We're Back!

So nice to see all the happy, smiling children after a lovely weeks holiday.  The children had so much to tell me about what they did over the holidays that we spent our carpet time sharing our news with the whole class.  Everyone listened so well to their friends and asked very good questions.

For Journal writing the children enjoyed drawing a picture of something they did on holiday and wrote one or two sentences to explain their drawing.  We all did so many interesting things.  Here are a few of our drawings.

At the beach.

Visiting family in Thailand.

Swimming on a roof top pool.

Flying to the Philippines.

Watching a movie at Aeon Mall.

Swimming with Grandparents who came to visit.

Unit of Inquiry

We also refreshed our memories on our Unit of Inquiry - Systems

Here are a few pictures of the children working together to create a system. 

They had to complete puzzles without instructions or a picture of what the puzzle should look like.  They did such a great job!  Some groups decided to work in pairs, while others worked together by finding a piece and handing it to the "Puzzle Builder". One group had all four members looking for the same piece of puzzle and built piece by piece. However, one very lucky group had our class "Puzzle Champion" they completed two puzzles together!!

I was also so happy to have many of the children tell me that they did a lot of reading on Raz-kids over the holiday.  It is so great to have such enthusiastic readers!!   A big thank you to all the Mum's and Dads for helping and supporting your child at home.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

On Friday afternoon we had a special treat.  All of the kindergarten teaching assistants organised some activities to help the children understand the celebration that is happening in Cambodia next week - Pchum Ben. We went around the three KG classrooms and got to fold our own lotus flower, have a Power Point presentation about what Pchum Ben is and finally try some of the traditional food enjoyed at the celebration.

The children had a great time and really enjoyed experiencing some of the culture that comes with living in Cambodia.  Special thanks to the wonderful KG teaching assistants!

 Wishing you all a very Happy Holiday!!

Check us out!

Thanks so much to all the Mums and Dads for coming to the Parent/Teacher Conferences.  It was so nice to talk with you all and learn more about your children.

We have been very busy in and out of class this week.  Even with two shorter days on Wednesday and Thursday we managed to get all of our work done and still have time for some free exploration time.

In Maths we have been busy with sorting and ordering, patterns and simple addition to 10!  

Phew what a week! 

Language

Language has been such fun.  We have been working really hard with letter sounds, sight words and writing our weekly journal. We had all our sight words on the cupboard and used our magnetic letter to match them and say them out loud.  It is really helping the children to sound out the letters and recognise each one. 

We also painted our sight words, played word hunt outside and wrote them with big chalk.  Outside is fun because we get to shout the words out too ;-)

Unit of Inquiry

This week we started our new unit.  The children were introduced to our central idea:

"People develop systems for different purposes to improve their lives"

We discussed this idea and since some of the words are a bit tricky to understand we talked about each word and clarified its meaning.

We did a very fun activity tuning into this inquiry. The children were put into groups of four and given the task of making a paper chain.  They had to work as a team and come up with a system to make the chain.  It was very interesting watching how each group went about organising themselves and what system they used to get the job done.

Check out our finished products!

Here are a few more pictures of all the other things we have been doing!

Information about Raz-kids is on our Language page.  You will find your child's log in details on the inside of their yellow take home folder.  Enjoy reading with your child. 

Parent/Teacher Conferences

Just a gentle reminder that we will be having our Parent/Teacher conferences on Wednesday and Thursday afternoon.  The children will be dismissed from school at 12pm.  There will be NO AFTER SCHOOL ACTIVITIES on both Wednesday and Thursday.  Please be sure to return your form by tomorrow to confirm your meeting time.  

Looking forward to seeing you.

This week!

We have had a great week with lots going on.  As you know we had a visiting author Donavan Christopher and since it was a short week again we were very busy with all sorts of things in the classroom.

We are wrapping up our Unit of Inquiry on Friends this week.  We spent sometime looking at how you maintain a friendship.  We watched a clip from Charlie and Lola called - "But we always do it like this"  The children thoroughly enjoyed it and we had a great discussion about what were the problems in the beginning and how Charlie and Lola solved them.  It was very interesting listening to all of the children's opinions.  The children drew what they thought the problem was in the beginning and then the solution.

Elle the Elephant

Elle also came back to visit our classroom. She was helping us with the Gecko Wheel.  We were looking at "Apologising"/"saying sorry" We practiced with Elle saying sorry.  We had to make sure we looked the person in the eye and said their name, then said sorry like we really meant it and why we were sorry.  We did a really good job.  Thanks for helping Elle!

Maths

Great fun on the IPads exploring some games to help us with counting and patterns.  The children seem to really know their way round the IPads.

We also made numbers out of lego which was a favourite with the children 

and for our calendar question we had to build a tower from blocks and see who 

could make the tallest one before it fell.  Look at these....

Some new toys arrived in our classroom this week Hurray!!

Check out the things we have been making!!

and finally a big CONGRATULATIONS to Carla and Sokhwei on recieving a very special award each.  

Carla showed that she is a very CARING person.  She will always help people and make sure that everyone is happy!  Fantastic!!

Sokhwei showed that he is very REFLECTIVE.  He thinks very hard about things and enjoys sharing with everybody his thoughts and ideas.  Super duper!!

Please be sure to check out information under the tab Unit of Inquiry.  We are starting our new unit on Monday.

If you would like to be a Mystery Reader in the class please click on the link to sign up.

Mystery Reader

Enjoy your weekend!!