Buddy time!

Last Thursday we explored the rooftop playground with our fifth grade buddies. We had so much fun and our buddies were great at helping us safely use the equipment. You can view some pictures from our time together here:

Let's play!

Plants

We've explored several aspects of our Unit of Inquiry on plants and have examined plants very closely as scientists. We planted our own seeds and many of them have begun to sprout! This has been a very exciting week in KG-M. In our writing unit, "Looking Closely", we are watching our plants grow and writing about their continual changes. To view some images of our work in class, click on the following link:

We are botanists!

Twin Day

Thursday was "twin day" in the elementary school and our class was full of lookalikes -- including a set of "triplets!" Check out our pictures below: 

 

  

  

  

Plant Unit - Language Letter

Notices

• This Thursday, November 29 is "Twin Day" in the elementary school. Hosted by the student council, students are invited work with a friend to dress alike. 

• AISD is also holding a school-wide contest for this year's yearbook design. Students in grades K - 5 are invited to create pieces of art on A4-sized paper that symbolizes what AISD means to them. When finished they will submit their work to the elementary office. The deadline is December 6, so please encourage your child to start working if he/she wants to participate!

UN Day Photos

AISD's UN Day was a wonderful celebration. Check out our photos:

If you are having trouble viewing the UN Day photos, click here.

Sight Words

We work daily in class on reading strategies to help us comprehend. One important one is fluency, which is greatly enhanced through practice and the quick recognition of "sight words". These words are called "sight words" because they are seen very often in print and we should know them immediately upon seeing them. In class we work on expanding our personal sight word lists to improve our fluency, and therefore our comprehension.

For our home extension activities I have encouraged the students to make sight word flash cards to practice regularly. For this we are using Dr. Edward B. Fry's sight word list. For more information on the selection of these words, as well as the lists, please click on this link. 

Book Fair

Our class will attend the PTA book fair on Monday, November 26 at 10:40 am. You are welcome to join us and help your child choose a book or books to purchase, or you can send money in a labeled envelope to school if you wish. If you do come in that morning please just meet us down at the Middle School Assembly Room.

UN Day

AISD will celebrate UN Day this Wednesday morning. Students are encouraged to wear clothes representative of their home country, however, this is not required. If your child does dress up please have him/her come to school in the outfit and pack an extra set of clothes in his/her backpack if you feel it is necessary to change afterward. Parents are invited to attend the ceremony and we would love to see you all there! Please keep in mind that it is very busy in the school and therefore parents are asked to only use the field gate to both enter and exit and not to come to the classrooms before or after. Of course there will be time for pictures on the field.

Please see Superintendent Rich Boerner's message in last week's Shamachar for more details on this event. See you Wednesday!

**FYI -- Due to UN Day the date of the positive parenting session with Dave Prewitt has changed. Please see his note below:

Positive Parenting Workshop Part II

Elementary School Information Session

Monday, November 26th 7:45-9:00

(Note this is a change of date due to the UN Day celebrations.)

High School Assembly Room - H 203

Presenters: Dave Prewitt, ES Counselor

Carol Prewitt, Grade three learning support teacher

This is the second session of the two-part workshop. You needn’t have

attended the first part to attend Part II. We will do a quick review

of what we worked on during the first session then we’ll look at:

guidelines for setting limits, determining consequences, use of time

out, helping children learn to be independent and those behaviors

that foster communication. Come join us for another taste of “Positive

Parenting.”

Our Last Week on Our Imagination UOI

Last week we wrapped up our Unit of Inquiry on imagination. The students have grown so much in the past weeks and their imaginations have flourished. This growth is evident in their oral and written stories. They are able to think on their feet much more quickly and seem to do so more readily without instruction. The students loved our imagination unit and of course we will continue to use our imaginations throughout the year.

We completed our unit with two more guest speakers. Ms. Sabahat Jahan came in and encouraged us to imagine ordinary objects coming to life. Ms. Jahan is a published author and she shared her experience of having to use her imagination when coming up with story ideas. Mr. Gareth Jacobson also came to our classroom and shared his musical talent. We learned how he uses his imagination when creating music. The students loved his guitar playing, evident by their bouncing bodies and tapping feet.

Students learned another form of expression through puppet shows. They loved making their own puppets and performing for their teammates. We discussed the importance of altering our voices so they matched our characters, and Dongmin even created some great puppets at home to bring in and share!

  

Individual Pictures & Bloomball Mall

This Wednesday, November 14 our class will have individual photos taken in morning. Please keep this in mind in case you want your child to dress in a certain way.

Also happening soon is the Bloomball Mall, which is a fundraising project put on by the fifth graders. Our class will attend the Bloomball Mall in the front rotunda Sunday, November 18 at 8:30 am. You are welcome to join us at this time to help your child find something he/she would like to purchase. We could use all the help we could get with our kindergaren students! If you are able to help out at this time please let me know. If not, an appropriate amount of money to send is around 500 taka in small bills, however, it is not necessary that your child buy anything. If you do send money, please put it in an envelope with your child's name written on the front.

Guest Speakers

Last week we had a number of guest speakers come to kindergarten to share how they use their imaginations everyday. Mr. Jon Denhartigh, the high school art teacher, shared how he uses his imagination both as an artist and a teacher. He thinks of a creative idea and then has to imagine what it will look like. The next step is figuring out how to turn it into a piece of art. 

   

Our next visitor was Mr. Rob Russell, the middle school and high school band teacher. We had a great time exploring our imaginations with him as he engaged us in many theater activities. He was quite impressed with the ideas the kindergarteners shared when asked to take a normal object and use it in a novel way. 

