Christmas Market Booth Rota

Below are the times that the students should be at the Preschool booth to help sell. If you are unable to attend the Christmas Market or for some reason are unable to look after your child during the Christmas Market time (11:00-12:00), please let me know. Thank you. 

11:05-11:15 Koki and Lea
11:15-11:25 Jun
11:25-11:35 Joshua and Luna
11:35-11:45 Sosuke
11:45-11:55 Shu

I am copying the information from my previous post regarding pick up and dismissal. 

• Regular lessons will take place until 10:20. 
• We will go down to see the performance as a class. After the performance, I will head upstairs with the class and I would like parents to come pick up their child from the Preschool classroom at 10:55. Parents are then responsible for their child until they are helping me at the stall. Parents are responsible for bringing their child to the booth and then picking them up again after the shift. 
• At 11:55, I would like all parents to bring their child to the Preschool stall so that we can get the gifts from Santa as a whole class. I will be responsible for the class and will then bring them back upstairs to the Preschool Classroom, where they will pack their things and wait for you. 
• Dismissal of students will be from the Preschool Classroom, so please make your way upstairs after the gift giving. 
• School finishes at 13 on Friday. 

The Preschool Snow Globe Family

That busy, yet exciting festive time of year is creeping faster towards us and the Preschool classroom is bustling with new learning and activities.

Language

This week in Language, Preschool got swept away into the magical world of "The Snow Globe Family." And what a truly magical world! The students engaged their senses, fastened their thinking caps nice and tight and got carried away, imagining what it would be like if they lived inside a snow globe... 

Miss Michelotti then challenged them all and asked them to write their ideas and I am so proud of all of them, their writing is neater, they are sounding out words and no longer need the Miss Michelotti word machine to help them the whole time. 

Once they got the tough writing part out of the way then came the fun part, creating the actual snow globes and they look fantastic displayed in the classroom! 

Maths 

Preschool was definitely challenged this week as they were introduced to our new unit, measurement. As always, they embraced the challenge with open minds and inquisitive attitudes. They guessed, used blocks to measure and recorded their measurements, like true mathematicians! 

A little bit of holiday cheer in our measurement unit

Finding out who has the biggest hand and feet in Preschool. Preschool made two important conclusions: 
1) the person with the biggest hands also has the biggest feet, 
2) this wasn't the tallest person in the class! 

 3) Measuring different objects in the Preschool classroom 

Unit of Inquiry 

Out with the old and in with the new! That sums up our week in Unit pretty well! They bid the unit on Community Helpers a great good-bye, presenting all their hard work through the Living Museum! Thank you for those that came, we really appreciated your support and they were so proud of their work.  For those that didn't manage to make it, the short video is a snapshot of their learning and hopefully the pictures of the event will give you a bit of a clearer picture of what it was all about. 

Our new Unit of Inquiry is all about Celebrations:


Transdisciplinary theme: How we express ourselves.

Central idea: We celebrate special events throughout the world in different ways.

Lines of Inquiry: 

1) What are traditions and special events

2) How and why do people celebrate

3) Comparisons of celebrations locally and globally

Reminders 

• Show&Tell on Monday will be free choice again. 

• For our new Unit of Inquiry, I would like to ask you for your help. It would be lovely to have parents come in and present different celebrations/festivals to the class. I am looking for volunteers to come in. The more the better. If you are interested, please email me and I will send you more information. This would commence after the break. 

• On Wednesday and Thursday, Preschool will be busy making Christmas cookies for the Christmas Market, a lot of flour will be involved so if you want them to wear an apron please send it in with them! 

Christmas Market Schedule for Friday 12/18
10:20 - 10:25 - Brief welcome to DESK Christmas Market, Baton Club performance

10:25 - 10:35 - Pre-Kindergarten performance

10:35 - 10:45 - Middle School performance

10:45 - 10:50 - Whole school song

10:50 - Introduction of charity by principal / students get situated at booths

11:00 - Opening of DESK Christmas Market

Market is open from 11:00 - 12:00.

