KG 2A – semester 2, week 7

Welcome to week 7! We have been having a great time in class and during play and have learned lots of great things – keep reading to find out more!

Letters of the week:

We practiced letters Uu and Ll – how to write them, say their sounds and found words starting with them.

We have practiced all our reading words and I am so pleased to see everyone making huge efforts to blend the sounds together. Please keep practicing these words at home, even if it’s for 5 minutes a day! Remember, practice makes perfect!

Here some of the children are starting to be able to write words with less and less help!

Math:

We have practiced counting, some of us even up to 100! We are also learning how to count in whole 10s. We have also been making numbers larger than 10 and practicing our number writing.

 

Pockets:

This week we have continued to learn about our community and the people that help us. We talked about where community helpers work and what they do. We also read and acted out a story about a cat stuck up a tree – the trash collector could not help, the gardener could not help, an finally a firefighter came to the rescue and helped the cat down.

Values:

This week we learned that it is important to cooperate, working together as a team. This way, we can finish jobs better and quicker than working on our own! We acted out how to put out a fire, wash dirty dishes and clean the classroom by cooperating.

Art:

This week, we made puppets of community helpers. We used paper, glue, and decorations like a doctor’s stethoscope and a gardener’s flowers.

We also made our own paint using shaving cream and explored mixing in color and feeling the new texture. Why don’t you search the internet for other ways to make your own paint?

KG 2A – semester 2, weeks 5 & 6

Welcome to weeks 5 & 6 in KG 2A!

Letters of the week: We have reviewed our book 2 letters (Cc, Kk, Ee, Hh, Rr, Mm and Dd). We can say and write the letters, say the sounds, give words starting with the letters and blend the sounds together.

Here, we are making kites in our Pockets art lesson – what toys start with r or e?

We have also started working on Jolly Phonics book 3, focusing on letters Gg and Oo.

We have started practicing our reading words every day so we are ready for our ‘Bee Smart’ reading competition – please make sure you read the 5 weekly words with your child every day (please see homework sheets stuck into the communication books every Monday), this will really help them! Some children are even starting to learn how to write words using our phonics letters which is fantastic to see – the children are very proud of themselves.

In our Pockets lessons, we finished working on ‘Making Toys’ and started a new unit, ‘Our Community.’ We have been learning new vocabulary (doctor, firefighter, gardener, nurse, police officer, trash collector, salesperson) and talked about where these community helpers work. We have used prepositions (in, under, behind, in front of, next to) to describe. For example, ‘She’s a gardener. She works in the park.’ Please practice these words at home – you can play games, for example ‘Put the teddy next to the bed.’

We had a great time on Friday! We set the classroom up like a community, with a hospital, shop and garden and learned through role play.

Our shop and salesperson:

Our hospital with a doctor, nurse and patients:

Our garden, with gardeners ready to plant some seeds!

Values: We learned about using only what we need, not wasting things. The children were very good at talking about this and putting it into practice when we made our own masks!

Art: We love exploring our creative sides in KG 2A and have been really careful to use paint without mixing the colors and to keep our work spaces tidy. I have seen some great examples of artistic control and (very importantly) team work!

This week we made some lovely color wheels, starting in the middle and working outwards using a range of different colors to produce some very pretty effects.

On February 15th, it was Ghayda’s birthday. She is now 5 years old and growing up very quickly. I am so pleased to see her confidence grow every day! We hope you had a lovely time celebrating with us, Ghayda.

We are very lucky to have another new friend in our class! Jaaffar is always smiling and has made lots of friends already – we hope you really enjoy being part of KG 2A, Jaaffar!

We also said goodbye to Wadimah, Jaaffar’s sister. She has joined a lovely new class in KG 1 and we hope that she is very happy there!

KG 2A – semester 2, week 4

This week has been very busy! We’ve been having a great time preparing for sports day and exploring our new kindergarten areas.

We’ve been reviewing all our book 2 letters for phonics (Cc, Kk, Ee, Hh, Rr, Mm and Dd) and using what we know to read 3 letter words. We will continue working on these letters next week, matching pictures to their initial sounds and recognizing the end sounds in words. Can you find these letters in your books at home?

In our Pockets lessons, we have continued to learn about making toys and have been practicing our vocabulary: boxes, markers, paint, paintbrushes, paper, sticks, string and tape. What can you make with materials you have a home, how about a puppet or car?

Here we are enjoying ourselves after our hard work!

More fun in our brand new library, the ‘Land of Dreams!’

   

Well done to all the children for all their hard work during sports day. We hope you had lots of fun and are excited about sports day next year!

A big congratulations goes to the GREEN TEAM for coming first overall!!

