More from K1PA 18/04/2012
100th Day of School On our 100th Day of School K1PA began to wonder what 100 really looked like. We all knew it was a big number, but how big?! There are 19 children in our class, plus Miss Pana, makes 20! So we all went around the classroom and collected 5 objects each. When we put all these things together on the mat we created a collection of 100 objects! Here's what the number 100 looks like...K1PA style.   The Art of Persuasion As a part of our unit on Sharing the Planet, K1PA was exploring habitats. One of our classmates, Lang, told the class that the had seen people killing tigers on the news. They were using the tiger's fur and other body parts for things such as rugs! Our class decided this was not respectful and took action by making signs. Here are a few videos of some of the children showing their sign and explaining why we shouldn't harm tigers. How Many Altogether? K1PA has been tackling some simple addition. First, we represented this by standing in groups and then pushing the groups together and figuring out how many people there were when we were in one big group. Next we tried it with the bugs on whiteboards. We worked in pairs and took turns creating problems and answering them.               Add Comment Newsletter 7 13/02/2012
Dear Parents, First and foremost we are welcoming two new children to K1PG! Darcy McDougle comes to us from Australia Jack Healy is from the United Kingdom We have been making good progress in Literacy and have now almost finished the alphabet and all our letter sounds. Using our now abundant knowledge of phonics, the children are learning to sound out and blend together simple CVC (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) words, such as, "mat", "pig", "sip" etc. We have also been working on two of the 6 Traits of Writing, which is an ongoing Literacy program running throughout elementary school. K1 has looked at the traits "Ideas" and "Organization". Finally, we have been interpreting texts through drawings in order to develop contextual understanding. We would also like to remind you about our Literacy Night this coming Thursday the 16th from 6pm-7:30pm In Math we are continuing to revise number formation, counting, one-to-one correspondence as well as numbers before and after. The children are learning more about patterns, please continue to work with your child to learn and recognize patterns in their environment as well as creating more complex ones. If they do create any interesting patterns at home we welcome your children to bring them in to share with their classmates. We recently went on a field trip in connection to our Unit of Inquiry to Sungei Buloh Wetlands. We are certain that your children have shared many stories about this trip with you. We would like to thank the parents who took the time to accompany us on this trip! You all helped to make it a great success! Finally, for our Unit of Inquiry we have been talking about habitats and making connections between living things and their habitats. The children are now narrowing into various living things they would like to find out more about. Ask your child what living thing they are interested in learning about and perhaps you can take action during the weekend to find out some answers about its habitat! Hope to see you all on Thursday! Regards, Miss Pana & Mrs. G Welcome to K1PA in 2012! 01/02/2012
p-p-p pink and p-p-p purple Lets start the year with some transdisciplinary learning shall we? While practicing the sound for the letter 'p' we were also inquirers and decided to see if we could figure out how to make the two colors pink and purple without any teachers telling us! Along the way we made a couple surprise discoveries about how to mix other interesting colors!             Pizzas for Math and Pizzas for Literacy As we continued learning about the letter 'p' making some real and paper pizzas helped the children to learn about the concept of equal sharing and procedural writing. When we made our paper pizzas, the children folded the pizzas into four. As they chose various ingredients to stick on their pizzas they had to think carefully and ensure that each quarter had an equal amount of ingredients. Some of the children were able to answer questions like "How many pieces of sausage did you put altogether?" followed by, "How many pieces are in one quarter?" Then we made some real pizzas as a treat! We talked about how we would teach someone else to make pizzas and discussed what a good procedure might look like and what a bad procedure would look like. The children decided that a good procedure had clear and colorful pictures, not messy! They also made sure that they said the instructions in clearly in full statements. Miss Pana scribed the instructions for everyone.                ...Updates Continued 01/02/2012
Junk Modeling To conclude our unit on Movement we made junk models of various forms of transport that we learned about. The children worked in small groups and had to first make a group decision about what they were going to make, then after that they drew a draft of the design together. An array of materials were presented to the class and the children collected together what materials they needed.          Lets get MESSY! Sometimes being in kindergarten is just about getting our hands dirty! All these sorts of activities are not just lots of fun but are a wonderful sensory motor experience. The more of this the children get to do the stronger their visual and spacial perception also get. Here is an afternoon where we just decided to go outside and paint on a giant piece of butcher paper as well as use the chalk to draw all over the cement and play equipment! The added bonus is that it is also quite therapeutic!           I Won't Grow Up! Our December concert was a great success! But not without the aid of our wonderful mothers who took time out to come into school to help complete our costumes for us! Thank you so much! We could never have done it without you! :)         Newsletter 6 13/01/2012
