Sunday, October 29, 2017

Week 12. October 29 - November 12

Welcome back to a new week of learning, exploring and having fun together!

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Halloween was a success! Students had a wonderful day in their costumes and playing games in our grade activities. A big shout out to our room parents for their support and to Ms. Farrah, Ms. Menna and Ms. Dalia for preparing all materials for each activity,. Thank you!

We will share more photos in this shared folder.

Weekly reminders!

  • Thursday, library bags!
  • PE (Physical Education) uniforms. Students are expected to wear their PE uniforms on both PE days.
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  • Reading parent session - Tomorrow Monday from 8 to 9am in the 1st floor common room.
  • Home Reading - Students must return the books they borrow from school for reading practice at home. We truly appreciate your support in this matter!
  • Monday, October 30th is a half day - Students will be dismissed at 11:30 am. This day there will be no hot lunch.
  • We will have another fun House Event on Tuesday, October 31st. If your child does not have a house shirt, they can wear a shirt of their house color. Click here to see our KG House Teams (you can also find them in the blog’s upper menu)

Learning In KG!

Reading Workshop

Our super readers have done an amazing job learning a variety of Reading Superpowers. When they read independently, you can see them using picture power, pointer power, snap word power, sound power, and more. More impressively, these readers can describe to you which super power they are using to solve a tricky word. This week students will learn about the power of persistence in tackling tricky words and sentences. They will learn to activate multiple super powers to persevere through just-right books. Later, they will work with a reading partner to identify reading superpowers to one another. The classroom will be filled with comments like, “You just used picture power!” and “Try using re-read power for that word.”

We are super readers!

At home, you might encourage your child to find the ‘snap words’ words they know. One prompt we give kindergartners when we coach them in one-on-one instruction is “Look for words you know, then reread from the beginning”



Spotlight on: Phonics

We continue to work with beginning sounds in Kindergarten. Students are now more independent when working with their phonic sorts and finding patterns in the words they read and the letter sounds they start with. Partners are working together to practice beginning sounds by playing memory games, race to sort and supporting each other as they take risks to write some of these words they work with on a weekly basis.

We offer students opportunities to extend their work by suggesting other patterns in the sounds they work with. Some students notice similar endings and we talk to them about word families and support them in sorting words that rhyme. Some students may notice the middle sound in CVC words (consonant-vowel-consonant) and those short vowels we will be working with soon, so we support them in sorting words by the vowel they hear in the middle of the word.

This week we will work to recognize four letters: Qq, Zz, Yy, and Vv.


Writing Workshop

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Writers are working hard every day! This week, students will continue to revise and add more to their stories with the help of a partner. As writers work on adding sentences to each page, they are reminded of the “sound it out” strategy to write a letter for each sound they hear. Partners can also help each other listening to all those sounds in each word to support invented spelling, these sentences are also getting stronger as writers add sight words or “snap words” they already know how to spell such as: I, the, go.

Our young writers continue to experiment with more writing tools to support their writing process. Using a blue pen for revision has been a success for most students and this week we will introduce “revision flaps” as another tool for writers to add more! As we get closer to the end of this unit, writers will focus on stories that they have already written and think of more details that can be added to make them even more enjoyable. Partners will also play an important role in this task, by asking questions to draw on details:

  • Who was there?
  • Where were you?
  • What did you do?
  • How did you feel when that happen?

These questions will give ideas to all writers on what to add. The revision flaps will be pieces of paper they can glue to their initial draft. Looking forward to see more detailed stories!

Math

This week students will wrap up work on Module 2 “Two- dimensional and three dimensional shapes’ and they will begin working on Module 3 “ Comparison of length, weight, capacity, and numbers to 10”. This week, mathematicians will compare length and weight of objects, by examining them side by side. They will be learning first- hand  that the endpoints of the of the objects will need to be aligned in order for the comparison to be accurate.

Circles

The CAC core value for November is compassion and children will be discussing the different ways we can show empathy and compassion in the classroom and outside. We will be conducting compassion circles to reinforce this core value as part of our ongoing community building exercises. The book for compassion that we will be using in Kindergarten classes  is The Invisible Boy by Trudy Ludwig.

Social Studies

This week students will be introduced to a new Social Studies unit: Little Me in a Big School. In it, they will learn all about our vibrant CAC community and get to know some of the people who work to make CAC great every day. To get started we will learn about what a school community is and who is included. Then we will try and make a list of all the people we know who work at CAC. Eventually, students will conduct interviews with CAC employees to learn about who they are and what they do. It is a fun and engaging unit of study and we can’t wait to get started!

Thank you for your continuous support. Please email us with any feedback or questions you may have.

Thank you!