And congratulations to the RED TEAM for getting the trophy for the best chant!!

 

KG 2A – semester 2, week 3

Welcome to week 3. We have all achieved a lot this week and had lots of fun along the way!

Our letters for this week were Mm and Dd. We have now finished Jolly Phonics book 2, so we have also been reviewing Cc, Kk, Ee, Hh and Rr.

Our words for this week were it, sit, tap, I and the – we are trying really hard to use what we know about letter sounds to read these words! Please continue to practice these at home, first sounding out individual letters then blending them together to make the word (please see our weekly homework sheets in the communication book for a list of words for the week).

During our Pockets lessons, we have been learning all about toys and the materials we can use to make them. Our vocabulary that we focused on were: string, markers, paintbrushes, tape, paint, boxes, sticks and paper. Do you have any of these materials at home you can use to make your own toy?

During art this week, we painted some truly beautiful fish – I am so pleased to see how much all the children have improved their fine motor control when using paintbrushes, as well as their understanding of how color can be used to create different effects. Our artwork was so good we decided to display it on our classroom doors – please stop by and take a look!

NOTICES:

We are all very excited about Sports Day, which will be held next Thursday, 5th February. Please make sure you read your child’s communication book carefully and if there is anything you are not sure of, you are welcome to write a message for me.

Your child will need to come to school wearing their PAIS sports t-shirt in the correct team color, they are also to wear colored accessories. You are also welcome to support your child by wearing their team color!

* Sports Day will begin at 8:30am, please make sure your child is at school on time.

KG 2A – semester 2, week 2

We have been settling back nicely into school after the holidays and have had some great fun along the way!

Our letters and sounds for this week were Hh and Rr. We learned the actions for these letters, found and drew words starting with them, and practiced forming the letters correctly in our workbooks. We also reviewed Cc, Kk and Ee and practiced blending all these sounds together to help us read words like ‘cat’ and ‘hen.’ I am very pleased to see the children so keen to learn to read and try very hard to use what they know – well done, KG 2A.

In math, we have been working in small groups with the teacher. We have been counting in tens and reading, tracing, ordering and making numbers up to 20!

 

We have also continued learning about being healthy in our Pockets books. I am pleased to see the children practicing the healthy habits they have learned about, and very impressed that they are all starting to answer questions in full sentences like “He’s brushing his teeth.” Please continue to talk to your children at home about what they have learned, this really helps them to reinforce their knowledge.

On Friday, our art project was to make storage boxes. We decorated them carefully and had great suggestions for what we could put inside. We hope you like them!

 

Note: we have redesigned our homework schedule to one that is more closely linked to our curriculum. We hope that it will give you a clearer idea of what we are learning about, and leave room for balancing work and play. For more information, please read the letter we sent home on Friday or write me a note in your child’s communication book.

Here we are spending quality time in our new favorite area, the KG library. We love all the books and toys here and really enjoy playing with our friends here!

KG 2A – semester 2, week 1

Welcome back to a brand new semester in a brand new year… and a brand new kindergarten! We have had lots of time to explore our new areas and this has made us all very excited to be back at school. Keep reading to find out more!

Our letters for week 1 are: Cc, Kk and Ee. Can you find words starting with these letters?

If you want to sing our song and join in with the actions, you can go to:

Our Pocket book topic for the first two weeks is ‘I am Healthy.’ We have been learning all about healthy habits: brushing our teeth, combing our hair, exercising, eating healthy food, washing our hands, taking a shower, sleeping and using a tissue. Please talk about these at home and encourage each other to have good, healthy habits.

We are getting very good at counting up to 20. Some of us can even write the numbers, too!

Here are some photos of us enjoying ourselves in our new sand pit and library area.

   

We also enjoyed a few celebrations this week…

Friday was Teachers’ Day, thank you for all the cards and flowers!

We were also very lucky to celebrate 2 birthdays this week, Chai and Fadin. They are both now 5 years old and growing very quickly! HAPPY BIRTHDAY Chai and Fadin, we hope you both had a lovely time.

      

FIeld trip to Play Time!!

Last week, the whole kindergarten department had a whole day of fun together at Play Time!

We traveled there by school bus, enjoying chatting with our friends and looking at the sites through the window.

  

When we got there, we gathered together and listened to the Play Time staff – they were really fun!

Then it was time for the real fun!!

We played in the balloon room…

… whizzed down the slides and zip line…

 

… waited patiently for…

… motor biking!!

We had a break for lunch time before the fun started all over again…

We had a great time painting clay animals…

 

… and enjoyed ourselves in the ball room!

   

After all that excitement, we were ready for nap time… and dreamt about all the fun we had at Play Time.

