Creativity through Quilting

We have had all sorts of guest speakers come to KG to share how they use their creativity. Recently Ms. Stephanie Sinks came in to share her creativity in designing and making quilts. How amazing it was for us to see how shapes can be transformed into so many different designs! We also didn't realize how such small changes, such as turning or moving a piece of fabric, could make such a big difference.

We were so inspired by Ms. Stephanie and were excited to make quilt squares of our own. Thanks to Ms. Stephanie's generosity with her fabric, we were able to do just that! We each chose shapes and arranged them to design unique squares. 

Please take a moment to watch the slideshow below with pictures of our finished work!

Boxes Needed!

We will be doing a project in class that requires recycled boxes of all sizes. If you have any to spare please consider sending them in. Thanks in advance for your help!

Creativity through Woodworking

We are learning all about creativity in our current unit of inquiry. Two of our lines inquiry in this unit are:

How people express their creativity

Transforming ideas into creative products

 We had the opportunity of exploring a new means of making creative products by visiting the middle school and high school design technology lab. Mr. Morris and Ms. Lisa, along with a group of high schoolers, taught us how to make our own pencil holders. It was our job though to come up with a creative pencil holder idea. We had so much fun and many of us have been inspired to continue creating with wood!

How Many Sides Does a Circle Have?

If a triangle has three sides, and a rectangle has four, how many sides does a circle have? 

This was the question posed by Ihsan this week, which really made us ponder. Many immediately yelled out "One! None!" and even "Four!" We decided that we should explore this question in more detail to try and reach some sort of conclusion.

In order to do so, the following day students were broken into small teams and given a piece of string and some stick pins. They were first asked to use the pins and the string to make a triangle. 

It was interesting to see how each group approached the task. A couple groups figured out that they could use the pins as the vertices, which helped them make the shape quickly.

The students then moved through the process of making a series of shapes, each one a bit more difficult than the one before. 

Many discoveries were found as the shapes were explored, such as when Amirah realized that a hexagon's vertices line up. Her group used this new understanding to more accurately place the pins and more successfully make the shape.

Finally, we got to the shape we began exploring in the first place: the circle. At first many students thought it was easy to make this shape, and they quickly put the pins into place. After the string was attached, however, they began to realize that their circles had short, straight sides. As Adrian explained, our circle creations weren't really circles as they weren't completely round. 

This exploration led us to discover that in order to make a completely round circle we would have to have tiny pins that we could place touching one another. The pins we had were much too big and left too much space! We realized that circles actually have an infinite amount of sides, and it was eye-opening to think about the concept of infinity. As Levi said, we could begin counting now and if we continued counting until we got so old and died, we would have to continue counting after death! 

We will continue exploring shapes throughout the next few weeks and will have many more questions to explore. Stay tuned to hear more about our discoveries!

Learning About Personal Space

This morning Ms. Hatcher came in for Life Skills and taught us about personal space. We learned about everyone's personal bubble and how to respect those around us. We also discussed times during which others feel comfortable or uncomfortable and how to read their faces to see how they might be feeling. Talk with your child at home about the concept of personal space.

UN Day

On Wednesday we celebrated UN Day as a whole school, which is a very special day at AISD. Please take some time to view the photos of the celebration:

Creativity Unit and Language Acquisition

UN Day Celebration

AISD will celebrate UN Day this coming Wednesday, November 25 from 8:30 to 9:30 on the big field. All students are encouraged to wear traditional clothing or colors from their home country. Please ensure your child comes to school dressed accordingly as we will not have time to change beforehand.

The UN Day celebration is a very special time at AISD. We welcome you to come help us celebrate. Please meet us out on the big field and avoid coming to the classroom as this congests things quite a lot when we are trying to line up. You will have ample opportunities for photos on the field -- I promise!

A Line Could Be......

Today we explored our creativity by making our brains really think. We were given only a line and had to turn into something else entirely. Look at how creative we were!

Inquiring into Single Silent e

One of our reading groups asked about when to use a silent e when writing a word, and also how to recognize what an e does when it's at the end of a word when we are reading. We decided we needed to inquire into this further!! Today this group found as many words as possible that end in the letter e. Tomorrow we will sort them and see what we discover. Stay tuned for our findings!

Demonstrating our Understanding of Plants

We finished up our unit of inquiry on Sharing the Planet: Plants with an activity that encouraged us to consolidate our learning and share our understanding. Our lines of inquiry for this unit were:

• The properties of plants 
• What plants provide for us and other living things
• The relationship between plants and other living things

 In order for students to demonstrate their knowledge, they were first each given a piece of paper of paper on which they recorded the things they know plants have, need, and give (to people and animals). 

From here we were able to work together to generate a list of things plants provide to both humans and animals. The next day, students were given pictures of each item generated the day prior. They then worked in partners to determine the importance of each item. They were instructed to sort the items accordingly in relation to a circle on their poster. The items inside the circle were those they felt were necessary to live. Those just outside but touching the circle were those they felt were not necessary, but quite important. Those on the outside of the paper were the items the students felt were not necessary - rather, just nice to have.

