SK2 Weekly Updates! (Jan 20 – Jan 24)

As-salamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatu Allah Wa Barakatuhu

Dear Parents,

Here are our classroom updates:

Language Arts

In Phonics, we started “Jolly Phonics workbook 4.” In this workbook, we will be learning how to sound out Digraphs. Digraphs have two letters, but make one sound (e.g: ai, oa, ie, ee, or). We learned that when two vowels go walking, the first does the talking (So the spelling “ai” says the name of the first vowel, A. It is also called the long A vowel sound). This week we covered the digraphs oa (long ) and ie (long I). We have also been learning new sight words and digraphs in sentences. For more practice on long vowel sounds and other letter sounds, please go to this interesting website:

http://www.readingbear.org/

Reading: We re-read the book “Time to Sleep” and talked about places where different animals hibernate. Then, we made a T-chart as a class and took turns discussing about the animals who hibernate and animals who don’t. On Friday, we role-played the “Time to Sleep” book. Students played the role of animals in the book and pretended to hibernate. It was a very enjoyable activity so we decided to perform the play again next week, Insha-Allah.

 

Writing: We wrote a writing response for the question: If I was an animal, where would I want to hibernate in winter? Great work! SK2.

Oral Communication: One of the expectations for students in oral communication is to present their show & tell using proper presentation skills (tone, volume & eye contact). In Sk2, we have already started our Allah’s Creation-Living things diorama show and tell presentations. Students are doing a great job showing and presenting the habitat of their living things, Masha-Allah.

Literacy Tips:

·                     Read for 20 minutes with your child everyday.

·                     Practice finding two letter and three letter words with your child while reading at home.

·                     Go to starfalls.com and reading bears to enhance your child’s reading skills.

Math 

We started our new unit on Measurement, which is a fun unit. In this unit, we will be learning how to measure length, mass, area, temperature, and capacity. This week, we used non- standard units of measurement such as unifix cubes/linking cubes to first estimate. Then, the students measured different materials and objects from the class. We also estimated and then measured the heights of some friends in the class.

Math tips:   

• Use play dough to roll out two ‘snakes' of different lengths. Talk about one snake being ‘shorter' and the other ‘longer.'
• Play board games like Chutes & Ladders, Sorry!, Dominoes, etc. as they promote the development of counting skills, understandings of patterns, and numeral recognition.

Science 

In Science, we reviewed our winter theme and then made a craft of a bear hibernating in a cave.  

                    

Visual Arts

In Visual Arts, we are working on our snow globe using q-tip painting.

Islamic Studies

We read a story on Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H). We also read a story ”Hamza Learns Wudu” on Wudu (Ablution) and reviewed the steps of wudu  by singing a wudu poem called “This is the way we make wudu.”

International day;

Thanks for sending the yummy food from your country of origin. We had a great time eating and socializing with our friends, Alhumdulilah!

Jazakumullahu-khaira for your co-operation and support!

Mesage from Quran Teacher, Tr:Sahar

Assalaamu Alaycom,

Dear Parents
We started Surat Az-Zalzalah.

Jazaacom Allahu khayran
Tr:Sahar

SK2 Weekly Updates! (Jan 13 – Jan 17)

Assalamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatu Allah Wa Barakatuhu

Dear Parents,

Here are the updates:

Language Arts: In Phonics, we started Jolly Phonics workbook 4. In this workbook, we will be learning how to sound out Digraphs. Digraphs have two letters, but make one sound (eg. ai, oa, ie, ee, or). 

Rule: We learned that when two vowels go walking, the first does the talking (So the spelling “ai” says the name of the first vowel, A. It is also called long A vowel sound). 

This week we covered the digraph ai (long a) and the letter J.  We have also been learning new sight words that are now posted on our classroom door. For more practice on long vowel sounds and other letter sounds please go to this interesting website:

http://www.readingbear.org/

                                

In reading, this week our focus was how to make predictions regarding an unfamiliar text by doing picture walk, use cover pictures and/or the title to determine the topic and/or text form. We read the book “Time to Sleep” and predicted which animal will hibernate. We also read the book “Snowmen At Night” which became a class favourite and before reading, we predicted what snowmen might do at night. For this story, students then wrote a response for a writing prompt. Great work! SK2.

Literacy Tips: 

• Read for 20 minutes with your child everyday.
• Practice finding two letter and three letter words with your child while reading at home.
• Go to starfalls.com and reading bears to enhance your child’s reading skills.

