Reminders

• Kindergarten Literacy Night is this Tuesday, October 28 beginning at 7:00 pm in the multi-purpose room. Please join us as we share AISD's approach to teaching literacy and share information about how you can help your child at home.
  
• Student-Involved Conferences are next week. Please sign up for a time if you haven't already done so. See the instructional note sent home in both soft and card copy formats.
  
• Please check our class schedule with your child each morning to ensure he/she comes to school with the appropriate materials for that day (i.e. library bag, P.E. attire, etc.).

Plants Vocabulary

Dear KG Families,

Our students are beginning a new unit about plants!  From a language perspective, it is important to build understanding in a student’s 1^st language as well as their 2^nd language.  Please have a look at some of the words your child might see and hear in the next Unit of Inquiry.  I encourage you to discuss a few of these words each night with your child in your family’s strongest language (Bangla, Korean, English, etc.).  Your child’s first language is very important because it helps your child to build concepts!

We are looking forward to exploring this new Unit of Inquiry: Sharing the Planet!

Sincerely,

The Kindergarten Team

Conferences

Please review the note sent home Sunday regarding conferences and take the time to sign up for a time online. Follow the guidelines in the note when setting up conferences with single subject teachers, but be aware that Ms. Betty Chang has shorter availability as the only elementary grade she teaches is kindergarten. If you would like to meet with her she will be available Thursday, November 6 from 10 am to 12 pm or via appointment. You can reach her at bchang@aisdhaka.org with further questions.

Writers Celebration

We are authors!! We published our books last week and then shared them with our buddies during our first writers celebration. Our buddies brought us each special congratulatory cards to tell us how proud they were of us and were amazed at how much we've grown in just this short time since the beginning of school. We followed this sharing time with cookies and a game called Freeze Dance.

We can't wait to bring our books home and share with you! Right now they are being prepared to put into our electronic portfolios, but it shouldn't be long before they can come home. When they are brought home, please take the time to discuss the writing process and time we as authors have put into our stories. Notice the growth over each page and congratulate me on a job well done!

We are now focusing on predicable pattern books in class and have read a multitude of pattern books. We have examined the various approaches used by the authors and know different types, such as:

• See-Saw patterns (AB)
• Page patterns
• Growing patterns
• Shrinking patterns
• Circle stories

Watch us explore the see-saw pattern in the book It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw:

See-Saw Pattern Books: KG-M from AIS Dhaka on Vimeo.

We will begin mapping out our own pattern books tomorrow by doing the first stage of the writing process: thinking. The writing of books takes time and care, so please ask me throughout the week how my first pattern book is coming along!

**Please see the previous couple postings on our blog. They did not come through via Feedburner due to picture sizing issues -- meaning you may not have received an email update if you normally do.

New Unit of Inquiry

Today we practiced being botanists. We used our knowledge of our five senses to go outside and look closely at plants. We recorded what we felt, smelled, and saw. We noticed lots of things that we have never noticed before and realize the importance of stopping and taking the time to look closely at things. We now know that this is what scientists do!

 

We will continue our new unit of inquiry on plants throughout the next weeks and will look at plants at an even deeper level and see how they and other living things have an interdependant relationship. Stay tuned to see more postings on what we are learning in class so that you can extend this learning to your home.

 

Measurement

We are beginning a new math unit that focuses on measurement. Once we understand how to measure accurately using non-standard tools we will be able to apply this skill to our new Unit of Inquiry on plants. We have begun by focusing on the vocabulary longer and shorter. All students were asked to find objects in the room that were longer or shorter than their 'space stick' (used for writers workshop) and record them in their journal.

 We found a multitude of objects to compare and experimented with ways to measure accurately, and even ways to record our data like mathematicians.

Alina labeled her work so that others could interpret her data!

We then discussed how we really knew if something was longer or shorter than our space sticks, and realized the importance of lining items up. This brought us to our next lesson in which we were challenged to accurately measure and compare three crayons:

Stephanie and Armaan compare their results

Some of us had to be reminded of the importance of the lining the crayons up, and many of us learned how to accurately record our data as we discussed our results with our partners. We learned how to share our thinking as mathematicians would do and some of us even guided our teammates in more thorough understanding.

We will continue exploring measurement throughout the next several weeks.

Swimming Continues

Please see the following message from Mr. Fortuna:

Just a reminder that swimming goes until Oct. 23 for every PE lesson. Please try to help the students remember their swimming bags.

Raz-Kids

 

Your child is coming home today with information regarding a wonderful online reading program called Raz-Kids to which our school subscribes. Please take advantage of this great opportunity to encourage independent reading at home! Your child has a special picture password, shown on the form sent home, that he will need to use to log in. Please encourage proper use of this program to get the most benefit. Your child should not simply try to 'zip through' the levels in order to get points; rather, he should work at a pace that encourages thinking and use of the various reading strategies we have learned in class. You can help with this by listening to him read, and even encouraging him to record his reading through the program! If he gets stuck on a word, please give him time to work on figuring it out on his own before providing it. My suggestion is to time yourself. I have learned through experience that ten seconds can seem like a very long time when waiting, but allowing your child that thinking time will help him develop into a stronger reader who is able to strategize and form conclusions on his own. 

When listening to your child read you can use the language we use in class. Thus far we have learned these reading strategies:

Stretchy Snake:  Saying each sound in a word and then putting them back together

Owl Eyes:  Looking closely at the picture for clues

Lips the Fish:  Getting your lips ready to make the sound of the first letter in the word

Touch Each Word:  Just as it's stated, touching each word as you read

Making Connections:  Finding connections between the text and your own life 

What Make Sense:  Your child can as, "What word would make sense here?"

Please also remember to encourage the use of IXL over the break. If you have any questions regarding either of these programs please don't hesitate to email me. Eid Mubarak to all those celebrating, and to those of you who get time off, enjoy the holiday!!