This week Kindergarten 1 started our swimming unit in PE. We now go to the pool every Thursday morning. Here are some photos and a video from today's swimming lesson!
And here are our reflective journal entries after the experience:
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Here are some of our reflections:
Back in October, some children worked together to construct a treehouse using the wooden house, big wooden blocks, foam letters, and mini-animals. They called it “Gracie’s Treehouse”. The project lasted for a week and evolved to include everyone in the class.
Ms. Alison was very interested in how student interest had continued in this project even after many months had passed. She also saw a connection to our new unit of inquiry:
STORIES ARE SHARED AND RESPONDED TO IN MANY WAYS:
As we reflected on our previous work and play, we wondered:
Can the story of Gracie's treehouse be told in any other ways?
Here’s what we have thought of & explored so far:
Can you think of any other ways we can tell our story?
If so, please leave us a comment!
We took turns pretending to be Max and the Wild Things and inventing answers to the Star Name questions based on what we remembered from the storybook. Here is what we asked:
For Wild Things:
We have also practiced retelling the story Where the Wild Things Are in different ways, which connects to our unit of inquiry line of inquiry 'How stories are told':
In our Library session, Mrs. Grant read us a story - or did she? This story wasn't read with any words, we could only see the pictures! In our main classroom, Ms. Alison asked us: "Can you tell a story?" We could use any of the materials in our classroom to help us! In our Art class, Ms. Caz asked us the same question: "Can you tell a story?" - this time using visual art materials. Three stories were started in small groups. Two of them have continued in our classroom this week, including a story told with play dough about ninjas and zombies and a story told with drawings and words in book format about nightmares. In the coming weeks, we will continue with our stories in progress and explored how stories can be told in different ways.
On February 26, Ms. Alison read an article in a Singapore newspaper about how local school students were helping to clean their classrooms. She shared the article with our class, who responded with excitement and enthusiasm.
Following our suggestions and enthusiasm, Ms. Alison collected some cleaning supplies for us. This week, we followed through on our ideas and cleaned our classroom. We showed amazing dedication and excitement for this task - dusting, wiping, sweeping, and scrubbing with all our strength. What great action K1.2! And what a great demonstration of your sense of responsibility.
This week we have been playing a game called 'Toss the Chips' that combines our abilities to sort, count, and compare. In pairs, we collected 10 counters, a circle and a work mat. We took turns tossing the 10 counters, then sorting and counting them to determine which colour had MORE. We then changed the game slightly by focusing our attention on which colour had LESS. We also introduced wooden numerals to match with the groups so we could visualize the quantities in a different way. As we become more consistent with using the language 'less' and 'more', we will experiment with larger numbers for comparison. The game 'Toss the Chips' will also lay the foundation for exploring how numbers can be combined and partitioned.
When we began our inquiry into shapes, we started by collecting our prior knowledge. As we drew, discussed, and wrote what we already knew about shapes, some differences in understanding emerged:
Through the process of extending and consolidating our knowledge about shapes, Ms. Alison wondered if our thinking had changed from our original collection of knowledge. She reminded us of the conflicts in thinking that had emerged during our prior knowledge collection and asked if we could justify our thinking about the similarities and difference between:
We worked in teams to collect information and draw conclusions - what is the same and different about the two shapes?
We presented our research findings: What did we notice? What did we learn?
Some of the curriculum connections and desired learning outcomes of this project include:
Recently we were featured on the ISS ES Action as Service website with an example of our project. This example showed us writing 'thank you' notes to Miria for teaching us ballet!
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K1.2
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