Homework! This week we covered the letter Pp. Help them to complete page 9.
A couple things that came up this week that I am hoping to have help with at home is how we treat our friends and classmates. There were some things that were said that maybe the kids didn't think were hurtful, but in fact feelings were hurt. I think this is pretty normal stuff for kindergarten, but just if the message can be reinforced at home it will only help the kids that much more.
Another this that happened is that some of the kids are 'telling stories.' They tell me that something happened, when it didn't really. This really only happened toward the end of the week, so we will spend more time talking about next week. Again, if you can help me reinforce the message that they should only tell me what is true, that would be great.
I don't want to speak too soon, but I think that we will have a new kindergarten assistant! She will only be coming for part of the day and this will be to help in both K1 and K2. I will let you know more about her next week when I know if things have been made official.
Have a great weekend. Ali
Friday, September 27, 2013
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Week 7 - September 23-27
Hello all!
So last week was a very short week. It went by in the blink of an eye. We reviewed some different areas where I thought the students could use more help, and they seemed to respond well.
As for this week:
Phonics/Reading: The students will learn the letter Pp. They will be able to identify the sound and different objects with the beginning sound that p makes. I say it as 'puh.'
Language arts: Different jobs in our communities. If you could do me a favour and write what your jobs are so that I can ask the students and sort of prompt them if they need help.
Math: In math we are starting patterns. This should be pretty simple now because it will just be alternating two different colours or two different objects, but patterns will get a bit harder for them the more differences there are. This we will take pretty slow.
Science: Continuing with animals in science, we will talk about what animals need. They already seem to understand this pretty well - air to breathe, food to eat and water to drink. It will be a great time to explore more.
Social Studies: This is a great topic - groups from around the world. Please also let me know if there is somewhere other than Taiwan in your cultural background, like Chinese, Japanese, South Korean, etc. and if there is anything special that you do to celebrate your culture.
For our story time I have been reading them a book called "Go Away Big Green Monster." They love it so much. All of the kids laugh so hard when we read this book. So yesterday we started to paint the boxes that were sent in as the first stage of making our own monsters. Again, thank you to those who sent in more than one box!
Finally, Friday is Teacher's Day. In the afternoon we will have a small party with K2. I am going to order a pizza for them, so only send a small snack for them that day as we will have something special to eat. If you want to send in a special treat for the kids to share, feel free, but not too much! I taught the students a made up word that means 'Don't worry about it!' that comes from the movie The Lion King, so we will watch this movie. The word is 'hakunamatata.' If someone spills water or makes a small mistake, I just say 'hakuna' and they all say 'matata.' They really love it. Try it at home and see what happens.
Oh, one more thing! The t-shirts for sports day are a little more expensive this year - a total of $320. I thought we could share the price. I will pay $200, and you could send in the remaining $120. Please do this as soon as possible.
Have a great week everyone!
Ali
So last week was a very short week. It went by in the blink of an eye. We reviewed some different areas where I thought the students could use more help, and they seemed to respond well.
As for this week:
Phonics/Reading: The students will learn the letter Pp. They will be able to identify the sound and different objects with the beginning sound that p makes. I say it as 'puh.'
Language arts: Different jobs in our communities. If you could do me a favour and write what your jobs are so that I can ask the students and sort of prompt them if they need help.
Math: In math we are starting patterns. This should be pretty simple now because it will just be alternating two different colours or two different objects, but patterns will get a bit harder for them the more differences there are. This we will take pretty slow.
Science: Continuing with animals in science, we will talk about what animals need. They already seem to understand this pretty well - air to breathe, food to eat and water to drink. It will be a great time to explore more.
Social Studies: This is a great topic - groups from around the world. Please also let me know if there is somewhere other than Taiwan in your cultural background, like Chinese, Japanese, South Korean, etc. and if there is anything special that you do to celebrate your culture.
