Theme: OUTER SPACE

Dear Parents,

Have you ever wondered what is the great infinity and be-yond?

Buzz Light-year of the Toy Story movies always says that before he takes off.

Well this second term , the Mentari Preschool term theme will try to shed light on what is the great infinity and beyond. we hope to take your child to places —beginning with his own planet and towards the solar system which is the milky way. How exciting that would be.!

We hope you will be enthusiastic and excited as we are to bring to life all these new concepts with your child .

Have a good read!

Let’s blast off to term 2 !

Special points of interest: Second term activities all lined up

Pictures from last term activities

Tip: cool space facts

Upcoming events

Greetings 1

Theme: Outer 1-2

Cool space facts 3

Events of the 4

Flashback of ac- 5-6

For Your Information 7

Termly calendar 8

Inside this issue:

Term 2 Volume 3 Issue 2

Mentari Preschool Grand Surya Preschool Newsletter

SY 2011-2012

Let’s take off on an incredible journey to discover the secrets of the universe….

Where are we? The Earth, the planet where we live is in a part of space called Galaxy – a huge, swirling cloud of stars, dust and gas. Our Galaxy is called the Milky Way. It is so big that even if we could travel at the speed of light (299,000 km a second) it would take us 50,000 years to travel from one side to another. Scientists think that there are as many as one billion planets in our galaxy.

Earth Our Earth-Of all the planets in our solar system, Earth is the only one with life. It is the air and water on Earth and the heat and light from the sun that makes life possi-ble. The Earth is an amazing place. It has deserts, glaciers, mountains, cities, forest, riv-ers and oceans animals and of course…people. It takes 365 days for the earth to orbit the sun,

Outer Space

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Sun The sun is a star at the center of our solar system. It is the biggest, brightest and hottest object in the solar system and all of the planets orbit it. It is is a common middle-sized yellow star which scientists have named Sol, after the ancient Roman name. This is why our system of planets is called the Solar System The Sun is our closest star. It is a member of the Milky Way galaxy. The Sun is a yellow dwarf star, which means it is a medium size star. It is believed to be over 4 billion years old. The Sun spins slowly on its axis as it revolves around the galaxy.

Moon The moon takes about 28 days to orbit the Earth. Different amounts of sunlight shining on it mean that sometimes we see a full moon. Other time we see only a half moon or crescent shape

Solar system inner planets The four planets nearest the sun are called the inner planets.

Mercury-is the closest planet to the sun . A year on mercury is only 88 days long. Venus- is the closest planet to earth. It is the hottest planet in our Solar system because its clouds trap the Sun’s

heat. It shines very brightly in the sky. Earth-is the only planet we can live on. The other planets are too hot or too cold or do not have the right air for us to

breathe. Mars-is called the Red planet. It looks red because its surface contains lots of iron which has turned rusty.

Solar system outer planets There are five outer planets. These are the furthest planets from the sun Jupiter- is the biggest planet in our solar system. It is 1,300 times the size of earth Saturn=is surrounded by beautiful rings made from billions of tiny rocks covered in ice. Uranus-is very cold . The temperature there is about -210 degrees. It has winter nights that last 20 years . Neptune- is extremely stormy with winds that blow to 1,900 km/hour. Pluto-was regarded as a planet until 2006, when astronomers decided to rename it a ‘ dwarf planet’. It is much smaller

than the other planets

Looking into space Some things in space we can see from Earth, but most of them are so far away that you need a telescope to see them. These include shooting stars, constellations, galaxies, comets and gas clouds.

Astronauts People who travel into space are called Astronauts. You have to be very fit and have lots of special training to be an Astronauts.

Exploration Rockets are used to send people and spacecraft into space. They are extremely powerful machines that burn millions of tonnes of fuel to lift off. Rockets are used to launch space stations, satellites, space telescopes.

COOL space Facts

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How to Remember Planets in Order from the Sun Most of us tend to get jumbled up and forget the names of planets in order from the Sun. If you are wondering how to remember planets in order from the Sun, then there is one simple way. You can use a simple sentence mentioned below to remember the names of the planets in the solar system in order from the Sun.

My Very Educated Mother Just Saw

Uncle Nick.

M: Mercury

V: Venus

E: Earth

M: Mars

J: Jupiter

S: Saturn

U: Uranus

N: Neptune

Did you know? There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on earth

. Life is known to exist only on Earth, but in 1986 NASA found what they thought might be fossils of microscopic living things in a rock from Mars.

