Tsukuba International Preschool

Happy New Year to all our TIP families! We wish you all the very best for a happy, healthy, safe and successful 2012. We also hope you have all been enjoying the holiday season and are excited to see your children back at school tomorrow.

December was a very short month at school, and we spent quite some time preparing for our winter performance. Children developed confidence to stand up in front of a big audience and sing nicely, along with using their sign language. They also thought about what the dog “Bingo” might look like, and painted some dog ears in the colour of their choice, to wear on our performance day. Our older students were also a great help, ensuring everybody came on and off the stage smoothly. Thank you to all of the parents that were able to come along and watch the children perform! Please find a short descriptor of other things we got up to at TIP in December.

We will also continue to have the wonderful help of Ms. Meirav when we go back to school on Tuesday afternoons (P1-P3) and a small block of time on Thursdays (P2 & P3).

Art Inquiry

In the spirit of winter, children learned how to make colourful snowflakes by folding origami paper and cutting it creatively. We used these to decorate large message cards for two of our former classmates, who are now living in Singapore. Children shared a winter story and also looked at some pictures of snowmen. After this, children practised good pencil grip, drawing and cutting skills, in designing their own snowman on paper, cutting it out, pasting on coloured construction paper, and using their paintbrush in a different way to add falling snow and frost with paint. In addition, children made some snowman from oil clay, using small clay tools to cut and carve, and mould the cold, hard clay with their little hands. If you have some clay or play dough at home, this is an excellent resource to help children build strength in their fingers and hands, as well as being a fun sensory experience for them.

TIP students also made a seasonal wreath from kiwi vine which we took from the garden, and participated in making Christmas tree decorations for the TIS IIAS Christmas tree.

Literacy

Some of our favourite shared reading stories during December were “Clifford’s first Christmas” and “Clifford’s first snow day”. During shared reading time we have been focusing on main characters, empathising with characters, and relating stories to our own world (family, celebrations, etc.). We also began reading the Oxford Reading tree series, first with a large flip book, where children were encouraged to read the pictures, and listen and check their understandings. We also became familiar with some of the characters, such as Floppy, Chip and Biff. Each week we are reading one large book during shared reading time, and some P3 students have begun small focused reading groups with this series

During literacy workshop time, there has been a notable increase in children are continually choosing to make picture books, with almost all P2 & P3 students know independently making their own books. Children have been encouraged not to rush these, and are taking their time to continually go back and work on them each literacy session.

Inquiry through the language of maths (P2 & P3)

During December, P2 and P3 children practised preposition words while playing our blindfold “stick the nose on the snowman” game. We also started number exploration and learned the rhymes “5 little ducks went out to play”, “5 little monkeys jumping on the bed”, and “10 little teddy bears lying on the bed”. P2 Students have been recognising, tracing and writing numbers 1-5 with different materials, as well as drawing numbers of items to match numbers, matching picture and numeral cards, and ordering number cards 1-10. P3 students, with the addition of some P2 students, have been ordering number cards 1-10, tracing and writing numbers 1-12 (and higher) using different materials, and matching numeral and picture cards, 1-10. Next, P3 will start to look at number words, and P2 will continue their number recognition, ordering and writing through various activities and games.

Ordering numbers

Here are some ideas of how you can help your children’s number skills grow, at home or when you are out and about, no matter what stage they are at:

• Say the numbers on a car’s license plate
• Practise your home telephone number
• Count how many items are in your supermarket basket
• Read the numbers on the price tag of something at the convenience store
• Ask your child to help set the dinner table, and have them tell you how many of each plate, chopsticks, etc they will need
• Sort their toys into groups by colour, type, or some other rule. How many are in each group? Which has more? Which has less?

During December, we practised “Chime In”, which we sang beautifully with Grade 1, 2 and 3 students from TIS, at the Winter Performance.

Looking forward…

- Thank you for your understanding and cooperation in taking care of all of the things we sent home before the winter break. This is just a reminder list of the things that children will need to bring back to school on January 5th, 2012:

• Emergency supplies in a ziplock bag (no bigger than A4 size)
• Indoor shoes, hats (winter hats are OK!), Paint shirt
• Cup, toothbrush, pillow and blanket (if your child usually has these items at school)

- Please bring along a small box (such as a tissue box) by January 6th, for your child to make a post box from, for our upcoming Unit of Inquiry focusing on communications

- Also, please keep an eye out for a letter in your child’s message bag regarding contact information of people we can get in touch with during our Communications inquiry

- “Show & Tell” topics for next month, with weeks starting on the dates below, are:

• January 9th – No “Show & Tell”
• January 16th – My Winter holidays (Students who are scheduled for Monday may bring on Tuesday or Wednesday)
• January 23rd – My favourite book (if possible, a reasonable length picture book that we can share with the class)
• January 30th – Something special about my home country(ies)
• February 6th – My favourite Letterland character

Important dates

Thursday January 5th – Back to School

Monday January 9th- National and School Holiday (Coming-of-age Day)

Wednesday January 11th- School tours, 9am

Friday January 13th – Open school Day 9:00-10:30am, Parent circle, 10:30-11:30