¡JUEGOS en el jardín de infancia! / GAMES in kindergarten!

The kindergarteners have taken such an interest in “games” that a class study has emerged from this curiosity. To enhance their learning in a holistic way, Spanish classes have been planned around this thematic unit. Even though juegos are often associated with fun, they provide pedagogical values, particularly in learning a second language. Juegos …

• Are motivating and challenging for all learning styles; auditory, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic 
• Lower language-learners’ stress
• Help and encourage in sustaining the interest on the target language
• Provide communication practice in the various skills; listening, speaking, reading and writing
• Encourages participants to interact and communicate, building class cohesion

In addition to the traditional juegos we play such as mata moscas (fly swatters), here are just a few of the newest juegos the kindergarteners have been enjoying …

To reinforce vocabulary for food items, we played “¿Qué está en mi cabeza? / What is on my head?” During this game, the students are paired and facing each other. One student puts on a pair of sunglasses and, without looking, attaches a flashcard to the sunglasses. (The card and the sunglasses have Velcro dots.) Then, the student not wearing the sunglasses will give hints in English while the student wearing the sunglasses tries to guess what is on their head in español. Hilarious!!

Some juegos can also be used to help understand multi-concept ideas by using a combination of things to look for such as in “Tornado / Twister” where the new vocabulary for derecha (right) and izquierda (left) was reinforced along with previously learned words for colors, hand and foot.

Bingo de números helped with making connections between the numeral symbol and its written form in español.

Dominoes were yet another fun game introduced to the kindergarteners that reinforces counting and adding in español.

Stay tune, as soon we will be using an interdisciplinary approach during Community Time. This is an hour allotted for all the resource teachers to set up stations with a game connected to their discipline and all kindergarteners will have the chance to rotate and explore.

100 Ways to Show Kindness for the 100th Day

We recently had the 100^th day of school, a fun day for all grades in the Lower School!  As a way to get ready for the 100^th day, third graders worked to come up with 100 ways to show kindness, which they wrote on individual hearts.  As they worked, students quickly noticed that it would take a lot of time (and writing!) to get to 100.  We decided to enlist the rest of the Lower School to get the job done.  Students split up into pairs to go to each classroom to explain our project and to drop off blank hearts on which friends from other classes could write their ideas about kindness.

 

As students have completed their hearts, we have been hanging them in the lower school lobby.  Our class has loved reading everyone’s ideas and have been excitedly counting how many hearts there are and figuring out how many more we need to get to 100.  Although we did not get to 100 by the 100^th day, we did surpass our goal soon after.  Our current count stands at 103.

If you have a chance next time you are in the lobby of the lower school, read through our ideas about kindness.  Feel free to fill out one of the hearts on the table and add it to our collection!

Celebrating Chinese New Year

As part of our study of China, third grade observed the arrival of Chinese New Year on Tuesday, February 5th! In class, we've been learning about the history and many of the traditions of this important holiday. We've also been engaging in a variety of fun and exciting activities to help us ring in the new year!

We started off by reading about some of the customs and traditions that Chinese families observe to prepare for the new year. Students shared with each other ideas about bringing good luck to our homes for the upcoming year. We also celebrated by making colorful lanterns in anticipation of the spring. At the end of the day, students received traditional red envelopes with lucky money and treats! Each child received their envelope and was greeted with a customary new year greeting in Mandarin: "新年快樂!" (Shin Nyan Kwai Luh!). Third graders were excited to receive their lucky red envelopes – a sign of good fortune and blessing in the year to come. This week, we will be learning more about the Chinese New Year through folktales, stories, and art activities!

Seniors Read to First Grade

In the past few weeks, two or three seniors have been visiting the first grade classrooms to share important stories.  During the first visit, seniors shared stories of people they believed to be heroes to coincide with our hero study. This allowed the first graders to see who their senior friends chose as heroes and to find out why.  It was very exciting to know that 12th graders have heroes too!

On the next visit, the seniors read books about the heroes that the first graders have chosen for their hero research, which provided another opportunity for the students to hear about the different heroes that are being studied.  Today, the seniors shared stories for Black History Month which prompted thoughtful discussions and questions from the first graders. This is such a rich experience for our first graders to have these times to experience the seniors in a very different role. They get to see the value in sharing stories and discussing them with much older students. The first graders have been so responsible and so responsive during each book sharing.  We look forward to our next visit!

Sharing Love Through Literacy in Kindergarten

Valentine's Day is a favorite day in kindergarten for many reasons! The students love to share with their friends, the bright colors are welcomed after a cold and gray January, and creativity is in full bloom. Hearts, doilies and stickers add fun to the process as well. A  few days before the special occasion, the students decorated bags to collect and keep safe the Valentine's cards they would receive from their friends. The children used fine motor and literacy skills to cut, glue, trace and write as they created individual bags.

Then the kindergartners were eager to share the love beyond our classroom walls and created very special Valentine cards for their families.  They artists worked carefully to design a card that would express their love with hearts and other "love" drawings. Inside, each child wrote messages to their loved ones. It was amazing to see our kindergarten writers taking their time to print the letters with care so that their audience could read their words of love. Some friends were eager to create more than one card for loved ones!

