February Update

Unit:

We began our new unit by responding to the question, "What is a story?"  Then we reflected on stories from our previous unit and discussed how they make us feel and recorded our responses on post-it notes.  We started analyzing the stories making a list of what they have in common (i.e. characters, setting, etc.). 

Taking Action:

After listening to The Very Hungry Caterpillar, a group of students took the initiative to build a story bag.  The children used felt to recreate the story.  They spent hours rehearsing the story over several days telling it in both Italian and English along with the felt images.  Over the course of a week, they eagerly visited the other Prep classrooms to retell the story along with visiting Kinder and Nursery.  

  Retelling The Very Hungry Caterpillar to Nursery before nap time

  Retelling The Very Hungry Caterpillar to Nursery before nap time

  Retelling The Very Hungry Caterpillar to Kinder students

  Retelling The Very Hungry Caterpillar to Prep RN

Special Guests:

We have had wonderful storytellers join us over the past week!  Each shared an engaging story with the class.  Some stories were told orally, others with props, and some stories were read from a book.  Each one helped the students better understand what makes a story a story.  After each visit, we had a discussion about the characters, setting, and plot along with how the stories made us feel.  We still have an open invitation for any family members who would like to join us to share a story!

 

 

 

Prep Activities:

Our new Prep activities will focus on creating and telling stories.  Each week the students will sign up for an activity of their choice and explore their storytelling abilities: Toontastic (iPad application), Puppet Theatre, and Act It Out (dressing up in costumes and performing.

    Puppet Theatre- The students worked in a small group to plan and rehearse a puppet play.  Then they performed in front of the class. 

Prep A students are making a special Storyteller Chair.  After voting on a color, several students began to paint the chair.  After we returned from break, they finished painting it, and now it is used as a special place to sit while telling stories.

Language Arts:

The students are practicing their reading and writing skills throughout the day.  They are increasing their reading fluency by practicing sound recognition, reading to each other, and listening to model readings. They are using letters and phonetically spelled words to write about their experiences.  The children use painting, drawing, and building as a source of inspiration.

Drawing a picture and typing 

Building the story first, and then writing about it

Spelling words with play dough

Math:

Through the use of games and play, the students are strengthening their mathematical skills on a daily basis.  The students have been working on mastering the numbers from 10 to 20 (recognition, counting, and one to one correspondence).  Furthermore, they are now adding numbers with sums up to 20.  Finally, the students are working towards deepening their understanding of the value of a number. They are decomposing numbers in the teens into a group of ten and extra ones.  

Purrrfectly Fast Numbers: Increasing number recognition fluency

Double Domino Addition- Pick two dominoes and add them together while recording the solution with an equation.

 

  To develop an understanding of place value, the students sang the song Numbers in the Teens Have a Group of Ten. After the song, they had to find their partner that represented the value of their number.

Special Events:

Hearts for Haiti Bake Sale

Thank you for all the support and donations!  Our bake sale was a success!  The Prep students applied their mathematical skills while selling and buying cookies during the bake sale.  Yum!

  

We invited Kinder AR and Kinder G to help us make Valentine's decorations for the Bake Sale. Great teamwork!

An afternoon with our Buddies:

Our buddies joined us on the last day before the break at our school.  After enjoying lunch together and playing in the garden, the students spent time reading their favorite stories from home.  After enjoying a couple of stories, the older buddies taught the Prep students how to use Puppet Pals on the iPad.  Puppet Pals is a story creation application where the students use their imagination to plan, create, and record a fiction story.  Everyone had a lot of fun!  

The 100th Day of School!

We had a special guest surprise us in the morning...Zero the Hero!

Class Picture

He had us count in different languages, and skip count by twos, fives, and tens!  He shared how wonderful the number 0 really is with his expandable zero!

   "10, 100, 1000!"

The Zero the Hero read us a wonderful story about a little penguin who wanted to see one million.  He searched and searched. On his adventure he saw what ten looks like. Then he found one hundred and one thousand. It was not until returned home that his mother shared with him the beauty of one million! 

 

     

Before Zero the Hero left, he gave us each a special treat for being 100 days smarter!

Then he quickly flew away!  Until next year...

Enjoy a video of his visit!

For the rest of the day, we enjoyed doing different activities focused around the number 100.  We painted one hundred dots, made silly 100 Days of School hats, built something with one hundred Kapla blocks, and tried writing our numbers to 100!  We also spent time presenting the 100 items we brought in to share.  With a group, we worked together to count the 100 items by making ten groups of ten!

  100 rubber bands

 100 Lego pieces

 

  100 beans

  100 pieces of pasta

New Unit of Inquiry: Stories

The Stories unit of inquiry will be an ongoing unit. We will begin exploring the lines of inquiry now, and continue to deepen our knowledge and understanding through a variety of activities for the rest of the school year, often connecting to other units of inquiry. In this time, the students will have many opportunities to listen to, retell, and act out stories, as well as to create and share personal stories with others.

We will reflect on how stories make us feel, and why different people connect to different stories. We will investigate the reasons stories are told, and look into a variety of different stories. We will learn about the form of stories, recognizing the elements common to all stories (characters, setting, beginning, middle and end, a problem to solve), and inquire into the different ways stories are created and shared, for example through books, films, music, dance, and drama.

We invite parents and family members to come and tell/read a story to the class. We hope to have as many guest storytellers as possible! I will be sending a separate email discussing how to sign up for a time to come into the class.

We hope that the students come to understand that we are all storytellers and that through stories we connect with others to communicate ideas, feelings and beliefs.

