Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Land Forms


Last week my students learned about many different types of landforms.  We had viewed, discussed, and identified the following:  oceans, rivers, lakes, valleys, mountains, plateaus, islands,  hills, waterfalls, and volcanoes. 


We started by watching Eric Carle's story The Tiny Seed. It's a journey of the seeds which also featured different landforms such as mountain and ocean. This had given a great motivation to my students to know more about landforms. You can find the video by clicking the link below.

                         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmRdKfcA8vw

To integrate the story to our Language Arts, we used this to  engage the children in event sequencing by drawing it in their journal. 



After discussing and exploring about facts of different landforms, my students drew their favorite landform and were prompted to write something about their choice. I'm so proud to see that they are soaring into their inventive writing skill.


Look at this coloring product with their own written captions. Another evidence of their growing skills in inventive spelling. They are just 5 years old but I trust that they can do HUGE things.


                                      


How could we forget about this Science experiment using vinegar,baking soda and food coloring to make our own VOLCANO? This was a hit!



Thursday, February 20, 2014

Celebrate Valentine's Day with the Letterlanders

A hearty week makes my class feel the love. From emergent reading activity to arts and crafts, who can tell these children are bored at school? 

The love week had been memorable to each child as we integrated this theme in other subject areas. We started the mood by reading HEARTS .  Not only this activity features the sight words I, see, the and hearts; it also features color words.

The children made  beautiful heart flowers and heart mobiles. Their finished products look so perfect for display. 







During our Letterland assembly, Red Robot and Kicking King invited us to join their RED HEART PARTY. The kids enjoyed  playing football with Kicking King. They also helped Kicking King to spot his KEY and KITE. Red Robot who is always in RED gave a stem of RED ROSE to a very lucky teacher Ms. Susan. That was a very sweet gesture. However, Red Robot is not that sweet all the time. His extreme love for RRRRR words makes him a robber. Tsk!Tsk!  He showed us his stolen stuff like rrrradio, rrrruler,rrrrock and rrrremote control. 



Here's a video clip of Kicking King's never ending kicks.






And some pics that made this day really RED.












 The party ended by finding  matching hearts. The kids loved going around to find their match.You can see big smiles on their faces every time they find their match.





And this memorable afternoon won't end without having some snapshots with our famous Letterlanders. Thanks for visiting us!!!




And of course, it won't be enough without dancing L.O.V.E by Hi-5.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_7nWkYLrKI
Thanks Hi-5:)



Friday, February 14, 2014

Red Day


                        Valentine's Day is never the same without these best teachers in town.

Weather

We spent the week learning about and tracking the weather. We talked about how we needed to dress for the weather and what that looked like in each kind of weather.  I used the story of The Wind and the Sun to integrate with our topic. We have various activities which are aligned to the Common Core Standards.

KE.11 Infer that change is something that happens to many things in the environment based on observation made using one or more of their senses.
KE.12 Summarize daily weather conditions noting changes that occur from day to day and throughout the year.
KE.13 Compare weather pattern that occur from season to season.

Click below



Our paper plate umbrella. We cut the paper plate into half and let the children draw on the plate to come up with their own design for their umbrella.




Science Experiment:Blowing things using drinking straws to push various objects. The children extremely enjoyed this activity together with the other K2 class led by Ms. Marithel. They had given their hardest to push things by blowing with the use of drinking straws. The given objects were stone, cotton ball, wooden block, feather, leaf, a pair of scissors and a spoon. After this breathtaking activity, they were asked about their observations and was linked back to our weather theme.



Reflection on the story of The Wind and the Sun
I asked them to recall  the story and draw the story according to their own interpretation. This is one of the students' work which clearly shows how this student understand the story.

Journal Writing: What is my favorite weather?


We supposed to do a role play this week and other activities but due to time constraint we are not able to enjoy the activities I planned. Or maybe I just over planned my lesson.





Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Where Is Annie Apple?

Meet the original Annie Apple  Ms. Mandi Manson. She was our Director of Studies and introduced Letterland. She took the role of being Annie Apple and as expected, she immensely did a good job.
 Below is the video taken during our first assembly- the day when we discovered that we can bring the Letterlanders  to our children in person. Be warned that in this video, you can hear my annoying laughter and giggles.:) Pardon me. It's just being me when I'm with the kids. 






Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Kinder Talk: Making Letterland Real

Kinder Talk: Making Letterland Real: We are using Letterland curriculum to teach letter formation, letter sound, phonemic awareness and other sorts of language arts and reading ...

Making Letterland Real

We are using Letterland curriculum to teach letter formation, letter sound, phonemic awareness and other sorts of language arts and reading skills. I have proven the intensity of learning experiences this curriculum has to offer. Every day, I discover something new about this curriculum which I apply in my classroom. It is always a blast to see the kids get excited when it's Letterland time. Together with my fellow kindergarten teachers, we collaborate on our best practices to maximize Letterland to the full and to make each student's learning experience unforgettable.

Visit:  http://www.letterland.com/

Every Friday we have our Letterland Assembly. Some teachers and students take part on this gathering by taking roles of being one of the Letterlanders.

Here is Oscar Orange

Clever Cat is having her picnic. See her smiling car?

Being busy with Bouncy Ben. He brings his friends Ms. Bird, Ms. Bug and Ms. Butterfly.

Say hello to Mr. I the Ice Cream Man.

And of course, Mr. I tags along with him Impy Ink.


Bouncy Ben and Dippy Duck took a break to smile for the camera:)

This is what we get when Talking Tess with her telephone and telescope meets Harry Hat Man
who obviously hates noise.


Harry Hat Man walks barefoot to get from here to there.
Be astound as Harry does a handstand!

Noisy Nick is making a lot of noise with his drum kit. Today he is celebrating his NINTH birthday.
He is a star!

Mr. A is singing for everyone to welcome Annie Apple. Can you see our apple tree and the big arrow?

There are no boundaries and limitations when Letterland invades our class. Imagination and talent will do the trick. Letterland keeps teaching beyond than the usual.





Sunday, February 9, 2014

So this is blogging

So this is blogging. I really didn't know how to start this but today I got the courage to throw myself in and give it a try.
First things first, I am Alpha and I have been teaching kindergarten for 13 years here in Vietnam. I am a Filipina but found my way teaching in Vietnam. I love teaching kindergarten and it's always my passion to do so. I am married to a very wonderful man who  is always been my bestfriend. He is also a kindergarten teacher and  both of us are teaching in the same school. He is an all-around musician...i say ALL like from playing a triangle to keyboard, piano, bass guitar, guitar, drums and trying the violin. We have two boys-Judsen and Jazz.

Below is a picture taken last Christmas, I am with my big family since my sisters are with me. I am wearing green carrying our little baby Jazz..and the only man is my hubby with our little kiddo Judsen. In the middle is a our dear friend who helps us around the house. On the left is my youngest sister with her baby Sean and on the other side is my second sister with her girl Xandrei. People say that I'm leader of the tribe since I'm the eldest child and I usually take care of my siblings:)