Unit of Inquiry - Sense of Touch For the sense of touch, we explored the various ways that our sense of touch helps to keep us safe. We explored things that were safe to touch, and not safe to touch! We also started expanding our vocabulary about the sense of touch, and explored words related to texture. We walked on a Sensory Path and discussed all the different textures we felt beneath our feet! Here were our findings: Grass felt "hot" and "smooth" Pasta felt "hard" "bumpy" and "ouchy" Contact Paper felt "sticky" Flour felt "soft" Shaving foam felt "slippery" and "fluffy" Water felt "wet" and "slippery" Open Inquiry into textures After learning about texture rubbings, the children were free to do their own inquiries into textures around the classroom and outside. We also used our language from the Sensory Walk when inquiring into how Agar Agar Jelly feels! 100 Day's Smarter! When we arrived on Monday, dressed in our best 100 themed clothing, we were surprised to see the board still had '99' written on it! Zero the Hero had been stolen by Agent 99 and we couldn't complete '100' without the second Zero! We did a range of exciting missions relating to the number 100, so we could follow the clues, find Zero the Hero, and save 100 Days of School. Chinese New Year We also celebrated Chinese New Year with arts and crafts, a Lion Dance and more!
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Unit of Inquiry - Sense of Smell This week we inquired into our sense of smell. We noticed how our sense of smell can help us make decisions like if our socks are stinky we need to change them! Or if we smell food then dinner is ready. Smelly Playdough We learned about 'how to' writing this week. That is writing about how to do something! First we made scented play dough by ourselves, next we discussed what the writing should look like and last we wrote how to make smelly play dough! Of course making the play dough was the best part. Hand Sanitizer We also had lots of fun this week making good smelling hand sanitiser using fresh herbs such as mint and thyme. We chose flavours based on what scents we thought mummy and daddy's would like! Please note that as these lovely sanitisers were made from fresh materials, they will only keep for a few days.
Unit of Inquiry - Sense of Hearing We started our week by guessing which sounds we heard in the mystery boxes! Without using pictures, we managed to identify the sound of sand, coins, and pom poms! Once we saw the pictures, we were better at guessing which boxes had which things inside. What sounds can we hear from food? During lunch and snack time, we listened to what sounds we could hear from our foods. Were they loud or quiet? Does it make a chomping sound or a crunching sound? We also explored the key concept of change in food. What happens when we add water to Rice Krispies and Alka Seltzers? Using only our sense of hearing and sight, we couldn't hear anything but once we added water they changed and we could hear fizzing, sizzling, snapping, crackling, popping sounds! Listening Walk We took a nice stroll through the school and listened for all the sounds we could hear! We heard a lot of birds, cicadas, people talking, cooking noises from the canteen, water, footsteps and more! Math - Shapes & Skip counting This week we further explored our shapes, using words like "edges" and "corners" to classify and sort our shapes. We also made videos called "What does the shape say?" Please enjoy watching them below!
Finally we explored skip counting! We learned that skip counting makes counting to 100 much quicker, and we counted by 10s and 5s.
Unit of Inquiry - How the World Works Experiments
As true scientists, we conducted some sight experiments where we asked questions, made hypothesis (I think...), conducted our experiment, and finally we recorded and wrote what we know afterwards! Open Inquiry We ended the week with open inquiry time, focusing on our sense of sight. We created our own questions, then took our learning outside to observe and record. Outdoor learning has a range of benefits and we enjoy using our outdoor learning spaces to learn! Literacy This week we returned to literacy routines, having times in the day for reading, writing and word work. We also spent time doing transdisciplinary learning, where we used our literacy skills during Unit of Inquiry time. Have a look at our reflections from the week on the purpose of having a sense of sight. Math Shapes and numbers are all around us! During Maths lessons this week we explored number sense, number formation, and all about 2D shapes and simple patterns through a range of activities. We played with toys, used our room to spot 2D shapes, and created patterns out of manipulatives. We also spent a lot of time developing our fine motor skills when cutting out shapes and using push pins in cork board to create shapes. Fine motor skills are very useful, and will help us in our self management (being able to button pants and tie laces) and in our academics (helping us to achieve tidy handwriting!)
Exploring our new classroom! We enjoyed our new classroom space so much and spent a lot of time exploring it! Fizzing eggs As our upcoming unit is a science based unit, we started this week by inquiring into what we know about scientists and conducting a science experiment! We "hatched" cold eggs by using a dropper to put vinegar on frozen baking soda... To our amazement the eggs "make lots of little bubbles" and "Looks like a volcano" and "is making noises!" After awhile, we found animals inside! Maths & Literacy We had a lot of fun playing various math and literacy based activities this week! Including a ten-frame hunt around the room, puzzles, creating rainy day stories and creating shapes and words in shaving foam!
