The Kindergarten Super Stars

We have been having so much fun reading stories from all over the world. Some were from our school library, others were stories that some of our wonderful parents came in to read to us.

Recently, we all chose our favourite story from round the world. We used the ipads to draw a picture about this story.

Next week, we are going to go up to the computer lab and Mr. Steve is going to teach us how to add our stories to a Google earth map …. we can’t wait!!

Here we are making our pictures and also the lovely pictures we made:

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(Source: http://www.kidsconceptcorp.com/)

More photos by popular request ……

Today we had our final whole ES assembly for this school year. At the end of the assembly the kids all sang this song …. beautiful!!!

This week, one lovely mum came in and read us the French legend “Loup Gouloup et la lune”

This story is about a wolf who loves galettes (crepes)

He tried to get one from the baker, but she was so scared that she threw the galette into the sky and it became the moon.

A week later the wolf tried again and this time he managed to eat half the galette.

The last time, another week later, the wolf managed to eat the whole galette – and this is why there are days when there is no moon in the sky!

After we listened to the story, we were lucky enough to be able to taste galettes!!! They were GOOD!!!

Thanks for coming in to share with us!

In math we have been having a lot of fun exploring and learning about 3 dimensional shapes.

We had fun singing this week’s song to help us remember some of the names of the 3D shapes!

(Source: Harry Kindergarten via youtube)

Throughout the school year, as well as our 4 set Units of Inquiry, we try to conduct mini investigations following the children’s interests and exploring questions that come up during their learning and playing.

As you may have heard at home, over the past couple of weeks, the Superstars have been fascinated by gymnastics – rhythmic gymnastics in particular.

The interest started a couple of weeks ago after a conversation about it not really being safe to do somersaults in the classroom.

From here we talked about where it would be safe to do somersaults. The students decided the safest place to do somersaults would be in the gymnastics room.

The Superstars were then talking about how looooooooooooooonnnngggg they had to wait till they would have gymnastics till PE again.

They wanted to do gymnastics in the classroom – but again (Ms. Jacky being such a spoilsport….!!!) we decided there wasn’t the correct equipment or enough room to safely do gymnastics in our classroom.

The question was posed ….. “What can we safely do in the classroom?”

The idea of rhythmic gymnastics was introduced – we watched some videos on you tube of the different kinds of equipment used in rhythmic gymnastics ….. ribbons (being one of our favorite things to create with) was a clear favorite.

Excitement was high …. many students went off to try and create their own ribbon on a stick. Different sticks were used till it was decided that Lincoln logs made the best handle. Much dancing ensued.

The students then organised the mat area like a gymnastics ring with chairs for the audience. Dancing music was requested from the DJ. Turns were organised and then the show was on!!!

We went to the library and found some books on gymnastics which were read and studied with much discussion!

We then set up a time to go and visit Coach Ramon in the gymnastics room. He talked about and showed us the different types of equipment that is used in Rhythmic Gymnastics.

He also showed us the apparatus that regular gymnasts use. We learned that men and women do some events the same, but there are also some things that only men do, and some things that only women do.

We were then able to explore and play with the different rhythmic gymnastics equipment.

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(Click HERE to see the photos on flickr)

When we came back to the classroom, we made a graph of our favorite kind of rhythmic gymnastics equipment.It was very hard to choose only one!! But in the end the ribbons were the clear winner!

Finally, we wrote things we learned, liked or knew about gymnastics in our journals.

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We can’t wait to go to the gymnastics room and explore the rhythmic gymnastics equipment again!!

This week in mathematics, we have been learning about and practicing our “Doubles”.

Our song this week is a fun way to help us remember these important addition facts.

Click on the link below to see the song on teachertube:

http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=10631&title=Double_Doubles

(Source: numbers images http://janbrett.com/)

This week, one of the Superstar mums came in to cook delicious waffles with us!!

We had lots of fun reading the recipe, measuring the ingredients, and following the directions

…. and the best part of all was choosing our own toppings and eating all the waffle-icious goodness!!!

Here are finished our work-of-art waffles:

And here is a slideshow of all the cooking action:

(Click HERE to go directly to flickr to see all the photos)

If you would like to make waffles at home, here is the recipe we used….

Waffle Recipe

This week, we enjoyed listening to two different versions of the song “Alice the Camel”. There was much lively debate over which song the children preferred…

The first version was the “kids” version:

The second version was the “rock and roll” version:

The vote for which version of the song we liked best was pretty close to half and half!

Some of the reasons the Superstars gave for liking the different versions included:

Max: I liked the kid one because they showed the horse.

Amelie: The kid one because there were children there.

Josua: I like the rock and roll one because it started all over again

Coco: I liked the rock and roll one cause it went on and on and on.

Iwen: The rock and roll cause I like the music

Ariana: I like the kids’ one cause they did “boom, boom, boom!”

Maya: I liked the real camels in the kids’ one because they showed their heads

Skyler: I liked the kids one because it was only one song and it showed the horse

Xandro: I liked the kids because they showed the real animals and I liked all of it.

Sophie: I liked both of them because one of them was boppy music and one of them showed the real animal

Declan: I liked the rock and roll one because it only

Colin: I liked the rock and roll one because I like to see the camel and horse.

Aashna: I liked both of them. I liked the kids’ one because it showed real animals and I liked the rock and roll one because the song was repeated lots of times.

Marissa: I liked the kids one because it showed real animals and I liked the rock and roll one ‘cause it went lots and lots of times.

Gwennie: I liked both, I liked the kid one ‘cause it when it said “Alice the camel with 4 kids” it showed the hill with 4 kids. I also liked the rock and roll one because it went over and over.

India: I liked the one with the kids because they said boom, boom. I liked the other one ‘cause it went over and over again.

Zavier: I liked the rock and roll one cause I liked the beat and it keeped on going on and on.

Which version of the song do you prefer??? Send us a comment telling us why!

This week, we were lucky to have a Superstar grandmother come visit our classroom!

This lovely Nana is a specialist mathematics teacher, and she came in to teach us a new math game.

Some friends wanted to take a copy of the game home (it’s in black folders)  so they can teach you how to play at home.

(All you will need is a dice and 2 kinds/colors of counters. You could use 2 colors of beans, different color coins or game counters, poker chips etc.)

(Source: Harry Kindergarten via youtube)

Today we celebrated “International Day” at ISM. This was a lovely opportunity to celebrate & take pride in our home countries.

The children enjoyed cheering for their countries at the flag ceremony and seeing the different clothes that come from so many different places.

We then enjoyed a DELICIOUS snack of treats from all over the world!

Here are some photos of all the action…

(Click HERE to see these photos in flickr)

Today, Mrs. Park came in and read us a story from Korea called “Cloud Bread”

We have been busy reading stories from all over the world and adding them to our map in the classroom.

If there is anyone else out there who would like to come in and read a book, or do a craft activity or some simple cooking from your home country, please let me know!!

Next week, our first friend is turning 7 ….. we celebrated a little early with some yummy treats!

Happy birthday friend!!