Welcome to the Weekly Update section, where you can find updates on what our students have been up to during the week at Maryel!
Ardillas Class
Week 1
This week we have been working on our daily routines and habits in order to get used to our new schedule. We have been working every morning on many concepts during circle time through songs. We worked with number recognition in our calendar, days of the week, and months of the year.
In Mathematics this week we introduced math bits by counting (0-30). The children also attempted to complete counting worksheets and matching the item to its color with germ theme images.
In Reading and writing, we introduced the Spanish alphabet through song and visual recognized the flashcards on the wall. The children also learned Ludigestos (physical gestures) associated with the 5 vowels. The children also attempted to trace a variety of lines with Germ theme images.
In Social Studies they learned all about Gérmenes (Germs). The children decorated germs using watercolors, cut a germ following the dotted lines then arranged it in order from 1-5, and cleaned the baby dolls that got dirty with wipes.
Week 2
Our second week of school was great! This week we continue to work on our daily routines and habits. They are big kids sitting in circle time and mostly following directions to complete fun activities.
In Mathematics this week we continue: quantifying and recognizing numbers by circling the number of school school items. They also practiced tracing shapes with crayolas (crayons) in them.
In Reading and writing, they continue practicing their pre-writing strokes: helping the gusano (worm) get to the mazana (apple), tracing the outline of crayons and a lapiz (pencil).
In Social Studies the theme was school and germs. They cut their favorite school supplies and glued them on a backpack. Furthermore they placed green, yellow or red stickers in the outline of an manzana (apple). They also placed an assortment of circular stickers in an image of a backpack,. In addition they used colored pencils to color different school supplies like: acuarela (water color), sacapunta (pencil sharpener), marcadores/ rotuladores (markers), tijeras (scissors), lapiz (pencil), regla (ruler), pinceles (paint brushes). Lastly, they reviewed germs by placing stickers over the Gg de Germenes (Germs).
Week 3
In Mathematics the children quantifying and recognized the numbers 1-4 with school items. The children also placed pompoms on circles inside a large number 1. Another concept they worked on was más alto (taller). The children identified who was the tallest friend in each group and then circled the tallest building in each set.
In Reading and writing, the children practiced writing their names on plastic folders and practiced different writing strokes (vertical, horizonal, wave, inclined and combination) with fall themes.
In Social Studies the theme was all about me and school. The children completed a sheet all about themselves with their handprint, their age, their features like hair color and their names. They also identified if they were boys or girls and placed their picture on a chart. Lastly they used crayons or markers to color a pencil sharpener, crayons and scissors.
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Koalas Class
Week 1
It has been a wonderful transition week!! was a pleasure to meet some of you, as our class continues to grow within the next three months.
During our first week we have seen a lot of excitement, tears, happiness, and love.
These different emotions are totally normal *during the adaptation process* and we will continue to make them feel comfortable and reassured.
This upcoming week we will be starting our first theme of the year: TODO SOBRE MÍ (”ALL ABOUT ME”) We will be talking about our characteristic, our feelings, and family. Please use this time to gather a collage of all the things about them, some ways to prepare are family photos, favorite toy, what they like to do for fun.
We will be hanging it up around the classroom so they can see it and be more comfortable and feel secure.
Week 2
Drop off has continued to become smoother. Upon arrival, the kids usually run to the library, play with lego’s or the toy cars. As you all know, this week’s theme is “ALL ABOUT ME”. We made handprints in various colors and added our names with print stamps. Lastly, we made “ALL ABOUT ME” clouds and included our favorite color, food and number of siblings, if any. They really enjoyed this activity!
As “ALL ABOUT ME “ continues, please send in the collages. The kids are having so much fun sharing them with their classmates.
This Week Vocabulary Words:
Rojo-Red
Amarillo-Yellow
Verde-Green
Hermana-Sister
Hermano-Brother
Perro-Dog
Gato-Cat
Week 3
This week’s theme was “All About Emerging Interest: Movement, Emotions, and Communication”. First, we used our imagination to create a “Kitchen Band” by using pots and other utensils. We compared different sounds to loud, soft, slow and fast.(Ruidoso, bajo, lento, rapido). We also learned about emotions by using pictures and books to talk about feelings such as sad, happy, and confused (triste, contento, confundido). This helps develop emotional literacy. Lastly, we are expanding our vocabulary by singing “Uno,Dos,Abrocha Mis Zapatos” (“One, Two, Buckle my Shoes”) which helps us engage more with finger play and rhyming words. Moving forward, we will continue discussing the different emotions to express ourselves.
