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Personal inquiry in KZE…

The following video document part of the inquiry cycle that KZE students went through during their personal inquiry journey. One day, Ms. Tasha read us the story of “How to Catch a Star” by Oliver Jeffers. After the story, through discussions, individual questions emerged. These wonders motivated students to go into deeper investigation. They came up with a plan/strategy to try to find out answers, they adjusted their thinking after trying, they presented their findings proudly. After reflection, they all agreed that they enjoyed the process. They became more confident on finding out more unknowns. They are very excited about where their next inquiry journey will take them.

https://animoto.com/play/4XFL0MvEdUVhAKF6tZnMOg

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For the week of December 1 to December 5…

Unit of Inquiry:

For the past six weeks, KZE students had many opportunities to inquire into how communities provide services designed to meet people’s needs.   As we wrap up the “Community” unit this week, students reflected on what they had learned on the topic.  Here are some of the highlights:

  • People need a community to live in so that they can have different services nearby. – Max
  • People need food.  If they don’t have food, they will die. – Fatima
  • We need jacket because when it is cold outside, the jacket will keep us warm. – Freddie
  • We need water to drink so that we won’t die. – Safiya
  • We need trees so we can breath. – Charlie
  • We need different services in our community.  – Hannes
  • We learned that we need to plan when we built our model community. – Daisy
  • We learned that we should work as a team when we made our model community. – Emerson

Sharing our published “True Stories”
For the past two weeks, KZE students practiced writing “true stories”. They tried to think of something that happened or that they did. Next, they told whatkaymbu-image-20141204-1214 happened with pictures and words. We reminded ourselves that we should always try to tell WHO is in the story, WHERE the story takes place, and WHAT is happening.  We practiced telling the story in a storyteller’s voice and used speech bubbles to remember what people said. They were very proud to share their published books with their reading buddies. GO KZE writers!

 

Math – 3D shapes

kaymbu-image-20141204-1215During math, we reviewed some basic two dimensional shapes before introducing basic three dimensional shapes including cone, cuboid, pyramid, cylinder, cube, and sphere. We will continue to reinforce the following in the coming weeks: correctly name shapes regardless to their orientations or overall size, Identify shapes as 2D (flat) or 3D (solid), building shapes, compare 2D and 3D shapes and describe their similarities/differences as well as other attributes.

 

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Math – Operations and Algebraic Thinking…

During math, KZE students are exploring some basic concepts of operations and algebraic thinking.  We are learning to represent addition using objects, fingers, drawings, explanations, and equations.  We will continue trying to solve addition word problems by using drawings to show our work.  We also are finding different ways to make 10 with the help of our ten frames.  We are using colored counters to represent addition facts to 10.  We used two different colors of counters to fill the ten frame, say the number sentence, and used numbers and symbols to represent the solution.  We will continue to practice these skills in the coming weeks.

https://animoto.com/play/eHIRs2xW5grsshqwE5gZ1A

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Dramatic Play…

Restaurant

We are working at the restaurant. People come to eat. We made food for other people. Mrs. Zurfluh was one of the customers. We took orders from customers. We made our own menu so people can order food. Emerson was the cashier, Daisy and Lisa were the chefs, Michael and Max were the customers, and Kyle was the waiter…

https://animoto.com/play/aAbVXCyWLvH1NWedyx21wA

 

School
We are playing school. We took turn to be the teacher. We did some writing, drawing. We had PE lesson. We did pushups, jumping jacks, crab walks. We read some books. We learned how to draw a person. We did some counting. When Lizzy finished showing us how to draw a person on the board, we tried to draw a person by ourselves.

https://animoto.com/play/XDytkt25bnXtzckQoEiRBQ

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Halloween Party…

KZE students had a great time at the Halloween party.  A big “THANK YOU” to Ms. Tina (Lizzy’s mom) and other parents who helped organizing the party.

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Unit of Inquiry – Community…

kaymbu-image-20141022-1306KZE students had a conversation about what we need when we go swimming.  This conversation led to more discussions about the concept of “Need”.  Students drew pictures of things they think they need.  Then we sorted the pictures into several categories.  We decided that some categories are important, but some we are not so sure about.  We will continue to find out…

Pokrovsky Hills Community Walk:

KZE went on exploring the Pokrovsky Hills community next to our school with the questions of “What jobs do you see people do in a community?” and “What do we need in a community?”.

