Week 32 and Teachers appreciation week

This week was pretty fun! Ms Hisako and I really appreciate all the nice things that were brought in for us, all the cards and even crafts that the students made in class for us was really nice. Thank you so much.

This week we finished reading the story 'The Lorax' and made a craft based off the book.

We are nearing the end of the term and our 'Sharing the Planet' unit. Next week they will be learning about countries and their resources. As they learn they will choose a country to represent.

A few reminders to consider,

The last week of school we will have a lot of things going on. One is the class birthday party for the students whom birthdays are in December. The other event is our class winter party, and the talent show. 

Lastly I will be preparing a homework packet for the students that will involve math, reading, and writing practice. If you have any questions regarding homework, you can email me anytime.

That is all for this week, here are a few pictures of the students throughout the week.

- James Barbosa

End of November

End of November has come and gone and November was jam-packed full of things we needed to do. As you already know the students have been studying hard on their reading in the class and out of the class. I can already see improvements in their reading so lets try to reinforce it at home whenever possible!

With that in mind I have assigned books on Raz-kids for them to read in order to reinforce their reading ability. My hope is that the students will be able to be able to read the test books by just looking at the book once instead of taking home the test book to practice.

Now what happened towards the end of November? Well it was Rizumu's birthday so we celebrated it! Happy Birthday Rizumu, you're now the big 5!

The last week of November was also Science week. Our inquiry theme is about sharing the planet, so it tied into science week nicely. We had the grade 7 and 8 class come in and show us some robots, one robot was even able to solve a Rubik's cube so quick! The other robots the students were able to control them via smartphone and try and play soccer with them.

All the students had a chance to control the robots. 

In return for showing us the robots we made a big thank you card for the 7 and 8 class. 

A new addition to our class is our wonder tree. What makes a god inquirer? Well asking questions, and finding the answer to that question makes a good inquirer so the students thought up many questions about the world and we put them on the wonder tree. 

Towards the end of science week we met with the 7 and 8 class in the park for the last time to show the students the famous coke and mentos experiment. I asked the students 'What do you think will happen?' and Kaname said 'It will go like a volcano!' I knew some of the students saw this before, but I was happy with the explanation.

Before I end this blog post a few updates. We will be celebrating 4 birthdays in December, the class birthday party will be on December 18th, and on the 20th, which is the last day before winter holidays there will be a talent show and a big class winter party. 

Until next time, hope you enjoy this post!

Mid-November and Grandparents day

The students of PreK-A have been improving in various areas of their development. From fine-tuning their motor skills, to improving on their reading ability, and to their understanding of mathematics. But one area that PreK-A has improved the most is their independence. They are able to take responsibility for their own things and tasks in class without the need of the teacher to assist them. Of course for school work they still require some help but I am proud of the students for trying to do things on their own.

Last week was grandparents week and as you know we did a frame craft, and I thought they turned out pretty well.

The class is becoming more synchronized during music class. Ms. Hisako and Ms. Nao have been doing a great job teaching the students how to play Pianica and they are showing a lot more discipline during music class.

Next week is science week and we will be grouping up with the grades 7 and 8 classes. We have been planning some fun experiments to show the students.

That is all for now, see you next week.

- James Barbosa

Half way through the 2nd term

Hey there everyone,

It’s been a long time since the last update and I apologize for that. This post will be a big one for sure.

The end of October marked the end of our second unit. “How the world works” and we focused on living and non-living things. Our final project at the end of the unit was to make a diorama

In order to make these dioramas the students learned how to make pop-up trees and animals, as well as use their own imagination when creating it. The assessment focused on how well they can handle a  task on their own without assistance. And how well they can demonstrate what they learned and I think they turned out pretty good. The students will be taking them home in the coming days. 

Here are a few other snippets from it

Our next unit is about 'sharing the planet' We will be learning about resources. Classroom resources, resources in the city, and resources in the world. So far the students have understood the concept of resources in the classroom. Last week we did a collaborative project with the PreK B class. Each class had to create a tree out of colored paper, but eat class only had only a few resources to complete the task. The students then had to trade and share the resources in order for both classes to make a tree. A byproduct of this lesson was the students realizing that they needed to use every bit of paper as to not waste the resource.

 






























In class we have been focusing a lot on phonics and reading. As you may already know the students have taken home a book to practice reading. I will then have them take a test on their ability to read that book. Each level has two books and after reading both books in a level they will then move to the next level of books and practice those.

If you are curious about how to levels are please log into your childs Raz-Kids and you can see the books. The students will receive a physical copy of the book they are assigned as well as the digital copy on Raz-kids will be assigned to them.\

Lastly, we will be planning our final field trip which will take place in January, or February. I will update you on that when it is planned.

That is all for this blog post. Stay tuned for the next one at the end of the week.

Cheers,

- James Barbosa

Fun in and out of the classroom

To end last week we went on our field trip to the Natural History museum in Nagai Park. There were a lot of students from other schools there and the park was bustling with students running around, eating lunch and enjoying the weather. We were lucky that the weather was so good because prior to Friday it was quite rainy! Our class was the youngest out of all the other schools that went to the park .

The students got to see all manner of insects, fossils, crystals, and the bones of animals and dinosaurs that are long since deceased. Here are a few pictures of our time at the museum.

 Here they are seeing just how big some insects could get in the past.

 And just behind the students here is a fossilized turtle. It was really big!

 And here are some dinosaur constructs. Children for scale.

 The weather was so nice that the students were able to eat outside in comfort. Some students hated seeing the bugs though.

 This is a picture of a diorama that depicts how deep the oceans are.

Here are some of the giant constructs that we saw. They are very big in person.











This Friday will be our sports festival. We hope to see you all there. Parents will be joining us for one  of the events.

Until next time!

- James Barbosa

September, a month to remember

September was a busy month, so I apologize for the lack of updates to the blog. This post will culminate everything we have done in the month of September.

We did a lot of planning and preparation for two events. One being the International Children's Festival that happened last Friday, and the other being our Sports Day that is fast approaching. For ICF we were partnered with Ms. Stacy`s third grade class and together we made an alpaca paper craft for our Peruvian themed room. 

I hope you all enjoyed the ICF and the work we put into our. Here is the photo of our group at the ICF 

In the gym we have been practicing a lot of group based activities to strengthen our team work. We did a lot of parachute exercises that the students enjoyed a lot. Sometimes we even partnered with the PreK B class in order to all practice together.

In the classroom we have been working on our sports day dance, the students are practicing every day in order to prepare for sports day. Here is a sneak peak at them practicing in the classroom.

A few updates:

We will be going on our term 2 trip to the natural history museum on October 4th. 

The 26th of September will be our monthly birthday party for Asim and Julia!

Stay tuned for more.

- James Barbosa