Ms. Ana, Ms. Paola, and Mr. Balazs

Sunday, October 22, 2017

Week 11. October 22 - 26

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Welcome to a new week in Kindergarten! Kindergarteners continue to learn about responsibility. Last week they took an important message from 3C’s assembly and passed along the responsibility medal. It was wonderful to see our young students noticing positive behavior in others and sharing compliments. This week we will have more opportunities to be kind to others and to learn how important it is to have partners and to collaborate.

We hope you all enjoyed reading the book for our respect core value, “One”. Soon we will be sharing CAC’s book for responsibility.

Weekly reminders!

  • Our dynamic grade level calendar! Always look out for upcoming activities and events, we also include the Monday menu for hot lunch and important information for parents shared on The Eagle Eye.
  • Monday lunches. If your child will buy koshari (this week!) or pizza, we kindly ask that you send the exact change in the lunch’s envelope. This will support your child’s independency at school.
  • Home reading practice. One of the responsibility examples students have given is bringing their books back to school everyday; we kindly ask that you support your children with this at home by reminding them to put the book back in their folders after reading it.


Halloween!


We met with KG room parents to discuss the plans and activities for this Thursday. CAC will celebrate Halloween on campus by having students come to school wearing their costumes (this is optional), a special lunch, grade level celebrations with teachers and a Halloween parade at the end of the day. We would like to thank Yasmine, Candice and Shereen for their time and suggestions!

Here is some important information that we all want to share with KG parents, please take some time to read this thoroughly:

Costumes: students have the option of wearing their costume to school. We will have regular class from 7:55 to 11:00 am this means that students will be going to specials and recess before the celebrations. If your child’s costume is easy to take off and put on to go to the bathroom, then she/he will have no problem wearing it all day. You may want to have your child practice going to the bathroom wearing their costume if you decide they will wear it all day on Thursday.

Here are a few guidelines shared by the ES office regarding costumes:

  • If you choose to come to school wearing your costume make sure you put make up, hairspray, etc… at home.
  • Prop headwear (hats, caps, masks, etc.) may be worn, but not during class time
  • Leave valuable items at home
  • No dangerous props ( knives, swords, toy guns, etc.) or high heeled shoes
  • Practice some of our core values
    • Respect - commenting positively on other’s costumes
    • Responsibility - for wearing costumes according to our guidelines
    • Creativity - for creating and planning your costume

We will help students be ready before the photoshoot and activities. If you choose to not send your child wearing their costume, that’s also ok! You can send the costume in their backpacks and we will help him/her change in the classroom.

Class celebrations: room parents suggested that teachers ran all halloween activities. Each class will have different games and all students will rotate to have a chance to interact and enjoy all the fun games we’ve planned. Click here if you want to see the activities we will be doing.

Parade and dismissal: all parents are welcome to join our halloween parade from 2:30 to 3:00. Kindergarteners will sit and walk with their class. There will be many photo opportunities! Once the parade ends, Mrs. Jackson-Jin will dismiss PreK and KG students, we will walk students back to our classrooms to be dismissed from there. We kindly ask parents to wait for each classroom teacher to dismiss all students from each classroom, we will not dismiss students from the ES lawn. Our first priority is safety, and we truly appreciate your support on this matter!

If you have any questions, please ask your classroom parent. They’re happy to help out!


Learning In KG!

Reading Workshop

We are excited for another fun week of reading. Students are improving in their ability to choose “just-right books” and are steadily improving their reading stamina. More and more of them can be heard saying things like, “I can read that!” and “That word is easy for me now.” Nurturing this confidence will help to solidify this important reading identity.

This week in reading workshop students will be focusing on the first sound in a given word to help them read it. They are already able to use Picture Power to help solve unknown words, but sometimes that’s not enough. When readers also activate Sound Power, they can make doubly sure that the word they’re reading is the correct word. When they ask themselves, “Does it look right, sound right, and make sense too?” knowing the first sound will help them decode very tricky words!


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Writing Workshop

This week, writers will be working hard on continuing to produce lots of true stories in our narrative unit. After receiving some exciting revision pens last week, students are now carefully looking back at old stories with an eye to make changes and additions. It is wonderful to see them confidently crossing out and adding on.

This week, our young writers will be busy doing the work of making their stories easier to read. One of the ways to do this is to make sure they are spelling “snap words” quickly and correctly every time so that they can get on with their writing. Snap words, like “I,” “the,” and “go,” will get easier and easier to write with more practice. Students will also be working closely with partners to coach each other to improve writing. Writing partners can help each other make sure stories make sense and make sure writing is easy to read.



