Wrapping Up!

Eight weeks are behind the Preschoolers and the break could not come at a more perfect time, they gave there all this last week and really deserve to celebrate their achievements.

On Monday, Preschool opened their doors and eagerly welcomed Grade 5. They got the chance to team up with a Grade 5 buddy and explore the world of literary adventures together. Soon, both groups will be reading to each other as this will now continue to be a regular part of our weekly timetable. 

Tuesday was another exciting day, as Preschool had the opportunity to meet new friends and quiz them on their Healthy Choices. Preschool Skyped with the Year 1 students at the International School of Rheinfelden (Switzerland) and did a brilliant job of being Thinkers, who were not afraid of asking and answering questions. Questions ranged and included: 

• What is your favourite food? 
• What do you like to play at school/home? 
• What do you do at home? 
• How many times a day do you brush your teeth?

Captivated by our new friends! 

Besides welcoming Reading Buddies and Skyping, Preschool spent their time completing their Healthy Toolboxes, concluding the first Unit of Inquiry. They presented their Healthy Toolboxes to the Grade 1's who really enjoyed learning and listening to how Knowledgeable the Preschoolers are regarding Healthy Choices. From talking to the Preschoolers it seems that this Unit was a huge success and they learnt a lot but most importantly enjoyed their learning. 

All their work on the Unit has been taken down and sent home, I hope you enjoy their hard-work as much as we all enjoyed creating it! Thank you for being so supportive throughout this Unit and I am looking forward to starting the new Unit: Where are in place and time focussing on Community Helpers. 

In the meantime enjoy the rest of the half-term break and I will leave you with a short clip, showing how Preschool mastered the art of beating egg whites. 

Reminders 

• Students received the Scholastic Book Order on Friday, which needs to be brought back latest by November 6th if you wish to order books. 

• On Monday we will be starting our new Unit of Inquiry, focussing on Community Helpers. 

• Show and Tell forTuesday- something your child would like to share about their Autumn Break. 

Thank you and see you back at school on Monday, November 2nd. 

Sabina Michelotti

It's Dream O'clock

Starting the blog by saying Preschool had a busy week is slowly becoming my mantra but one that holds true for this week as well!

Unit of Inquiry

As the Unit on Healthy Choices  is ending soon, Preschool has started putting their thoughts to their summative assessment, creating their own Healthy Toolboxes. It will be an opportunity for them to showcase their knowledge on the Unit. I am very excited to see the outcomes, I know they will be great!

Preschool made a great connection this week. They realised that sleep is essential for their bodies to be healthy. Therefore, during Unit this week, Preschool explored the importance of sleep and what happens to our bodies when we sleep. They learnt about dreaming and why we dream or have nightmares.  Preschool should also be free of nightmares with their Dreamcatchers, hanging above their beds! 

Maths 

In maths we also wrapped up our transdisciplinary work on the Unit of Inquiry, by practising telling the time to the hour. Preschool mastered this with a lot of enthusiasm, showing me how knowledgeable they are! 

They played games, became the clock's hour hand, used hula-hoops, all to help consolidate their knowledge.

I think it's safe to say that we can rely on them to be on time from now on...

Making the hour hand with their bodies 

 2) Practising the time with games and hula-hoops 

Language

Preschool enjoyed reading Mouse Mess by Linnea Riley. They loved pretending to be little mice, nibbling daintily on crackers and making mice noises. They were able to join Mouse on his food journey and create their own Mouse books choosing their favourite healthy food choices to feed their mice! 

Cooking

Second time lucky (even better than the usual third time lucky!) with our cooking class this week. However, it was a great learning experience for the students and for me (always bring extra eggs when baking!). Preschool learnt that for some recipes, it is ok to mix the egg white and egg yolk but for others they need to be separated. They made a wonderful Swiss Roll, filled with whipped cream and cinnamon spiced apples! 

I am compiling a recipe book for Preschool that will contain all the recipes we make this year, which will be shared with you. It is great to see how much they enjoy the cooking and how well they take part in the lessons! 

What a great cooking lesson! 

To start us off, ready for a great weekend, we were able to taste an American treat brought in by Miss Moss to celebrate her Birthday. Thank you Miss Moss! 

After a busy week, Preschool is ready to go home; relax and refuel, ready for a great last week before the break!

Have a great weekend and I look forward to meeting with you next week. 

Sabina Michelotti

Reminders 

• Parent Teacher Conferences will be held next week, please contact me in case of any changes or questions. 

• Swimming on Monday. 

• Cooking on Wednesday-please bring in containers. 

• For Show&Tell  on Tuesday, I would like the students to bring in their favourite recipe (if they are simple enough, we may even try making them in our cooking lessons this year!). 

From Beating Hearts to Welcoming Autumn!

The progress that Preschool has made in these past six weeks is absolutely astounding. They have grasped the classroom routines, are able to focus much better and their eagerness and excitement during lessons makes everyday such a joy! This week was spent exploring and focussing on the third Line of Inquiry: Connecting different aspects that contribute to leading a healthy and balanced lifestyle. Their inquiry took them from their bones all the way to their hearts and back to connecting it all to their healthy food choices!

