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!

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!

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.

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!

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