Track & Field Day

Dear Parents,

On Thursday, December 8, our class will be participating in Track & Field Day. More detailed information will be sent out at a later date, but we want to ensure you have time to find appropriate attire for your child. Please don't worry about going out to purchase anything special as I am sure you have something already at home or could borrow. The children will be divided into teams and must wear a t-shirt of the appropriate color. Please look below to see if your child needs to wear a red or white t-shirt on that day:

WHITE                                   RED

Stella                                       Lyla

Anastasia                              Maria

Danique                                 Chloe

Andrew                                Tesanda

   Storm                                 Matthew

Pietro                                     Yana

Amira                                     Jude

Nathan                                   Henok

The Senses in French

We just completed our senses unit in French class and are knowledgeable about how to say various body parts in French. We each made a monster and are able to communicate about it. Ask your child to show you his/her monster and to tell you about it in French!

How We Become Better Readers - And How Parents Can Help!

In order to become better at something we know we have to be exposed to and practice it regularly. This is why we are given the opportunity in KG-B to practice reading multiple times throughout the day, and why we are also read to throughout the day. Take a look at our daily reading journey and read on to see how YOU can help foster your child's development:

Each day we have reading workshop. This involves four key components:
1. Mini-Lesson - We meet as a whole group and are introduced to new reading strategies during this time. Sometimes this is demonstrated for us by a teacher and other times we practice the skill together.

The Three Billy Goats Gruff from Kacey Molloy on Vimeo.

2. Private (Independent) Reading Time - We break off into individual spaces to practice the skill/teaching point addressed in the mini-lesson.



3. Partner Reading - We get together with our reading partner and practice developing our reading together. We learn how to work together to help one another become better readers, and we remind each other when we forget.

Partner Reading from Kacey Molloy on Vimeo.

4. Share - We gather again and point out things we notice or review what it was we learned.


In addition to this reading workshop time, we gather daily in small groups to hone our reading skills and really tune in. During this small guided reading time, groups are given instruction at levels that meet individual needs. These groups are flexible and change based on the need. This provides the opportunity for each of us to get individual attention. 

Also happening throughout the day as part of various lessons, we are read to by a fluent reader.  This is a very important part of learning how to read....which leads to how YOU can help your child at home.

As this article by Erika Burton on the education website 'Edutopia' states, "Parent involvement is the number one predictor of early literacy success and future academic achievement." Please take a moment to read this short post that highlights strategies you can use at home to enhance your child's literacy development.

Parent Involvement in Early Literacy by Erika Burton

Please also help by listening to your child read his/her 'just-right' books. These are brought home every Monday and are to be kept at home all week and accessed nightly. Some of the books are meant for you to read aloud to your child, while others are ones he/she has selected to read to you. Be patient as you listen, and don't fret if you see your child struggle a bit; this is actually an important part of learning! By allowing your child time to work through the various strategies he/she has learned in class, you will help your child become more fluent in choosing the right one to figure out unknown words. Instead of providing your child with the word, ask him/her what strategy s/he could use to figure it out. And, as always, encourage and praise!

Thank you for everything you already do to support your child's learning. Please do email me (or comment on this post) with any additional questions you might have.

Another Mystery Number Skype Session

We partnered up with our kindergarten friends in Khartoum, Sudan again for another Mystery Number Skype. This time their class chose the mystery number and we had to ask questions to figure it out. Unfortunately our video did not work this time, but we used typing to communicate and it worked just fine. Take a look at our conversation:

As we asked questions and received answers, we used our individual hundreds charts to cross off the numbers it could not be. This helped us narrow things down. We really had to use our thinking skills to do this!

After quite some time we finally reached the answer. It was 60! The room erupted in cheers when our friends in Sudan told us that we were correct with our guess.

We are grateful for this opportunity to connect with other classes around the world. They have helped us grow in our learning and notice new patterns in numbers. We are excited to continue making these global connections.

Reflecting on our Writing

We regularly reflect on our learning in KG-B and are realizing how doing so helps us in making our brains stronger. Today I was able to catch a snippet of our writing reflection as some students shared that they wanted to make new writing goals. Please take a minute to watch what this looks like in our classroom. As you will see, each of us chooses our goals independently:

Reflecting on our Writing from Kacey Molloy on Vimeo.

Ask your child what his/her current writing goal is.

Sing-Along

We love singing in KG-B and on Friday we invited the other kindergarten classes to join us for a sing-along. Enjoy watching us sing "All I Really Need":

KG Sing-Along from Kacey Molloy on Vimeo.

Photos Needed

Dear Parents,

For our new unit of inquiry focusing on Journeys Create Opportunities for Change, we are in need of your help in acquiring some photos. Please send in with your child or email me up to five photos of your child in various places. These can be from journeys near or far and from any time in your child's life.

Also, please take a moment to view this unit's parent letter. All kindergarten teachers have sat together and created these letters to better inform you of what your child is learning in class. By taking three minutes to read what this unit entails, you will be more equipped to discuss school with your child and make connections at home -- which is especially helpful when the answer to your daily question about what your child did in school is responded with "nothing" or "I don't know!"

