February 19 - March 1 2019

I can’t believe how much has happened in the last 2 weeks! I’m sorry for the short delay in blog posts, but I have a lot talk about now!
Since my last post, we’ve had our practice YEP performance in the gym, rescheduled and went on our field trip, had Parent Teacher Conferences, tried on our YEP costumes to make sure they fit, had Japanese Culture, day, and much much more!


Here is what we did:


Literacy
These past few weeks we’ve been doing general reviews of of Level 1 sight words. Next week we’ll do a test to make sure everyone knows them for Kinder. I did a quick check with them today and most kids can read all the words with ease.
We’ve also been doing a review of the phase 3 phonics. We have a review packet that most kids are able to do by themselves. We’ll do a few pages every week to make sure we are reading ready for April

Math
We started working on subtraction finally! These past few week we’ve been focusing on subtraction with images. We’ll do a bit more practice on that next week as well. Ms. T and I have also been hard at work preparing new centers to help us practice.

Unit of Inquiry
These past 2 weeks we’ve really been focusing on getting reading for YEP. At this point, our dance is about 85% done, with many parts nicely polished. The kids have added a lot to this performance. All their hard work really shows, and we’re excited to show!

We also did a cool activity with perspective and making our own inspired art. Those pictures are posted to Seesaw.

PTCs
Thank you to everyone who came out for PTCs. It was great to see and talk to everyone. The kids have grown so much, and I was so happy to share their work with you. Thank you for your time, and I hope you find them helpful. If you have any follow up questions, please don’t hesitate to ask me

Japanese Culture Day
It may have been a week ago, but all the kids had so much fun at Japanese Culture Day. They got to see a great Taiko-drum performance, as well as play some Japanese games. It was great to see everyone dressed up for it as well.

Field Trip
Thanks to everyone for baring with us while we organized our field trip to Tennoji Playville. The field trip itself went a bit off schedule, but the kids still had lots of fun playing in the park and the space!

Announcements
There’s some kind of cold/illness going around our class. 3 kids were out this week with fevers. Please keep a close eye on your students.
Tuesday, March 5th is our dress rehearsal at the stage. We’ll take the bus down and practice in costume.
Sharing time is completed for the term. Thank you everyone for sharing, especially those who brought in great art!
YEP costumes are in and all fit! The kids will only need to bring shoes (any color is fine, although black, white, or red is prefered). Also note that the kids have headbands as part of their costumes, so keep that in mind when planning hairstyles.
Thursday, March 14th is our last class day. Please send a large bag before then to help students carry everything home.

Upcoming Events
March 14th: Last class day. Please bring a big bag to school
March 15th: YEP

Thanks everyone!
Ms. Aurora

February 12-15 2019

I hope everyone enjoyed the 3 day weekend! Short weeks mean extra busy weeks in school. We’ve been busy getting our YEP performance ready for the first rehearsal next week. We made sure to save time to make valentines for each other as well!

Here is what we did this week:


Literacy
This week we finished our green level 1 sight words with fly, just, put, were, and when. We’ll do 2 weeks of general review (of all sight words) before doing a final assessment. Just as a reminder, it is expected that students completely master the pre-primer and primer Dolch sight words, as well as have a firm grasp of the green level 1 words for kinder.
We are also doing a general review of all phase 3 phonics sounds and button words. I’d like the spend the last month of school reviewing all the button words and sound, as well as developing kid’s reading comprehension in preparation for kinder.
Our next Raz-Kids deadline was be February 20th. I see that almost everyone has already reached that deadline. It makes me so happy to see the kids reading so much. I’m going to go ahead and push back the Level E deadline to March 1st. All other students should try and read for 5 minutes a day, but please do it at your leisure.

Math
There's been a huge improvement on “one more” and “two more” this week. Most kids are quite comfortable with this concept now. It might seem small, but it helps a lot with kid’s number sense.

