Miming, bubble art and more music!

This week was a mostly rainy week so we only went to the park on Thursday and Friday.
Some children have been sick it's really important that children bring masks to school and stay home if they have a fever or runny nose.

In literacy we learnt about the /ow/ and /ui/ and /oo/ sounds. The children also practised writing letters j and y as well as a,c,d and q. In the morning when the children arrive they are also practising sight words and this week I introduced the words same and day and we revised under and came. 

For math, they practised counting again up to 100 and down to 0. We also used blocks and counters to do more addition and subtracting using numbers bigger than 10 but under 20.

Now that the YEP is only 6 weeks away, the children have learnt almost all the words to the song "It's a jolly holiday" and this week we thought of some ideas for the dance. The Learner Profiles for this unit are communicator, risk taker and inquirer. Through a mime activity, they learnt how communicate an action with only their bodies. It was a lot of fun! They learnt that being a good communicator is also being a good listener.

On Friday we started an art lesson that will continue next Monday. Here is a photo of the idea.

The children had their profile photo taken and were asked to choose a feeling that they wanted to express through a bubble art drawing. They chose shapes and colours to match that feeling and practise drawing a bubble picture for it.

Here are the designs the children chose that they will use on Monday.

Do you want to get creative?

Hello!
This week Pre K B has been very busy. We have been practising the song for the YEP "It's a jolly holiday with Mary", the children are definitely starting to pick up the words!

In maths, we did adding and subtracting using playdough. I also taught the children how to count on quickly from ten so that they can get better at adding numbers over 10. Many children still use their fingers which becomes difficult with numbers over 10.

We used blocks of 10 joined together and single ones to learn how to do this. We have also been practising counting up to 100 and down from 100. Here's the video we use to practise:

https://www.google.com/search?q=jack+hartmann+count+to+100&oq=jack+hartmann+&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l7.3547j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

On Tuesday we played a fishing game to practise our sight words. See the pictures BELOW. In phonics we did the /oa/ and /oi/ dipthongs. Our sight words for this week are: under, well, soon and came. I have checked the children's ability to recognise the Pre Primer sight words and most children did well. As we have finished the Primer List now, we will be focusing on getting better at those words by looking at each sound in the word to help them read it.

 

In inquiry, we designed our own Lego character using a template. Some children did superheroes, some did pirates, and others just did normal people. We also used a simple beat from the Queen song "We will rock you" and built our own percussion songs from that. 

On Wednesday our class read with our buddy class grade 2. The Pre K kids read a RAZ book and the other students read a picture book story to them. 

As this Saturday is the start of a Chinese New Year, some of our Chinese-speaking family members came in on Friday to help us make a dragon from coloured paper. We also watched a video about the food and celebrations that are part of Chinese New Year and learnt a few words in Mandarin.

Emotions and expression

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy7XEMeBROQ

If your children have told you about the YEP, you would know we are doing a song and dance to the Mary Poppins song "It's a jolly holiday". We are still ordering costumes but we are sure that Rudraksh will play the character Bert, and Yuna will be Mary Poppins. The other students will be different farm animals like in the video, we will confirm with you next week.

During inquiry time we met with our buddy class (grade 2) and walked around looking at different pictures of art. They had to use emojis to review 8 pieces of art and decide if it made them feel sad, happy, angry, confused, excited or annoyed. We discussed how colours can make us feel happy or sad, such as dark colours making us feel sad and bright colours making us feel happy or excited.

This week our sight words were: black, there, our, want and with.
For phonics we practised looking for the dipthongs /ou/ and au/ such as
-house , snout, sound, flour, sour
-pause, sauce, autumn, August and launch.

In math, we practised counting to 100 and more simple subtraction with numbers under 20. In gym the children are doing jump rope and some students have really mastered it.

We also did a little math quiz like we did with sight words last week where the children had to quickly answer a simple addition question against each other. 

Art can inspire people!

Happy new year and welcome back everyone!
This week it has been nice to see all the children back and we welcomed our new student, Jooho, into the class.

This week in literacy the students practised writing their name and playing a sight words game in which they had to catch the word the teachers called out with a shark.

Then we had a little competition between students to see who could read the sight word the fastest. After many rounds, Juni was the winner, with Yuna and Eishi in second and third place.
This week's sight words were: all, that, are and brown.

Our new unit of inquiry is 'How we express ourselves' and the central idea is "Art can inspire people."
So this week I asked the students "What is art?"

The children agreed that there are many types of art such as painting, drawing, making objects from craft and clay (sculpture). Interestingly though, most of them said that dancing, singing and playing a musical instrument isn't art because it's like playing! So I showed them videos of ballet dancers, a harpist singing a song and then they changed their minds. They also                                                                   thought origami and animation wasn't art for the same reason.

I made a little art gallery in the classroom showing different photos of art such as sculptures, modern and traditional paintings, art installations and street art. The reactions from the children were a range from scared, surprised, amazed and happy.

 

     

We also did some painting on Thursday after showing them the famous concentric circle art of Wassily Kandinsky from Russia.