Dear Parents, Welcome back, we hope you had a good holiday! It is lovely to have all the children back and we welcome the following new students to K1: In K1PG: Djoeke from Holland Reema from Kuwait In K1PA Camille from the UK Farizia from India Olga from Russia Christina from Scotland Dominica from the UK We will be embarking upon a new unit of inquiry under the theme 'Sharing the Planet'. The central idea is: An environment provides living things with what they need to survive. The lines of inquiry are:
In math we will continue to work on numbers to 15. We are also working on recognizing, continuing and creating patterns both simple and more complex. Next week we are going to continue with the letter 'p' next week. We are also beginning to introduce some of the 6 Traits of Writing to the children. They will be working on the traits of ideas and organization. Again welcome back and we look forward to a great second semester! Happy Weekend! Regards, Mrs. G & Miss Pana Newsletter 5 16/12/2011
Dear Parents, Congratulations to everyone on a successful first semester and a brilliant December Concert! The children have worked very hard and you have all been a wonderful support system for us, so thank you! Our unit on How The World Works concluded with the children thinking about the various things they learned and how they wished to present their learning. We made models of transportation and created class big books to show the learning that happened in each class. In Language the children have continued to learn their letter sounds and we are more than halfway through the alphabet! The children are now recognizing sounds at the beginning of words and are experimenting more with these letters in their writing. We have also worked on the skill of prediction when listening to a story. The children learned to think about what might happen next based upon the events that have occurred in the story up to that point. They have also made predictions about what could possibly happen to one of the characters after a story has ended and continue it in their own way. In Math the children have continued to practice numbers and counting. We have begun to tackle the difficult numbers that come after 10! We have continued to play various games to reinforce number and counting skills. They have started learning about shapes and how to identify specific attributes of shapes. As seen in an earlier post, the children are learning about "straight lines" vs. "curved lines" and "points". They are also understanding that a shape does not change no matter which direction it is turned. We have had a wonderful first semester and we wish you a wonderful holiday! Happy new year and see you all in January! Regards, Miss Pana & Mrs. G Updates in K1PA 08/12/2011
Hello K1PA parents! I am sorry it has been such a long time since the last post! We have been quite busy learning and I hope to give you as many updates as I possibly can! Let's get started... December's Behavior Management Strategy!  It's December and this means many children around the world are eagerly awaiting Santa's arrival. It just so happens that Miss Pana is buddies with Santa and has his personal cellphone number! Well...at least that's what she's told the children. The kids now know that Miss Pana can call Santa to tell him how great they have all been in school or she could tell him that they haven't been very good listeners, oh dear! So far, the children have been very well behaved, especially for this time of year when we are all getting very tired! It seems the words, "Do you want me to call Santa?" works like a charm (no joke)! Parents, feel free to use it at home if your children are having one of "those days". More Finding Out! All the K1's went on a field trip to ride on and observe various forms of transportation. This was to help answer all the questions related to buses, trains etc. First we took the MRT train to Vivocity. Lang got to ask one of employees at the Orchard MRT station "How to the trains move?" He was very excited to come and explain to his teachers and peers that the MRT trains do not have drivers! They are all operated by a very big and smart computer. Once we got to Vivocity, we sat and observed the different forms of transportation we could see in and above the water. There were many different types of boats and ships, the cable cars to Sentosa as well as the monorail! Isabel happened to turn around and observe there was a gym behind the glass window/wall. She saw the people exercising on various machines and made a connection to our unit by saying "Miss Pana, look, movement!" This caused many of the children to come over and press their faces against the glass. I wonder if we successfully distracted the people who were trying to get a workout into their day? To end our trip we took a bus back to school and continued to make observations on our trip back. Although, by this time many of us were very tired and had a nap instead!                      Non-Standard Measurement and Shapes K1PA has been learning about measurement and thinking about different materials we can use to measure. The children have tried to measure using unifix cubes, pencils, chain links and even their feet! We used these various materials to measure, length, height and the chain links helped to measure the circumference of different things like our wrist or head! Here are some of the children using unifix cubes and their feet to measure length.        We have also begun to talk about basic 2D shapes. The children are learning to differentiate attributes of shapes and to be specific about the "rules" of what defines each shape. For instance, the children decided the following are the rules that tell us what a triangle is: 1. It has three straight lines. (They can't be wavy or curvy!) 