KG News
Newsletter #2: Where We Are In Place and Time
UOI Where We Are In Place and Time
Central idea: Weather and nature change depending on the season and location.
Key concepts: Function, Causation, Change
Lines of inquiry:
- How seasons affect nature (Function)
- Patterns in nature (Causation)
- How weather changes from one location to another (Change)
What Are We Learning This Unit?
UOI Summative
Students will be creating a poster representing their favorite season and writing about it to explain why it is their favorite season. They will also be prompted to provide details to support their choice both written and oral. Their poster will illuistrate and show details of the season which they will also be required to label and explain. In addition, their poster will identify the time of year the season occurs by indicating the months of the year it happens. Students will collect their facts and information using both fiction and non-fiction texts, as well as online investigations and through observation and collection of data. Once they have completed their poster, they will then present it to the class as an oral presentation referencing their poster as a visual.
Subject Specific Summatives
Math
- Students have been engaged in hands on activities building, learning and reinforcing their understanding of number order both acsending and decsending.
- Using graphs students were able to show their understanding of sorting and classifying items, collecting data to graph and show results. They graphed a variety of objects like apples, pumpkins, leaves and acorns.
- In small groups, independent work and with paired lessons, students practiced reading and writing numbers sentences to show understanding of "how many altogether."
- Building towers students learned the concept of numbers ascending by 1 more and using teddy bears to climb up and down building blocks, students recognized the descending order of numbers 10-9-8... to show 1 less.
- Listening and practicing word problems students continued writing equations to show ____ and ___ is _____ is the same as ____ + ____= _____.
- Decomposed numbers to show 1+2=3 is the same as 3=2+1
- Configured groups of 3 and 5 objects in various ways to show that the number does not change even if the configuations does.
Cooperative learning: Graphing Leaves to answer how many?
Sorting and classifying leaves by color
Making applesauce: Chopping apples
English Language Arts
- Building on listening and comprehension skills students have used drawings and illustrations to show their understanding of story details.
- Continue to practice all short vowel sounds in the beginining and middle of words (a,e,i.o.u) as well as making CVC words.
- In writing journals identified the sounds that each short vowel makes by creating word families for each sound.
- Continued practice with sight and frequency words to build accuracy and fluency.
- Blending and segmenting sounds to build words both real and inventive.
Reinforcing handwriting with various writing tools in both writing and reading centers.
Building reading strategies in reading groups to build on fluency and comprehension skills.
Reading and writing short sentences emphasizing capital at begining, finger spacing and puncuation.
Writing sentences
Where is my punctuation?
Found the missing word!
Arabic, Qur'an, & Islamic
Science & Social Studies
Social Studies: Geography
- Students have learned about cardinal directions, (North, South, East, West). Through music and movement they have practiced using and identifying these directions to show location on our classroom map and the map of USA.
- Identified landforms as oceans, rivers, mountains, and hills.
- Identified and expolored various kids of maps as well as created a classroom map of their own.
Science: Trees and Weather
- As scientists students are recording their observations of the changes occuring in weather and nature in their science journals.
- Students selected a class tree on school property to observe and document changes during the year as the seasons change.
- Classified trees and leaves as seasonal and evergreens.
- Learned about seasonal fruits, seeds and where, when and how they grow.
- Asked and answered questions about how seasonal changes impact animals, people and other living things.
Science
Science
Science
Art
Tree landscape collage
The students further developed their fine motor skills and efficient way to use the art materials while grasping the meaning of the elements of line and shape and the principles of balance and variety in a practical context.
Islamic geometric star - oil pastels
Tree four seasons painting
Students used four squares of mixed media paper (or small canvases) and they traced their left hands. Then they painted the inside of the hand using brown to create a tree and used four different colors to paint the sky in each part.Students used dot painting using Q-tips to represent either the colored fall leaves ,the green summer leaves, the flowers and blossoms in the spring and the snow in the winter.Students interpreted and analysed how the colors and visuals of a natural landscape change over the seasons, and used that analys to choose the color and the technique to use in the tree four seasons painting.