Click here for the parent letter

Please do inform me from the aspect of a parent of anything you feel might be useful to add to this letter, and of course let me know if you have any difficulty accessing it. Expect to see an update of similar nature focusing on literacy and math soon. As always, thank you for your support!

Mystery Number Skype

Yesterday morning we had the wonderful opportunity of "journeying" to Sudan. We engaged in a Skype call with a kindergarten school at the Khartoum International Community School. During this exchange we participated in "Mystery Number Skype". The way this worked was before our call, our class chose a number between 1 and 100 to use as our mystery number. The kindergarten class in Khartoum then had to use their mathematical knowledge to ask questions to eventually guess our number. It was wonderful seeing little minds at work as students used mathematical terms such as "bigger, smaller, larger than, less than, more, digit, ones place, tens place". We are looking forward to our next Mystery Number Skype date!

Reflecting on Our Mekdela School Journey

After last week's visit to Mekdela School, we spent some time reflecting on our experience. We examined the differences and similarities between the schools and then thought about changes we that may have occurred in our thinking. Take a moment to view some of our teammates as they proudly share their reflections:

Danique Reflects

 Matthew Reflects

We then spent some time today reflecting on this journey once more through Harvard Project Zero's Visible Thinking Routine "See, Think, Wonder". We first thought about what we saw at Mekdela School. Some of the things we noticed were tables, chairs, and lots of students:

 

We then shifted our focus and noted what we thought as we were engaged in the daily happenings and leanings in the kindergarten. A few examples of things we charted include, "I thought there would be lots of books but I didn't see many books" and "I thought the kids looked nice.":

 

Finally, we posted our wonderings. These questions will help spark thought about our lines of inquiry and about how journeys might cause change. Our wonderings included such things as, "I wonder if they have a writing workshop", "I wonder why they don't have markers" and "I wonder why they don't have many toys". By engaging in conversation about differences and similarities between our school and the one just across our street, we can encourage open-mindedness and empathy. We can also promote understanding of others and recognition of the commonalities we have as humans.

Journey to Mekdela School

As a provocation to our new unit of inquiry Where We Are in Place and Time: Journeys Create Opportunities to Change, we took a journey to Mekdela kindergarten. We spent roughly an hour experiencing what it is like to attend this local Ethiopian school.

Our visit began with a whole-school welcome and equivalent to 'morning meeting' outside. We joined the students in singing and responding to questions.

Morning Meeting at Mekdela School from Kacey Molloy on Vimeo.

We then accompanied one of the younger classes inside and participated in their classroom learning.

This was followed by an introduction of all our ICS students:

The purpose of this visit was to provoke thinking about our new unit on journeys. The lines of inquiry for this unit are:

• Types of journeys
• Reasons why we journey
• Change experienced because of the journey

 Prior to our journey we all took time to draw photos of things we thought we would see on our visit. Upon our return we drew what we actually saw. We noted differences and similarities.

Ask your child to share some of his/her experiences with you, and ask about his/her thinking. Did it change? What did s/he notice?

Please visit this link to see all our photos and videos from our journey to Mekdela School.

Exploration Fair

On Friday we welcomed EC4-B to our classroom so that we could teach them how we explore the world with our bodies. For this "exploration fair" we came up with our own ideas as to how we might explain/demonstrate this concept to the EC4 students. After brainstorming a variety of activities in which the students could engage, we chose the ones we were most interested in leading. We then made signs, gathered materials, and practiced how we could teach others the information we have learned through our unit of inquiry on the senses.

Many of the centers we led focused on the line of inquiry, "How losing a sense/body part affects our learning and our lives", but some of the centers incorporated our other two lines of inquiry, "How our senses work" and "How our senses work together."

Tesanda and Nathan wanted to teach others the importance of exercising to take care of our bodies, so they led the group in a Zumba Kids dance from GoNoodle. This really got our hearts racing!

Ask your child to describe his/her teaching activity, and take a moment to check out all our pictures from this experience here.

What Happens When We Lose a Sense?

We quickly got back into the swing of things after our October break. If you are reading this then you are able to access internet, which I am happy to hear as you can continue to stay informed about our learning.

Last week we had two wonderful experiences that helped us more fully understand our line of inquiry, "How losing a sense/body part affects our learning and our lives". First, we visited the Misrach Center. The Miscrach Center is a "school of apprenticeship and rehabilitation for the blind, deaf-mute and disabled". While visiting this center we were able to interact with individuals who had lost a sense. We saw how they used their other senses to do every day tasks. We were amazed to see how blind people can use their sense of touch to read braille and how they can type through a program that lets them hear. We also saw a workshop in which deaf-mute men and women were making eye glasses. I hope that you were able to discuss this experience with your child. If not, please take the time to look through these pictures with him/her so that s/he can share his/her learning.

Click here to see all our photos from the Misrach Center. 

Also, please click here to find out more about the Misrach Center and its work.

Another great experience we had last week was when Mr. Mesfin came to visit. Mesfin works in our school in the cafeteria. Mesfin is deaf. We learned that he became deaf at age of four when he slid off his mother's back and the fall left him unable to hear.

Mr. Mesfin taught us how he communicates through his hands by signing. Ask your child to show you some of the signs s/he learned.