Unit of Inquiry
We are made a lot of progress on our YEP Performance. The kids are reflecting as we go and deciding if they want to change things. The final product will be a nice, polished reflection of their work and input. There's also a lot of integration across various subjects. The kids are feeling more comfortable asking questions and making suggestions in other subjects as well (can we have a practice first? We we try it this way?)We also worked on designing some of the YEP tickets. One of them might be chosen as the real ticket design!

Announcements
Please return piancias by Monday (February 18). It is very important kids have their pianicas on Monday for YEP rehearsal.
We will have our field trip to Tennoji playville on Tuesday! It looks like a great area to play and explore. Make sure to bring a coat and lunch from home that day.
Thursday is Japanese culture day, so feel free to dress up in traditional Japanese clothes for the day
Friday will be PTC day. The office should be sending the schedule out shortly
The next Raz-Kids deadline is March 1st. Please reach level E by that time, and continue to read 5 minutes a day after.
The park is getting a quite cold, so please send your students with a jacket on our park days.



Sharing Time
Please refer to the sharing time blog post or the sidebar for the sharing time schedule. Next week’s sharing times are
Thursday: Suiren and Yuto
Please bring in a piece of art to share with the class


Upcoming Events
February 11th: Holiday. No school
February 19th: Field trip date
February 21st: Japanese Culture Day
February 22nd: PTC day
March 1st: Raz-Kid deadline (Reach level E)
March 14th: Last class day
March 15th: YEP

Thanks everyone!
Ms. Aurora

February 4-8 2019

Hello everyone and happy Friday! I’d like to start this blog post with a few announcements.

As you may know from the email, Ms. Chico is taking her holiday right now. In the time being, we have a new helper in our class, Ms. T! She’s excited to be part of the class, and gets along great with the kids. She’s already done some great work helping the kids with math this week.
The other piece of news is that we said “See you later” To Aruna. Luckily, she’s just moving across the hall to Preschool A, so the kids still see her all the time. This decision was made with the agreement of both teachers, admin, and the parents. While we are sad to see her leave our class, it is important that is in the best class to help her learn.

Announcements aside, here is what we did this week:


Literacy
This week our sight words were every, how, over, and walk. We did a general review of EAR, AIR, and URE words. I’d like to continue this review next week as well. We also did our normal reading comprehension practice, which is getting to be a bit more challenging. However, the kids are doing quite well.
Our next Raz-Kids deadline is will be February 20th. Please reach level E by that date

Math
This week we focused on “one more” (plus 1) and “two more” (plus 2). Ideally, the students should be able to do this with most numbers 1-100 by just counting up. We introduced the idea this week and will practice a bit more next week to make sure everyone is comfortable with it.

Unit of Inquiry
We are continuing our Inquiry into reflection. I have brought back Reflection journals for the kids. I asked them to reflect and see if there was way to make the journals easier and they asked for more time. I’ve started setting aside the last 10 minutes before snack as journal time and the kids seem to be doing a lot better.
We also continued working on the perspective line of inquiry, and are taking inspiration from different artist. This week we made more inspired polka-dots. We also experimented with different ways of making polka-dots. I’ll post the results as soon as possible to the hall or to seesaw.


Announcements
I am sending shoes, cups, and pianicas home today. Please return piancias by next Friday (February 15th).
Mr. Justin and I are working on arranging a field trip on Tuesday, February 19th. We’ll let you know when it is finalized!
The next Raz-Kids deadline is February 20th. Please reach level E by that time.
The park is getting a bit cold, so please send your students with a jacket on our park days.



Sharing Time
Please refer to the sharing time blog post or the sidebar for the sharing time schedule. Next week’s sharing times are
Tuesday: Chiruhas
Thursday: Mimi
Please bring in a piece of art to share with the class


Upcoming Events
February 11th: Holiday. No school
February 19th: (potential) field trip date
February 20th: Raz-kids deadline
February 22nd: PTC day

Thanks everyone!
Ms. Aurora