For our story time I have been reading them a book called "Go Away Big Green Monster." They love it so much. All of the kids laugh so hard when we read this book. So yesterday we started to paint the boxes that were sent in as the first stage of making our own monsters. Again, thank you to those who sent in more than one box!
Finally, Friday is Teacher's Day. In the afternoon we will have a small party with K2. I am going to order a pizza for them, so only send a small snack for them that day as we will have something special to eat. If you want to send in a special treat for the kids to share, feel free, but not too much! I taught the students a made up word that means 'Don't worry about it!' that comes from the movie The Lion King, so we will watch this movie. The word is 'hakunamatata.' If someone spills water or makes a small mistake, I just say 'hakuna' and they all say 'matata.' They really love it. Try it at home and see what happens.
Oh, one more thing! The t-shirts for sports day are a little more expensive this year - a total of $320. I thought we could share the price. I will pay $200, and you could send in the remaining $120. Please do this as soon as possible.
Have a great week everyone!
Ali
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Homework for the long weekend!
One more post before the weekend. I'll give the kids two different homework assignments this weekend. The first will be name tracing like the first time I assigned it. And the next will be the letter Bb in the Journey's practice book - page WTK 2. Something that I noticed for some students is that the first section with the alphabet is not complete. Please have students circle the letter that is the focus for the page. So this weekend it is B.
Thank you to everyone who sent in shoe or tissue boxes already, and thank you for the extras for those who sent two. Please try to send one for next week as we'll start making them as early as Monday.
Stay dry this weekend!
Ali
Thank you to everyone who sent in shoe or tissue boxes already, and thank you for the extras for those who sent two. Please try to send one for next week as we'll start making them as early as Monday.
Stay dry this weekend!
Ali
Week 6 - September 16-18
Hello everyone,
This is just going to a short entry this week.
With this being a very short week, with smaller amounts of time together due to mass and mass rehearsal, I am taking the opportunity to fill our class time with a review of past material. Mainly this is various positions - in, on, under, before, between and after. I will also review living and non-living things.
I was able to ask some of you, but not all. I will be doing an art activity that requires an old shoe box or tissue box. If you have any of these, please send one in when you can. It looks like we wont be able to do this activity until next week, so please send it in as soon as you can.
All of the students are using more and more English every day. It is so fun to see this progress - I feel like I'm getting to know them all over again and I love it! Great job K1!
It looks like another typhoon is about to pass over Taiwan, which has certainly altered my long-weekend plans, but I hope everyone has a really great Moon Festival holiday weekend.
This is just going to a short entry this week.
With this being a very short week, with smaller amounts of time together due to mass and mass rehearsal, I am taking the opportunity to fill our class time with a review of past material. Mainly this is various positions - in, on, under, before, between and after. I will also review living and non-living things.
I was able to ask some of you, but not all. I will be doing an art activity that requires an old shoe box or tissue box. If you have any of these, please send one in when you can. It looks like we wont be able to do this activity until next week, so please send it in as soon as you can.
All of the students are using more and more English every day. It is so fun to see this progress - I feel like I'm getting to know them all over again and I love it! Great job K1!
It looks like another typhoon is about to pass over Taiwan, which has certainly altered my long-weekend plans, but I hope everyone has a really great Moon Festival holiday weekend.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Week 5 - September 9-13
Hello again,
Last week was a very busy week. It was full of so much fun stuff for the kids from the fire safety day to our adventurous walk to buy Little Lewandowski. The students behaved so well with the visiting firemen and out in the community. I was very proud of them all. Congratulations to Tim and Jinny for winning a prize for answering a correct question from the firemen.
I hope the homework went okay at home. It all looks to be done very well. What I would like to do is connect the letter of the week to the letter that your children are completing as homework. So this weekend the homework will be on the letter Jj on page 10. What may come up is that there is a small difference between books. The ones we are learning in class don't have the cross on the top of the upper case J but it is there in the Journey's homework book. You can explain to your children if they appear confused or ask about this that both are right. This is just another way to write it.