The next step was to compare their own poster with that of their teammates. The students moved around the room in their partnerships and examined the other students' work. They discussed differences and similarities and engaged in dialogue with their partners.

Comparing Circles from AIS Dhaka on Vimeo.

Finally, each group had a chance to elaborate and defend its thinking. Great discussion erupted as students agreed and disagreed about the importance of the various things plants provide. Please take a few moments to watch some of the videos below. Notice the focus, passion, and deep thinking that is capable even in kindergarten.

Ihsan and Taya from AIS Dhaka on Vimeo.

Adrian and Zoe from AIS Dhaka on Vimeo.

Levi and Hanna from AIS Dhaka on Vimeo.

Amirah and Noah from AIS Dhaka on Vimeo.

Zara and Lola from AIS Dhaka on Vimeo.

Alfred and Ilmeeyat from AIS Dhaka on Vimeo.

Nezar and Gabriel from AIS Dhaka on Vimeo.

We Are Bakers!

We made bread yesterday! We used our knowledge of the things plants provide to identify which ingredients needed for bread come from plants. We were amazed that it included most of them! We also read the story "The Little Red Hen" to lead us into our new unit of inquiry on creativity. Luckily we had a couple bread machines to help us out with the hard parts of bread-making. Take a look at how much fun we had.

PTA Book Fair and Bloomball Mall

This week we will have two special activities in which to partake. The first is the PTA book fair, which our class will visit on Wednesday morning at 8:00. If you would like your child to be able to purchase books, please either send money in or come join us at 8:00 to help pick out books. Most new books cost between 500 and 1500 taka.

The second special activity is Bloomball Mall, which is put on by the fifth graders. This is happening on Thursday. They have provided us with the following detailed information:

Get ready to shop till you drop! The 5th Grade Bloom Ball Mall is on Thursday, November 19th, 2015 from 9:00 - 11:00 am on the second and third floor Rotunda. The Mall is the summative assessment for the 5th grade unit, “Supply and Demand” and will showcase what the students have learned about launching an authentic business.

Be ready to try the baked goods, Beaver Tails, pizza slices, slushies, smoothies and ice cream. Be a risk taker and take a selfie or have your picture taken with fancy wigs, spin the Fortune Wheel, visit the Carnival Alley or try Magic Tricks. Icky slime and bath bombs will make your day. Relieve your stress with Stress Balls and your snack will be protected by the unique Apple Protectors. Buy ‘Reloved’ toys, books and board games or have Secret Messages delivered to friends and families. Elementary students should bring a maximum of Taka 500, preferably in small change. High and Middle Schoolers are also invited to the Bloomball Mall. See you there.

Again, please either send in money or come help your child choose something to buy during Bloomball Mall if you would like him/her to participate. We will attend the Mall around 9:40 Thursday morning.

**Please send money in an envelope labeled with your child's name. If sending all money at one time, please also designate how much your child is allowed to spend at each event. (i.e. Book Fair = 1000 taka, Bloomball Mall = 500 taka)

Ms. Arti Teaches About Duvali

The Hindu holiday Divali is tomorrow and Ms. Arti  will be away celebrating. She took a moment to teach us a bit about the holiday and taught us how to make our own rangoli.

Pumpkins!

Last week we explored pumpkins in our classroom both in relationship to our unit of inquiry on plants and our math unit on measurement. We began by looking at our pumpkins like scientists and drawing realistic representations of each of them. We then explored the different ways we could measure our pumpkins, and realized that we could measure both height and circumference, but that when measuring the circumference we would have to use a tool other than cubes to help us bend around the pumpkin. String did the trick!

The next day, we explored other ways of measuring our pumpkins and realized that we could measure their weight. As we only had plastic scales, we decided to simply compare our pumpkins against one another. 

Once our pumpkins were all measured, it was then time to cut them open. We had to be risk-takers as many of us didn't want to touch the pulp inside. We all agreed with Alfred when he said, "I was a little scared, but I did it and now I see it's so fun!!" 

After separating the seeds from the pulp, we examined the volume of seeds in our cups and realized that some pumpkins had many more seeds than others. We were surprised to find out that the size of the pumpkin was not always the determining factor in the amount!

Lastly, since our Halloween carnival was nearing, we of course had to carve our pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns! 

We Are Authors!

KG-M is a class full of authors. We are nearing the end of our pattern book writing unit, and we are so proud of the books we have published! We had a chance to share them with many of you during conferences, however, we wanted to make sure others have a chance to read our great stories too. They are hanging up in our hallway just opposite our door, so please come take a look when you have a chance. You'll be amazed at the thought and work that went into our published pieces!

PTA Book Fair

Our class will attend the PTA Book Fair on Wednesday, November 18 @ 8:00. You are welcome to either send money in to school with your child or even come to help your child select books. Please mark your calendars!