Our Alphabet

“You know, we have SAS on all of our shirts!” –Samay

“Yeah, and more letters too! I can find more!” –Audrey

What started as a simple statement motivated the students to explore letters in a variety of different ways.. a letter hunt around the school, playing with letters in light and shadows, using different materials to spell out words they know or are trying to find out, making an alphabet to put up on the wall.

“You know when I am writing I can look at how to make the letters because Samay knows how to make some of the letters.”  -Marcus

“Yeah cause purple is P…we should make a purple P!” –Violet

“And B is blue, right?  Or a baby?” –Ein

“My brothers have letters on the walls in their classes, you know.” -Olivia

Through much discussion, some of the students decided to make an alphabet for our wall. They divided up the tasks—some would help me find letters (and a font) on the computer to print, others would find materials to put on the letters, and others would glue things on (sometimes A LOT of glue! J)

“What can we glue on that starts with A? I can’t glue me on!” –Arunika

“Maybe let’s just glue something on anyways.” –Scout

Although our alphabet is complete, the exploration into letters and sounds has just begun…

Friday Update Sept 16 and Goodbye to Violet

We had to say goodbye to one of our friends yesterday. Violet, we will miss you! A message from our class today, “We wish you could come back to see us very soon. It feels so different without you here. We miss playing with you and there is a spot missing in our circle.” Seriously, can we have any more beautiful children? Violet we wish you and your family the best and we hope we can skype/facetime soon!

This week some of our learning included…

*making our alphabet wall (see next blog post for details.)

*we were into reading Eric Carle’s books—the kids are thinking about trying to imitate his art next week.

*the students asked to paint with their hands again, so they made handprints!

*we made cookies for Violet’s last day (with an amazing amount of sprinkles, so sorry about that!)

*we continued work on Mango and OC’s castle/maze/race track and are thinking that it might be read to paint and for them to try it out again.

*decorated lanterns and participated in Moon Festival activities in Chinese.

*..and much, much more!

REMINDERS / UPCOMING DATES

*Check in your child’s Friday Folder (the BLUE BAG) take everything out and return bag back to school on Monday.  We keep certain projects/activities here at school to put in your child’s portfolio (in case your child was talking about something you didn’t see.)  If the blue bag did not come home, they have either kept some things at school or did not make a lot of products to take home—they may have been exploring in other ways than painting, drawing, etc.

*Return Library books and RED LIBRARY BAG on Monday.

*Thursday, October 6 and Friday, October 7: Parent Teacher Conferences

The e-mail from the school should be sent to you soon, so look out for that. Please e-mail me if you have difficulty signing up once you receive the e-mail. Students do not attend these conferences.

*October 8^th to October 16^th: FALL BREAK-NO SCHOOL

*October 31^st: NO SCHOOL (Deepavali)

*November 1^st: NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS (Faculty Inservice Day)


Week 6 Sept 14 to 16

Friday Update September 9

Our students are amazing!  They have had such a great week, and I am so proud of each and every one of them! They have been engaged in all of our learning activities, and have really been working to get to know each other.  I will say, they are VERY tired! They are definitely ready for a long weekend! So, a reminder that the students don’t have school on Monday because of Hari Raya, and on Tuesday because we have a faculty inservice day.  I will see the students back at school on Wednesday.

We were introduced to our new friend on Monday!  Welcome to Florence and her entire family!  We are so excited to have you as part of our Pre K/SAS family!  Florence had jumped into all of our activities with gusto!

This week some of our learning included…

*visiting A.J.’s dad’s high school art room! We were led through a very fun project—we felt like big kids in the big classroom!! Your child’s artwork is in their blue bag.

*we have been obsessed with letters and their sounds, and have been working to get our creative alphabet up on the wall. We went on a letter hunt!  One of our kiddos pointed out their name and SAS on their shirt, and we tried to find other letters and words around the school.

*we played Buggy Bingo (a counting game.)

*experimenting with clay and moon sand—very different textures to create things with.

*continuing work on Mango and OC’s castle/maze/race track

*exploding colors! We looked at the materials (milk, food coloring, dish soap, toothpicks, bowls) and made a prediction about what we thought was going to happen, then did our experiment!  We had a couple of cuties who wanted to do the experiment over and over again!