Balanced Literacy

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Throughout the week, kindergartners are part of several literacy moments that support reading, writing and phonemic awareness. Outside of the Reading and Writing Workshop, we have: Guided reading (small group reading instruction), Interactive Read Aloud, Shared Reading (with a big book), Shared Writing (teacher writes a story on a big paper, students suggest ideas) and Interactive Writing (teacher and students share the pen, see-saw writing).

These moments offer more opportunities to touch on strategies we teach students throughout the school year, reflect on teaching points from previous days, set the stage for future lessons, and collaborate with peers in the implementation on reading and writing skills.

Math

Mathematicians are having a blast exploring shapes! Last week they used different materials to make flat shapes, like the fun wikki sticks!

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This week, they are exploring solid shapes! Kindergarteners will be learning the different attributes of cones, cubes, cylinders, and spheres. They will explore the round sides of these shapes as well as the faces (flat side of a solid) by describing, discussing and sorting these shapes by characteristic. Students will also continue to learn positional words: above, below, beside, in front of, next to, behind.



As part of our fluency games for each lesson, students continue working with the decompositions of 5 in a systematic way.
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Social Studies

This week we will introduce the procedures for goal setting and reflection to all students. The plan stage will include conversations about things the students feel they have learned in kindergarten and things that they either want to learn or still have a hard time with. Students will practice with partners using sentence stems to express what areas they feel they are really good at and what areas they still need to work on.

Thank you for taking the time to read our KG newsletter!

Mr. Balazs
Ms. Ana

Ms. Paola

Sunday, October 15, 2017

Week 10. October 15 - 19

We’re ready for a new week of exploring and learning in Kindergarten! We will be starting to have discussions about who we are as learners and growth mindset. Exciting!

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Last week many parents had the chance to join us for our first Family Picnic. It was a wonderful experience and we thank those parents that welcomed other students to sit for lunch as one big family. Lovely!


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KGC had a wonderful guest on Wednesday. Christy Curran did a writing workshop labsite with students. She taught them a lesson and then went on to confer with some writers. What a great learning opportunity for students to see their teachers as learners!

Please take some time to look at our calendar for upcoming events and activities.

Reminders:

  • Thursday is library day! All students must bring their library bag on Thursday. Please help us by reminding children to put it next to their bags the night before!
  • Monday lunch. Every Monday lunch options alternate between pizza and koshari, these lunches can only be paid with cash. This Monday will be pizza.
  • If you haven’t done so already, please send a set of extra clothes for your child to keep in the classroom.
  • Students should bring a water bottle to school every day! We encourage children to drink water constantly, not having a water bottle available in the classroom may be disruptive for learning as they need to go to the nearest water fountain.
  • Toys at school (repeated reminder)
In Kindergarten, toys from home are not encouraged as they interfere with students’ ability to engage with learning tasks throughout the day. Please make sure that your child’s toys stay at home. We appreciate your help in this request that supports all student learning.


Learning In KG!

Reading Workshop

Our Super Readers are developing their skills and will be learning even more this week! This week’s Reading Superpowers include solving tricky words by using ‘picture power,’ reading easy words (snap words) quickly by using ‘snap power,’ and coaching reading partners kindly with ‘partner power.” In other words, they will be using pictures to predict and read unfamiliar words, using a variety of practice modes to add to their sight word (or, snap word) vocabulary, and using helpful prompts to coach a reading partner to solve unknown words. It is amazing how our students have taken to these Reading Superpowers with such enthusiasm! We love reading!




Writing Workshop

Writers will continue to write true stories (personal narratives) this week. We will be teaching students how to write sentences to tell a story, transitioning from drawings to sentences as they put together words that make sense and tell readers what is happening in their stories. Writers will also learn about the power in going back to reread what they have written, being not only strong writers but also strong readers!

Rereading can help students make sure that the demanding work of writing stories is also rewarding! When beginner writers are concentrated on their writing, rereading can help them stay on track and think of the next word, sentence or page to add to their story. If students write only half a story in one session, rereading their work before continuing in the next session will help with organization and focus.





Math

This week the students will begin working on Module 2 in math “ Two dimensional and three dimensional shapes”. Students will be finding and describing flat shapes in our environment without naming them formally at first. The focus of the lessons is to talk about the shapes and naming them as triangles, rectangles, circles, or hexagons is merely part of that process. Mathematicians will classify the shapes, juxtaposing them with various examples and non-examples, with the use of  positioning words which are woven into the instructional program throughout the lessons.

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This week, we will be participating in Global Math Week, along with one million other students and teachers around the world this week. The theme of Global Math Week this year is  “Exploding Dots” and students will be participating in a variety of daily math activities revolving around building an exploding dots machine, as an introduction to the principles of coding. Among the activities will be daily classroom games, questions of the day, math trials, and an exploding dots scavenger hunt.

