Making a dough for classroom play was a time to learn vocabulary and math skills, and social skills such as cleaning up after oneself. We wrote the recipe on a page to refer to even if children were not yet reading. What science skills would children learn while making playdough? How could making a material for play support developing math skills and language and literacy development? Children measured out and put all the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Children mixed them together by stirring. Then children measured out and add the water and oil. We wanted to encourage pretending as it builds more complex language skills. Children rolled playdough into a long snake-like shape and made a snake noise “ssss” and talked as if you are a snake. Children started to stamp dinosaur foot on the play dough and compared the size of foot prints.
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String beads Children love to create. Stringing beads, pasta, buttons is a creative activity! We string a variety of items for fun, to improve eye hand coordination, sequencing, and to develop patterns. For younger children, stringing beads is great for learning sequences, problem solving, attention to task, and eye hand coordination. Jr.preschool children focus and attend very carefully. They poke the string, and use much thought to turn the bead to pull the string out the other side. This is an easy task for older preschoolers. They have learned the ‘how to’ so they tend focus on the creation that they are making. So you can discuss counting, “How many beads are on your necklace?”; the pattern of the bead layout, colors, size, and shapes. Learning to use scissors A few weeks ago we worked on Tongs and Tweezer Training, and children still loves tongs. Working with tongs and tweezers is great preparation for learning how to use scissors. We encouraged children to be able to use scissors properly, so we placed a sensory bin for practicing cutting papers. The opening and closing motion of cutting with scissors helps children develop the small muscles in their hands otherwise known as fine motor skills. These muscles are crucial for holding a pencil or crayons and gripping and manipulating objects. Cutting also helps develop eye-hand coordination as children hold the paper with one hand and cut with the other while tracking the movement of the scissors with their eyes. Art Class : exploring geometric shapes Free Play Time
Exploring Pp by making pizza The children have been exploring Pp with a variety of activities, such as Pp hunting, Pp sand paper and letter puzzles. We also discussed with the children what words start with Pp. Ludvig shared “Pizza!”, other children suggested “we can make pizza, too”. To support their learning and interest, we then prepared flour, oil, salt and invited the children to bring some ingredients that they liked. Through this hands-on experience, the children developed phonetic concepts, fine motor skills, number/quantity concepts, language, social skills, as well as responsibility, which connecting our inquiry, “How we organize ourselves”. Making Play-dough As the children enjoyed making pizza, we then invited them to make Play-dough, related to the Pp sound. We created a simple receipt; four cups of flour, two cups of water, one teaspoon of oil and salt for the children be to able to need read the receipt with a little bit of assistance. While the children mixed all the ingredients, they noticed the Play-dough became too sticky. To challenge their thinking skills, we then asked: “What should we do to make the Play-dough not sticky”? During this exploration, the children gained experience in reading, counting, recognizing some words, such as water, flour, oil and salt, as well as science concepts, solving problems and having fun. They played with the Play-dough for very long time, as they were so proud of themselves, since they made the Play-dough. Exploring Cc While the children played with the Play-dough they made, they were so excited to make a cake. They even sang the birthday song and put wooden sticks as candles on the cake. We then invited the children to make real cupcakes to support their learning and interest. We also wrote a simple recipe to make banana cupcakes; three cups of flour, one cup of milk, one cup of baking soda, one teaspoon of oil, one teaspoon of salt and half a banana. They also added some cranberries, kiwi and banana for the topping. Throughout the experience, the children learned Cc as well as reviewed Bb. The most important thing is that we all had a wonderful week. A ladder! I Can Go on a Ladder! Ludvig was building a tower and wanted to build a tall tower. However, he could not continue to make it really tall. We suggested to him to use a ladder. Some of children asked: “What is ladder”? “What can ladder do”? “Why do we need a ladder”? To answer their questions, we then invited some friends to get a ladder from Ms. Pega. The children were so excited to see a ladder in the class, and they were all wanted to try the ladder and help Ludvig to build the tall tower. However, the tower kept falling down, yet the children shared: “Let’s do it again”. The children participated positively, sharing materials, taking turns, and helping each other. Finally, Jia made the tallest building, which almost touched the ceiling and the children all cheered for her; “Wow, she did it”, “Great job, Jia”. We all laughed when the tower fell down, yet we all helped each other; we all cheered when our friends did it. We all had a fun day!! We Love to Play at Water Station!! To offer different experiences for the children to explore, we then set up water station with different materials, such as different sizes of pots, funnels, spoons, containers and more. There are many benefits that the children can have while they playing with water; release energy, gross and fine motor skills, social skills, science concepts, math skills and more. The most important is the children had fun and they loved to explore water play. Chuseok Celebration We began our week using the awesome book, Pete's a Pizza, by William Steig. In it, a little boy is stuck indoors while it is raining when his father decides to make him into a pizza using checkers, paper, and a lot of imagination. It is a sweet story that inspire us to play in a creative and playful way. Our first one was to teach the class how to act out the story with friends. This was probably the best part of the week. Everybody is so excited to do it as soon as it was free choice time and giggled the whole time no matter who was partnered together. To make this, we used our large roll bulletin board paper for the crust. We created the cheese, pepperoni and green peppers out of fun foam. Children took a turn and enjoyed stretching their friends (pulling on arms and legs), rolling, and sprinkling all the ingredients on! The game was tons of fun for all of us! The first month of school is all about meeting new friends and exploring different ways of cooperating and sharing with different people. We worked together to create a giant painting. We shared paintbrushes, colours, and the space on one big paper, learning each other’s names and what special words to use to ask kindly for something:
