Aalva Class 2015-2016: Africa Experts

Even though this week was a short week, we still had an exciting and busy week in the Aalva class! To start off our week we had a videographer come in and actually film our class for a new ECERS 3 teacher training video. The videographer set up in our classroom and filmed our regular day. It was really exciting to watch the kids interact with him and ask him questions about his work. We all learned a lot about the process of filming from him being with us. The video did not interrupt our normal routine which was GREAT and we had a lot of fun smiling and posing for the video :)

We have still been going full speed with our exploration of Africa. I am thinking we will be wrapping up our study at the beginning of next week. This week we were given newspapers from a teacher that visited Africa over the summer. We actually got to look at newspapers from Zimbabwe!! We spent some time one morning looking at the newspapers and reading headlines. Each child was given a section of the paper to browse through and I have to say they LOVED it! They were so excited to show us what they were learning while reading the paper. After each child had time to look through their section of the paper we met in a large group and talked about what we learned. Later during center time we let students cut out parts of the paper they really like and glue it on a poster board.

We have become experts on lions and Africa over the past few weeks. As experts, we decided that we should share the information we have learned with others. We talked about the fact that scientist’s research and when they make discoveries they share that knowledge with others. That's why we know so much about the world...someone discovered it and they shared it with us! To share our facts we thought it'd be best to write a book. We started by talking through non-fiction books with each child. We discussed the different parts of a book and their function. We discussed the difference between fiction and non-fiction and why each was important. Each of our books consisted of 4 pages worth of facts. We became the author and illustrator of our individual book. We were careful to fill the pages with correct information. If we couldn't remember something we learned, we dove back into our books and searched for answers.

The process for writing our books has taken this entire week and will continue into the first part of next week. We truly believe that the PROCESS is what is important! Writing a book on the preschool level may seem like a simple process, but it is actually very complex. Children engage in all the same kinds of thinking that proficient writers engage in as they write. The process of making a book requires a writer to create something in their mind and then use writing and/or drawings to capture their ideas. First we talked with the kids individually and let them tell us facts about that they have learned while studying lions and Africa. Then we spent time with each child writing their book. We talked about what the pages should look like, what information should be added in our book, and how to organize everything. I am so impressed with how they have been coming along. The attention to detail is amazing. They really got excited about being experts and they took it seriously. They carefully wrote their words and made sure to draw pictures that matched their facts. They spent a lot of time working on their books. And that's ok! We were glad they got so involved. We'll be hanging them up in the hallway as we complete them so make sure to give them a look.

Love, Ms. Michelle

Approaches to Learning:

Demonstrate growing ability to predict possible outcomes based on prior experiences and knowledge.

Demonstrate increasing ability to use prior knowledge to understand new experiences.

Represent prior events and personal experiences in one or more ways.

Try to solve problems encountered in play.

Demonstrate an increasing ability to follow through with tasks and activities.

Social & Emotional:

Interact easily with familiar adults by engaging in conversations, responding to questions and following direction.

Participate in group life of class.

Demonstrate strategies to join play group with adult support.

Recognize effect on others of own behavior most of the time.

Manage transitions positively when told what to expect.

Language & Literacy:

Show interest in informational texts about familiar objects.
Retell one or town events from a story read aloud.
Begin to identify significant words from text read aloud.
Explore books independently.
Incorporate information from informational texts into play activities.
Begin to understand the relationship between oral language and written language.
use drawings, letters, or words to create narratives about people and things in their environment.

Mathematics: