The Explorers

Friday 26th February 2021

Dear parents,

Our group has been celebrating a mixed dish of different activities that energized our memories during our free choice time. Some helped us to go back into our previous lessons and recall what we have learnt; others took us into the world of discovery. While we played with toys, Eliab picked the ducks and let them swim on the top of the blue Legos. Aylin tried to show how a wolf howls. Limsa was also measuring the temperature of the lion and amazingly read, “3, 5” telling the reading of its temperature. Observing their interest the teacher encouraged them to build habitats using Legos as we discussed about the animals that live there. This stimulates our need to construct the environmental center and will definitely be the high light to our next lesson, which is habitat.

This week’s large group

This week we have been exploring through numbers and started to prepare our individual number book. Working on this book led us into a process that develops both our cognitive as well as fine motor skills. First we identified a number, then we trace it with a marker at last we paste it on a hard paper and stick equal amount of objects of our preference.

This week’s small group

Monday

Cooperative game: this week we have played a target game, where weenthusiastically play our balls towards the target number plate. We aim and threw our balls towards the target number plates different distances away. Our group practiced sending a ball with hand to hit a variety of different number targets and then score a point as equal as the displayed number. We were all giggling and screaming, each time our balls hit and missed targets.

Tuesday

Literacy: We begun our lesson with an audio visual of zoo phonics of the five letters we have learnt so far. The moment a flashcard displayed to introduce a new letter, both Aylin and Eliab shouted, “gorilla!” Aylin kept roaring like a gorilla, hitting her chest with a fist of her hands and Limsa can’t stop laughing seeing Aylin’s weird face. Then Gordo Gorilla introduced with a short story. The story goes: “I’m Gordo Gorilla. I love eating a fruit that has a yellow colour. What do you think that fruit is?” All together replied, “ Banana!” Gordo Gorilla answered, “ ow yeah! Banana! I love eating lots and lots of bananas. I can’t stop myself sounding g..g…g…g while peeling them off. Now I want you all to do what I say.” Then we all mimicked Gordo Gorilla holding our pretend banana and sounded g…g..g.. while peeling them. Each time we do our morning chart and display the letter ‘g’, our group call out the name as they sound

Wednesday

Library: We all read books of our choices and some of us tried to present the characters in a drawing.

Thursday

Science: Based on the high lights of the activities that we have been performing in our free choice time activities like: reading books about nature, talking about the character and habits of some animals; we came up with more ideas and resources that can help us develop our environmental center. First we just sat and discussed about the colours and features of different places or habitats referring them on pictures, then each one of us chose a habitat we individually want to build in our environmental center as well as resources or materials that we want to use. Right after, we left our classroom and gather all the materials we needed and start constructing our habitats. Eliab constructed an iceberg. He used some black rocks as a base and covered them with cotton. When Limsa was asked which habitat she wants to work on, she pointed at the picture of a jungle or forest; then dumped the dirt and planted dried leaves right on the top of them. Aylin also wanted to put more lava to her mountain and used more red yarns. She also helped Eliab in constructing the Deseret. They both filled buckets with sand and dumped them on the ground and kept flattening the sand with their shovels. Right after they finish Eliab brought two green coloured popsicles and planted them at the center of the desert. When he was asked what they are? He responded, “ they’re trees.” And the teacher asked again, “Are they cactus? Eliab happily replied, “ Yes!”

We are planning to develop it further in our coming session.

Friday

Math: Even in this week, we kept exploring numbers and practiced counting as we did a one to one number correspondence activity. This time we have discussed on number Zero as our specific large group activity for that day. We have related number Zero with its synonym words like empty or nothing.

When Eliab asked what Zero mean, he dumped the numbers from the number box and said, “ Look! Adiam. Now it’s empty.” Waving his hands from side to side. Aylin also put her hands into the container-indicating Zero, saying, “ Zero! No any. It’s Zero.” Then we all had turns to trace zero with markers as our whiteboard activity.

In our second activity we have started to work on our number book and traced random numbers and matched them with same amount of objects. Starting from next week we will keep involving this activity in our large group.

Special day

Art: Parallel to our science class, our group chose to display a portrait of different habitats our environment possess as a whole. Though at first we planned to use paint and got ready to start; Eliab went to the shelf and grabbed a white yarn saying, “ I want to do this.” When he was asked, if he wants a paint?” He replied, “ No, paint. I want glue.” Then his classmates supported his idea and changed their mind on the paint. Thus, Limsa made leaf print with green paint and Aylin made piles of mountains both with rocks and glue.

In our work time, we have been busy in developing our Ethiopian center and were mixing mud for the huts.