January 26-30, 2015

This is it! This week we wrapped up our discussion on five senses. Senses of smell and taste were the last two senses discussed. The kids enjoyed this last week of five senses unit due to the food involvement. This week also a wrap up week of Pre-K 3 and 4 combined class. Ms. Connie has arrived safe and sound here in Balikpapan. Parents of Pre-K 3 class, I can't thank you all enough for your support and understanding in the last three weeks. 

We started the sense of smell and taste by doing smell and taste test. Blindfolded, the kids were asked to guess the food that they smelled and tasted. They were so good in guessing the sweet, salty, sour, bitter and a little bit spicy food. 

The math skills that learnt this week were pattern and sorting. The kids did taste pattern and they also sorted the 6 different fruits into the correspondent bowls.

The kids busy hands created so many art and craft products this week. All of the projects involved their sense of smell. They painted the picture of flower with spices. We used 6 different spices powder such as chili, tumeric, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and curry. The second painting project was painting using tea leaves. We chose two different types of tea, green and black tea. The kids loved the fresh smell of the tea after we poured the hot water to the tea. The last project that they did was making their own fruity scented play dough. Together with Pre-K 4 students, they mixed all the ingredients needed to make the play dough. Afterwards, they individually the fruit essence that they like. Vanilla essence was the most popular choice of the day.

Training their fine motor and cutting skills, the kids were asked to cut zigzag lined food pictures. They did it flawlessly.

As part of our Friday morning routine, we usually do the nature walk. This Friday we walked around the ridge to smell the flowers and plants we found along the way. We also played Follow the Lemon  game. The students were paired up, one student was chosen as the blindfolded person and the other one was chosen as the person who held the lemon. The person who held the lemon had to hold the lemon closer to the blindfolded person's nose. Then he or she moved quietly and the blindfolded person had to follow them by finding the smell of the lemon. It was a fun game to do. The kids enjoyed playing this game.

The idea of having fresh orange juice at lunch time was cheered by the kids. Enthusiastically, they use their muscles, fine motor skill, and good teamwork to squeeze the oranges. They kept saying about how they love the fresh smell of the oranges, but when they finally had their cups of orange juice, they loved it even better.

We closed our five senses unit by doing marshmallow observation and completing our five senses graph. 

January 19-23, 2015

Wohoo! We've passed half of the school year and we've had combined class for Pre-K 3 and 4 for two weeks. Thank you for your countless support and understanding. We expect Connie's arrival on Wednesday, 28 January 2015 and she should be ready to teach Pre-K 4 class at the end of next week or the beginning of the following week. 

Please give warm welcome to the Paz family who has just joined our classroom family. Their little boy fits just right into our class and easily gets along with the rest of the students.

This week, we learnt about five senses - sight and touch. We were so lucky to have the opportunities given by SMEC - eye specialist clinic to do a filed trip to their clinic at Balikpapan Baru last Wednesday, 21 January 2015. There, the kids were able to try some tools that the doctors usually use to check the patients eyes condition. The kids also listened to doctor's explanation and short cartoon video about how eyes can be used to see things and how to keep them healthy.

Last week, the kids use their five senses to observe popcorn. This week they had apples to observe. Using the sense of sight, they all agreed that the apple was round and red. It also looked like a small ball. When they touched the apple, it was smooth and squeezy. Using the nose to smell, they said that the smell of the apple was so good. Finally, they used their senses of taste and hearing at the same time. They said  that the apple was sweet and they could hear crunchy sound when they chewed the apple.

After reading 'I Can Tell by Touching' book by Carolyn B. Otto, the kids tried to guess 10 items hidden in the feely bag in turns. As a class they got 5 out 10 items guessed correctly. 

   

Other than guessing the missing number in a number line, the kids also sorted pictures of hot and cold objects. Some of them still needed guidance in sorting the pictures, but some others just did it independently.

Using hard soft sponges, the kids painted the paper with green and red paint. They had fun exploring different items that they can use for painting.

Captain Alien reported for duty! The kids carefully created their aliens hats using pipe cleaners and strainers which needs good eye and hand coordination which was perfected with great creativity and imagination. 