Mr. Jeff Redman, the middle school theater teacher, also came in last week to talk about using his imagination in his work and through his love of theater. After several activities he put on a couple shadow puppet shows for us and engaged the students in coming up with the puppet show plot. 

 

  

We Love Our Imagination!

Welcome back! I hope you all had a relaxing break, if you were lucky enough to get one yourselves! The week before break we had a lot going on, including conferences. Thank you all for coming and sharing in your child's learning. The children loved showing their work and it was wonderful to see such great support from home. 

Before the break we began examining how our imagination and creativity can help us in solving problems. At one point during the day Wednesday the students entered the classroom to find that all the chairs and the carpet missing! We spent the rest of the day using our imaginations to complete our necessary work without these items. The students were very creative and quite unfazed by the change!

    

We also looked at ordinary objects and thought of novel ways to use them. Look at some of the ideas the students came up with:

  

  

In KG-M we've been doing a lot of word building and examining, and we've learned that the "hard-workers", or vowels, work so hard that they have more than one job. This helps us when stretching out words as we know to try the vowels' different sounds. We've also learned about "bossy e" and how this silent e at the end of the word tells the other vowels what to do. 

Just before the break we celebrated a special day with Fatima as she turned six. Ava and Dongmin also turned six over the break and we enjoyed making cards for them to let them know how special they are to us.  Happy birthday Fatima, Ava and Dongmin!

Home Extension Activities

Dear Parents,

Now that the children have become accustomed to kindergarten and our routines, KG-M will begin having weekly "home extension activities" to extend learning beyond the classroom. These will be sent home every Monday and will be due the following Sunday, meaning the children will have a week to complete the tasks. The assigned activities will correspond to what we are doing in the classroom, encouraging your child to talk with you at home and explain his/her thinking. Look for a canvas bag in your child's backpack tomorrow that will contain the necessary materials. Please keep the bag at home for the duration of the week and help your child remember to return it every Sunday. Note that this is separate from the "just right" books that your child brings home almost daily.

Please feel free to email me if you have any questions and thanks for the continuing support of your child's education!

Regards,
Kacey

Halloween Carnival

As published in the Shamachar, this Friday from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm is the annual Halloween carnival at AISD. This is a wonderful even put on by the PTA and is the highlight of many children's fall. Children come in costume and can visit a variety of booths, including a bean bag toss, haunted house and cookie decorating. The Carnival is open to all AISD students and their parents, as well as AISD siblings and family members. Please read the directions in the Shamachar on how to gain access for family members that do not have school badges. Tickets for all children must be bought in advance. Again, please read the Shamachar for information on where and when to purchase these. 

I look forward to seeing you all at the Carnival!

Patterns

We have been looking closely at patterns and have been forming and identifying all different types. We want to create a pattern display in our classroom. Today we talked about bringing in patterned items from home to display in our room. Encourage your child to look around your house for various items to bring in. Please label these items (a piece of tape with your name works great) so they can be returned when we are finished. 

 

Let's Use Our Imagination!

 

This week we've been busy exploring our new Unit of Inquiry on imagination. We've learned that we express ourselves in many ways and have explored expression through creating, drawing, movement and writing. We used movement to imagine that we were a variety of different objects and animals. As we continued exploring this, students became bigger risk-takers, demonstrating great imagination.

 

     

With this new Unit we have also started a new writing unit focusing on fiction. We have read many fiction stories and have examined the way authors and illustrators express their ideas to make their books enjoyable for their readers. KG-M students have made incredible gains in writing and are proudly writing decodable words and sight words independently to form complete sentences and multiple-page books. They have been working hard at being creative to write unique stories, and are focusing on beginning their pieces in a way that captures the reader's attention. We have also looked at story structure and how every story has a beginning, middle and end. We are noticing that in most stories the middle part contains a problem that is then resolved at the end. Ask your child what his/her book is about!

 

This week we also celebrated Zibrail's birthday. His mom brought in a very delicious chocolate cake that we all enjoyed. Happy 6th birthday, Zibrail!

EAL Session

Please see the note below about a session on English as an additional language:

How Can I Help My Child Learn English?  Join Learning Support Teachers Liz DenHartigh and Amy Neal for a parent information session on Wednesday, October 17th from 7:55 to 9:00 a.m.  The English Additional Language (EAL) program, as well as techniques to help your child to learn English will be discussed.  Hope to see you in the MS Assembly Room next to the coffee bar!

KG Wiki Site

Save the following AISD kindergarten wiki site as a great resource to extend learning:  

http://kgwebsites.wikispaces.com/  

Students in KG-M are familiar with this site and how to access the various educational games and activities. BrainPop Jr. is one of these sites and can be logged into using the username "aisdhaka" and password "tigers". Students fall in love with the characters Annie and Moby in these informative videos. Begin by having your child watch the video on the senses. 

Learning Support

Please visit the page on the blog titled "Learning Support" for more information from Mary Schiess. You can find the link for this page right under the header picture (above the posts). Visit her wikipage regularly for more information on how you can help your child develop his/her literacy skills.

Buddies

We met with our fifth grade reading buddies again last week. The fifth graders have been working on the reading comprehension strategy of visualizing, so to practice they wrote short stories with descriptive language that would help their readers better visualize their words. KG-M listened to the stories and then drew pictures illustrating what was happening in the stories. The fifth graders then looked at these pictures to see what details their buddies heard.

 

  

Also with our buddies we practiced singing "Hey Dum, Diddley Dum", which we will perform together at the next ES assembly on October 11!