Social Studies

Students have been busy looking for examples of responsibility!

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KGC on a responsibility hunt!

Following up on our discussions about responsibility and the choices that responsible learners make, students will begin to think about what their learning goals in kindergarten, and what steps they will be taking to achieve these goals.

Tech Integration in Kindergarten

This week, as part of our social studies unit, kindergarteners will learn about goal setting and reflecting on learning. We will be discussing how to plan for an electronic portfolio of their work, using tools such as the wide range of age - appropriate applications on the ipad, to help record, document and compile work samples and student’s reflections on their work.

Hope you all have an awesome week!
Ms. Ana
Mr. Balazs
Ms. Paola

Sunday, October 8, 2017

Week 9. October 8 - 12

Welcome to week 9! We’re so happy to start a new week of fun and learning.


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Kindergarteners at the Respect celebration!


So much has happened in the last couple of days! Kindergarteners have had opportunities to get together with other grade levels. A couple days ago first graders came to our classrooms to read to all students as they were celebrating the end of their first reading unit. It was a wonderful way to celebrate reading together!

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3rd Grade Buddies


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Our kindergarteners also met with their 3rd grade buddies for the first time this past week! Building relationships with older students is very valuable as it enhances children’s cooperative learning behaviors such as taking turns, listening, sharing knowledge, praising another’s effort and helping one another. As the older students assume the role of a mentor, they are motivated to do their best. They also experience pride in their ability to be helpful. The younger children bond with the older buddy and friendships flourish as the year progresses.


Buddy programs promote a favorable school atmosphere. In some cases, kindergarteners sit with their buddies during lunch or have time together on the playground! Click here to see some photos of our students and their buddies.


A Message From the ES Office:
Promoting Writing With Your Child (Reminder)


Christy Curran, a literacy consultant with extensive experience as a classroom teacher and coach, is returning to CAC. Last week she led a Coaching Institute with CAC teachers and coaches from other international schools in the region, teaching model lessons in classrooms, and this week she will be running workshops for teachers and parents. We hope you can join us Wednesday, 11 October, 2:00 to 3:00pm in the 1st Floor Common Room for a presentation on Promoting Writing With Your Child. We are excited to have her back! Christy has worked at the internationally renowned Teachers College Reading and Writing Project as a staff developer.


KG teachers will be part of some of these professional development sessions, therefore they will be in and out of classrooms on some days. Our aides will be covering the classes with substitutes to support.


Learning this week


Balanced Literacy


DEAR Assembly this Tuesday at 7:55am
Another way to promote reading is for children to watch others read! Please join us on the elementary lawn to Drop Everything And Read! Bring a book (and probably a hat or sunglasses because it will be sunny), and join the elementary students for some sustained silent reading. Kindergarteners will read from their classroom book bags and we’ll also have additional favorite books! We hope you can make it!


Reading Workshop


This week we dive deeper into our newest Reading unit: Reading Superpowers! After “shopping” for new books, our young readers will continue to hone their “pointer power” as they read books that challenge each student appropriately. They will also learn about sight words, or “snap words,” as they read, and they will be encouraged by how many words they already know! Rereading known texts helps to reinforce this knowledge. Finally, we will learn more about how reading partners can help each other to make reading superpowers even stronger!






Writing Workshop


We have an exciting week ahead in Writing Workshop! After a lovely writing celebration last Thursday, students are ready to forge ahead with something new. Our new unit is called Writing for Readers: True Stories. This unit will explore important questions for young writers, like
  1. How do authors choose their topics?
  2. How do authors get their ideas onto paper?
  3. How can the books I am reading help me write?


Student writers will practice organizing their pieces to include a beginning, middle, and end, reread their own writing, use sight words to write more easily, and much more! We can’t wait to improve even further as writers in this exciting unit!









Math


This will be the last week of our first module in Eureka Math! Mathematicians will be reviewing the different ways they have learned to count numbers, mentally grouping objects in 5-groups, linear and array configurations, as well as circular counting! They will also be going over the concepts of the “one more” and “one less”relationship between numbers.



Social Studies & Circles


Kindergarteners love circles! We continue to promote core values and other themes as we all engage in fun activities as a class. Some of the themes we have explored are friendship, collaboration, communication and inclusion!


This will be the last week of our first Social Studies unit “I Am Me”. Students will be reviewing concepts learned about similarities, differences, choices, likes and dislikes. They will continue discussing what it means to be responsible for your choices and the impact that their good choices have on themselves and on others.  




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Hope you had a chance to join the family picnic and had a fun spending time with other families. As always, we look forward to hearing from you! Email us if you have any feedback or questions.


Ms. Ana
Mr. Balazs

Ms. Paola