Weekly Update - Weeks 20 & 21

Koalas Class

Koalas had another week filled of learning and fun activities. During this week our Koalas were learning about aquatic animals. The students enjoyed working on activities where they practice their fine motor skills and work with a variety of textures and materials to recreate some aquatic animals while practicing new vocabulary.

Vocabulary of the week:

agua (water)
tortugas (turtles)
estrellas de mar (starfish)
conchas de mar (seashells)
ballenas (whales)
tiburones (sharks)
delfines (dolphins)
pez/ peces (fish/fishes)
grande (big)
pequeno (small)
nadar (swim)

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Kindergarten Class

This week we had 3 English days and 2 Spanish days. We practiced writing lowercase and uppercase ‘Yy and Gg’. We continue to stretch words with short vowels to hear the sounds and write real and nonsense words.

Each day student continues to work diligently on their How to Book. They are practicing how to check for mistakes when writing a sentence. They are looking for capitalization, punctuation mark and spelling.

In Math we continue subtract one-digit number from a two-digit number and symmetry. Next week will learn about 2D and 3D shapes and its attributes.

In Science, we continue to learn about the Solar System. This week we learn some facts about Earth and Mars. Next week will learn about Jupiter and Saturn.

In History and Geography, we reviewed urban, suburban, and rural communities. Next week they will learn about the 50 states and how it is divided into 5 regions.

In International Studies we finished learning about Colombia. Next week we will learn about Costa Rica.

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Pre – K Class

These weeks have been good weeks for your children. I’m going to show you what we did during these weeks.

In Language Arts Writing/Reading: Students keep reviewing the alphabet every morning. We are focused on all the letters phonetically, we were doing activities with disordered letters. They are still practicing different kind of strokes that will serve to write letters later. These weeks we were still focused on all the vowels, uppercase, lowercase, phonetically and grammatically, we were remembering different words that begin with them and also reviewing how to write them upper case and lower case. We were doing activities with different images where they have to write the vowel that begins each word, also practicing syllable separation. We were practicing how to write their names in lower case and we learned straight, horizontal and vertical meaning. We played “heads up”, where they had to guess what animal they had on their head.

These weeks we read some interactive tales: “Mamá quiero un perrito”, “Mulán”, “La princesa y el guisante”, “El pajaro de fuego”, “El tesoro del topo”, “Yo puedo leer con los ojos cerrados” and “Tarzan”.

In Math: We practiced every day to put the numbers of the month in the correct order on the wall, we did it messily. We also count out loud until number 60. We were counting backwards from 10 to 0. They are still practicing how to write the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. We have started to learn how to write number 8. We were reviewing activities in which they have to write the number with a quantity of objects and paint them according to the given number. We were doing simple additions with different objects, and different color patterns with geometric shapes. We were reviewing placing objects from smaller to larger size.

In Music: We were singing “El baile del esqueleto”, “Somos piratas”, “El baile de la hormiga”, “El sapo no se lava el pie” and “Lunes antes de almorzar”.

In Physical Education, we were practicing football and different games with obstacles were they can not touch the floor. We played “The guardian”, one is in the middle trying to catch, two groups are in different parts of the class, the guardian says a kind of animal and each group has to reach to the opposite side imitating that animal. We have played relay races, where they had to do teamwork to win.

In Science, we are reviewing different types of dinosaurs.

In Geography/History, we reviewed the 5 boroughs of New York City.

In Visual Art: we were doing different crafts: a chinese lantern, dinosaurs with play doh, a glasses with pipe cleaners, a snow tree.

In International Studies: we were learning about the chinese new year, and the animal that we are.

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First Grade Class

Welcome to Week 21. After a surprising week last week where the snow kept us apart, it was so nice to have our first graders back in the classroom for a full week. We embarked on new learning experiences, continued to show how strong of a class community we are and made sure we had fun the entire time. Let’s drive into Week 21.

Students continued exploring different ways to subtract doubles. After first time exposure, using their unifix cubes now comes second nature to our first graders. They are perfecting place value while learning hands on.
Students have been greatly enjoying the story “Make Way for Ducklings”. Students have partaken in independent reading sessions of this book while also participating in whole class discussions where they have come to master the skill of inferencing; they use clues from the text and illustrations to come up with an idea.
While our students continue exploring about diversity and the beauty of differences, students met Elmer the elephant; a colorful elephant that doubted he was special because he did not look like a typical gray elephant. At the end of the story, Elmer realized how special and loved he was because of his differences. Students then made their own paper Elmer.
This week, students had a Zoom conference with Jacqueline Zamani, DDS. Students were able to ask questions, get their own activity book inspired by pediatric dentistry and learned about cavities and even recalled their own experiences at the dentist.
Students worked in pairs during math class to continue practicing their skill of money counting. Students were to come up with multiple ways to reach a certain amount. For example, if the amount was 32 cents, together students had to come up with at least two different ways to reach 32.
This week in Visual Art, students were introduced to Andy Warhol. They practiced pop art. Students were able to coordinate colors using paint and construction paper. It was nice to hear them come to the realization that art is about perspective. Although they were all doing the same project, they all took different approaches and respected each peer’s work.

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Ardillas Class

In Mathematics, this week we reviewed the numbers 1-5. They traced, identified and quantified numbers in multiple ways with modes of transportation and hearts. In addition, the children identified the largest heart in a group and colored it. They also identified and traced shapes. Lastly, the children completed AB patterns by coloring the tabla de surfear (surf board), toalla de playa (beach towel), flor (flower) and pelota/balón (ball).

In Reading and writing, the children practiced levantado (vertical), dormido (horizontal), inclinado (inclined), tipi (combined inclined lines) with hearts and different modes of transportation. They also practiced tipi strokes helping the vaca (cow) comer heno (eat hay) and the leñador (lumberjack) cortar madera (cut wood). Furthermore, they traced U mayuscula (upper case U) in the Universo (Universe). Lastly, they also practiced oblicuo strokes (continuous u) helping the perro (dog) excavar (dig) for huesos (bones) and the niña (girl) rebotar (bounce) la pelota (ball).

In Social Studies, our theme was Medios de Transporte (Modes of transportation) and those children who did not complete Valentines activities did so as well. The children made carros (cars), botes (boats) and started making globos aeroestáticos (hot air balloons). They also completed C for carro with car stickers and A for avión with plane stickers. Furthermore, they decorated an autobús (bus) and submarino (submarine) with watercolors. Lastly the colored tractores (tractors) and helicópteros (helicopters).