Unit of Inquiry

This week I got to share my love for science with them and their response was impressive. We continued looking at exercise and why we need it to lead a balanced lifestyle. Continuing from last week, they remembered that we need to eat healthy food to have strong muscles and bones. Thus, we began looking at our bones and some interesting questions and observations arose:

• How can we see our bones? 
• Bones and teeth are both hard. 
• Milk makes our bones strong. 
• Bones are bigger in adults. 

To better understand their bones, they got to look at a series of X-rays and even make their own! They look great (slightly spooky) and timed perfectly with Halloween being just round the corner! 

Can you guess who is who? 

We explored our hearts beginning with the students drawing and showing me what they knew, and that was A LOT! They looked at:

• Locating their hearts by listening to their heart beats. 
• Testing what happens to their heart beats before and after doing some exercise. 
• How big their hearts are and how heavy they are (this was a big surprise!). 
• How the heart actually works. 
• What we need to eat to keep our hearts nice and healthy.
• How exercise can help our hearts.

They were eager to test the "model" heart by blowing into the ziplock bag...

What can I hear and where does it come from? 

What does a beating heart mean? 

Deep breath and... 

Maths 

I’m a smaller hour hand,

Short and stout,

I tell the hour give a shout,

I’m a larger minute hand,

Big and tall, I tell the minute and that is all.

This week in maths was all about telling the time. From observing the clock-face, to constructing their own clocks, all the way to starting to look at telling the time. We will continue this next week. 

If you wish to practise with them that would be great! In Preschool we will be learning to tell the time to the hour.

Here is a link to the big interactive clock that I am using with them, which they really enjoy. 

http://www.oswego.org/ocsd-web/games/ClassClock/clockres.html

Language

This week Preschool continued learning new letter sounds and were able to use their skills to read Teddy's Healthy Choices Book. They were able to illustrate their books and identify the main components of a book. 

Preschool also learned a poem, welcoming Autumn to the classroom: 

                                                                    Autumn
                         Red and yellow, orange and brown, 
                         All the leaves start falling down, 
                         Nights are nippy, days are clear, 
                         Summer's over, Autumn's here. 

Autumn is here! 

Cooking 

The school smelled delightful on Wednesday, as the Preschoolers' yoghurt cake was busy baking in the oven. This week Preschool continued developing their kitchen skills; looking at cracking eggs, mixing and measuring ingredients, and of course cleaning up. They were excited to note that the mixture got more difficult to mix as the flour was incorporated and were able to identify all the food groups they were using. The cake although "super yummy" (they noted correctly) is unfortunately only a "sometimes food." :) 

 1) Measuring the ingredients 

2) Mixing everything together

3) What a success! 

Beautiful clear skies and the refreshing Autumn breeze have made this week fly even faster than usual.

Enjoy the long weekend and I look forward to seeing you during Oktoberfest. 

Sabina Michelotti

Reminders

• Firstly, I'd like to thank you for reading and following this blog, your support is invaluable! Murmeli's adventures are great and I really appreciate the time you take to work on the journal with your child! 

• There is no school on Monday. 

• Can I please remind you to keep sending in containers for our weekly cooking lessons on Wednesdays. 

• Could you please send in an empty shoe box by Wednesday October 14th. They will need this in order to create their summative assessment for the Unit on Healthy Choices. 

• With the October Break fast approaching, so are the Parent Teacher Conferences. They will be held the week of the 19th of October. I will be sending out the letters at the beginning of next week. 

From Pizza Chefs to Illustrating Stories

The weeks are starting to fly here in Preschool and this week was one busy week with many new things being introduced to the Preschoolers.

Our Unit Board is slowly coming to "life" 

Another cooking lesson is behind Preschool and what a lesson it was! Making their own Pizzas from scratch! That meant getting their hands nice and messy; mixing flour, water and yeast together to make a smooth dough. The next day was exciting to see how the dough rose, ready to be used. They practiced kneading the dough, working it carefully with their hands, rolling it out and finally adding their toppings. The school smelled delicious (and hopefully they tasted alright too!). 

In Language Preschool was able to listen to the story Baking Bread, making connections to their dough making. They did an excellent job retelling the story and illustrating it. 

Illustrators at work, do not disturb 

Besides Pizza making, Preschool continued their inquiry regarding Healthy Choices by focussing on making connections between the various factors that help us lead a balanced life-style!

Opening the week, with Show&Tell set the right mood, regarding exercise and how it helps our bodies. From swimming to baseball the sports were well represented and diverse!

As the week progressed we closed our inquiry on healthy teeth and started to really tune into to our bodies. They listened to their bodies, hearing their heart beats and investigated what happens to their heart beats as they exercise. Practicing their exercises they were challenged to count how many they could complete in 10 seconds. These results were then used to create some graphs in maths. Definitely a tiresome lesson!

It was a busy week that ended smoothly and a well deserved weekend is ahead of them.

I will leave you with a few reminders for next week.

Thank you for your support and wishing you a great weekend.

Sabina Michelotti

Reminders

• Swimming on Monday

• Show&Tell this Tuesday is free choice meaning they can bring in something of their choice as long as they can explain why they brought it in. 

• Please remember to send in your child's library books on Friday as they can only check out new books once the old ones have been returned.