This week’s Vocabulario /vocabulary words
Emociones-Emotions
Triste-Sad
Contento-Happy
Confundir-Confuse
Fuerte-Loud
Suave-Soft
Rapido-Fast
Despacito-Slow
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Pre-K Class
Week 1
It has been a nice week with your children as we get to know each other and trying to develop a classroom routine. We are going to show you what we did during this week.
We were reviewing old contents to remember them. Every day we practice the days of the week, months, the weather, the seasons…to put it in our calendar.
In Language Arts Writing: Students worked on vowels A, E, I, O ,U. They recognized the different sounds of each vowel, they were able to find different words that started with each vowel respectively. We started practicing the sounds of the letter i, and saying the alphabet out loud. Also they were practicing vertical and horizontal lines, and we were practicing their names everyday.
In Math: We practiced every day the counting numbers 0 to 10. They reviewed how to write the numbers 0 and 1. What means 1 and nothing. We were doing different activities with different amount of things, so they counted the number that we said.
In Music: we were dancing and singing different Spanish songs: “Estaba el Señor Don gato”, “Un elefante se balanceada”and “5 pajaritos salieron a volar”.
In Physical Education, students worked on their motor skills, and balance, dancing songs firstly with one leg, then with the other one, to the right, to the left, circling over themselves, jumping… We were doing obstacles, and playing with balls.
In Science, students worked on parts of the body. Through song and dance “Cabeza, hombros, rodillas y pies”, and another song with the parts of the face. They were able to properly name each body part.
In Geography/History, students were introduced to the 7 continents. We show them through a big map that we have on the wall.
In Visual Art: we were doing different crafts. We were doing a cat mask and painting a butterfly with water colors.
Week 2
It has been a nice week with your children we are going to show you what we did during this week.
In Language Arts Writing: Students review the vowels A, E, I, O ,U, and the alphabet every morning. They practiced different kinds of strokes that will serve to write letters later. We are still focused on the letter i, uppercase, lowercase, phonetically and grammatically, also discovering different words that begin with that letter.
We were reading different interactive tales: “En otoño empieza el cole”, “Pinocho”, “El topo que queria saber quien se habia hecho aquello en su cabeza”, “Las vocales revoltosas” and “Los tres cerditos”..
In Math: We practiced every day the counting numbers 0 to 10. We also count out loud until number 20. They reviewed how to write the numbers 0, 1 and 2. We were doing different activities with different amount of things. We were recognizing different sizes as a big, medium or small. They were learning behind, in front, up, down.
In Music: we were dancing and singing different Spanish songs: “Pinocho fue a pescar”, “Hola Don Pepito”, “Un pequeño dedo” and “Las vocales”.
In Physical Education, students were dancing song “Move and freeze”, we were imitating animals, playing “Escondite ingles”, “Snow fight” with foam balls, we were passing the ball to the partner in different ways, and rolling on the floor to arrive to the ther side.
In Science, students remembered parts of the body and the face. They were making a face and glued the different parts.
In Geography/History, students reviewed the 7 continents. We showed them characteristics animals about each continent.
In Visual Art: we were doing different crafts: we were making a Pinocchio, painting flowers and a clown.
In International studies: They were learning about the typical Spanish dance, “Flamenco”, they were painting, dancing and watching a video about that.
Week 3
In Language Arts Writing/Reading: Students keep reviewing the vowels A, E, I, O ,U, and the alphabet every morning. Now we are focused on the letters B,C,CH and D, phonetically. They practiced different kinds of strokes that will serve to write letters later. We are still focused on the letter i, uppercase, lowercase, phonetically and grammatically, also remembering different words that begin with that letter.
We were reading different interactive tales. This week we read “Red little riding hood” and “The Ant and the hopper”.
In Math: We practiced every day the counting numbers 0 to 10. We also count out loud until number 25. They reviewed how to write the numbers 0, 1, 2 and 3. We were doing different activities with different amount of things and shapes. We were recognizing different sizes as tall, and short, we are still practicing big, medium or small. They are still learning behind, in front, up, down and cardinal numbers, as first, second and third.
In Music: We were dancing and singing different Spanish songs “Susanita tiene un ratón” and “La cucaracha”.
In Physical Education, they were dancing different songs in circle, and line. We were doing the different types of animal movements, and their sounds. We were playing with a parachute, and playing soccer.
