Welcome to Prep A 2015-2016: 2015

Unit

During this unit the students will be exploring the impact (both positive and negative) that humans have on the environment. We will investigate how to care for and share the planet responsibly with other living things.

The central idea of this unit is that "humans make choices that have an impact on living things." We will learn about the needs of all living things, including ourselves, and how our actions can have consequences that affect them. We will discuss our responsibility both to animals we can care for, such as pets, and animals we have little direct contact with, such as wild animals. Finally, we will think of how we can have a positive impact on animals and the environment, finding ways to turn our thoughts into actions.

We started the first week by understanding what are good choices, bad choices, and those that fall in between. The students were introduced to the term empathy. We discussed the importance of putting ourselves into others shoes. It not only helps us better understand their perspective, but it can affect the choices we make.

Looking at images and role playing scenarios about choices we make

Starting our unit by discussing the concept of empathy and choices tied nicely into our Giving Back Bazaar. Thank you for all of your help to make this a successful event! The children enjoyed decorating our trees at Via Jenner and placed their donated shoes under them. Then we spent the morning of the bazaar at Via Tajani with our fifth grade buddies. We took some time to get to know each other before we made placemats for the refugee center. After our placemats were finished, we enjoyed a warm cup of hot chocolate. Then we enjoyed shopping at the craft fair. We wrapped up our trip to the bazaar by singing All You Need is Love with all the EC students and teachers in the atrium.

Decorating the tree upstairs

Getting to know our fifth grade buddies

Making special holiday placemats that will be given to the Refugee Center

Enjoying a warm cup of hot chocolate after our hard work

Before our field trip to Villa Pamphili, we differentiated between living and nonliving things. Then we explored the needs of living things: water, food, space, and shelter. During our trip to the park, we noted all the living things we saw such as swans, ducks, trees, grass, dogs, flowers, a horse, and ants just to name a few! We tried to identify how the park met their needs. Along the way, we found animal shelters including three fox dens! To help record our findings, we used Adobe Voice to capture images and record our thoughts. When the videos are finished we will share them!

Field Trip To Villa Pamphili

Meeting the ducks

Horse at the park

Fox Den

Lake

Group Picture

When we returned, we worked in groups to identify how Villa Pamphili met the needs of the animals we saw.

The needs for the dog we saw

The needs for a fox

Reading

We are working hard to recognize sight words and to learn their spelling. We participate in activities such as Rainbow Writing and Writing in Polenta that help reinforce the words. We also make little sight word books. At home, go on sight word searches through their storybooks.
In guided reading groups, we practice our letter sound fluency by saying the sounds of random letters as quickly and accurately as we can. Each time we practice we improve!
We continue to learn more of the alphabet and then use these letters in our writing and reading.
New letters: l, j, h, k

Spelling sight words in polenta

Writing holiday cards

Drawing pictures that begin with the /k/ sound

Math

We continue to play various games where we combine numbers and write equations. We continue to reinforce counting and number recognition along with math vocabulary such as more than and less than. Check out this website for story problems:

http://www.abcya.com/kindergarten_word_problems_add_to_10.htm

Visit this website to see a variety of games focused on different math skills:

http://www.abcya.com/kindergarten_computers.htm#numbers-cat

Increasing our speed with number recognition and one to one correspondence

Playing 'Roll and Record 2' where we combine numbers

Playing 'Add the Room'

Special Visitor!

On Wednesday we had a special guest! All of us brought in gifts and gave them to Santa. He will take those gifts and make many children happy! In return, Santa gave us a small sweet treat!

Unit

The past few weeks have been busy! We expanded our dramatic play area by adding a kitchen. We planned how we would build it, then gathered the materials, and got started!

Painting a kitchen cabinet

Making pictures for the kitchen walls

To explore how foods are processed, packaged, and transported to the shops where people buy them, we did a simulation of a cookie factory in our classroom. Each student had a job on the assembly line and in the system to get the cookies to the store. Then we had a race to see which factory could produce the most packaged cookies and deliver them to the store in a set amount of time. They were tough on each other sending back cookies that did not make the cut! Both factories agreed that slow and steady won the race!

A Special Guest

One of our student's mothers volunteered to come in to share her professional experience and bake with our class. She walked us through the process of how to make cookies. The end result was delicious! Thank you!

Adding the butter

Mixing the ingredients

Mixing the eggs

Rolling the dough

Waiting for the cookies to bake

Taking them out of the oven

Waiting for them to cool

Ready to eat!

Field Trip to the Market

Before heading to the market, we made a shopping list in class. Each student chose a vegetable to shop for at the market. When we arrived, we were greeted with friendly faces and found all the ingredients! We practiced asking for the vegetables, reading the labels, and they taught us how they weigh each vegetable. We paid for the food and headed back to school.

Field Trip to La Carovana

When we arrived, we gave the chefs all of the ingredients we purchased from the market. They taught us how to wash, peel, and cut the vegetables. After working hard preparing the meal, the chefs put the minestrone soup on the stove to cook.

We even watched the chef take the bread out of the oven, and tasted the warm bread!

While the soup was cooking, we went outside for some fresh air. We explored the garden and some children played soccer.

When we came back inside our meal was served!

Eating our delicious soup

Delicious!

Reading

Prep A students continue to work on learning letter sounds and the names of new letters. We have also been practicing segmenting sounds to spell words both in writing and in puzzles. We match beginning sounds we hear to the letter that makes the sound. In our reading groups, we have been books using the sight words we have learned. When we come to an unfamiliar word, we use the picture and beginning sound to help us figure out the unknown word. We are also practicing how to use pictures in the book to help us understand what is happening in the story.

New letters: s, e, r, p