 

https://animoto.com/play/W1mxUK0UdaJVVrYjCJE06Q

After our trip, we did some reflection.  We brainstormed and created this list of what we need in a community:

Places: house, doctor’s office, store, school,  office,  hospital, airport, zoo,  fitness center, aquarium, parking lot, and playground.

Jobs: security guard, plumber, cleaner, fire fighter, police,management people to help us, garbage collector, construction worker, and dentist.

Things: car, map,  tree, food, water, transportation, clothes,  sign, traffic light, road, and sidewalk.

This list will help us when we plan our model community.

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Collaborative inquiry into math…

KZE students had a discussion about how we can use counting skills in our daily lives. We came up with a list of things that we can count. We voted the three things we like to count the most and formed our inquiry groups. Each group came up with a plan/strategy first and then went to work. After that we came back and shared what we had discovered.

Group 1
Our first plan: two people recorded the first floor, two people recorded the second floor, two people recorded the third floor and all of us recorded the fourth floor.  When we came back together and tried to find out the total number, we noticed that everybody had a different total.  We realized that our first plan didn’t work well. So we came up with another strategy. All of us recorded every drinking fountain that we saw.  When we came back after the second try, most of us had the same total: 20.  We decided that our second plan worked better. It helped us to find the correct answer.

http://youtu.be/KKYsQpG0lys

Group 2
Our plan was: use two different strategies to be sure we count the classrooms in ES properly.  We decided to put sticker on the schedule of each classroom in ES. Then we took those stickers off and count them. We got 34 stickers.  We also used the other strategy at the same time: one of us was writing down the numbers of the classrooms. Then we counted the numbers and got 31. So we decided to make double check with the numbers. We wrote down the numbers of the classrooms, count them and got 35. Then checked thoroughly and found out that we put in the list one number twice. So we got 34 numbers of the classrooms.  Our strategy with the stickers worked properly from the first time, but the strategy with writing the numbers needed the double check.

http://youtu.be/jaWl86QV5yY

Group 3
Our Plan: We decided the safest way to count cars in the Main Car Park was to work as team and stay together counting only the cars on the left side where there was a sidewalk. We used tally marks to record the number of cars and we also put a tile in front of each car as we went along to check our answer on the way back.  Once we reached the end of the sidewalk we counted up our tally marks and had a total of 32 cars. We walked back picking up and counting the tiles we had left behind. One car had gone so although we counted 32 tiles, there were really only 31 cars left in the car park at the end of the exercise.

http://youtu.be/kV_mx0exOTM

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It’s OK!!

During our “Who We Are” unit of inquiry, we talked about similarities, differences, and acceptance.  We read the book “It Is OK to be Different” by Todd Parr.  We decided to make our own “It Is OK…” book.  Each student made a page and Mrs. Zurfluh recorded our reading. We decided to make a cover and a back page.  We wanted to make it because we like making books. We also want to let other people know that “It Is OK to be Who You Are”.   It took us three days to make this book.  We like our book.  We would like to share with our parents and other Kindergarten classes.  We are also hoping that we can share our book during one of our assemblies.

http://youtu.be/3SMczGqUyso

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Measurement and “Who We Are”…

measurementWhat did we learn about measurement…

  •  We measured people and we measured other objects.
  • Objects and people can be different sizes.
  • We always have to check twice after we measured.
  • We always need to measure from one end to the other end.
  • We always need to count slowly when you finished.
  • Take your time to measure.
  • The things that you are measuring with has to be the same.
  • We can use objects like crayons, cubes, links, plastic foots, paper, books, markers, erasers etc. to measure other larger objects.
  • We can use everything to measure.
  • WE HAVE FUN MEASRUING STUFFS…

Unit of Inquiry – Who We Are

Students finished sharing their “About Me” box.  Thank you for helping them with this project.  They did a great job sharing and showing who they are and how they are unique.  kaymbu-image-20140925-1117We discussed in depth about what feelings we have and how to express them.  Students applied their writing skills to create their “My Feelings” Book.  This process increases their awareness of their emotions.  It laid a good foundation for helping students find appropriate ways to express themselves.