Week 25th of KG- Creativity, connections, and review!

Dear Family, We hope you all had a wonderful, productive week! As always, our week was filled with so much learning, exploring, creating, and laughter. Our kindergarten class continues to be such a joyful, collaborative environment where ideas are freely shared, learning is celebrated, and wonderful friendships are forged. This week, just like the previous weeks of this term, our learning has been student-led, project-based, and collaborative. We would love to take you through some of the exciting things we've been working on to give you a better idea…

Large Group

This week’s large group was exciting and fun, as it was entirely led by our children. Five of them had the opportunity to lead the group this week, while the other five will have their chances next week. Having the authority to choose a classmate to set the date, oversee the 'Words of the Week,' and manage all the activities and song breaks gave each of them a sense of responsibility and boosted their confidence in leadership. Overall, it was a wonderfully engaging session throughout the week. This experience has benefited them by enhancing their leadership skills, fostering teamwork, and encouraging them to express their ideas confidently.

“I will choose with eeny, meeny, miny, moe” -Adelene

“Me Hekima, I haven’t fixed the date in a while” -Yeabsera

“Are you Arsema or Phi? You have to choose which teacher” -Junior

“I want to teach about the planets” -Hekima

" Abigial the arrow matches your cloth" -Leayene

Literacy

We are still focusing on reading and writing skills in our literacy sessions this week. In the first class, we gave each child a chance to read a simple phonemic storybook to the class. They took leadership seriously as they managed to get their peers' attention until the end of the story they were reading. In our second literacy session, we revisited our literacy journal. Our children read the 4th and 5th questions in their journals and wrote their answers and thoughts. They all shared their answers aloud to make it easier when writing and explained their responses well in their own spelling. This practice has benefited them by enhancing their confidence in reading aloud, improving their writing skills, and fostering a sense of responsibility within the group.

“Tell them to be quiet, they’re not listening” - Abigail

“How do I write pizza? ‘S’ or ‘Z’?” - Yeabsera

“1 2 3, eyes on me” - Umar

Math

This week’s math topic was ‘Even and Odd’. This topic wasn’t new for our children, as we began learning it in our large group last week. This week, we took a practical approach with worksheets. First, we counted items, identified the total, and determined whether it was odd or even by circling the correct option. In our second activity, we circled odd numbers from a given set; they wrote the odd numbers aside to help them spot them easily. Since the numbers were two digits, they learned to focus on the last digit to determine if it was odd or even, and they all did very well. This activity helped them reinforce their understanding of even and odd numbers, improve their number recognition skills, and boost their confidence in math through practical application.

“I can help all the boys and Leayene can help the girls and we see who wins” -Lucas

“It’s super super super easy, i love odd and even” -Adelene

Science

In our recent science activity, our kindergartners embarked on an exciting journey into the world of invertebrates! This session was designed to introduce our children to the fascinating differences between vertebrates and invertebrates. We kicked off the lesson with a lively discussion about animals. Our children were eager to share their thoughts and experiences! We explained that animals can be divided into two main groups: vertebrates, which have backbones, and invertebrates, which do not. To make this concept relatable, we shared examples of each group, showing pictures of common animals. Our children were amazed to learn that invertebrates make up a vast majority of the animal kingdom! After our discussion, we focused on invertebrates. Each child had the chance to present an invertebrate animal with the class. For our second activity, we had a worksheet that featured various animal pictures. Each child received a checklist labeled “Vertebrates or Invertebrates.” They carefully examined the images and decided which classification each animal belonged to. This activity reinforced their understanding in a fun and interactive way, allowing them to apply what they had learned about invertebrates.

