talk about responsiblity falling on our Angelfish and not Mommy or Daddy, Bearer or Ayah or Nanny. We need to learn to be responsible by reminding ourselves that one is responsible for one's actions. Tues, Dec 11: We made 'snow flakes' out of paper! We learned how to fold a piece of paper into a small triangle or rectangle. We learned how when we cut a pattern there and then, and when we fold the paper, how a symmetrical pattern would result. It was amazing to see how we can create such beautiful geometrical patterns. I could not work fast enough for your child! They were so inspired to create more!! Wed, Dec 12: MS Choir came and sang to us Christmas carols like Jingle Bells, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman and then some! Check out these pictures! All PreK4 children were awesome listeners and jumped at the chance to singalong to Jingle Bells right at the end :) Good job everyone! Mr Prewitt read 'Owly" by Mike Thaler. From the story, we learned about how a gentle hug can mean so much to another person. We learned to appreciate that sometime hugs have be to cautiously given; sometimes we could ask the recipient if they'd like a hug. This is about being sensitive, being understanding. What a powerful lesson we learned today!! Thank you Mr Prewitt! Thurs, Dec 13: Today we had a very candid conversation about who celebrates Christmas and who does not and why. The class wanted me to write down what they'd wish for from Santa, even for some of us who do not celebrate Christmas, it was a happy moment to reflect on what we have and if given a wish, what we'll wish for. Do wishes come true? What happens if it doesn't? It was interesting to observe how our children are learning to be open-minded and accepting of differences in others. For them, it is a huge step in the direction of self-awareness; of understanding that one can do different simply based on religion or even culture. These are appropriate conversations that will lead us smoothly into our next unit on 'Where We Are In Place & Time' next month. Here is a list of names and what each child wishes for .... they could 'only' wish for one thing ... so a lot of thought went into their answers, enjoy! Adam > Blue, new Bicycle! (and Computer!) Ahaan > Skateboard! Sahan > Robot! Ebube > Video Game! Gaayathri > Barbie Doll! Keston > iPad! Lewis > iPad! Mia > iPad! Nisa > Laptop! Poppy > Pink Camera! Sabir Ali > Computer! Vanisha > Cycle! Yukino > Doll! Our Mystery Reader for today was Suresh, Vanisha's Dad. Suresh read the book "Dream Snow". The class was very excited and fidgety with holiday moods - it's a wonder Vanisha's Dad managed to finish his story!!! We had so much fun with Mystery Readers and this time round, everyone had a gift of a 2-way pair of 'glasses', which can transform into writing pens, how awesome! What a way to end the last day of school in Semester 1. Thank you Vanisha's Dad!!!! Please come again! Giving our best to your child, always!
Ms Lingle, Ms Rumana, and Ms Shurovi HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND A HAPPY LEAP INTO THE NEW YEAR 2013! Dear Parents What a week it has been! I worked over the weekend to get our new classroom ready and all setup to be as familiar for the kids as possible! This is still a work in progress and I would hope that by January 2013, it will look awesome and a fantastic fun place for learning! Also, welcome back Adam! We have missed you so much! On our 1st day, we armed ourselves with a magnifiying glass and set off to explore our immediate surroundings ... and discovered a new way of looking at our environment through our lenses!! In my absence for this week, my substitute teachers have been wonderful in carrying out details and instructions from my lesson plans. Thank you Ms Shamema and Ms Shalini! Angelfish has new routines to adjust to in our new classroom: we have Bathroom Trips, we lunch at the Cafeteria, we acquaint ourselves with transitions and everyone took it in their stride, bravo Angelfish! I am very proud of each and everyone for doing such a good job of assimilating to everything new halfway through the school year. This is indeed a big and commendable effort and you should be proud of your child for the efforts he/she put in!! The children put together a 'We Missed You' card for me and I was astounded by the progress they have made in their writing! Each and everyone signed their name, right down to every letter in their name - what an achievement!!!!! We ended our 'short' week revising (and reinforcing) our knowledge of AB patterns by making festive paper chains of blue and white. Next week, we shall add Christmas colors of Red and Green, then Red and White. We are busy decorating our new classroom for our "Red & White Day" next week?!! When our 3rd gr buddies came to visit, we showed them around our new classroom and brought out different strategy games and manipulatives to play with them, such fun! Allison, Lewis' Mom was our Mystery Reader this week! She read the story 'The Night Before Christmas" by Clement Clarke Moore. The kids were so excited with holiday mood that for a moment, they were scrambling to see the 'goodies inside Santa's sack', hovering over Allison! I wonder what the reaction would be if it were Santa Claus himself!!?? Next week, our final week before the Dec break - we shall go through our numbers and letters learned. For alphabets, we will re-emphasize on the correct Big Line vs Small Line placing in the letters for A, E, F, H, I, L. We shall also practise on the letter sounds and the number of claps (phonological awareness) for words such as 'wonderful' (3 claps) vs "happy" (2 claps) and so forth.
Over your holiday break, help your child reinforce this skill by asking he/she to teach you the number of claps and have fun sharing his/her learning! |