KG 2A: weeks 15 & 16

In the past two weeks we have continued to work hard and play hard, and have been excitedly preparing for our International Day performance!

We have continued to use Jolly Phonics to learn songs, actions and sounds for our letters. We have started blending sounds together to form words, and our phonics knowledge is really helping us with this.

We have practiced and reviewed the letters Ss (snake), Aa (ant), Tt (tennis), Ii (inky the mouse) and Nn (hear the airplane, nnn). We have a lot of fun in our phonics lessons, why don’t you try looking for words with these letters at home!

We have been practicing counting up to 30 and are getting much better. Our class loves counting objects around us!

Well done to Doruk – he could not speak any English when he started at Pan Asia – now he can count up to 10 confidently and loves to say his ABC!

Music lessons are always great fun – we love to play instruments and move in different ways to all sorts of songs!

Here, we are learning through play during our computer sessions. Fadin is assembling his own vehicle and Ekrem is using what he knows about phonics to create cvc words!

Of course, with all that learning, we love to play and enjoy being with our friends. We have played outside, made tall block towers, made puzzles, sung and danced and colored!

   

On Thursday 4th, we celebrated Father’s Day with a spectacular show of dancing in our wonderful costumes – we were all very proud and did a great job!

Weeks 13 & 14 in KG 2A

What have we been learning?

We have continued to use our new Jolly Phonics books that have really helped us to stay motivated for learning. We have sung songs that help us to remember letter sounds by given them actions, writing the letters in the air then tracing them in our books. We are getting very good at this and I have been amazed at the amount of effort every child has put into their books!

We have been focusing on the letters Tt, Pp, Ii and Nn and reviewing Ss and Aa. We have even started to blend together these sounds to form words, like ‘it,’ ‘sat’ and ‘pan.’

You can find our songs by typing ‘Jolly Phonics’ into YouTube.

KG 2A love Friday reading mornings. It’s a great time to explore books, looking through pictures and looking for words that look familiar. Keep encouraging your children to do the same at home!

     

We have also been lucky enough to start on our new textbooks, ‘Pockets.’ We have learned about people who help in our school through lots of games, and have been practicing saying sentences such as, “She’s the principle” and “She works in the office.” The vocabulary we have been practicing are:

music teacher, gym teacher, principle, secretary, gatekeeper, cashier, janitor and bus driver.

In our music lessons we have continued to explore using instruments in different ways and are improving our rhythm.

 

During our PE lessons, we have practiced many skills, such as throwing, catching, kicking, running and jumping! These are all helping us to keep healthy and improve our coordination, all while having lots of fun!

Of course, we are all getting very excited about International Day and have been very busy getting everything ready. I have been very impressed with how hard all the children have worked to learn our song, actions and speaking parts – I’m sure you will all be very impressed too watching us perform!

I would also like to thank all of our parents who have helped in different ways, from attending meetings, to sharing knowledge of where to buy costumes, to coming in to help with making props – we really appreciate your support and hard work.

 

Week 12 in KG2A!

We would first of all like to say a huge CONGRATULATIONS to Fadin, our student of the month for October. Fadin started the year speaking no English but, with 100% effort, is now starting to speak more and more! Keep trying hard, Fadin and keep smiling your lovely smile!

This week, we were very excited to start our new phonics scheme, ‘Jolly Phonics!’ We got our brand new books where we wrote our names and colored the name frame. William did such a beautiful job that Teacher Bushra gave him a present – he was so proud and so were all the manatees! Then, we practiced the letters ‘s’ and ‘a,’ singing songs, writing the letters in the air and finding words that have those letters.

 

We also had our reading session on Friday morning, where we enjoyed looking through books from our library.

During our PE lesson, we practiced our throwing and catching skills. Then we ran, jumped, and practiced our coordination with an obstacle course!

We love using computers in KG 2A – we play all sorts of learning games and really like sharing our fun with our friends!

Here we are using http://www.abcya.com – try it at home!

   

This week has been a big week for celebrations! First of all, Thursday was a special day in Thailand. We all dressed up in beautiful Thai costumes and performed to the whole school – everyone loved watching us and said we did a great job!

  

In the afternoon, some of celebrated Loy Krathong – we put a krathong into the water to say thank you and sorry for making it dirty. The rest of us colored some beautiful pictures and enjoyed being outside!

   

Then, we all got a present from Teacher Sumalee to say well done for participating so nicely!

 

On Friday, we celebrated the story of Noah with some delicious Ashure, a traditional Turkish pudding, and some real animals!

 

Last but not least, it is William’s birthday on Saturday so we celebrated with a lovely party – there was cake, music and dancing, and of course presents and cards. We hope you had a great time and have even more fun tomorrow, William!