“I have seen octopuses before in china” -Tang Tang

“Crabs walk sideways like this” - Abigail

“Only boys have muscles” -Junior

“We all have muscles and bones Junior, we are vertebrates” -Adelene

“Who will win? Vertebrates or invertebrates if we fight?” -Lucas

“”We can eat them but they can’t eat us” - Umar

“Can we not talk about worms, I’m having a nightmare about them” -Leayene

 Art

This week in art class, we embarked on an exciting adventure with our third canvas project: “Spider Trapped in a Spider Web!” The idea sparked from our creative students, who teamed up to brainstorm how they wanted to bring this project to life. First, they chose colors and discussed how to make their masterpiece shine. This time, we decided to use a smaller canvas, which made it even more fun! We took white paper tape and shaped it into a giant web, starting with a big “X” in the middle. We then created a line in the middle and three lines on each side, just like a real spider web! Once our web was ready, we painted the rest of the canvas a bright, bold red. It was like a beautiful sunset! After the paint dried, we peeled off the tape. A few days later, we revisited our canvas, and our children were so excited to add the final touch: a spider! They drew it just the way they imagined. Our art class was buzzing with creativity and laughter as we turned our ideas into colorful masterpieces!

“Spider Spider man” -Eliyab

“Let’s draw four spiders so they can be friends like us” -Junior

“What about the girls, we draw 10 spiders” -Tang Tang

Gymnastics

This week for our gymnastics class, we began with a warm-up exercise to get the activities going. We jogged around the bike area and stretched our bodies, and once everyone was ready for the challenge, we lined them up in two groups of five. We placed a cup in front of each child and played the "Head, Shoulders, Knees, Toes, and Cups" game. The idea and objective of the game was for the children to exercise their bodies and minds simultaneously. The game required their full attention and movement as they had to listen to the instructions and move accordingly. They had to touch their head if the word "head" was said, their knees if the word "knees" was said, and grab the cup as soon as they heard the word "cup”. Whichever child held the cup first would move on in the game. We had so much fun doing this activity and played it more than twice. We wrapped up our gymnastics class with another stretching moment, drank water and concluded our session.

“It’s Yeabsera who picked the cup before me” -Lucas

“Cups” -Eliyab

“If you focus, you’ll win okay so be quite” -Umar

Library

This week, we took our library outdoors, allowing our children to choose their own cozy reading spots. Their selections and the reasoning behind them were truly inspiring! Some nestled by the treehouse, while others found refuge inside it. A few chose to settle near the merry-go-round, under the monkey bars, or even on the slide itself. It was heartwarming to see them so absorbed in their favorite books, enjoying the tranquility of the moment. Once they finished reading, they each took home a book of their choice, accompanied by their delightful signatures to instill a sense of responsibility.

“I want to sleep on top of the mountain and read” -Hekima

“Can we go and read in the tree house” -Abigail

“Swing ABC…..” -Eliyab

Class Project

In our ongoing class project, the children were busy creating amazing things from the ground up with their own ideas and techniques. This week, we added the final touches to our “Land Form” project. We crafted mountains, valleys, and hills, and we even made a plain using fake grass on the cardboard we created last week. Now, we’re all done with our landform model, and we’re very excited for everyone to see what we’ve worked on! Our second project was making a globe. Last week, we blew up a big balloon and stuck newspaper on it using glue. We let it dry for a few days, then popped the balloon with a safety pin. After that, we painted the sphere blue to represent the oceans. Once the blue paint dried, we sketched the continents just like they are on the actual globe we have in our classroom. Then, we painted our sketches green and let them dry. The children were so happy to see that they could create their own DIY globe!

“Our globe has only water? Only oceans?” -Hekima

“But this is too small for the seven continents”- Umar

“I want to draw Africa please” -Yeabsera

“I want to sleep on the plain and watch the mountains” -Adelene

Weekly schedule:  

Monday – Math, Literacy

Tuesday – Literacy, Science, gym

Wednesday - Library, Math

Thursday - Science

Friday - Cooperative game

Specials: 

Monday- Art

Tuesday - Gym

Thursday - Ethiopian center/ clay

Friday - Football

Reminders and notes:

• Make sure that our children are wearing suitable clothes on Monday as we have art class and activities get messy sometimes.

• Every Wednesday and Thursday is library day. Our children will be bringing home a book of their choice in their library folder, so please make sure to read the book with them over the weekend. Return the folder the following Wednesday so they can get a new one.

• Every Tuesday, we have gymnastics, so please ensure that our children come dressed in comfortable and loose-fitting sports attire to facilitate their exercise.

• Every Friday, we have football, so please make sure our children wear their football jerseys if they have them, or any comfortable shorts.

We look forward to more adventures in the world of our LE Kindergarten, where learning is always fun! Stay tuned for our next exploration!