Our beautiful painting is now hanging in our bulletin board as a special reminder of the caring and respectful class community we are becoming! Bb everywhere! This week, the children continued to explore the letter “B” and the sound “b” through a variety of experiences, in order to match each child’s learning style. We invited the children to go on a Bb hunt in the school that the children found Bb and took photos of Bb or objects such as “b” for bear, which is developing their recording skills. Moreover, we also set up a table for the children to find some pictures that relate to Bb,in order to make a Bb poster. Furthermore, to challenge the children, we then asked a question: "How many ways can you make B or b”? The children used different materials to make Bb, such as using wax sticks or wooden sticks, or using a marker to write a B, or make b by using dot paint. Throughout these experiences, the children showed awareness of signs within the environment, and displayed awareness of the letter-sound correspondence, which helps them to read later on. Making a House I read a book called: “A box can be Many Things” by Dana MeachenRau, as “box” starts with “b”. I brought in a big box the next day and the children were so excited to discuss what they could make with this box. Two of the suggestions were “dinosaur” and “flowers". However, the children felt that it was a little tricky to make dinosaur and flowers. Therefore, they decided to make a house instead. The children engaged positively as they worked as a team; they discussed who wanted to paint, who needed to use the brush or paint roller, and who wanted to decorate the house. They were so busy to make this beautiful house. Through this experience, the children demonstrated leadership abilities, such as collaborating, listening to others' ideas, and sharing resources as well as to develop their thinking skills and creativity. Creating new colors While the children were busy painting the house, they were exploring how to make different colors by using three basic colors. To support their learning, I read a book called “Three Little Miice”, which is about how to make green, orange, and purple. The children participated positively to create new colors after the story. They also helped each other to create the colors. We asked: “Anna, how do you make orange?” and “Jaydan, can you show me how to make your purple?” We also encouraged the children to save their colors in the jar, so other friends could, can, and will use the colors, too. We were so busy and had so much fun this week! Having Fun with Mr Quimpo, Ms Olds, Ms Park and Ms Son This week, Mr Quimpo invited the children to cut some shapes and create a wonderful artwork with the shapes on the paper. Ms Graff read a wonderful book called "press the yellow bottom" and she invited the children to do the action while she reading it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj81KC-Gm64 Every time, when Ms Park visits out class, she always asks some questions and engages with the children in Korean while they play at learning centers, in order to create a comfortable way to learn Korean. This week, Ms Park introduced Chuseok by reading a Korean story book and showed us how to do ganggangsullae dance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D73WBzzEG4 Ms Olds has been singing those songs with the children over past three weeks. 1. She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain 2. Three Blind Mice 3. Hokey Pokey 4. Oh Sussanna 5. Today is Monday 6. So Long Farewell from the Sound of Music Plus showing different dance moves to fast and slow music Ms Son played a game called "What time is it,Mr Wolf ?. The children will ask: 'What time is it, Mr Wolf?". Mr Wolf will say: "Two two o'clock". Then the children will need to two steps and so on until the Mr wolf says "Dinner time", then children need to run. Our class is inquiring into: Who We Are: We are the same and different to other people. As an invitation to this inquiry, children explored their own and classmates’ names. Of course our names our a very important part of our personal identity (line of inquiry: Who I am). Here are some of the different ways we explored: Our names make us unique: We all have special names. Everyday we do our attendance and proudly put our name at the board “I am at school!” We are learning to recognize our names all day long. Children hear their names mentioned all day long. Their names are personal, meaningful, and recognizable. The children can find their names with their pictures on the tables where they sit to eat their snack. The children explore their names through writing experiences. They have a name writing journal to practice the mastering of their names. We offer many opportunities for children to discover their names and teach children to recognize their name are everywhere! Daily Attendence Name writing Journal
Do you know the story The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn? After reading about Chester Racoon and his mummy's special experience of kissing each other's hands to remember the love they have for each other, we made our own kissing hands. We painted our hands and used words like "soft", "squishy", "wet", and "cold" to describe how it felt. After our handprints dried we posted on the classroom to represent our families' love for us! |
Meet the EARLY YEARS teachersMS.CarolCarol Lesser has over 20 years of experience in early childhood and ESL education. She has taught in Taiwan and Canada and has also worked at international schools in Korea, Indonesia, Singapore and Mongolia. Carol earned a Diploma and a Bachelor of Education in Early Childhood Education from universities in Taiwan. Additionally, she earned a Montessori Graduate Diploma in Vancouver, Canada. Furthermore, she earned a Master of Education in Teaching Second Languages in Toowoomba, Australia. She also has certification in Reggio Emilia, PYP, ESL, and the University of Cambridge International Primary Program. In her free time, Carol enjoys dancing, cooking, organizing social events with her husband, Michael, and traveling. She has been at Busan International Foreign School since 2015. kATHY SONKathy Son has over 20 years of experience in education. She has worked at BIFS since the winter of 1995. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Child Development in California State University of Fullerton and has done a Teacher Credential Program in Concordia University, Irvine. In her free time Kathy enjoys going shopping and watching movies with her family. Archives
August 2017
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