2012-2013 松园消息 Songyuan News—No.3
January 2 – February 6
Pine Garden Kindergarten Inquiry Planner
塗凯姚 Kai-Yao To
Libby Beytien-Carlson
ShuRenSchool.org
Important Dates
1/1 Tuesday New Year Holiday (No School)
1/2 Wednesday School Resumes
1/21 Monday Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday (No School)
1/24 Thursday Field Trip to SF Symphony
2/9 Saturday Shu Ren Lunar Chinese New Year Party
2/10 Sunday Lunar Chinese New Year
Greetings Pine Garden families,
I hope you all had a wonderful break. It is very nice to see the children return back to school well rested. This week, we will kick off our third unit of inquiry on Drama 戏剧. We will develop this unit through Language, Social Study, Arts, PSE, and Mathematics. The central idea is that drama expresses human ideas through voice, action, and spirit and this has had significant impact on societies and beliefs. Our Drama unit will be covered in the five-week period from 1/2 to 2/6. The key concepts offunction, reflection, and perspective will be used to answer the questions. Here are my questions/provocations for the children to reflect upon:
· What is your favorite story character?
· What is your favorite story place?
· How do stories end?
· How would you change the ending of your favorite stories?
· What is your favorite part of this story?
· Why do we have dramas, plays?
· Have you been to a play or drama; how did you like it?
Kindergarten events and activities:
Berkeley Repertory Field Trip: On Thursday, December 6 we went to Berkeley Rep to watch a well-known Chinese folktale performance, “White Snake.” We had a great time. I want to say thank you to Christine (Lukas’ mom) and Wilfred (Aliana’s dad) for chaperoning the field trip. We also had a class discussion after viewing the show. The children talked about their feelings about the play. We will be continuing to inquire about the story, stage design, music, and language, and actors and actresses in the White Snake play.
Guest Speaker from Berkeley Repertory: On Monday, 1/7 at 10am a guest speaker from Berkeley Rep will be coming to teach the children how to develop a play story.
Field Trip to SF Symphony: On Thursday, 1/24 at 9am we will attend a performance at the SF Symphony. All children should bring a BART ticket with at least $10 in order to pay for the fare from North Berkeley Station to downtown SF. We will be back at school before 3pm. We will not need parent chaperone’s for this field trip due to limited tickets to the symphony presentation. More details will be posted.
Chinese Lunar New Year Celebration: As you know, the Chinese Lunar New Year is coming on Sunday, 2/10. The Shu Ren PTO will be organizing a celebration party on Saturday, 2/9. Please mark this date in your calendars if you plan to attend this event! More details and the Party event location will be posted. As is the tradition, the Pine Gardeners will be performing the lion dance. The children have started to practice a lion dance for our Chinese Lunar New Year celebration. They will follow the drumbeat and learn how to sniff, run, and bow like a lion. Please note that this is a good opportunity for your child to learn how to collaborate with others and also is one of our Drama inquiry presentations. Your child needs to be very committed for rehearsals as well. The rehearsals will be during the last period of the day. Please give much encouragement to your child. Thank you for your cooperation!
Room Parents: I want to say thank you to Shauna (Alec’s mom). I am very appreciative of Shauna’s dedication and for all that she has done for the Pine Garden. Following Alec’s promotion to the 1st and 2nd grade class, Shauna has stepped down from her Kindergarten room parent job. I am also very glad that Kendall (Margaret’s mom) has agreed to take over the room parent duties. Thank you Kendall!!! Kendall will be organizing the class events and field trip parent volunteers. If you would like to get involved, you can contact Kendall at kcon123@gmail.com
Action Tree Wall: What does action mean to you!! This was a provocation that I learned in LA at the IB workshop. I would like to share with you why it’s very important for children to initiate action. To make PYP happen, I found that provoking children’s thinking and learning are very important. I would like to ask parents to take a moment to think about the action your child takes at home and write them on a sticky note or notes to post on the Kinder action tree wall (by the front door white board). How did the child show action? The child’s action could be very simple that she/he shows initiated action through her/his learning. For example, regarding our second inquiry Celebrations, we have children who have explained how we celebrate the Day of the Dead and Hanukkah in the class. They shared their learning with their family members. Some children also shared their understandings of the Hanukkah by sharing Chinese vocabulary with Jewish synagogue’s Pre-School students and teachers. Your participation is also very important to help me to understand your child’s learning. I will be adding your comments and your child’s action onto her/his report card. I am hoping the Pine Gardeners will learn how to make the right decisions and take good action to embed into their learning and become well-rounded people.
Kindergarten inquiry and subject planners:
Chinese Language: In this section, we will learn Unit one and Unit two, lesson four.