Math: We started our new unit on Measurement, which is a fun unit. In this unit, we will be learning how to measure length, mass, area, temperature, and capacity. This week, we used a problem solving approach to compare different lengths using measurement terms (e.g. longer/shorter, taller/smaller). We did lots of hands–on learning  activities with a variety of materials and objects from the class  to compare different lengths.

Math tips:    

·         Use play dough to roll out two ‘snakes' of different lengths. Talk about one snake being ‘shorter' and the other ‘longer.'

·    Play board games like Chutes & Ladders, Sorry!, Dominoes, etc. as they promote the development of counting skills, understandings of patterns, and numeral recognition.

Science: In Science, we made a “KWL” chart and read another non fiction book “Let’s Look At Winter” and wrote many facts about Winter. We learned how to label a picture of a boy wearing different winter clothing. We also revisited  the living things unit. First, we read a wonderful book “Are You Living?” and then we learned how to do a presentation for our upcoming diorama “Show And Tell”.

Edible Snowman: On Friday afternoon, students have a blast when they had to make their own edible snowman with marshmallow,raisans,  pretzel sticks,and cake frosting:)
                

Visual Arts: In Visual Arts, we made two crafts: a wind sock craft for the “long A” vowel sound and learned how to make a snow globe using q -tip painting.

Islamic Studies: We read a story on Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H). We also watched a video on Wudu (Ablution) and then started to practice how to make wudu the way Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) taught us. We also practiced a “Wudu Poem. 



Quran Competition:

On Wednesday, Abraar school had its annual Quran competition. Congratulation to Youness and Mariam from SK2 for being in first and second place, 
Masha-Allah!.

Development Reading Assessment 2:

This year, from January 2014, Abraar School started a new reading assessment program, the DRA2 (Development Reading Assessment) in senior kindergarten. The purpose of this program is to identify student reading level, defined as a text and to evaluate their phonological awareness and phonics skills. I have been  conducting the assessment during one on one reading conferences as students read specially selected texts based on their reading level. After the assessment, students will be placed into groups for a guided reading program, Insha-Allah in February.

Jazakumullahu-khaira for your co-operation and support!

SK2 Weekly Updates! (Jan 06 – Jan 10)

As-salamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatu Allah Wa Barakatuhu

Dear Parents, Welcome back!

We started the first week of January in full swing after a restful winter break! Alhumdulilah.Students were very enthusiastic and geared up to participate in exciting and fun learning activities in our SK2 classroom.

Here are some updates from our class:

Language Arts: In Phonics, we did a review of what we have learned thus far. We  practiced initial sounds, CVC sight words, rhyming and the “–at” word family. I am very proud of the effort and dedication shown by SK2 towards becoming good readers, Great work SK2! Masha-Allah!. In addition to this, we also learned a new word family, the “–an” family. We did lots of literacy centers to practice reading and writing words from the “-an” family (An, Ran, Man, Tan, Fan, Dan, Pan, Clan, Ban). On Friday, we made a craft of a man who wants to eat all the words from the “–an” family:)


In reading, we started our week by reading a book “One Winter’s day”. it is a  lovely story about being kind to others and how kindness rarely goes unnoticed.

In shared reading, we read two poems about our two word families(My Cat, The Can Man). Sk2  have been learning how to orally retell simple events and simple stories in proper sequence. This time, we chose a book “The Mitten” by Jan Brett. After listening to the story, the students made props for it and practiced the re-telling of the story in proper sequence with their props. They did an excellent job by retelling the story to their reading buddies on Thursday, Mashallah. Way to go SK2!

Literacy Tips:

·                     Read for 20 minutes with your child everyday.

·                     Practice finding two letter and three letter words with your child while reading at home.

Math: We reviewed numbers 1-10 by practicing to write number words, tallies and ten frames. Please see the wonderful work by Sk2.

Math tips:    

·                     Have your child skip count by 10’s out loud.

·                     Play board games like Chutes & Ladders, Sorry!, Dominoes, etc. as they promote the development of counting skills, understandings of patterns, and numeral recognition.

Science: In Science, we started a new unit on “Winter.” We read a non-fiction book and brainstormed all about winter. We also read another book “The Snowy Day “ and wrote about our favourite winter activity.

                        

Visual Arts: In Visual Arts, we integrated language arts and science by participating in a snow glyph activity and made a snowman.

Islamic Studies: Sk2  started learning a new nasheed in the month of Rabi-ul-awal.

Here is the link for the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5vsICvAA8U

Next week, we will start to learn about wudu, InshaAllah.

 Jazakumullahu-khaira for your co-operation and support!