Volunteers Needed!

We are still looking for some parent volunteers in KG-M to help with learning centers. We do these centers every day from 1:10 to 2:00 (or 2:10) with the exception of Tuesdays. Students rotate through a series of activities and work in small groups to allow for more independent instruction. This is the time during which I meet with each of your children to teach guided reading. Parent volunteers are extremely valuable during this time as they help to lead a small group of students through an activity. Nothing needs to be prepared in advance on your part; you simply show up at 1:10 and listen as I explain the activities to the children. They will all be very simple for you to pick up. :)

We would love to have some volunteers that might be able to come in on a weekly basis. If that is not possible of course we will take any time you can give! Thank you to Carlos, Adrian's dad, for already coming in every Wednesday afternoon. Carlos has been of great assistance and the children love having him join the class!

If you are interested in volunteering, please send me an email with days that work best for you. I am sure that you will find your time to be both enjoyable and valuable in seeing how our classroom operates....plus your child will feel pretty special having you come in! Thank you in advance for your consideration, and please know that I completely understand that not all parents are able to work this into their schedules.

Pattern "Museum"

We have been doing so much with patterns lately in kindergarten, and we would like to create a pattern museum in our classroom. I have challenged all the students to go home and search for patterns around their home. They have been asked to them bring in their items to school to let us display for a short while. If the item is too big or breakable, we have come up with the solution of taking a photo, which can then be emailed to our class email address:  kgm@aisdhaka.org. (Please do not use my personal email address as my inbox gets too filled with other emails and I want to make sure I don't miss any photos!)

**Note that of course these items will be returned. To ensure all items are returned to the correct owner, however, please tape your child's name onto the item somewhere.

Encourage your child to find multiple patterns, as well as patterns of different types. Ask him/her to name the pattern for you using letters (AAB, ABC, etc.) or even numbers (112, 123, etc.) to encourage dialogue about the learning going on in our classroom. Your child is welcome to bring in many items containing patterns, so encourage lots of hunting!

Senses Hunt

We went on a hunt around the school to find how different people use their senses. We then thought about what information the different senses were providing. This additional step targets three of our lines of inquiry. As we move through this unit of inquiry we are trying to develop an awareness and understanding of how our senses work with our brains to inform us of things and help us make decisions. With the help of our fifth grade buddies, we added thought bubbles to our pictures and captured our thinking. Take a look!

We Are Authors!

We had our first guest author today. Hanna finished her first book and shared it with us. We noticed her great writing and detailed pictures. Now her next step is to add a cover!

We have all been becoming authors and illustrators and have written several stories. We are now working on writing personal narratives and adding our senses when writing. We are so excited about our work!

Seaquence.org

Today we explored the website seaquence.org to make patterns that target specific senses. We noticed that both our sense of hearing and sight was used. We had so much fun and want to share our creations with you!:

Gabriel 

Ilmeeyat

Noah

Zoe

Levi

Adrian

Amirah

Ihsan

Sukanya

Nezar

Alfred

Hanna

Buddho

Taya

Lola

REMINDERS

It is important each morning to review the "day" (in the 8-day cycle) and see what single subject class your child has that day in order to ensure he/she comes to school with the necessary materials. Please help your child remember the following:

• P.E.:  Days 1, 3, 5, 7 - Appropriate attire; Beginning Tuesday your child will need a swim bag every day we have P.E. class. This will last through October 22.
• Library:  Days 3 and 8 - Library books with canvas library bag

Thank you for your help at home in preparing your child for his/her day!

Peace Rug

Mrs. Hatcher came today for Life Skills. She introduced us to the peace rug, which is a place we can go to solve our problems. We will be using this throughout the year in our classroom. Ask your child the steps to using the peace rug. You can even use a similar method at home!

Happy Birthday!

We've celebrated 3 birthdays lately in our classroom. Happy birthday to Levi, Zara and Ihsan!!

How Does Our Sense of Sight Work?

We've been exploring our sense of sight in more depth the past few days, and several experiences have helped us think about how our sense of sight works, and how important it is in our lives.