Lesson 4 “男孩和女孩 Boys and Girls” In this lesson the children will learn how to write: 和 (and), 是 (is, yes),女 (girl), 孩 (child), 今 (today, now) , 年 (year) , 男 (boy).
We will continue to view from Lesson one to Lesson three. In this session, the children will learn how to make simple sentences to introduce herself/himself. By the end of these lessons, the children will understand and know how to use the vocabulary to construct their bios. Such as who is she/he, how old is she/he, her name/his name, she is a girl or he is a boy, and does she/he like etc… I will send the sentence structure samples home with your child for her/him to use as a homework guide sheet. With the text sentence practices and vocabulary increasing, the children will start to enhance their oral conversation in how to respond and say hello in Chinese, and how to count, how to introduce herself/himself, and write Chinese sentences. The children also will learn the Drama unit of inquiry related vocabulary. We will start to work on our second “My Word Bank Book” to use as a home guided reading. The word bank book will include Yes! Chinese, Lesson three and the Celebrations unit of inquiry key words.
English Language: As we’ve started our new unit on Drama, the students have learned what retelling a story means. They had an opportunity to discuss and retell the Chinese folktale performance of “White Snake.” I re-read the White Snake, and we brainstormed what happened in the beginning, middle and end of the story. Students were then able to draw the beginning, middle, and end scenes of the White Snake. Every student described their pictures to me as I wrote down what they each said. For this unit, we will focus on a variety of expressions we make and answer “how do we express ourselves in certain situations?” We are also going to read plenty of literature and focus on characters, setting and the sequence of the story (beginning, middle, and end). I will continue with pulling individual students to come read with me in the afternoons. In the morning, we will continue to have three centers focusing on different areas of English. Also, our word wall words are still growing and growing! I look forward for this semester. I have really enjoyed teaching your children!
Math: In this session, we will learn about Weight, Capacity, and Number Operations. The children also will learn how to recognize and write 轻 (light), 重 (heavy), 比较 (than), 多 (more), 少 (less), and 一样 (same) math characters.
Weight
· Identify, name, and compare objects that are lighter or heavier
· Compare the weights of objects relative to each other using the terms “heavier than” and “lighter than”
· Read a balancing scale to determine the weight of objects according to non-standard units of measurement
Capacity
· Identify objects that have capacity and objects that do not.
· Compare the capacity of various objects by identifying which can hold more and which can hold less
· Identify equivalent capacities.
· Measure the capacity of larger containers by utilizing the capacity of smaller containers.
Number Operations
Compare Sets
· Identify and describe sets of numbers and objects using the terms such as 'equal to' or are the 'same', 'more than' 'greater than', 'less than' or 'fewer than'
Comparing Numbers
· Recognize groups that are more, less or the same
· Compare the value of two sets of numbers within 10
· Compare numbers using more than, less/fewer than, or the same as
· Find “how many more, or less/fewer, than” through matching objects to find remainder (or one-to-one correspondence)
Social Studies and PSE: The children will learn theme transdisciplinary skills of the Communications—Presentation skills bydoing dramatic performance and working on presentation skills such as projecting their voice and showing effective body language eye contact. Reflective will be the leaner profile attribute we focus on. The children will think about the emotions and feelings of characters in stories and plays and will reflect on ways in which they have had similar feelings or experiences and how those have shaped their lives. The PYP Attitude focus is on Creativity & Cooperation. The children will develop their creativity in making a drama in the class with their own story and scenery, and they will develop their cooperation skills in working together to produce a drama as a class. In this unit, the children will create a production timeline for the play they will create that shows all the things that they will need to do from beginning to end including writing the script, designing the stage, etc. and putting the steps in chronological order. The children will learn how to develop some body gestures/movements, facial expressions or phrases, to demonstrate a particular emotion and to reflect on how they can relate to that particular emotion. They will learn how to describe their feelings. The children will also learn how to describe and present to the class the reasons they wanted to be a particular character in the play and how that character’s points of view differ or are similar to other characters. After performance, we will have a reflective discussion. We will reread our play story and then have a discussion about the story, the characters, the points of view; the parts the students like or do not like, and how they would change the story.
Geography: We will be reading many folktales, stories from different regions and cultures. The children will learn about where the stories come from and also can name some of the countries after this unit. We also will compare some similar folktales across cultures. Such as different cultural versions of “Cinderella.”
Art: The children will learn how to draw a stage design and costume design. We will review the costume in White Snake. The children will learn about the timeline of clothing from Ming Dynasty through current modern outfit style. They also will learn how to compare the Ming Dynasty costume style with the same period costume style in the West. The children also will learn how to draw play script books and also will learn how to make their own play costumes for their drama production.
Singing: The children will learn songs “Expressions / 情绪表达 and Stage / 舞台.”
