Examples of Community Helper Costumes

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In two weeks, the students will share what they have learned about Communities and their Helpers by becoming a community helper, themselves. Please work with your student to create a costume or outfit of a community helper of their choice. Below are a few photos from last year of what the parents and their students came up with. The students also shared what they community helper is called, where they worked in the community, what tools they used to perform their jobs, and how they helped their community. So for instance, a student dressed as a firefighter will say something like: “My name is Ryan. I am a firefighter. I work in a fire house and use a fire hose, fire truck, and helmet to do my job.  I help the community by putting out fires and keeping people safe.”

 

 

Math Songs for Assembly

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Next Thursday, October 23rd will be the first Preschool 5 led Assembly of the year. The students will be singing songs and reciting chants about the 2D and 3D shapes that we have been learning about this term. Your students have specific shapes that they will be in charge of singing, so ask them what their shape is and practice the song or chant with them using the link to the powerpoint below. We have practiced in class, as well, so they should have know them a bit already.

Math Songs and Chants Powerpoint

The Tiger class will be singing about the 2D shapes, triangles, squares, circles, and rectangles.

The Lion class will be chanting about the 3D shapes, sphere, cube, cone, and cylinder.

Your practicing with them at home will be greatly appreciated. 🙂

Conflict Resolution

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When students have conflicts with others during the day, we highly encourage them to try and solve the problem on their own. During our friendship unit we will spend a great deal of time teaching students different strategies for solving their problems. We use Kelso’s Choices to show students these strategies. We will introduce a few of these strategies such as counting to ten or walking away during our first unit so that they are already able to solve problems. Please help to reinforce the strategies at home as well. For more information please visit

http://standupagainstbullyingguy.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/kelsos-choice-conflict-management-skills-program-for-your-school/kelso wheel

kelso 2

Reading in Preschool 5!!!

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Today was the first day the students checked out books in the school library! Please read the books with your students. We go by the “Goldilocks” rule: If the level is too easy, we can move into a higher level; If it’s too hard, we can move into a manageable level; If the students can read most of the words, the level is “Just right!” Let your child’s teacher know in the reading log if you have any concerns about the levels we are starting at and we can adjust them accordingly.

Once your child finishes his/her book, they can return them to get a new book. Books are defined as “finished” once your child reads and does a reflection (both picture and words) about the story in the Reading Log. They can talk about their favorite part or character in the book or something in the book that made them feel something (happy, sad, angry, etc.). Please help them write a reflection to go along with their drawing.

Each student will also be able to fill up their reading bookmarks each time they completely fill out their Reading Logs (pictures and words). They receive a sticker per entry and once they have filled their bookmark they get to take it home as well as choose from a selection of books to take home as added motivation for the students to continue and hopefully LOVE reading!

Our class libraries consist of leveled readers and books that help students understand and relate to the IB profiles and attitudes. This term, we are focusing on being “Principled”, “Inquirers” (IB profiles), “Curious”, “Creative”, and “Confident” (attitudes).

 

Reflection

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We had a great week as we launched our first unit all about communities! We are looking forward to posting photos of the students as soon as all photo permission slips are turned in. For now, we would like to share with you one of our methods for reflecting on our learning. At the end of lessons, we will ask students to either move their clip or turn their card to show how they feel the assignment went. If students choose green, they think the assignment is easy and they can complete it independently. If students choose yellow, it means they need to slow down a bit or have some assistance for the assignment. If students choose red, it lets us know that they found the assignment difficult and we may need to reteach the concepts. This method allows students to reflect on their learning and gives a visual to see how our attitudes change the more we practice skills and concepts. The charts can be seen in the following pictures.

Thank you to everyone who wrote comments about their week! We always look forward to reading them!

Welcome to Preschool 5

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We had a wonderful first week of class. Students had the opportunity to get to know their classmates as well as their way around school. We played a variety of games and completed team building activities to get our classroom community off to a strong start. Students also listened and responded to many stories in class. We introduced our IB learner profiles of principled and inquirer as well as our attitude of curiosity. Below you see pictures of our mystery box as well as the profile behavior chart. When students demonstrate the attitudes of curiosity, confidence, and creativity, the box moves closer to the desk. Once the box reaches the desk, students earn the prize inside. Our behavior chart is used in the classroom. When students are doing well, their pin goes up. When students need to make better choices, the pin moves down. Students start in the middle of the chart everyday and are able to move up and down throughout the day depending on their choices.

Please write a comment about your first week on this post. We look forward to reading your reflections.  Finally, if you are new to our school, please be sure to sign the photo permission slips so we can update the photos on our blog. The slips were sent home today.

Light and Shadows

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Students have really enjoyed our lights and shadow units. Below are links to online resources that can help your child develop their understanding of our unit. Please encourage them to visit the websites, watch the videos, and play the games.

Playing With Shadow Size

Shadows Game

Shadow Game 2

Sid the Science Kid Videos

Light Source Position

Earth, Moon, and Sun Orbit Game

Explore How the Earth Moves Around the Sun

Earth, Moon, and Sun Games

 

The Scientific Method

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Our Unit of Inquiry on Shadows and Light this term focuses heavily on scientific experiments where the students get to explore and inquire into our central idea that “Living things depend on light as an essential resource”. To help guide the students’ understanding of the process of conducting experiments, we are going to use the Scientific Method. Here are the steps so you can go over them with your child at home, as well. There will be a Science Fair towards the end of the term that will showcase what the students have learned as well as their skills as a scientist.

IMG_3674[1]  IMG_3678[1]   IMG_3677[1] IMG_3675[1]  IMG_3676[1]

Reading Strategies and Skills 5

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This week we will be working with the “Skippy the Kangaroo” strategy and inference. “Skippy the Kangaroo” encourages students to skip over words that they are not able to decode and try to use context clues to figure out the meaning of the text. When students make inferences, they need to read the text carefully and use their background knowledge to understand what the author is saying. For example, if an author writes that it is cloudy and the character is holding an umbrella, students can infer that it will probably rain.

Skippy Kangaroo Infer