Pre-K's Late March Adventures!

Dear parents,

We hope this blog finds you well! Here in the Pre K class, the children have been excitedly working away at various literacy, social studies, math and more! Read on to hear about our fun times…

Large group

This week’s large group was full of engaging learning activities that built on students’ phonemic awareness, vocabulary, and shape recognition skills.

We started by focusing on the “ch,” “sh,” and “oo” sounds. The children practiced saying words that contain these sounds, such as chair, cheese, for “ch,” shoes shark, shop for “sh,” and moon and boots for “oo.”

For math, we introduced the cylinder shape. The students explored the classroom and the outdoor area to find objects that looked like a cylinder. During our morning message, we reflected on Family Day. Each child shared something they enjoyed about the event. For our rhyming words activity, we worked with the words cake, bake, make, and lake. This week, the students also had the opportunity to come up with their own rhyming words, which they enjoyed very much!

Literacy

This week in literacy class, we learned different things with various groups, as usual. In the first group, students practiced identifying magnetic letters by naming and arranging them on the board. In the second part of the session, they traced all the letters on paper for additional practice.

In the second group, during the first session, they practiced CVC letters using materials while working in pairs. In the second session, they completed a paper activity where they traced, read, and matched words with the vowel letter "i." They made significant progress with reading CVC words, and we’re so proud of them!

For the third group, last week they started learning digraphs such as "ch," "sh," and "oo." This week, in the first session, they practiced more by pairing up flashcards with pictures. In the second session, they completed a paper activity where they circled the pictures corresponding to the sounds "ch" and "sh" that they heard. Overall, we are very proud of all our students and the progress they have made in our daily lessons.

Social studies

This week in social studies the class continued with their discussion of countries and flags. Our students come from different countries across three continents. Continuing from last week, we discussed their national flags and the continents where these countries are located. First, we recapped what we talked about last week regarding their origins and more about their countries. This week, we focused on their national flags, discussing the colors and how they differ from those of other countries' flags.

We wrote all the flag colors on the board to see which ones appeared most frequently, preparing for the fabric colors needed for the upcoming flag projects. The next day, we classified their countries by continent Africa, Asia, and Europe. After that, the students randomly selected flags, naming the countries and sticking them on the board in their respective continents.

Overall, this social studies unit helps our students learn more about their own countries and continents. They are very excited to discuss the world. In the next session, the class will start a project on this topic to enhance their understanding in a practical way.

Math

In math class, we practiced counting backwards. First, we worked as a large group, counting backwards while pointing to the numbers and singing a backward song. Then, we completed a worksheet where we counted backwards from 10 and wrote the numbers in the designated spaces.

In our second session, we used the blocks to assign a number to each student. Then, the students worked in pairs to count backwards and arrange the blocks in order from 10 to 1. At this point, the students helped and learned from each other, and had so much fun doing so!

Journal

This week in our journal, we went outside into the new compound and chose a grassy area. We laid down a mat, and some of the children lay down while others sat up to work on their own journals. After they finished, we wrote down what they told us on the back of the page. Once we were done, they cleaned up by rolling up the mat together and putting it back. They were very excited to do their journals outside, especially with the mat on the grass and in the new compound! As always, they worked hard on their creations, which show us a lot about their individual personalities and interests.

“This is a princess and rainbow” Shishani

“Dino” Samuel

“It’s a car and daddy, then it’s rainy” Ahmed

“I make fires and water spraying the fire” Leul

“I am drawing a house and family and Shishani in my house” Riley

“This is me and Hala” Lielena

Small group

Monday: - Science

Tuesday: - Math

Thursday: - Literacy

Our Special

Monday: - Ethiopian center

Tuesday:- Library

Wednesday: - Art

Reminder

• Every Tuesday is our library day, so we will be sending a book that your child picked from our library, which will be returned after a week on library day.

• Every Wednesday is our art day so please send your child with art-appropriate clothing.

Thank you for your time!