Language Arts

Oral Language skills: The Stories unit is a great time to practice listening and speaking skills, as students will be asked to listen to, discuss and analyse a variety of stories. They will have opportunities to retell stories, answer questions, and tell their own stories.

Reading and Writing: We have introduced all of the letters of the alphabet, and students are applying their knowledge in writing and reading. In reading, we are practicing blending sounds, especially reading CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words correctly. Each student makes progress and his/her individual level.

In writing, students are encouraged to sound out words carefully, writing down as many letters as they can, and using a little line __ when they are not sure what letter to write. We continue to practice forming letters correctly, using the lower case. We are also introducing high-frequency and sight words to help the students in writing and reading. These include words that students are not yet able to sound out phonetically, and that should be recognized instead (e.g., I, the, like, play, my). These words will be added to our 'word wall' so that children can refer to them when writing.

Students continue to take home reading books each week. Please help your child read the books and return them to school promptly.

Mathematics                                                                    

In Maths we have been focused on developing understanding of numbers to 20, while learning and practicing strategies to add numbers. Understanding place value, i.e. that the 1 in 13 represents 10, is a big step for many Prep students, so we engage in a variety of hands-on, concrete tasks to build understanding. 

January Update

Unit

Since we returned from our winter break, the students have been busy exploring and learning!  The class continues to explore how our actions impact animals through playing, watching videos, engaging in discussions, and taking a field trip!

Throughout the unit, the students have reflected on choices people make.  The choices they document come from literature we read, personal stories they share, or actions they observe outside of school. They draw and/or write the action and then post it on our board of choices defending why they think it was a good choice, grey choice, or bad choice.

             Choices Bulletin Board

                                Building a stable for the horses

      Tallest Tower for the animals

       Drawing a representation of the koala's home

 

     Taking care of pets at the Vet Clinic

The Prep classes have new sensory bins in the garden.  Each bin represents a different habitat.  The students love exploring and playing with them!

            Ocean                                                           Farm

           Polar Region                                                   Desert



          Reflecting on the Learner Profile

Trip to the Bioparco

Last week we explored the zoo while reflecting on different animal needs.  The students used a critical eye as they looked at the different habitats. They learned a multitude of information about endangered animals, threats that exist, and ways to help.  One group made a digital photostory sharing their experience.  

Taking Action!

After several class discussion, several students decided they wanted to help the birds in our garden during the cold winter months by giving them food.  After researching different options, one group decided to build a wooden bird house.  Another child wanted to make one out of a plastic bottle and wooden spoons.  Both groups wrote a plan and then started working hard. The plastic bottle bird feeder was slightly more challenging than we originally thought.  We went through several bottles until we found one that had strong enough plastic to cut through without it crushing.  The student glued the wooden spoons in place, and filled it with birdseed.

      

The other group started by finding pieces of wood, painting them, sanding them, and finally assembling the bird house.  Then one student said, "What if the rain takes off the paint?"  So we investigated this question by running a piece of extra wood under water from the sink.  Sure enough, the paint washed right off.  The students came up with several ideas of how to solve this problem, and agreed to send the teachers to the hardware store to buy non-toxic waterproof paint.  They were excited to paint the birdhouse again!  This week, we will fill it with birdseed and hang it in our garden.

      Plan for building a birdhouse

         Sanding the wood for the birdhouse

        Hammering the base onto the birdhouse

       Hammering the base onto the birdhouse

        Painting the birdhouse 

The class also learned about animal shelters and how they can help animals in need.  We discussed the benefits of getting a pet from a shelter rather than a pet store.  In addition, we also noted although it is wonderful to save a homeless animal, the reality is most of us cannot adopt a pet, but there are still other ways to help.  We can teach others about animal shelters or donate food, bedding, and other items a shelter may need.

After this discussion, one of our students decided she wanted to write a letter to her friend to tell her what she learned about animal shelters.

    

Math

During our independent classroom learning time, we started exploring various concepts in measurement.  One child tried to build the longest cube train possible while another compared the heights of different people in the classroom to it.  We discovered that in order to measure accurately, each person had to line their feet up with the last cube.

      Measuring our height

Another student brought in a model of the Empire State Building from home and wanted to find items in the class that were taller and shorter than his model.  He made many discoveries!

      Comparing heights

To celebrate the 70th day of school, Zero the Hero left another note asking us to represent the number 70 in a creative using anything in the class.

Students are now focusing on practicing the numbers in the teens (11-19).  We develop number sense by using double ten frames to represent a number.  We also use place value sticks (bundle of 10 and extra ones).  You can reinforce these skills at home through play and finding them in the environment.


      Matching teen numbers with place value sticks

Language Arts

The students continue to develop literacy skills.  Through intentional teaching and independent play they make new discoveries about how sounds work together and make meaning.

 

A group of children worked together to write this morning message 

      Building CVC words on starfall.com 

       Playing CVC Bingo

         Sight Word Practice

      Writing words that begin with /z/

        Writing words that begin with /z/

     Practicing writing while making cards for friends

Ideas for your Home

Puzzle Play- Did you know that puzzles develop skills that are used in math, reading, and writing?

 Developmental benefits include:

-Learning that a whole is made of parts
-Developing hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills
-Building visual-perceptual skills
-Developing attention, concentration and thinking skills such as recognizing, remembering, matching, sorting, and problem solving
-Assisting language skills as the child listens and follows instructions and talks about what they are doing

       Zebra puzzle