Tsukuba International Preschool

Lunch recess

During November, TIP students enjoyed the changes of season with some regular walks in the forest, admiring the changing colours of the leaves. We had a few more holidays than usual, due to two national holiday days, as well as some Staff Professional Development days. Ms. Skye and Mrs. Hiromi have lots of new ideas after participating in an in-school PYP workshop, a PYP Early Years Job-alike at Tokyo International School, and a day observing Montessori Kindergarten classes at Seisen International School.

TIP Students also had a health check done this month, the results of which Parents should have received already.

Now that it’s getting quite cool, please ensure your children wear plenty of warm clothes along to school, as we still have outdoor play time and PE classes during the winter months. Stay warm and take care!

"T is for Tiger" - Show and Tell time

Unit of Inquiry

Some of the sensory experiences we enjoyed this month included making & tasting lemonade, picking kiwi fruits from our tree, feeling, smelling and tasting kiwi fruits, and exploring our school and toys with magnifying glasses and coloured lenses. This has been one of our favourite centres this month! We also began to think about differences in peoples sensory abilities, and how deaf and blind people can communicate. We played games such as “Blindman’s Buff”, and learned some sign language. We have also brainstormed some ways that we can take care of each other at school in regards to our senses.

We have learned a sign language song for the winter festival, and have been practising and teaching our younger classmates the actions.

Art Inquiry

We continued mixing colours his month, and observing colour changes in our environment. We made some nice autumn trees by mixing paints on our hands, and painting trees that reflected what we saw in our nearby forest. We also experienced texture through leaf rubbings, of different sized shapes we found in the forest.

We were also very lucky to have a guest Teacher early in November, that taught us how to make some very lovely bead rings for our Mummies or sisters. Thank you, Mrs. Nerve!

Literacy

This month in P2 and P3 literacy, we have started to focus more on making stories. We have looked at beginning, middle and endings of stories, and made a class book. P2 and P3 children now choose between journals, making story books, or making stories on the felt story boards during literacy workshops, and work on these independently. We have quite the confident and creative little authors on our hands! Students are then invited to share their stories they have made with the class, and peers listen in with enthusiasm and ask questions. This has led to early editing practises, where children are adding more detail to stories based on questions and comments from the class. I am very proud of the way they listen and share ideas openly and with confidence, yet in a caring and respectful manner. They always sign their books too, just like Eric Carle! Keep up the great work, TIP!!

In reading, P2 & P3 have continued to build stamina and learned the EEKK (elbow, elbow, knee, knee) position for sharing books and reading nicely with a partner.

Phonics sounds that we have learned and practised this month are Ll, Hh, Tt, Ii, Rr, Pp, Bb and Uu. One of the students favourite activities for early finishers this month has been Pictionary, where children focus on the letter sounds of the week, and have to guess what the picture is their friend draws.

P1 students have shown lots of progress in using their fine motor skills this month. With each phonics letter sound explored, children made something from origami paper that began with the focus letter sound. They have also concentrated on colouring neatly our Letterland work pages.

Strengthen our little hands with some oil clay activities

Inquiry through the language of maths (P2 & P3)

During maths inquiry this month, students learned about different kinds of simple and growing patterns. They chose activities during centre time that included beading, stamping, shape boards, blocks, cutting & pasting, drawing and colouring, as they extended and made new patterns.

Making patterns with shapes

We also practised left and right through songs such as “hokey pokey”, and made a left and write paper hand to put on our desks as a remonder of which is which. Next month we will look at other preposition and direction words.

PE 

During Monday PE classes this month, we warmed up with some yoga stretches and various full body movements such as hopping, jogging, jumping, and so on. We then rotated around three PE centres each week, in which children practised some gross motor activiies. Students were also encouraged to work cooperatively within their group, helping younger students when neceassary, and leading the group from one centre to the next. Focus activities, (modified for different age groups slightly), in each PE centre this month were:

- throwing up and catching a large ball

- throwing and catching a large ball with a partner

- bouncing a large ball on a hard surface and catching it

- individual jump rope

- hopscotch

- kicking a soft ball into a goal

Japanese with Mrs. Hiromi

During November, all of our TIP students practised their paper dying, cutting and folding paper (origami) skills, while learning about two important cultural events. The first, Shichi-go-san, is a day that parents wish for a long and healthy life for their children. These days, children are given chitose ame, a long, thin candy that symbolises longevity and healthy growth. TIP students each made a candy bag for their chitose ame.

