The Little Engine That Could Sing Us Over the Mountain

REMINDER! Please save the date!

The AISD Kindergarteners would like to present The Little Engine That Could Sing Us Over the Mountain on Monday, 14 March at 2 pm in the Community Hall.  This musical will be video recorded and available to be copied via flash disk or drive for your safe keeping. 

 

Beijing Opera 京劇 A Monkey King 孫悟空

Last Thursday we had the opportunity to view some high school drama students demonstrate their learning about the Beijing Opera. After watching the performance, our students were interested in hearing more. Betty Chang, our Performing Arts teacher, provided some further insight. She showed them the following clip and provided this information in case you want to go over it with your child:

The particular clip they watched is of the Monkey King. 
The Monkey King traditionally is a very mischievous character but
excellent at martial arts.  He magically transforms hairs plucked from
his body to anything he wishes!  In this particular youtube clip,
however, it demonstrates his martial arts and acrobatic skill sets.  He
twirls the baton, balances swords on his baton, etc. 

Data Analysis

We have concluded our in-depth study of time and how it helps us stay organized. We are now beginning to take a closer look at data analysis in math. First, we are beginning our unit by understanding just what it means to gather data. We spent the end of last week examining the two words gathering and data. The students were first asked to draw pictures or write their ideas of when they had heard these words before. 

After collating our prior knowledge of each word, we discussed our ideas and built upon our thoughts. Some examples the students gave of when they had heard the word gather included "gathering near the teacher" and "gathering pencils after they have spilled on the floor". The word data was a bit trickier as many students didn't remember having prior experience with this word. Ayushi got us thinking when she said that her mom had said that when the power is out, the TV does not work and it does not give any data. Levi continued upon this idea by adding that computers and technology transmit data, and that you can even share data by putting it onto a USB. We eventually came up with basic definitions of both words. 

Having a better idea of what it means to "gather data", the students were challenged to gather data about what time the teammates in our class each go to bed. No direction was given as how to go about collecting the data or as the best way to organize it.

This lesson provides insight into where we will begin this unit and the students' initial understanding of how one might go about collecting information. Because our last unit of inquiry focused on organization, we will apply our strong foundation in this area to our math as well. Tomorrow we will examine how the different members of our class went about collecting and organizing their data. We will learn from one another and hopefully come up with some new strategies that may help us in the coming weeks.

Personal Roles within Families

After examining our personal roles as students in the school community, the students were very excited to look at their roles within their family communities. They realized that they have many important jobs to do to help their family thrive. Take a look at each child's thinking about the jobs they are responsible for at home:

Roles within Communities

Our current unit of inquiry is in the theme "How We Organize Ourselves", and our central idea is, 'Organization can help a community thrive'. At the beginning of this unit our students were asked to explain how the school is organized. All of them focused solely on the physical aspect of organization, and when asked about how the people might be organized, only a couple students were able to verbalize thoughts on this less tangible aspect of organization.

This was a great formative assessment to show in which area(s) we should begin our exploration. After some discussion, we came up with a basic list of  people who are part of our school community. We gathered photos of some of these people and worked in groups to sort them. In the next step we were challenged to find connections between groups of people.

This activity made us realize just how connected the different people in our school community are! Our next step was to examine the roles people have and how they help communities function, which is one of our lines of inquiry. We began by looking at ourselves in our school community. To which group do we belong? What are our jobs within the community? How do we help the community? Through the use of the app Pic Collage, we worked in partners to create collages of some of the different jobs we have within the role of a student. Check out our work!:

The students were so excited about this app and discussed how it helped them organize their thoughts. They decided they wanted to look at their roles within their families as well. So....we did a similar project through the help of both Pic Collage and the app 'Whiteboard'! Our ideas will be uploaded soon. Be sure to check back again today for that post!

Letters of Love

Thanks to all of you for making your child's Valentine's Day special and sending in letters of love! They were all so surprised and excited to see letters from all over the globe. There were a lot of smiling faces as students read their thoughtful messages.

100th Day Capes

What creative 100th day capes we had in KG this week! To show off our style, we had a little fashion show with KG-MC. Take a moment to watch this short clip; it will definitely make you smile.

Kg cape fashion show from Amy McLean on Vimeo.

100th Day Capes

My apologies. This was written yesterday and I thought it had been published, but I just realized there was a glitch.

Your child came home today with a red cape. Thank you so much to Kayaan and Kayael's parents for donating these! In celebration of our 100th day of school, all kindergarten students are asked to decorated their cape in a creative way that represents 100. Please help your child in coming up with something unique! We will have a fashion show on Thursday to show these off. Please help your child remember to bring in his/her finished cape Thursday morning. Thanks in advance for your help!

The Little EngineThat Could --- the musical!!

All of our kindergarten students are busy learning a musical during Performing Arts time that we can't wait to perform for you all in March! We are needing a little help at home in learning script lines. If you could take the time soon to practice your child's line with him/her so that s/he knows it well, it would be much appreciated. Please see below:

ALL STUDENTS will say the following lines:

1. Oh, no!  Our train is broken.  What shall we do?  We need another engine to push us over the mountain.
2. Clickety clack! Clickety clack!
3. All the while, the children in the Chittagong Village Station were waiting and waiting for Happy Train.
4. The train, the train, is very, very late! It’s bringing food and toys. It’s hard for us to wait!
5. HOORAY, HOORAY FOR THE BRAVE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD SING US OVER THE MOUNTAIN!
   ________________________________________________________
    
   Zoe: The hopeful Train Conductor waved the red flag and the wheels on Happy Train wiggled and jiggled with happy anticipation. 
   
   Nezar:  Big Important Engine hissed and stopped.
   
   Big Important Engine (angrily):  Why did you stop me?
   
   Lola:  Big Important Engine huffed and puffed out gritty clouds of gray smoke.  
   
   Amirah: And with another puff of steam, “Psssshoooooo”, the freight engine pounded away.
   
   Levi: How disappointing!  The Train Conductor and everyone were very worried that no engine will help push us over the mountain. 
   
   Alfred: They knew that all the boys and girls on the other side of the mountain were waiting for them.
   Ilmeeyat: Then, in the distance, there was a NEW sound on the track - a very small, cheerful sound.
   
   Noah: Down the track came Little Engine.  
   
   Train Conductor:  Too bad.  That engine is way too small to push us over the mountain.
   
   Gabriel:  The Train Conductor didn’t even wave the red flag for the engine to stop,  but that little engine stopped anyway.  
   
   Little Engine:  Is something wrong?
   
   The Train Conductor:  Our engine is broken.  We are hoping that a big engine will come and push us over the mountain.
   
   Little Engine:  I am not big, but I will try to push you. Sometimes when I need a lot of power, I sing a special song to make me stronger.  It goes like this:
   
   Ayushi:  We don’t think you can do it, but you can try.
   
   Taya:  Little Engine slowly connected with Happy Train.  
   
   Sukanya: It pushed and pushed and pushed!  Slowly, as they moved up the mountain, Little Engine said,
   
   Little Engine: I need more power.  Please, EVERYBODY, sing the song with me!
   
   Adrian: Up, up the mountain Little Engine pushed Happy Train - up to the very top!  
   
   Ihsan: And then down, down the mountain they easily chugged.
   
   Zara:  There were the happy children, waiting for them in the Chittagong Village Station.  
   
   Hanna: Happy Train was very happy to be there.  Everyone shouted...