Highlights of the last month.

We are fast approaching to the end of the year and I can't even believe it. The students have been hard at work preparing for YEP, as well as their art for YEP art gallery. Sorry for the lack of updates, the end of the year is fast approaching and there has been a lot of work to do!

The students had a lot of fun at Kids Plaza and I heard they especially enjoyed it because we went as a class, so the students were able to enjoy it with all their friends. Here are a few pictures of that time.

Another big highlight of the month has been our valentines day week where each student made a valentines day mailbox and throughout the last few days of the week the students could write a little valentines note, or make origami, or even bring a treat for their friends and put it into their mailbox. The students seem to enjoy it a lot and I was happy to see how much thought and time they put into making things for their friends.

Showed a lot of caring during this valentines week. :)

As stated above we are hard at work preparing for YEP, we are practicing the dance in class, but if they have time to practice at home the link to the dance is here.

As always if you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact me anytime.

- Mr James

New year, new term

Glad to see everyone back to school and I hope you all had a fun and relaxing holiday. This term we will be talking about how we express ourselves. The central idea being art, and how art inspires us. We started off this week with the question "What is art?" and "What kinds of art are there?". The goal of this term is to have the students express themselves in different ways. If they struggle with expressing themselves by speaking, perhaps they will be able to express themselves in other ways. 

Our first art project was to take card paper and make shapes out of it in order to make a picture of something using shapes. You can see the final product on the wall outside the classroom.

A few updates, we are well on our way in planning and practicing for YEP.

This week is Etta's birthday! Happy Birthday Etta!

We are planning our last field trip for the year and will have updates for you in the next week or so.

Stay tuned.

- James Barbosa

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone is having a great holiday. I look forward to seeing everyone next week for the 3rd term of the year. The last 2 weeks of school before the holidays were jam-packed with things like Our final assessment of our unit, a park excursion, and of course the last day of school which we had a talent show, and winter party.

The last week of school was also the 5th birthday of 4 of the students in the class. Ayuma, Kaname, Siwoo, and Kinryo have all turned 5

To finish our unit about sharing the planet we went to a park with the Pre-K B classduring our park time and we did our part to clean up the park.

They all did well with cleaning up and finished within 10 minutes. After that they were free to enjoy their park and snack time in the park.

On the last day of the week we had our talent show and winter party. For our winter party we made cookies. Unfortunately it was difficult for Ms Hisako and I to take photos, but we did take some.

See you all in the new year! 

- James Barbosa

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