• Preschool will be selling Christmas Cookies at the market, we will be turning the classroom into a Christmas Cookie workshop, this Wednesday and Thursday! 
• I will set up a rota for the booth this week and post it on the blog, latest by Wednesday, so please check the blog regularly. Also, I will post any changes to the schedule (should there be some). 
• Regular lessons will take place until 10:20. 
• We will go down to see the performance as a class. After the performance, I will head upstairs with the class and I would like parents to come pick up their child from the Preschool classroom at 10:55. Parents are then responsible for their child until they are helping me at the stall. Parents are responsible for bringing their child to the booth and then picking them up again after the shift. 
• At 11:55, I would like all parents to bring their child to the Preschool stall so that we can get the gifts from Santa as a whole class. I will be responsible for the class and will then bring them back upstairs to the Preschool Classroom, where they will pack their things and wait for you. 
• Dismissal of students will be from the Preschool Classroom, so please make your way upstairs after the gift giving. 
• School finishes at 13 on Friday. 

If you have any questions regarding the schedule, please email me.

And a few shots of some fun times this week! 

December Already...

The Preschool Helping Elves

As we enter into the cold winter months, Preschool welcomed December by beginning to learn a new poem:

December

I'm a little snowflake 

You can see...

No other snowflake

Looks like me!

Please pick me up

After I fall, 

And roll me with my friends 

To make a snowball. 

This week has passed in such a blur, my mind is still convinced that we never went beyond Tuesday and I am even more incredulous to the fact that the Winter Break is just two short weeks away. 

Unit of Inquiry

The focus of this week was to start bringing all the loose pieces together and work towards completing the summative assessment. However, before starting the summative, we were able to learn about one more Community Helper, Scientists. Preschool explored the different jobs scientists are responsible for, got the opportunity to listen and question Ms Lee about what it means to be a scientists, as well as observe and their own mini experiments! 

Listening to Ms Lee telling us about being scientists 

The next obstacle for Preschool was to begin applying all the knowledge and work they did on Community Helpers, to prepare for their summative. This proved quite difficult and when asking them what they learnt, the majority of the focus was on being Police Officers, Postmen and Mail Carriers. For this reason, they were given the choice to represent one of these Community Helpers. To make it fair, they drew names from a hat. Preschoolers then got busy brainstorming and creating props necessary for their Community Helper, ready for the Living Museum on Tuesday, December 8th.

Additionally, I am extremely happy as I know that I am in good hands, with Show&Tell giving me a great snapshot of Preschool's future aspirations! With two doctors, a vet and a ninja, there is nothing left to worry about! Thank you for your support in getting them organised!

Cooking

I was really excited to find out that Saint Nicholas is celebrated at DESK as it has been my favourite celebration since a child, so getting to share it with Preschool was even more special for me. In Switzerland as part of Saint Nicholas, we make sweet bread dough and shape them into what look like Gingerbread men. They are called Grattimänner. Preschool carefully made the dough on Thursday, letting it rise over night and then shaped it into Grattimänner on Friday. Not having quite realised how efficient the school oven is, they got slightly "tanned" but hopefully they tasted fine!

For those that are interested in making it again the recipe is below:


Grattimänner Recipe 


500g white bread flour
1.5 tsp salt
3 tbsp white sugar
7g dry bread yeast
60g butter (in pieces) 
300ml milk 
1 egg (for the shaping and egg yolk glaze)
raisins

1) Mix the flour, salt, sugar and yeast in a large bowl. 
2) Heat the milk so that is lukewarm.
3) Add the butter and milk to the bowl containing the dry ingredients and mix well. 
4) Work the dough for approximately 10 minutes. 
5) Place the dough in the bowl and cover the bowl with a cloth towel and leave the dough to proof for 2 hours. 
6) Depending on the size of the Grattimänner, divide the dough into desired amounts. 
7) Separate the dough: 1/5 for the head and the rest for the body. 
8) Make a rounded ball for the head and for the body roll out. Attach the head to the body using egg white. Using a knife cut the body to make legs and arms. 
9) Use raisins to decorate. 
10) Give your Grattimänner an egg yolk glaze and bake for 25 minutes at 180°C (preheated). 


Preparing the dough 

2) Shaping the Grattimänner

 These are just some of the highlights from the week! :) 

Reminders

• Term two will start this Monday, so please refer to the new timetable. As they just had library on Friday and you feel that your child has not had the chance to read their books, don't worry about sending the books back this Monday. 

• Show&Tell (on Monday) is free choice.

• We will be going tulip bulb planting with Kindergarten on Monday morning, make sure your child has comfortable shoes. 

• If you wish you attend the Living Museum it is on Tuesday, December 8th, at 15:30 in the Preschool classroom. The Grade 1 students have also been invited. 

Thank you and wishing you all a great weekend. 

Sabina Michelotti