Celebrating Celebrations and Undercover Detectives

These two weeks have been a blur of events and I am just slowly coming to terms with all the learning that Preschool has achieved this week. 

Firstly, my apologies go to not writing a blogpost last week.  I was at the Edtech Conference all weekend. It was extremely inspiring and I could not wait to try out some of the things we learnt about in my own teaching! I was pleased to see that my excitement wasn't overrated as it was a hit in the classroom!  

Secondly, a huge thank you goes to all of you for supporting the celebration this afternoon. The students put large amounts of effort in planning for the event and it was a pleasure to see you share it with them! 

What a turnout!

From Robot Party to Elf Party, they were pretty well represented! 

Food, people, decorations, entertainment...Preschoolers had it covered! If you need party planners you know where to find them. Although Miss Michelotti won't give them that away easily...

Unit of Inquiry

All the planning and hardwork on their summatives was definitely worth it and I am so proud of their hardwork. Preschool successfully identified the key components of celebrations: people, food, costumes, entertainment and of course, the decorations. It was a real pleasure for me to watch them use their creative minds to make their own decorations. They were truly engaged and completely autonomous (my only job was handing out tape...).

Celebrating Setsubun, Carnival and of course Pancake Day 

PANCAKES!!!!!

Maths

Circles, squares, rectangles, triangles, sixagon...oh no wait is it a hexagon?

Shapes, shapes and more shapes have been on our minds. Preschool has been exploring 2D shapes in extreme depth.


 Finding Shapes in the Preschool Classroom

Preschool began reviewing their knowledge on 2D shapes in their classroom. They found that shapes are everywhere

Undercover shape detectives on Rokko Island

Clipboards in hand, Preschoolers explored nature, discovering that most things can be categorized into shapes. The highlight of that trip however, remains the rare sighting of a pigeon that was mistaken for a bat! Shape exploration took a slight backseat after this rare sighting.

Using shapes to make designs 

Students went all out, testing their creative limits regarding shapes. They used toothpicks to make shapes, blocks, stencils and more. 

Language- Thinking Routines 

The real focus in Language was tuning into their Thinking Routines.  Preschool had to focus really hard on Seeing, Thinking and Wondering about different books and share their ideas in a reflective manner by predicting what the book Lacey Walker, Non Stop Talker could be about. They even made the connection that Miss Michelotti might just be trying to hint at something about Preschool's ability to talk, talk, talk... 

They even rose to the challenge and were exremely principled when it came to deciding on when the different Learner Profiles appeared in the story! Well done! 

Art 

Getting ready for the real challenge ahead, Preschool tested their crayon and water colour skills producing colourful pieces of artwork. Crayon resist art proved to be a lot of fun and are definitely ready to use their new skills to creat their self-portraits next week.

Reminders 

• On Monday, February 15th, we will be starting our new Unit and it will be all about our local environment. To launch this unit, Preschool will take a trip around Rokko Island. We will leave at 9 and be back for 11:45. Make sure your child has a bigger snack and waterproof clothing in case of rain. 

• For Show&Tell on Monday, I would like them to bring something related to nature. 

• Please remember to return the sign up sheets for the Three Way Conferences. 

• This week cooking will take place again on Wednesday, so please send in containers with your child. 

Thank you for all of your support and I wish you a lovely and restful weekend. 

Sabina Michelotti

Celebrating the end of our Unit

Dear Parents,

Preschool has had a lot of fun learning and inquiring about Celebrations in the Transdisclipinary Theme, How we express ourselves. Students are now ready to wrap it up and are working hard on their summatives. Each student has had to plan a celebration of their own choice, from the guest list to the food being served. They did a wonderful job and would therefore, like to showcase these celebration ideas.

I ask for your help and support in two ways:

1) I have made a photocopy of their planning so that you are also involved and can see their ideas. If you have costumes that fit their choice, I would be thankful for you to send it in with your child on Friday the 12th. Additionally, if you have any suitable decorations that your child listed, then please send them in too. We will be making most of the decorations at school so don't worry if you don't have anything additional.

2) You are welcome to attend the event it will take place on Friday 12th of February at 15:15 until 15:45, in the Preschool Classroom.

As for the food, I will just provide a few snacks so if you want to send in something you may but it is not necessary.

If you have any questions, please contact me!

Kind regards,

Sabina Michelotti

Goodbyes are never easy...

This was the last week of another month spent in the Preschool classroom and this means that Preschool will be learning a new Poem to accompany February. In the meantime I would like to share with you the excellent job they did in mastering the January Poem.

It will be a different start to the week this Monday with one Preschool member less. However, we are all certain to meet up again very soon!

Unit of Inquiry

Preschool continued to get more and more knowledgeable regarding Celebrations, collecting a huge amount of information about festivals and celebrations from all over the world. During the course of the week, Preschool learnt:

• that celebrating birthdays is not limited to people, but that countries also celebrate their birthdays. They got to celebrate countries' birthdays with party poppers, blowing out candles and eating cake!

• all about Setsubun and scared Miss Michelotti with their colourful Oni masks! An exciting lesson was spent sharing their knowledge about Oni and learning new things about Setsubun. Preschool even tested their patience by trying out origami and were much more successful than their teacher in doing so. 

• about Fasnacht, where they had the chance to try making their own Fastenwähe (a Basler speciality), which turned out very well! They loved watching the Carnival Procession and decided that they will need to come visit Miss Michelotti in Basel to take part in Fasnacht.  

In art they made their own Carnival masks to go along with the new poem they will be learning this month!

The students are making connections between the different celebrations and that is extremely delightful to hear and see! Their knowledge is shining through and the classroom reflects their thoughts and learning journey. 

Preschool is know ready to apply their learning and this week they will be planning their summative assessments, where they need to create their own Celebration and present it to the class. I will post separately on this, as I will need your help and support for some of it. 

Maths

In maths Preschool was very excited as they got to go around to the different classrooms and ask students questions about celebrations. This information will be used and quantified this week as Preschoolers will continue looking at data handling. 

Language 

Language was quite tough but as usual, an open-minded attitude and fastening their thinking caps tightly, helped a huge deal. Preschool started building their own sentences, by focussing on what makes a sentence. They even wrote their own and will continue doing so this week. 

I apologise for the shorter and slightly late blogpost this week but I have been recovering from a cold, ready for another exciting action packed week! 

Have a goodnight! Best wishes, 

Sabina Michelotti