As part of their name activities, this week the kids were asked to trace each letter in their names using glue bottle then sprinkle sand on the names. They were also able to write their names and draw things at the sand tray. They loved to feel the sand on the tips of their fingers. 

After tracing their hands, the kids pasted 5 different objects onto each of the fingers. After that, they were asked to feel and describe those 5 different objects.

A simple explanation on lights and reflection has amazed the kids. They now know that they can see their reflection on shiny things. 

Making our own rainbow jello was the most favorite activity of the week. In group of 6 kids, they work together in making the jello. Carefully, they measured,  added and stirred all the ingredients needed for the jello. Finally they could have rainbow jello for their lunch dessert and brought one cup of it home.

Done with all the indoor activities for this week, we went outside on Friday. We did photos scavenger hunt. The kids were paired with Pre-K 4 students and each pair was given a close up photo of objects at the playground and at the basketball courts. As a closure, we went to the soccer field to play Duck-Duck-Goose and Red Light-Green Light games. 

January 12-16, 2015

Welcome back to school and Happy New Year. Hope everyone had a well-deserved holiday with family, relatives and friends. We are so happy to welcome the Gagnes to our classroom family.

We started the first week of school in 2015 with an unfamiliar situation, especially for the kids. By the end of December 2014, a student in Pre-K 3 class only had to share and take turns with the other 5 students, but when we start the first week back in January 2015, each student instantly need to share and take turns with the other 25 students with the Pre-K 3 and 4 classes combined. "Too many peoples," Camilla said :) I really appreciate all support and understanding from parents in both classes during this unexpected situation. I also have noticed that some parents did a terrific job in doing pre and post conversations with the kids at home about our current situation. Please excuse me for the inconvenience and the not on purpose pushing, bumping, kicking and other physical contacts between the kids. We will try our best to minimize them. Please continue your support and understanding to this situation for maybe another week.

Other than having a lot of students in one class, all the kids enjoyed all the class activities that we did this week. We had our first week out of three weeks planned to discuss about our five senses, with sense of hearing was chosen to be the first one.

We had some special guests visiting our class last Tuesday. They are Dinda, Fatah, Ms. Ade and Ms. Susana from Sekolah Luar Biasa (SLB) Tunas Bangsa Balikpapan. Both Dinda and Fatah are not able to hear since they were born. Currently, Dinda studies in grade 8 while Fatah is in grade 4.  They were so kind teaching us how to use sign language as other way to communicate especially to and with those who are unfortunately cannot use their senses of hearing as normal people do. The kids learned how to sign the alphabets and some simple words. We also learned to sing and sign some songs. Stay tuned for our performance at the assembly by the end of Five Senses unit. 

We love doing art. This week, we did bell and marble painting. The kids love listening to the bells tingling when they painted at the painting easel. They also love the sound made by the marbles running around inside the tub when we did the marble painting.

To explore the sense of hearing, we also did other activities such as sorting the bells into different colors, playing percussions using every day objects that we can easily find in the kitchen, doing sound counting, cutting different type of materials and listening to the sound they made, walking around the ridge to do a sound safari, and playing different games that help us explore our sense of hearing even more.

We used popcorn as our first five senses observation object. When the popcorn popped in the microwave, the kids listened carefully to any sound that they could hear. They all agreed that they heard the sound POP. As soon as the popcorn went out of the microwave, they described the smell of butter and honey. Then they used the sense of sight to observe the shape of the popcorn. Some of them said that it looked like cloud, but some other thought that it looked like Mickey Mouse's head. When they touched and felt the popcorn, they described it as bumpy and soft. When they were finally able to do further investigation on the popcorn using the senses of taste, they had one same opinion about it, it's yummy!

For Language Arts and Literacy, Pre-K 3 students continued their letter of the week routines such as tracing letter using Wet-Dry-Try! app, tracing letter on the worksheet, doing Endless Alphabets app, and doing craft project related to letter of the week. Two additional activities were introduced at the beginning of this week. To help the kids recognizing their names and also their classmates' names, the kids are introduced to Name Book and Touch Write app activities. Each kid has their own Name Book with some different name writing stages. This week the kids started the first stage which is tracing the letters in their names twice a day. To support this activity, we also used Touch Write app on iPad which enables kids to trace not only their names, but also their classmates' names.