We began by looking at a set of objects for roughly three seconds. We then had to try and identify all the objects that were seen in that time.

We realized upon naming and then revisiting the objects that none of us remembered seeing the small blue thumb tack. Was it that we truly did not see it, or had we simply failed to pay attention to it? Amirah quickly hypothesized that the reason we did not remember seeing it was because it was so small. This made us think about all the things we may be missing due to their small size! We also realized that brighter objects attracted our attention more quickly.

We later used our sense of sight to explore colors through an experiment called the "Exploding Rainbow". This experiment got us thinking about how we only use our sense of sight when exploring colors.

 

Another activity that caused us to both use and think about our sense of sight was a photo hunt. We worked in partners with a set of pictures. Each photo was taken somewhere near the playground. Our job was to find the exact location each photo was taken.

Upon discussion after our hunt, we came to the conclusion that some pictures were more quickly recognizable because they were things we attend to and notice more regularly. Adrian was quick to point out that our brain played a large role in this exercise because we had to remember things we had seen before.

Finally, we worked with our fifth grade buddies to create our own "I Spy" books with the use of the app 'Book Creator'. This project not only focused on our sense of sight, but it also introduced us to the app we will be using this year to create our growth portfolios. We can't wait to share our books with you!

Gabriel Has Arrived!

We were so happy to have Gabriel join our class today. Welcome to KG-M, Gabriel!

Swimming Unit Beginning Soon

Please see the following message from our P.E. teacher, Mr. Rank:

Dear Kindergarten Parents, 

In Physical Education class we will be starting our Aquatics Unit on Tuesday September 15th.  In this unit your children will be learning basic swim strokes, survival skills in the water and hopefully having some fun too!  Please start sending a swim bag each day we have P.E. on and after September 15. The bag should contain:

• swimming suit 
• goggles
• towel 

Along with that, if any parent is willing to come and help supervise or would just like to be there for support, please e mail me at lrank@aisdhaka.org so that I can communicate with you the times and expectations.  Thanks!

Mr. Rank

Exploring Our Sense of Taste

After working with all our senses for some time, we started narrowing down our focus last week to begin examining each sense in more detail and how it might work with our other senses. We also began focusing on the brain's role in how our senses work. We explored the sense of taste through various exploratory activities. It all began with a blindfold taste test.

This experience introduced us to the Learner Profile trait "Risk-Taker" as many of us were a little nervous to try something that we could not see and identify. Through this experience we realized that we all perceive things in different ways and what one person may say is disgusting, may be delicious to another. This experience also introduced us to some new vocabulary words, including sour, bitter, salty and sweet.

We took this new vocabulary and explored it in more depth the following day through three stations that once again focused on the sense of taste. In one of the centers, we reviewed the four words listed above and then explored them more deeply through an additional taste-testing experience. Four containers each full of what appeared to be water were placed in the middle of the table. We once again were risk-takers as we tasted each one and matched it to our newly learned taste vocabulary. These four liquids (salt water, sugar water, tonic water, and vinegar) helped us better solidify our understanding.

In another center, we sat in front of five mugs filled with different flavored tea. We were shown the boxes each tea was sold in and told the names of the five teas, but not which flavor was in which mug. It was our responsibility to taste a bit of each tea and try to match it to each box.

Throughout this experience we came to realize that more than just the sense of taste helped us identify the teas; our senses of smell and sight were also very helpful.

Our third center focused on all of the five senses as we explored fruit. We were shown a tray with a variety of fruit cut into different sizes. We used our senses to explore all parts of the fruit (skins, insides, seeds). We realized that sometimes it was necessary to use multiple senses to identify fruits and our sense of sight didn't always prove to be the best -- which was especially true when examining the inside of an apple and pear. Without the peels, the two fruits looked very similar. It was only when we tasted each that we were able to identify them with certainty.

We will of course continue our exploration of the senses this week. Make sure to ask your child what new conclusions he/she makes each day!