Candy bags that students made for "Shichi-go-san"

The second day we learned about was Kinroh-kansha-no-hi, a day for giving thanks to people. TIP students made a thank you card for the staff of TIS, and also for our bus drivers, to thank them for all their hard work and taking care of us. The children talked about why theses people are important to us, and after making the cards, presented them in person.

Japanese with Ms. Akane Kono (P3)

P3 students had three Japanese classes with Ms. Akane Kono this month. Each lesson, Akane shares a Japanese children’s story and uses these as a basis for developing students listening comprehension as well as vocabulary building. The stories and vocabulary that were focussed on this month are:

- どうすればいいのかな? (How should we do it?) → We learned lots of clothing words such as “shirt”, “hats”, “shoes” as well as how we say “wear”, depending on which part of our body we wear it. We also learned about tools around us after this story, such as “clock”, and “oven”.
- ぐりとぐらのあいうえお (Aiueo with Guri and Gura) → This book uses words that start with each hiragana character,  a, i ,u ,e  and o.
- あすはきっと(Surely tomorrow) → This book uses expressions of time such as “today”, ” yesterday”, “tomorrow”, “morning” and “evening”, as well as greeting words such “good morning”, “good night”, and so on.

Students have also continued hiragana recognition activities with picture cards and worked cooperatively in teams to put together puzzles. We began pre-writing activties, such as following instructions to draw different kinds of lines that will help us with writing hiragana characters. Students have also begun to recognise and think of beginning hiragana sounds of words, in particular, ones that our classmates’ names begin with.

Violin with Mr. Craig Coleman (P2 & P3)

In November for violin class, we continued practicing correct posture for holding the violin. The music from Tchaikovsky’s Ballet music “Nutcracker” was choreographed using the violin to understand what each part of the body does to hold the violin in it’s correct position. Several chants were reviewed, such as Hot Cross Buns, Mary had a Little Lamb and Old Macdonald, to practice our finger birdies 1 & 2.

This past month we have been exploring the area of “Our Senses” through music in a variety of ways.  We listened to sounds associated with the seaside and continued to learn and sing the song “What Can you See/Hear/Smell/Feel and Taste”.  We performed actions to accompany the song and talked about the different sounds that we hear all around us inside the classroom and when we go outside.  We listened to a recording called “Sounds” and the children were asked to describe what each of the sounds in the music was being made by.

The children have continued to enjoy moving and dancing with scarves to music.  This month they drew pictures, shapes and lines to describe what they heard in two contrasting pieces of music by Edvard Grieg: “Hall of the Mountain King” and “Morning”.

To prepare for the Winter Festival, we have begun practicing the song “Chime In” and have also used hand bells to accompany our singing.

Our classroom helper leads us for "Roley Poley" before we eat our snacks

Looking forward…

- As it’s starting to get quite cold now, please ensure your children come along to school with warm clothing, especially a coat for when we go outdoors. Also, please feel free to send in a winter hat for your children to wear during outdoor recess time.

- Please refer to Mrs. Handa’s email regarding the winter performance and complete it to say whether or not you will be attending

- For our winter performance, we will not have any special costume. Although, we do ask that children think about what colour a dog might be, and try and wear this colour clothing on the day. Please ensre that it is something that children feel comfortable in, as for many it will be the first time to stand in front of an audience and perform.

- There will be no “Show & Tell” in December

- Children will have quite a lot to carry home on the last day of school for this year. Please send an extra bag along with your children to carry these things in. This is particularly important for children commuting by school bus and train.

Walking the catwalk during dressup time

Important dates

Thursday December 8th – Open school day & Parent circle (pm)

Monday December 12th – TIP Student Portfolios due back

Wednesday December 14th – Volunteer day (AM), Winter festival (PM)

Friday December 16th – Indoor shoes, hats, cups, toothbrushes, blankets & emergency supplies go home

Friday December 17th to January 4th – Winter Break

Thursday January 5th – Back to School