Plum Garden Kindergarten’s October subject planners

Plum Garden Kindergarten’s first theme and October subject planners

Language
(October 7 – October 13) The children will continue to focus on how to put two or three characters together to become a meaningful phrase. The children will engage their Chinese phrase concepts through playing “Fish catching” and “Looking for a friend” games. We will make flash cards of classroom material names so that the children will be able to practice with vocabularies and phrases at home.
(October 14 – October 20) The children will learn how to add phrases together to become a sentence. The children will engage their Chinese phrase and sentence concepts through playing the games: “Fish catching” and “Looking for a friend”. We will have sentence exercise games during our center time. This exercise will help the children to understand Chinese sentence structures.
(October 21 – October 28) We will review lesson one “ 花开了 Flowers are blooming” and phrases exercises on this week. We will start lesson two “上学 Going to school”. Children will learn how to write: 二 (two), 上 (up), 太 (very), 心 (heart), 叫 (call, yell), 早 (morning, early), 我 (I, me), 笑 (smile, laugh), 开 (open, drive). Language is a daily lesson.

Math
(October 7 – October 13) We will review backwards counting. This week, we will learn how to compare different quantities of objects. The children will learn the concept that quantities won’t change no matter how different objects are. For example, the amount of 4 elephants is equal to 4 mice and also equal to 4 bees.
(October 14 – October 20) We will review how to compare different quantities of objects. This week, we will learn the relationships between neighboring/consecutive numbers. For example, 3’s neighbors are 2 and 4 because the number order is 2, 3,4. We will play the games: “Come help out” and “Walking with friends”. Therefore, the children will able to correctly identify the number of adjacent numbers.
(October 21 – October 28) This week, we will continue to play the game “Walking with friends” to review the relationships between neighboring/consecutive numbers. “Compound and break down” is our week math focus area. The children will learn that the number 5 can break down to 3 and 2 or 1 and 4. The children will also learn about the equal sign. In this math activity the children will use objects, scale, numbers, and games to help them find out their answers.

Social Studies and PSE
(October 7 – October 13) This week, we will summarize “Our classroom / 我们这一班” inquiry. We will review classroom corners, devices, materials, and our classroom agreements. Cooperation is the keyword for this inquiry; therefore the children will work with their teammates to inquire about what we have learned in this inquiry section and how we work together in school. They will present their ideas during choice time. At the end of this week, we will start our next inquiry “Play together / 一起来游戏.” We will inquire into:
• Why does the school need a playground?
• Why are there playground structures in our school?
• How do we play together by sharing and taking turns with playground equipment?
• How do we use playground structures in an appropriate way?
• Playground safety
• How do we solve conflicts at school?
(October 14 – October 20)
The children and I have done our classroom agreements. We will make classroom agreement banners during art class. Here are the results from our discussions.
• Keep the classroom clean and organized
• Use an inside voice
• Walk, don’t run
• Show respect to your peers, teachers, school staff, property, and materials
• Recycle—reuse, reduce, recycle, and raw
• Cooperation—working together
• Putting best efforts in your work to finish it
• Be responsible
• Be honest
• Be participative
• Be caring
• Be creative
• Be open minded
This week, we will continue to inquire “Play together / 一起来游戏.” We will learn how to name the playground structures in Chinese and how to share and take turns during playtime. We will also learn playground safety and solving conflicts. By the end of this week, we will inquire our last inquiry “A day of life at School / 在学校一天的生活.” We will learn about our daily lives at school. We will learn how to name all of the classes in Chinese and what our daily and weekly schedules are in Plum garden.
(October 21 – October 28) To inquire in what we will do this week, we will start “A day of life in school 学校里一天的生活”. We will inquire into:
• Getting ready to go to school. What do you do before school starts
• A day of life in school
This week, we will learn about the story of Halloween. I will also introduce our next theme—“Family Holidays” since we don’t have regular school next week. In following week, November 1 and 2 is All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day as know as Day of the Dead / Dia de los Muertos. Dia de los Muertos is the first holiday that we will discover in our “Family Holidays” theme.

Science
(October 7 – October 13) This week, we will still continue this very basic science project. Each child will adopt a Jade plant and then plant it in a jar of water. The children will watch how their Jade plants are growing. I hope that this science experiment will reflect to their body growing and the concept of Chinese lesson one “Flowers blooming / 花开了.”
(October 14 – October 20) Last week, each child was very excited to adopt a Jade plant. We hope our Jade plants will grow roots and will be ready to plant in a pot for Chinese New Year. In several Chinese regions, they called the Jade plant a Gold money tree.
We will inquire into the “Play together” inquiry; we will play blowing bubbles. We will discover what kinds of materials we can make out of bubbles. We will explore what is the surface that bubbles can be seen. We will find out how the water and detergent proportion can affect the making of bubbles. We will observe how water changes after being mixed with detergent. We will also explore what types of tools can be used to blow bubbles.
(October 21 – October 28) Last week, the children were blowing bubbles to find out their hypothesis of how water and detergent proportions can affect the making of bubbles. This week, we will continue to discover what types of tools can be used to blow bubbles.

Art
(October 7 – October 13) For this weeks’ art project, we will build our dream playgrounds. The children will learn how to use different shapes to build playground structures and equipment. I always like this project a lot because the children will learn the concepts of fractions and shapes in this artwork assignment.
(October 14 – October 20) We will be working on our classroom agreement banners.
(October 21 – October 28) We will make a paper pumpkin lantern.

P.E.
(October 7 – October 13) We will continue to learn how to bounce a ball in different ways and have bouncing ball relay games also. We will also learn how to throw a ball and catch a ball from their teammates.
(October 14 – October 20) These two weeks, we will learn how to shoot and kick a ball. Our PE class will divide into two sections, we will learn how to shoot a ball into a hoop in the first section and we will learn how to kick and catch a ball in the second section.
(October 21 – October 28) We will continue to learn how to shoot and kick a ball. Our PE class will divide into two sections, we will learn how to shoot a ball into a hoop in the first section and we will learn how to kick and catch a ball in the second section.

Singing
(October 7 – October 13) and (October 14 – October 20) We will continue to sing “My School / 我的学校.”
(October 21 – October 28) We will continue to sing “My School / 我的学校” and will learn a Halloween song “Halloween is coming / 万圣节来了.”