In Science, they recognized different kinds of fruit, and why they are healthy. We were dancing a song with different kinds of fruits “El baile de la fruta”..
In Geography/History, students were reviewing the 7 continents. Now we are focused on Africa, its different kind of animals and characteristics.
In Visual Art: we were doing different crafts: we were cutting and gluing a small Red riding hood, and a wolf. We were also painting a pineapple with Do-A-Dot markers.
In International studies: They were making a typical Spanish fan.
In Drama: We were using pigs and wolfs masks to act out the tale, “Three little pigs”. The students rotated the characters.
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Kindergarten Class
Week 2
Another fun and exciting week has come to an end! After reading this weekly, ask your child to tell you and/or show you about one or more things they have been learning!
MATHEMATICS
During this week we learned to count like NASA and the astronauts, using the countdown from “10 to 1”. We have drawn numbers from 1 to 20 and solved mental problems; we have also counted in tens up to 50. And we have known the ordinal numbers from 1 to 5. All this through fun and entertaining activities!
We also learned the concepts of “more than” and “less than” by adding and subtracting using images and manipulatives.
LANGUAGE ARTS
In English Class, we learned the form and sound of the letters “F” and “E”.
Kindergartners are working so hard to learn their phonics and are eager to read and write their own stories, as we are learning about the parts that make a book, such as the cover, the back and the spine, also the authors, illustrators, titles, pictures and the words that tell a story. We also learned that we read from left to right, and we took our first book home.
In Spanish, we have drawn uppercase and lowercase vowels and consonants. We have learned the 10 words of the week with the letter “L”, clapping and separating its syllables.
GEOGRAPHY/SCIENCE
In Geography, we have written and placed the continents and oceans on the world map, labeled them on our worksheets and made participatory activities on the board in both English and Spanish Classes.
MUSIC/ ART/ DRAMA
Art and Music was without a doubt the highlight of our week! As well as Physical Education.
Kindergartners truly enjoy sharing their creativity in these areas!
-We painted the earth with watercolors, colored pencils, crayons and markers placing the continents and oceans.
-We invented instruments to make music.
-We learned about the elements of drama, chose and practiced our characters to play in our next classes.
– We set up a variety of obstacle courses and enjoyed our warm up and cooling down exercises.
Week 3
MATHEMATICS
English
Kindergartners worked with color cubes in order to make additions within the ten family. They also practiced matching numbers to quantity, and writing numbers to become familiar with all forms of number representation.
Spanish
During this week we have learned to write the name of the numbers from 1 to 10 in Spanish. We have continued drawing numbers from 1 to 20, and solved mental problems with the unit cubes; we played a game to guess the missing number on the one hundred square and in the numeric line with partners.
LANGUAGE ARTS
ENGLISH
In Language Arts we continued to practice our tracing and writing skills with our Handwriting Without Tears workbook and our dry erase boards, as we also explored the sounds of those Letters. We also talked about sounding out each letter and when we add or combine them they turn into words that we can read!
SPANISH
In Spanish class, we practiced tracing the letter “u”. We looked for words with the letter “u” in books, around the classroom, and in our homework handouts. We continued to work hard with our soundbox to learn the phonics of the syllabus building words and reading sentences with fun activities.
GEOGRAPHY/HISTORY/SCIENCE
In Geography, we reviewed the continents and oceans on the world map. We have also written and put in order the water cycle. In addition, students were briefly introduced to the external and internal structure of the earth which we will be learning about in the upcoming weeks.
In History we identified that Constitution Day was on Friday September 17th and how the laws and rules help us to stay organized and discussed what would happen if there were no laws or rules.
MUSIC/ ART/ DRAMA
Art and Music were without a doubt the highlight of our week, as well as Physical Education!
Kindergartners truly enjoyed sharing their creativity in these areas!
-In art, we cut and pasted the character from the book “Todos bostezamos” to use them in our Drama class.
-Once again we enjoyed time singing songs during our music class time.
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First/Second Grade
Week 2
MATHEMATICS
ENGLISH:
In English, first graders worked on subtraction by solving word problems involving comparison. They used math vocabulary to decide if one number is greater than, less than, or equal to another number.
Our second graders worked hard adding and subtracting numbers to make 100. They used hundreds chart, cubes and Popsicle sticks. They also focused on finding strategies to add mentally to one hundred.
SPANISH:
Our first graders made patrons with objects from our class. One of the patrons was trying to guess which ones were following our numeric line, and why it has two colors (red and blue) to introduce the even and odd numbers. We solved mental problems through oral addition and subtraction.
