Living things go through changes and cycles

This week Pre K B has had another jam packed week of inquiry, learning about the seasons and how things in nature change because of the weather. We looked at how the leaves change in autumn, as well as talking about different things that happen in spring, summer and winter.

The children watched videos about polar and black bears who go into hibernation over winter and the mothers give birth during this time. Squirrels collect lots of acorns in autumn so that over winter they have lots to eat in their burrows.

An activity we did was looking at the changes in  a human from birth to being an elder, so the          children did a cut and paste sorting activity to    arrange the stages of life in the correct sequence.
We also added our frogs to the  pond on Friday! 

Rudraksh had an idea to make a castle after seeing one in a book. So I helped him made a simple 3D one, and then many children wanted me to help them make one too.

In phonics and handwriting, we practised the letters T and U, and they did a cut and paste of pictures that start with a short /u/ sound. We have been practising our sight words and the children are getting so good and recognising all the words we have covered.

I also introduced dipthongs this week, and we did the soft and hard /th/  sound. For example, thumb has a soft /th/ sound, whereas the has a hard /th/ sound.

The dance practise for the Sports Festival has been challenging, but we have been practising every day. It is slowly getting better. Thank you to those parents who sent a box to school for the diorama. If you haven't sent one yet, we need to start working on it next Tuesday so please send it in on that day at the latest.

Have a great weekend!

We are inquirers!

This week is another short but sweet week. We have been busy getting the classroom  for the International Children's Week, decorating the class with Angolan decorations. We learnt that Angola has some very wide waterfalls, the Kalandula and Ruacana Falls. They are 100 and 125m high and 400 and 700m wide! We made a colourful chain of the Angolan colours (red, black, yellow and white) to hang from the ceiling, and the kids finished their animal masks.

The grade 6 students taught the children how to play a traditional Angolan game and Eishi and Juni played each other in a very long game. Eishi was the winner. Then Yuna and Eishi played together against Kuni and Juni and Yuna's team was the winner. 

During library time Ms Yui read a Japanese book and I read a book which fits in perfectly with our Learner Profile of being an 'inquirer'. The book had lots of questions such as, "Why is the sky blue?"

In phonics, I introduced three new sight words: little, where and but. The children also practised writing the letters R and S. We also did more activities where they had to match the picture to a 3 letter word or try to spell the word themselves. 

In Japanese, the children did a dot-to-dot activity where they had to follow the hiragana symbols in order (a, i, u, e, o et cetera) around a shape, which, when finished, became a rhinoceros.

Usually Ms Nozomi teaches music on Wednesday but as she was away, Ms Yui and I taught the lesson. We were lucky to have 2 sunny days so we went to the park too!

As it was Juni and Kuni's birthdays this month, we had a birthday party on Thursday and Rudraksh, Taz and Yuna did their sharing time this week. 

 

Making a frog pond in our class

This week we have continued to learn about living things by looking at the frog and butterfly life cycles as well as how a bean grows into a pea plant.

Then we made some frog eggs, tadpoles and soon we will make frogs to add to the pond we painted on Monday. We decorated it with grass, rocks and we will add lily pads and lotus flowers too.

In phonics, we are still practising the sight words for last week (find, make, down, away and said).
On Tuesday we did a matching game with cards in which the students had to match the picture to the three letter word, just as they did for homework on the weekend. Many of them knew they had to look at the first letter of the word to help them work it out.

In maths, we practised skip counting and looked at 6 of the most common shapes, talking about what was similar about some of them such as how many sides they have, or if they are both round like circles and ovals. We will continue to learn more about 2D shapes.

As the International Children's Festival is coming up on September 20th, the class has started learning about the country of Angola in south-west Africa. With grade 6 students we will make some craft to decorate the classroom with animals, clothing and music from Angola.

In gym lessons, we have started preparing for the Sport's Festival in October by learning the parachute routine. It's safe to say the children are loving it!


Have a great 3 day weekend!

 

Leopards are the kings and queens of the rainforest!

Manish came to say goodbye last week as he is moving to Yokohama. We wish him luck and he gave us some candies!

 

 

This week was a short week but we learnt some new sight words which we will practise next week as well. The words are: find, down, said, make and away. I hope the children are practising their words at home with the cards we made before the summer holidays.

In math lessons, we practised counting to 100, counting in 2s, 5s and 10s. They are also started learning the names of shapes. 

For our unit of inquiry, they learnt about the essential requirements a living thing needs to survive, for example: sun, water, shelter, food and air. 

They watched a few videos about plants and insects and the difference between a living thing and a nonliving thing. Then we cut out different pictures of rainforest animals and made a rainforest backdrop to glue them onto.

 Next week we will start preparing craft for International Children's Festival and our country in Angola in Africa! We will be working with grade 6 to make some games and displays.

The children are learning Mary had a little lamp for the Year End Performance. We hope you can practise with them at home. 

Everyone loves dancing to the Tokyo Olympics song.