2. It has three points. These are the things we learned about 2D shapes in general: 1. You cannot pick up a 2D shape. If you can pick it up then it is 3D (the moment you cut out a shape it becomes 3D) 2. It does not matter which way around the shape is, it is still the same shape! (Many of the children didn't realize that even if we turn a triangle upsidedown it is still a triangle!) To help the children understand the second point about shapes, Miss Pana conducted a little experiment that involved choosing a volunteer (preferably a smaller person and also a risk-taker!), then asking, "Who is this?" Then she picked up the vounteer and held him or her sideways and asked "Is this still ___(name)___?" After that, Miss Pana would hold the volunteer so that he or she was upsidedown and ask again "is this still ___(name)___?" Once this was done a couple times, Miss Pana did the same experiment with a triangle drawn on a piece of paper, turning it in all directions and asking if it was still a triangle. The children then understood the concept!    More updates to follow... Newsletter 4 15/11/2011
Dear Parents, We are currently in the thick of How the World Works. Through a series of engagements, the children have been learning about how people and things move. Zig and Zag (K1PA's class snails) have added to the inquiry process allowing the children to make observations and learn on a daily basis. Our field trip to explore and observe various forms of transportation allowed them to authentically gain a further understanding into the central idea. The trip also triggered more action, reflections and questions bringing our inquiry even further! If the children take action or have a discussion regarding the unit please do remember to let us know so that your child can share this with his or her peers in class. In our Language programme we are now on the letter 'l'. We are working to integrate language into our units of inquiry. We have also been working on how to recount a story in class. If you are reading with your child at home, please encourage him or her to retell the main events of the story. In Math, we have continued to reinforce numbers between 1-10. We have also begun to learn about non-standard measurement. The children have measured with various materials such as unifix cubes, chain links, pencils, paper and even body parts such as feet. They have also talked about measurement related vocabulary such as 'tall' 'short' 'heavy' and 'light'. Our December Concert is scheduled for the 14th of December, please let us know if your child will be participating in the event. Kindly email the respective teachers. Thank you! Thank you for your continued support! We are almost halfway there! Regards, Miss Pana & Mrs. G The Inquiry Cycle 09/11/2011
Tuning In For this unit the children in K1PA are becoming more familiar with the Inquiry Cycle. We started off the unit by 'Tuning In'. This means that the children talk about what they already know, what they want to know more about and form questions to guide the inquiry. To get the children thinking along the same line as the central idea, various learning engagements were presented to the children such as a walk down to Orchard Blvd. to observe various things that move. During the walk the children noticed not only various forms of transport, but also noticed that we all move, insects move, water moves, the flags at our school were moving, even the plants were moving. We also had a class discussion and brainstormed together what we thought "movement" meant. Here are some pictures of our trip down to Orchard Blvd.           Finding Out We are now starting the "Finding Out" stage of the inquiry cycle! So far we have started to answer two questions from the students: 1. How do birds fly? -Mille 2. How do snails move? -Ethne HOW DO BIRDS FLY? To begin to understand how birds fly the children all were able to identify that the wings were what made them fly. The big question was HOW? How do wings work? A simple experiment we did was to take strips of paper and place them firmly under our bottom lip so they were hanging downward. Then we blew as hard as we could. What do you think happened to the piece of paper? It began to flap and move upward! Why do you think this happened and what does it have to do with flying? Can you make a prediction?        HOW DO SNAILS MOVE? To begin to find out more about snails Ethne took action and she asked her mother at home to help her do some research on the internet. Ethne came to school with her research and we displayed it on the Action Board! The whole class wanted to learn more about snails so we decided to go on a snail hunt! We were very lucky, we found two snails and named them Zig and Zag.       We weren't sure what they needed to survive or what they wanted to eat, so Miss Pana looked on a website. It said that snails like all types of fruits and vegetables. We decided to try some carrots and apples. Today we learned that the snails liked the apples more than the carrots. Some of us thought it was because the apples were sweeter, others thought it was because they were juicier. We even thought about how snails probably have different taste buds! We took them out and let them crawl on the table as well as on our hands (if we were risk takers!) to observe and feel how snails move.         Walk Down to Orchard Boulevard 03/11/2011
K1PG walked down to Orchard Boulevard to observe everything that moves. We had a lot of fun, but it was a hot hot day! | Miss Pana & Mrs. G
We are two Kindergarten 1 classes in Singapore. Come and take a look at the various things we do at school! Links
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