 

       

At home, the students had been practicing writing their classmates names and signing their own names on cards as well. After several days of preparing for the day, it was finally Valentine's Day.  At school, the  growing kindergarten literacy skills were a joy to see as each child had the opportunity to read the names that were on the  cards they were delivering!

Love and friendship filled the air as the children shared cards and treats with one another. Pride in their hard work was evident as smiles reached from ear to ear and exclamations of "this is mine!" and "look what I did!" could be heard during Valentine delivering!

Kindergartners love to write and create, and Valentine's Day was a perfect opportunity for them to share their growing skills. Providing real and authentic writing experiences for the students makes it fun and engaging as they practice fine motor and literacy skills. It might be fun to have a box at home with envelopes, a variety of paper, and writing tools so that your child can continue to write notes to loves ones, make birthday cards, or celebrate other special occasions in your child's life and their loved ones. Don't be surprised if they want to begin mailing items at your local post office as we begin to share and mail kindergarten notes to others in the lower school through the first grade post office project!

Storytelling: Second Grade Visits the Michener Museum

Storytelling is a theme that connects many of the content areas across second grade this year.  Presently second grade students are learning how the Egyptians told stories that reflected their families and philosophy of life and religion in their tomb paintings through the use of hieroglyphs. The recent trip to the Michener Art Museum previewed this for the students' spring story-telling unit. One of the docents at the museum, Barbara Rabson who is a parent of two AFS alums, was eager to plan this visit with the second grade. Students learned to look at art and think about the story expressed in the painting or sculpture. Sharing with a partner, students talked about their stories. Movement was a technique students explored while experiencing very close viewing of a large painting and while in an exhibit of hanging cloth sculptures to express the mood of this exhibit.

While at the chair exhibit, partners were given a card with a painting of a person and asked to look at all the chairs in the exhibit and find the one they thought their character would have chosen to have in their home. While looking at paintings, each student was given a phrase and then chose a painting that best reflected the meaning of their phrase.  Our visit ended with the exploration of the books and life of James Michener, the novelist and the inspiration for this museum. The connection between art and storytelling was both bold and subtle. Students experienced this exhibit with an open heart, a creative mind, creativity and curiosity as they constructed stories and meaning while viewing art. 

Lower School Book Club for Adults Reads Manhattan Beach

Join us for our next Lower School Book Club for adults led by Ann Botel-Barnard, our Language Arts Specialist. We are excited to come together to share a love for a great story!

Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan

Location: Lower School Library from 8-9am

Date: February 22, 2019

Enjoy a light breakfast and great conversation as we discuss what we loved about the book, what we had questions about and what we could connect to. Feel free to join us even if you have not read the entire book. You will still have a lot to contribute and the discussion will enhance your reading of the book. You are welcome to bring adult friends and relatives that are also interested in discussing this book. RSVP: abotel-barnard@abingtonfriends.net

Identidad y La Ropa en Primera Infancia / Identity and Clothes in Early Childhood

Identity and belonging are about children developing a positive sense of who they are, and feeling that they are valued and respected as part of a family and a community. In Spanish class, opportunities and activities are provided to help nurture these concepts so that each student can feel that they have a place and a right to belong here at AFS.

A most recent activity offered is one I call the “Identity Persona Project.” To start the conversation, we began by discussing the many ways we are all the same and different. We all have a cuerpo (body) but the shapes, sizes, and shades are different. That is true for our ojos (eyes), pelo (hair), piel (skin) and other attributes. To guide our conversations, we read various books.

We then focused our attention on something we all share the same yet our choices are different; the clothes we wear. The young learners were introduced to the Spanish words that describe basic items worn to cover our body; ropa (clothes). To help with vocabulary retention, many games were played.

Vocabulary:

camisa - long sleeves shirt

camiseta – t-shirt

vestido - dress

falda- skirt

pantalones - pants

pantalones corto - shorts

zapatos - shoes

botas - boots

tenis – tennis shoes / sneakers

To culminate the study, our talented art teacher, Amanda, and I combined EC’s art and español classes. Each student was given the opportunity to “dress” their own Wonderfoam Body©, “Identity Persona”, that come in multicultural colors.

A highlight of the project was pairing the students with their 4^th grade buddies.  After picking the foam shaped body they felt came closest to their piel tone, the students were invited to dress their persona with their choice of ropa. As the students designed their attire from a variety of fabric prints, they were encouraged to apply their new vocabulary by stating what piece of garment they were constructing. Putting their fine motor skills to work, the students traced stencils unto fabric pieces and then cut them out.

Los Cardenales, los Gorriones y los Catbirds had so much fun decorating these body shape durable foam pieces. I invite you to stop by and admire the amazing work our youngest members and their buddies crafted which can be found on the wall next to the LS library. It is truly a spectacular display of the array of Identity Personas in our EC classrooms!