In regards to Second Grade, we have learned what does to estimate mean, we made several estimations with different objects to understand the concept, and we started to put in practice making estimation about how many shoes were in the class if there were eight students and one teacher. We solved mental problems through oral addition and subtraction. We have made our own patterns and counted with euros!
LANGUAGE ARTS
ENGLISH
In English, we discussed the importance of being organized by learning how to set long term goals and short term goals, and how to classify different elements into different categories, from general to more specific elements that will consequently help us to write better in our journal entries. Our first graders focused on understanding the organization and the features of a sentence, such as first word capitalization, spacing and punctuation in writing. Second graders worked hard on text analysis by making predictions and connections by relating it to personal experiences, as we also discussed cause and effect.
We also continued to work with our spelling book and our first 10 words.
SPANISH
In Ludiletras for First Grade, we have read and written by words and syllables, and we spelled as well the 10 words of our week, with reference to our first Ludiletras session.
In regards to Second Grade, the students were encouraged to write sentences with the words of the week. We also read “The strange black book”, to understand what a diary is and how to use it.
As a group activity, everybody played and learned about what riddles are!
GEOGRAPHY/SCIENCE
In Geography and Science, we have located and labeled the oceans and learned about how much is the percentage of water in our planet, and what makes it up (seas, rivers, lakes and rainwater), to introduce the water cycle in Science.
MUSIC/ ART/ DRAMA
Music, Art, Drama and Gym, were without a doubt, the highlight of our week! In art we have learned about a sundial, and how to make one. We learned the elements of Drama, chose our characters and we can’t wait until our next class where we will rehearse our parts. This week, we have enjoyed our relaxation time with Yoga!!!
Week 3
MATHEMATICS
ENGLISH:
1st Grade
Students have participated in reading, interpreting and recording graph data as well as learning the importance of place value within ones and tens as we have also practiced these skills and knowledge with vertical addition, and horizontal addition with number bonds.
2nd Grade
Second Graders have also worked on reading, interpreting and recording graph data as well as decomposing numbers by value up to the hundreds. We have also solved two- and three-digit addition exercises.
SPANISH:
Our first graders continued and expanded their knowledge practicing with addition and subtraction of number patterns, where they had to guess which number sequence was used. We solved mental problems through oral addition and subtraction using the unit cubes in tens. And they took turns making predictions about how many units of cubes were in the bag, counting backward and forward.
In regards to Second Grade, we have continued making several estimations to develop the skills to count and calculate exact numbers. Estimating helps them to make reasoning calculations more quickly, even with their mind. We solved problems on the board trying to put to practice the commutative property of addition and subtraction and having to calculate the missing number.
LANGUAGE ARTS
ENGLISH
1st Grade
First Graders have worked on the elements of a story by defining the plot, recognizing the characters, setting and the moral of the story as we explored fables and their characteristics.
In Grammar we explored singular nouns and the 3 rules to turn them into plural nouns.
2nd Grade
Second graders explored Fables and Fairy tales as they made predictions and inferences from the text, they also recognized the elements of the story and were able to identify the differences and similarities of both types of stories. We also reviewed and deepened the concepts of singular and plural nouns in grammar.
SPANISH
For First Grade, in Ludiletras, we read a short story: “Por la mañana Noa”, and have written answered questions about reading comprehension. We begin to classify words (nouns, verbs, and adjectives).
In regards to Second Grade, now everybody knows the meaning of “diario” (journal) however, in the class, we continued reading more pages of “Querido Diario”, looking for new words and grammatical rules to write. In addition, we also classified the words, (nouns, verbs, and adjectives). We learned about the syllables, syllables stressed and unstressed (sílabas tónicas y átonas), and about the monosyllabic, bisyllabic, trisyllabic, and polysyllabic words.
As a group activity, I introduced our poster word organizer, where we will also add any kind of words useful for both groups.
GEOGRAPHY/SCIENCE
In Geography last week we discussed continents and Oceans, and this week we have started to learn about the terrestrial relief and the internal structure of the earth.
In Science, we continued learning about the water cycle, introducing the different states of water, solid, liquid, and gas.
MUSIC/ART/DRAMA
This week during our Spanish Music class we started to create a chorus! It will be a big challenge for all us! Let’s see if we get it and sing like angels!
Once again the art class was very fun, and all the kids showed theirs knowledge about the internal structure of the earth. We continued to train our bodies to get strong motor skills during our physical education class.
Maryel School