Focus for the week:
Language Arts - What is a Noun? (only people, we will get to places and things later)
Math - More positions - before, after, between
Phonics and Reading - Identify the sound and objects of the letter Jj. We will also discuss what an author is, and what an illustrator is. When I read them stories we will talk about their favourite parts and their least favourite part.
Science - Tame (pets) vs. Wild animals. Your children will be able to tell me what makes a wild animal wild (we don't take care of them), and what makes a pet a pet.
Social Studies - we will continue to talk about how to solve a problems for ourselves and for our friends. This is constantly being reinforced in the classroom as the students are always finding little problems to solve :)
As a reminder, next week is a shortened week with the moon festival holiday. It will also be very busy as we have mass rehearsal on Monday and mass on Tuesday. In advance I would like to let you know that I will provide similar lessons two weeks in a row because we will have such little time together to complete our work. So next week will be a sort of review of the topics so far. If you have any questions about this, please let me know.
Lastly, I feel like all the personalities of the class are finally showing themselves. There are some really nice friendships starting, and in fact I think your children really care about each other. They tell me when someone isn't at school, they comfort each other when someone is sad and they generally love to hug and hold hands with one another. It makes me really happy to see! I'm so lucky to have such a caring group of students.
Have a great week.
Last week was a very busy week. It was full of so much fun stuff for the kids from the fire safety day to our adventurous walk to buy Little Lewandowski. The students behaved so well with the visiting firemen and out in the community. I was very proud of them all. Congratulations to Tim and Jinny for winning a prize for answering a correct question from the firemen.
I hope the homework went okay at home. It all looks to be done very well. What I would like to do is connect the letter of the week to the letter that your children are completing as homework. So this weekend the homework will be on the letter Jj on page 10. What may come up is that there is a small difference between books. The ones we are learning in class don't have the cross on the top of the upper case J but it is there in the Journey's homework book. You can explain to your children if they appear confused or ask about this that both are right. This is just another way to write it.
Focus for the week:
Language Arts - What is a Noun? (only people, we will get to places and things later)
Math - More positions - before, after, between
Phonics and Reading - Identify the sound and objects of the letter Jj. We will also discuss what an author is, and what an illustrator is. When I read them stories we will talk about their favourite parts and their least favourite part.
Science - Tame (pets) vs. Wild animals. Your children will be able to tell me what makes a wild animal wild (we don't take care of them), and what makes a pet a pet.
Social Studies - we will continue to talk about how to solve a problems for ourselves and for our friends. This is constantly being reinforced in the classroom as the students are always finding little problems to solve :)
As a reminder, next week is a shortened week with the moon festival holiday. It will also be very busy as we have mass rehearsal on Monday and mass on Tuesday. In advance I would like to let you know that I will provide similar lessons two weeks in a row because we will have such little time together to complete our work. So next week will be a sort of review of the topics so far. If you have any questions about this, please let me know.
Lastly, I feel like all the personalities of the class are finally showing themselves. There are some really nice friendships starting, and in fact I think your children really care about each other. They tell me when someone isn't at school, they comfort each other when someone is sad and they generally love to hug and hold hands with one another. It makes me really happy to see! I'm so lucky to have such a caring group of students.
Have a great week.
Friday, September 6, 2013
Homework!
Hello!
This is just a brief post about the homework this weekend and what the homework will be like in the future.
Instructions:
1) Write their name at the top of the page.
2) Circle the letter of the week from the alphabet.
3) First copy or write over top of the shaded (grey) Aa. They can practice this more than once to get used to the pattern. I would say to them to touch the lines starting at the "top bottom, top bottom, middle across." This vocabulary/instruction seems to really help them. They can write the letter on their own a minimum of 4 times
4) In the last box they must circle all upper case and lower case A's.
I have had really positive feedback on how the students are enjoying their homework and bringing it in for me to see. If you would like me to assign homework every week, please let me know in the communication book and I can certainly do that. Also, if their are any questions about the homework, or anything else, please feel free to email me: lewandowskiali@gmail.com.