*we looked at numbers in a variety of ways and used different graphs, ten frames and different materials to work with numbers and objects.

*..and of course a lot more exploring!

REMINDERS / UPCOMING DATES

*Check in your child’s Friday Folder (the BLUE BAG) take everything out and return bag back to school on Monday.  We keep certain projects/activities here at school to put in your child’s portfolio (in case your child was talking about something you didn’t see.)  If the blue bag did not come home, they have either kept some things at school or did not make a lot of products to take home—they may have been exploring in other ways than painting, drawing, etc.

*Return Library books and RED LIBRARY BAG on Monday.

*Monday, September 12: NO SCHOOL- Hari Raya

*Tuesday, September 13: NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS-Faculty Inservice

*Wednesday, September 14: ALTERNATE DRESS DAY

*Thursday, October 6 and Friday, October 7: Parent Teacher Conferences

*Please send in a family photo if you have not done so yet! Week 5 Sept 5 to 9

Friday Update Sept 2

We have had another wonderful week in our Pre K classroom!!!!  We continued to get to know each other, and began our first big project. We also had our first library day with Ms. Jo.!  

One point of interest…I have watched your cuties become more and more independent as the days have progressed! Really encourage your child to practice being independent at home as well.  Feeding themselves, starting to help dressing themselves, doing up their bags, and also starting to practice things like using safe scissors to cut will really help them out! J

This week some of our learning included…

*reading the book Mouse Paint (along with quite a few others such as A Color of His Own, Dog’s Colorful Day, Little Rabbit’s Color Book, and Pete the Cat (which has turned into a lot of singing! J) and finger painted with the three primary colors. Can your child tell you what they are? The kids pulled out a basket of color books and we just started reading and doing!!!!

*the kiddos were SO INTERESTED in mixing colors, that we are going to do a special experiment next week…. (we starting looking for the materials…)

*there was a wonderful discovery into our letters and sounds—some of us made name necklaces out of beads, some stamped letters into clay, some used letter stamps, some found different letters in books, there was pointing out of letters in books, making sounds for letters we saw…explosion of learning!

*we had a lot of building going on this week!  We had a group that moved from legos, to magnatiles, to blocks to castle blocks! One group decided to make a castle for Darth Vader. J

*we talked about our families and will be presenting our family photos throughout next week.

*one of our students found a castle puzzle, which led to an interest in making a castle for Mango and Oreo Cookie, which turned into a maze, which turned into making them clothes, which turned into a racetrack, which turned into “Elsa’s Castle, Maze, Racing Track.” More about that in the next blog post.

*we explored light at color using the light tables, overhead projectors, and screens.

*we used the ipad to research ideas for the maze/race track/castle, and printed out some pictures together that we have been using for inspiration. We also airplayed what we could see on the camera so the kiddos could see themselves dancing on the screen.  We are planning on using that to film Mango and Oreo using our maze, and then we can see them up on the screen at the same time.

*we explored numbers on the 100 chart and practiced one-to-one correspondence.

REMINDERS / UPCOMING DATES

*Check in your child’s Friday Folder (the BLUE BAG) take everything out and return bag back to school on Monday.  We keep certain projects/activities here at school to put in your child’s portfolio (in case your child was talking about something you didn’t see.)  If the blue bag did not come home, they have either kept some things at school or did not make a lot of products to take home—they may have been exploring in other ways than painting, drawing, etc.

*Return Library books and RED LIBRARY BAG on Monday.

*Monday, September 12: NO SCHOOL- Hari Raya

*Tuesday, September 13: NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS-Faculty Inservice

*Wednesday, September 14: ALTERNATE DRESS DAY

*Thursday, October 6 and Friday, October 7: Parent Teacher Conferences

*Please send in a family photo if you have not done so yet!

*Thank you to everyone sending in extra fruit, granola bars, crackers and snacks—the kiddos have been enjoying them, especially first thing in the morning!  Healthy snacks help our brains work better during the day, so thank you very much. J

*I will be sending the schedule for taking Mango and Oreo Cookie home as well as the instructions for taking care of them. I will do it on a google doc so you can sign up for when it suits you and your family. Week 4- August 29 to Sept 2