First grade teachers update parents at Curriculum Night 2016.
The 2016-2017 school year is officially underway! On Thursday night, elementary parents at Presidio Knolls revisited their early years by squeezing into child-sized chairs to hear updates on Mandarin immersion, STEM, units of exploration, and social and emotional learning, as well as to swap stories from summer vacation. For any parent whose child is an “unreliable narrator,” it was also a great opportunity to hear about the exciting learning going on during the first month of school.
Kindergarten parents heard an update on how their newly-big kids are adjusting to elementary school, from sharpening their Mandarin to making good social choices in the classroom. The kindergartners have had lots of fun exploring their new habitat, and they were thrilled to leave their work on the “Five Senses” unit for their parents to view.
First grade parents learned about the democratic process by which students determined class names and developed the class conduct agreement. Parents also saw some of the early project work from the “Maps” unit. With their excellent Mandarin and growing map-reading skills, the children are probably becoming very helpful backseat drivers.
In second grade, students have enjoyed diving back into their Mandarin immersion environment. Over the past two weeks, they’ve been voting on class names and classroom conduct rules, as well as working on self-portraits and art depicting summer adventures. Teachers previewed the first unit of exploration, “Our City,” which will entail integrated STEM, history, English, Mandarin and social justice learning.
In third grade, teachers shared inspiring learning from the first two weeks of school. Students have been discussing problems facing our city and ways they can make a difference as citizens. Students have also reviewed classroom conduct expectations (in Mandarin, of course) and talked about the best ways to work in groups and listen to what their classmates have to say. Like the other PKS classrooms, they also debated and voted on class names and themes. They look forward to beginning the “Government” unit of exploration, which will be especially interesting in light of the presidential election this year!
In our pioneer fourth grade class, parents got a sneak preview of this year’s units of exploration. Fourth graders will kick off the year by studying migration and immigration patterns throughout history in different parts of the world. After that, they will shift to a unit about the world’s greatest inventions, with specific focus on Chinese contributions. Just before winter break, they’ll start to analyze different economic systems around the world. Each of these integrated units of exploration will incorporate with math, science, history and literature -- and all will be in Mandarin.
Stay tuned for an update following our Preschool Curriculum Night next week!
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