Pre K Fun This Week!

Dear Parents,

We hope this blog finds you well. As we approach the end of the school year, the class has had a wonderful week wrapping up projects, reviewing and refreshing concepts in math, creating an exciting story in literacy, and so much more! As a reminder, our annual art auction is coming up on May 25th, and we look forward to seeing you there. We also had a great time celebrating Vilfred and Eliab's birthdays, and want to once again wish them a very happy birthday!

Cooperative game

This week, the class did a fun and familiar cooperative game with a twist! The game consists of two hula hoops set up with some space in between them. In either hula hoop is a number, and the challenge is that the children are going to come up one by one, read the number, say it out loud, and then collect that number of materials and put it in the hula hoop next to the number. We played this game before, and the class loved it. The structure of the game was the same but this time the twist was that the numbers were much bigger! We previously played numbers from 1-5 but this time we did from 6 up until 30! It was a challenge to be sure, but the children did a marvelous job and demonstrated such thorough understanding of these numbers, even helping their friends who needed a reminder!

Maths

It was a fun and knowledge-filled week of review in math. In the first math session, the class worked on some addition review with classroom materials. They can add numbers that are larger and more complex with increased comfortability. Furthermore, they are improving so much in writing numbers and recalling previous addition combinations. Next up, they worked on some fun worksheets, that were also for review on addition. One of the worksheets was to demonstrate how the order of numbers doesn’t change the outcome in addition. For example, 5+10 and 10+5 are both 15, the same way 9+6 and 6+9 are both 15. The class loved engaging with this concept and even came up with a name for the worksheet- the “15 parties!” since all the different equations added up to 15. We are so proud of how engaged and focused they were!

Literacy

In literacy, the class used their momentum from the previous session (which was a rousing success) and made yet another amazing group story! We started by asking the class which of them remember their story from last time, and briefly discussed the plot points and characters. Then, we let them know that today they were going to be making another one, with the same format of each child saying a small sentence or phrase turn by turn, building a story over time. The energy and excitement were off the charts! This time, the story was very different to the last one but was just as interesting. The story starts on a farm. The people on the farm decide that they want to go to their friend’s party. At the party, there were all kinds of activities like movie night, eating cake, dancing and more. Then, chaos erupted! It started to rain, and a storm came with thunder and lightning. Thankfully, the storm didn’t last very long and left behind a beautiful rainbow. The party started again, and everyone ate some more cake and drank strawberry juice. Then, there was more rain and when the sun came out again there was a second rainbow! Everyone went to play outside, and in the end, even a bunny and unicorn came to join the fun. This was a beautifully joyful story, and we can’t wait to put this one and the last into a storybook soon.

Ethiopian Center

This week in the Ethiopian center, the kids got crafty! Over the course of the year, we have been learning about various Ethiopian cultural traditions. One of the biggest focuses has been on food and beverages, specifically the preparation of Ethiopian traditional coffee (Buna). For the first part of the session, the class did role-play with props and clothes, of different aspects of Ethiopian culture. Some students tried their hand at the traditional instruments, while others did a run-through of the coffee ceremony. The children were very interested in the small coffee cups that are part of the traditional ceremony, so what better way to engage with that interest than to make their paper Mache cups? The process is simple but takes time, and the first step is to rip up paper of different colors and textures into small pieces. Then, the class took this and combined it with glue, to create a paste-like mixture that will make up the body of the cups they are going to form. The class enjoyed this activity very much, and we can’t wait to see how their cups will turn out in the end!