Term 2 - How the world works

Hello everyone!

At the start of the term we began our second unit, How The World Works. Our central idea was "Peoples actions affect living things" 

Our lines of inquiry were:

Lines of inquiry

• Form - Differences between living and non-livings things

• Change - Living things change in time

• Causation- Living things change for different reasons

The first thing we discussed was what are living things and what are not living things? Words like living things and non-living things were new words to most of the class but they were able to quickly get the idea of what the lesson was about. We had a ton of picture examples of living and non-living things and we put them into their respective categories.

We then took a look at plants. It came as a shock to some students that plants were, indeed, living things! And we looked at how plants grow, and what they need to grow. We then took that same idea and applied it to other living things. "What does a frog need to live?" "What does a bear eat?" The students of Pre-K surprised me with their knowledge so far in this unit.

Our next step was to learn about the habitats and biomes of the world, and I appreciate all the effort parents put in to help their children learn it as it was during our time away from the school. Big round of applause for the parents during this time!

When we got back to the classroom we reviewed everything and then got to work on our summative assessment. Planting! The students had a lot of fun painting their flower pot and then planting seeds. The best part about all this was getting pictures from home as the plant started growing. The goal of this unit was to show students how we affect living things. To take care of a plant is a pretty difficult task and I was happy with seeing how far students went in order to care for their plants.

We are now underway with our next unit which is "Sharing The Planet". Our goal for this unit is to learn about resources and how sharing them helps us.

Here are some other pictures of our time in the classroom.

painted her hands!

fantastic at making vehicles.

made himself a helmet.

Pre - K Term 1 - 2021 - 2022

 Hey there! I am Mr. James the homeroom teacher of the Pre-Kinder class. Term 1 has been an interesting time getting to know all the new faces. Every year I teach and get to know some really unique kids and this year is no different. 

During this term the focus has been to master the basics and fundamentals of English. Students have been practicing their knowledge of the alphabet in both phonics recognition and writing and they are improving a lot! Everyday students practice writing out the alphabet and numbers on mini whiteboards and I am impressed by their development. They are doing so well that they have begun putting the sounds together to make a word by using their head.

Our Unit of Inquiry this term is all about Who we are. The differences and similarities in each other and learning to respect those differences and similarities. During Golden Week the students made amazing collages about themselves. Shout out to all the parents that put in the time and effort to help them.

We have covered several topics in our unit of inquiry from learning about different people from different countries, how different people can look, and how cultures use certain foods differently.

Here is a window into our Inquiry wall at school.

We are close to the end of term 1. Stay tuned for another update!

- James

Term 3 is a go

Hope everyone had a great New Years holiday!

Term 3 has started and our focus for this term is expressing ourselves through art. And with that comes preparation for our year-end performance (YEP) 

Tuesday we got right into the swing of things, the students didn't miss a beat and got back into the routine without any problems. In the morning we learned and practiced blended phonics sounds, we started off easy and I was really impressed with how much knowledge they retained over the holidays. We also did some group reading where everyone had a turn or two to read passages from Raz-Kids books.

We started off our unit of inquiry learning about the words express and expression and how we express our feelings in different ways. The students learned that "Express yourself means to show people how you feel"

Wednesday we read a book called "The Dot" it is about a girl that feels like she can't draw and be an artist but ends up drawing wonderful pieces of art based off dots. It's a book to show the students that even if they like they are not good artists, that art can be inspired by a simple idea like making a dot. For language focus we practiced sight words, for the rest of the term I will be testing students individually on their ability to read sight words so please encourage them to practice at home! (Red cards and blue cards)

On Thursday the students learned about the basics of color theory. Color theory teaches us that we feel certain feelings based on the colors we see. For example the color red conveys strong feelings like love, or anger, while yellow can convey feelings of happiness, or nervousness. We then took what we learned and created some watercolor paintings of our names.

Friday the students were taught about distance. We learned about centimeters and meters. To make it more fun the students were taught how to make paper airplanes in order to measure the distance of how far the students can throw it. Learning the concept of distance is difficult, and we will be revisiting it several times over the course of term 3. Kids loved throwing airplanes inside the gym though!

Before the students move onto kinder I will be testing the students reading, writing and math comprehension each week. Reinforcing their reading and writing at home will go a long way to help them develop their skills for kinder. When a student gets positive reinforcement at home it definitely shows in the classroom!

Until next week, 

- James  Barbosa