May 25-29, 2015

Ding... Ding... Ding... There are only 9 school days left before Summer break. Fasten your seatbelt and get ready for variety of school events. Character Day, Fun Field Trip to Fun World, Pre-K Field Day, PRIS Factor and Art Auction.

Guess who came to our class last Monday? Zane Coughlan who is a helicopter pilot came to our class to share his expertise on anything helicopters. The kids were amazed by many different types of helicopters. They now know that helicopter does not only transport people, but also other cool stuffs like cars and even tanks. Other helicopters which function as air ambulance and air crane are also cool, but the kids most favorite ones are helicopters with big guns that serve in the war. Thank you Zane and Natasha Coughlan for sharing.

Five... Four... Three... Two... One... Blast off! Inspired by a book titled I want to Be an Astronaut by Byron Barton the kids flew their names to the outer space. Independently, they wrote their names then cut and pasted all the rocket ship parts. It is such a joy looking at the kids are able to write their names independently. 

The mechanics were on duties. Seriously, they matched, fastened and loosened all the nuts to the bolts. These activities are not only training their fine motor skills which has good impact on their pre-writing skills, but also to their creative thinking and problem solving. The kids enjoyed these activities  and requested if these centers can stay for another week.

This week, the kids' sorting and categorizing math skills were challenged by doing two different levels worksheets. They had to identify a picture from each group that does not belong to the group. Level 1 worksheet is easier because the picture that does not belong is clearly different than the other pictures in the group. When they did level 2 worksheet, each kid's critical thinking was also challenged. Most of them could give good reason why the picture does not belong to that group.

Land, water or air transport? The kids almost had no problem sorting all the vehicles into the correct group. Four different activities were provided for the kids to practice their sorting skills. We had a group discussion by completing the land-water-air transportation chart which is followed by individual worksheet. At the sorting centers, the kids had to sort all the vehicle counters into those 3 groups, too. As a review, using Topic app, the kids made a short presentation identifying 3 different types of transportation. (see our previous blog post about Topic app videos)

Thank you for Donovan and his family who generously lent their little bikes for our art project. Divided into 2 groups, the kids worked together to paint the wheels of the bikes. The most fun part was when they could ride the bike on a big sheet of paper and left the bike track there. When the painting was dry, using car and truck templates, they traced the templates and cut around the tracing lines.

Vroom... Vroom... All the dirty cars lined up, ready to be washed. A fun activity which allowed the kids to train their gross motor skills. 

STOP-SLOW-GO! Cutting 3 different color circles, copying STOP-SLOW-GO writing on each circle, adding popsicle sticks and taping them to the circles were three steps that the kids did to make their own STOP-SLOW-GO signs. Such an easy peasy task for them. They did all of those by themselves. All of those steps were done after a group discussion on what each color sign mean.  

We had wafers, colorful candies and chocolate paste and we were discussing about STOP-SLOW-GO signs. The kids then figured out that we were going to make traffic lights wafers. They first sorted all the candies and only picked red, yellow and green colored candies. They then used the chocolate paste to stick the candies to the wafers and before taking some wafers home, they had to test that all those wafers were just as delicious as their look.

It was a sunny Friday morning. The kids were so excited to ride their bikes at the basketball court. Not all the kids brought their bikes to school, but it was definitely not a problem in Pre-K 3 class. They love sharing. Taking turns, each kid became a police who controlled the traffic. Well done kiddos!