Happy Holidays! See you in January! The Gingerbread Stories! After studying the Gingerbread Man story last week, we made our own stories this week! First we planned out our stories on paper, then developed our digital communication skills by creating the books on Book Creator and recording our voices! Check out the books below! Final project After working on our project for a couple weeks, we took some portraits with ourselves! I wonder if we'll see them again after the holidays... Happy Holidays!
Transdisciplinary Learning Transdiciplinary learning is the act of exploring different concepts and learning new knowledge through the integration of multiple disciplines (such as unit, literacy and math). Through our play and experiences, we explored many concepts while at the same time developing our literacy and numeracy skills. Venn Diagrams We learned a neat way to show how things are alike and different, by using these overlapping circles! After learning how to place information into Venn Diagrams, we compared "Gingerbread Men" and "Children" and thought about the similarities and differences. The Case of the Missing Gingerbread Man After reading the story of the Gingerbread Man, we had a case to solve! The Gingerbread Man had ran away and disappeared in our classroom. We had to solve many clues to find out where he was hiding. This exciting activity helped us to practice our literacy skills, math skills, decoding and thinking skills as we worked our way around the room and solved puzzles. Gingerbread Playdough! As you can see, we've been getting into the festive spirit by incorporating The Gingerbread Man story into our unit and classwork this week. Our next unit is all about our senses, so to learn a little about what we already know regarding our senses, our teacher gave us gingerbread playdough to explore. It is so interesting to hear how we discuss or explore using our sense of touch and smell.
Unit of Inquiry This week we started to create a large project, literally! We traced outlines of our bodies to create life size portraits. Then we mixed paint colours to create a shade that matches our skin because we are all unique and different, so there is no paint colour that matches us. Next week we will continue to work on these, adding detail and reflect on our physical abilities and special abilities. Heavy and Light We have learned there are so many ways to measure things! You can measure how tall or short something is, how full or empty, and also how heavy or light!
We explored the concept of heavy and light through many different ways: by investigating mystery bags, weighing classroom materials, creating crafts and even using digital apps!
Unit of Inquiry Thank you so much for all the teamwork put into preparing Show and Tells. The children were so proud to share all their hard work, no matter what form! What knowledgeable students we have in Kindergarten with growing communication skills! Maths - Capacity Exploring our measurement unit further, we learned that capacity is measuring how full or how empty something is. We practiced this by filling up bottles to: empty, nearly empty, half full, nearly full and full! Literacy One thing we did during literacy this week was around the celebration of Thanksgiving! Coming from the USA, Thanksgiving is a special holiday for me that I enjoy sharing with the children with a focus on being thankful. We collaboratively read The THANKFUL Book by Todd Parr and then created a class turkey where we wrote all of the things we are thankful for. The Kindergarteners are so thoughtful! Heres a list of their thanks: "I am thankful for my aunty because she works so hard" "I am thankful for all my friends" "I am thankful for going to go to ISS" "I am thankful for my feet" (because they help me jump so high!) "I am thankful for raspberry ice cream" yum! "I am thankful for going to ISS" "I am thankful for my aunty because she puts down stickers that are helpful"
Math - Data Handling When developing our Data Handling Skills, we are learning how to collect, display and interpret ideas and information! We worked together to develop these math skills while learning about our Unit of Inquiry - our abilities! We explored what makes us special and how we have similar and different abilities (what we can do) to each other! First we had to create questions. Some questions were: - Can you cross your eyes? - Can you write your letters? Second, we collected data by trying it ourselves! Finally, we displayed our data on posters using stickers to represent if a child was able to or unable to do the challenge. We're all different, and that's okay! Continuing to learn about the author, Todd Parr, we studied his books. We looked at how he writes, his illustrations and how he ends his books with a message and 'Love, Todd'. After this we recreated one of his books we learned about previously with a focus in how we are all different and special! Read our story below. You can also listen to the children narrate the story below by downloading it as an ebook. It can be played on the "Books" app on Apple devices or other ebook apps that play epub files.
Literacy - Nonfiction and Fiction This week we inquired into the difference between nonfiction and fiction! We learned that fiction stories are 'make believe' stories, and often have drawings in them. We also learned that nonfiction books in our class are 'real' stories that teaches us information and often have photos in them. For writing we also looked at nonfiction writing. We started by exploring how to write in order to teach someone, so we started by teaching our friends about animals! We created our own posters, chose pictures to download, and instead of making up a story we wrote information such as what the animal eats, where does the animal live, what the animal can do, etc.
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AuthorWe are a class of 4, 5 and 6 year olds at an international school in Singapore! We learn by playing, inquiring and having fun. Our teacher is Ms Bustamante, and this is our learning journey! Archives
May 2021
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