I will give you more of an update on the week later, but I will introduce you to the newest K1 member, Little Lewandowski!
This is just a brief post about the homework this weekend and what the homework will be like in the future.
Instructions:
1) Write their name at the top of the page.
2) Circle the letter of the week from the alphabet.
3) First copy or write over top of the shaded (grey) Aa. They can practice this more than once to get used to the pattern. I would say to them to touch the lines starting at the "top bottom, top bottom, middle across." This vocabulary/instruction seems to really help them. They can write the letter on their own a minimum of 4 times
4) In the last box they must circle all upper case and lower case A's.
I have had really positive feedback on how the students are enjoying their homework and bringing it in for me to see. If you would like me to assign homework every week, please let me know in the communication book and I can certainly do that. Also, if their are any questions about the homework, or anything else, please feel free to email me: lewandowskiali@gmail.com.
I will give you more of an update on the week later, but I will introduce you to the newest K1 member, Little Lewandowski!
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Week 4 - September 2-6
Hello,
Last week we had our first mass. The students did a very good job participating in signing the songs and answering different questions from Father Prudencio Garcia. Well done K1!
This week we will be having our annual Fire Drill, where members of the Kaohsiung Fire Department will come to our school and provide the students with information on fire safety. There will be some activities that K1 will not be able to participate in due to size and age, there will be other activities for them in place.
As you all know, Friday we will be going to get our class fish. Today we read a story during library time about where fish live, how they breathe and what they eat. I think everyone is very excited for a class pet. Thank you for returning the permission slips so quickly!
This week we will begin some review of past topics, and increasing knowledge in other subjects.
Language Arts: Vocabulary in, on and under. We get to review top, bottom and middle almost every day when we are spelling. Because big (or upper case) letters must touch the top and bottom line, where as most small (or lower case) letters only touch the middle and bottom line.
Science: We will look at different kinds of animals, and the way they move, their skin, where they live and what they eat.
Social studies: We will review rules. We will discuss what some rule are and why we have them. This includes things we should not do, but also things that we should do, like being a good friend.
Math: We will discuss positions like in language arts. Top, middle, bottom, on and under.
Phonics and Reading: The letter Ss. This is an easy one to say, but not an easy one to write. We will take our time with this one!
It was very busy last week, so I wasn't able to take many pictures, but here is Amber standing in front of our new growth chart. I thought they would like to watch themselves grow. I will measure them once a month.
Have a great week everyone!
Last week we had our first mass. The students did a very good job participating in signing the songs and answering different questions from Father Prudencio Garcia. Well done K1!
This week we will be having our annual Fire Drill, where members of the Kaohsiung Fire Department will come to our school and provide the students with information on fire safety. There will be some activities that K1 will not be able to participate in due to size and age, there will be other activities for them in place.
As you all know, Friday we will be going to get our class fish. Today we read a story during library time about where fish live, how they breathe and what they eat. I think everyone is very excited for a class pet. Thank you for returning the permission slips so quickly!
This week we will begin some review of past topics, and increasing knowledge in other subjects.
Language Arts: Vocabulary in, on and under. We get to review top, bottom and middle almost every day when we are spelling. Because big (or upper case) letters must touch the top and bottom line, where as most small (or lower case) letters only touch the middle and bottom line.
Science: We will look at different kinds of animals, and the way they move, their skin, where they live and what they eat.
Social studies: We will review rules. We will discuss what some rule are and why we have them. This includes things we should not do, but also things that we should do, like being a good friend.
Math: We will discuss positions like in language arts. Top, middle, bottom, on and under.
Phonics and Reading: The letter Ss. This is an easy one to say, but not an easy one to write. We will take our time with this one!
It was very busy last week, so I wasn't able to take many pictures, but here is Amber standing in front of our new growth chart. I thought they would like to watch themselves grow. I will measure them once a month.
Have a great week everyone!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)