Reading Buddies

We are lucky to be buddies with a great group of fifth graders!

Reading Buddies from kittoswitzer on Vimeo.

Pattern Wall

We've collected lots of patterns from home. Check out our wall so far!

Writing Goals

In KG-M we have been learning how to be independent, and are beginning to realize that this independence can pervade our learning as well. We began in the area of writing by discussing what makes our work 'good'. These ideas were recorded and then displayed alongside a picture showcasing that quality. 

Our next step was to examine our own writing and determine areas of strength and areas that we need to work on. Each of us independently identified an area of focus, which created a writing goal. We will revisit these goals often to improve our stories, and as the year continues and we study various genres we will add other areas of focus.

We have already had two authors publish works in KG-M! Stephanie shared her story The Pants and inspired us to continue adding to our own stories.

  

Richard shared his first book Wednesday titled My New Lego Set.

  

We can't wait to continue writing and sharing books!

*Parents: You can encourage growth in the area of writing by simply providing encouragement. We are experimenting with written text at this point in our learning and developing understanding of picture-text and sound-letter relationship. Encourage your child to be independent in 'stretching out' words and writing the sounds she hears. It is okay and normal for your child to spell words incorrectly and even leave out some sounds. Praising your child for trying her best goes a long way in her development. In fact, it is much better to encourage this independence rather than require your child to copy or trace text that you have written; there is a considerable difference between the two in the level of thinking skills. Don't worry -- your child will begin learning spelling rules soon enough!

Break the Train

We have continued to grow in understanding of patterns and demonstrated our knowledge today through a series of tasks. Each step required deeper thinking skills. It began with us each creating a pattern that 'challenged our brain':

The next step was to trade our pattern train with another member of the class. We then recorded our partner's pattern on paper:

 

This was followed by the higher-level skill of identifying the pattern unit and breaking the train into 'cars' (repeating units):

 

Next we cut our recorded paper pattern into pattern units:

Finally, we identified the pattern's name with letters:

Expect to see a post with pictures of our pattern wall soon! 

*Parents: If your child has not brought/emailed anything in with patterns, please encourage him to do so. See the previous post for more details.

Swimming Reminder

A note of clarification about swimming:  Our class will have swimming each day that we have P.E. These days are 1, 5, 6 and 8. Please ensure that your child brings his swim bag to school in the morning on those days. We are having a great time already learning new swim techniques!

Senses Patterns

We split up into groups yesterday and had to work in teams to create patterns based on a give sense. Check out our creations:

Sense of Sight:

We learned you can only use your sense of sight to distinguish colors!

Sense of Touch:

soft, hard, soft, hard...

Sense of Touch:

smooth, sharp, smooth, sharp...

Sense of Hearing:

KGM Sound Pattern from AIS Dhaka on Vimeo.

Sense of Hearing:

KGM_SoundPattern from AIS Dhaka on Vimeo.

Reading Buddies

We met with our reading buddies again today. We finished up our hands and you will be able to see them on display in the school on a bulletin board. We love reading with our buddies!

Swimming & A Hunt at Home

• Tomorrow (Wednesday) we will begin our first round of swimming. Please help your child remember to bring his/her swim bag with the appropriate materials (found in the letter sent home last week). Here is some information on the swimming program and what it entails:
  
  Swimming Program Goals:
  
  
  • For every child to have fun, play and learn introductory swimming skills
  • To introduce how to stay safe in, on, and around the water.
  • To understand and gain competency in floating, gliding and sinking.
  • To develop submersion and breathing control.
  • To investigate and develop arm and leg action in, on and under the water.
  • Introduce and develop Stroke Technique for the free style / backstroke / breaststroke / butterfly
  
  
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• We are learning about patterns in class and want to make a pattern wall. Please encourage your child to find things from home that have patterns on them that you would allow him to bring to school (please no more than 5 per child). We would like to keep these for several weeks and hang in our classroom, but know they will be returned. Please label all items so they can be returned to the appropriate families by applying a piece of tape with your child's name.
  
  As your child searches for and locates patterns in your home, ask guiding questions to develop further understanding of this math concept. Some sample questions are:
  
  • What is the name of this pattern? (i.e. AB, AAB)
  • What sense do you have to use to know this is a pattern? (i.e. A color pattern would use the sense of sight; A texture pattern would use the sense of touch AND sight.)
  • If you added to this pattern, what would come next? (i.e. If the pattern is a stripped pattern of red, white, red, white, your child would identify red as the next color.)
    
  **If your child finds a pattern on something that is too large, heavy, or fragile to bring to class, encourage her to take a picture of the object and email it to our class email:  kgm@aisdhaka.org. We will post these pictures in our class and even on our blog!! (Of course she will need your help with this. :)

Sorting and Patterns

In math we have been sorting in a variety of ways, and have been extending our understanding of sorting to all subject areas. We began a couple weeks ago by sorting buttons in a variety of ways:

Sorting helped us understand that objects have a variety of attributes. We have now used this understanding of attributes to begin identifying, building, and extending patterns. To begin our exploration of patterns we went on a pattern hunt and took pictures of patterns throughout the school. We realized that there are so many patterns around us!

 

Through the use of the iPad app Doodle Buddy we identified patterns by circling as many as we could find on the pictures we took. Some of us even started naming them!

We will continue expanding our knowledge of patterns and attributes this week.