The full cost of a spacesuit is about $11 million although 70% of this is for the backpack and the control module.

· The Universe is probably about 15 billion years old, but the estimations vary.

· . One problem with working out the age of the Universe is that there are stars in our galaxy which are thought to be 14 to 18 billion years old – older than the estimated age of the Universe. So, either the stars must be younger, or the Universe older

If you fell into a black hole, you would stretch like spaghetti.

The opposite of black holes are estimated to be white holes which spray out matter and light like fountain.

Nicolaus Copernicus was the astronomer who first suggested that the Sun was the centre, and that the Earth went round the sun.

When Neil Armstrong stepped on the Moon for the first time, he said these famous words: “That’s one small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind.”

During the moon landing, a mirror was left on the Moon’s surface to reflect a laser beam which measured the Moon’s distance from the Earth with amazing accuracy.

The first rockets were made 1,000 years ago in China

Check this out with your child via the internet: http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/menu/space/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/solarsystem/http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/solar-system#

Buzzle,com

Four Little Astronauts Four little astronauts winking at me, (Hold up fingers as rhyme indi-cates.) One blasts off, now there are three. Three little astronauts with nothing to do, One blasts off, now there are two. Two little astronauts afraid of the Sun,

Activties for Term 2: Looking Forward to….

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SPECIAL EVENTS OF THE TERM

Holiday Fund Drive Christmas Fund Drive – on the last week of Novem-ber , the preschool will launch a Christmas fund drive to gather donations of pre-owned clothes and shoes , toys, books and stuff and even food that we can share to the needy children in the orphanages. Your support in this project is much appreciated.

15 December Christmas Party

The last day of our second term will end with happy smiles as the children will celebrate the closing of the holi-days with a class party . The day will be filled with games, songs and fun . Children can come to school wearing the holi-day colors of Christmas

December Concert (December 10)

Coming soon ,,, our December holiday show. The holiday is never complete without a show. We are preparing the kids for our annual show, Watch

15 December Release of Re-port Card and Folio

Your child’s progress as well as sample of his activities will be re-leased on this date. It will explain to you how much your child has pro-gressed in the different aspects of growth (social/physical and mental

skill) during the last six months.

October 28 (Friday)

United Nations International Friendship celebration -October is the month the whole world commemorates the founding of the United Nations. As in previous years , to celebrate it we have planned special activities. To add spice to the event, a costume dress up day is planned so the children will see costumes from different countries . On this day please let your child wear any cos-tume (rented/homemade) to represent any country from the following continent. Please refer to the note your head teacher sent you for country assignment.

If you have any artifact or oleh-oleh from any country you would like your child to share with his class please don’t hesitate to send it to us. We will take good care and return it promptly.

October 19 PTC (Parent Teacher Conference)

How did your child perform for this new school year ? It is time to meet the teachers and be updated about your child’s performance in his/ her level. We look forward to meeting you so that together, we can help and guide your child to reach his possibilities. We value your coop-eration in each activity we do here at the preschool. You will receive a note informing you of your scheduled 15 minute. Please advise the teacher beforehand if you cannot make it to this event.

August is always a month to celebrate and be especially proud to be Indonesian. The preschool had a Merah Putih day with saluting of the flag, delman rides for everyone . We went around the block and Mr Horse toured us tirelessly. We had cue api ,too! It was so deli-cious!!

We then had games in the Montessori room . Of course that day was an all Red and white Day! Cheers! Merdeka!

Flash Back...Flashback…..FlashBack

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The preschool parents came on this special day to meet the teachers, learn all about pre-school activities and curriculum as well as be familiar with the Montessori room . Thanks for coming to learn more about the pre-school—dear parents!!

Wowee! It’s field trip time at the Preschool . The Ki and K2 kids took a bus ride to visit the Planetarium. As the second term’s lesson is all about outer space.. a visit to see the night sky is a fitting treat! The Nursery and the toddlers – first time field trippers (LOL ) went to see the fabulous SeaWorld at Ancol ! Ohh !!! We saw lots of sea creatures .

We thank all the Toddler and Nursery parents who fully entrusted their kids to the teachers and waited eagerly at Sekolah for our return .

Field Trip for the Preschool

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Lebaran Party celebrated

FYI—- for your information :)

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Here at Mentari Preschool—all events are reasons to celebrate –so, we held a Lebaran party to celebrate with our Muslim friends, teachers and classmates.

The Marawis came to sing and dance for us and Teacher April of K1 even sang with them. Everyone came in long dress or pants and long sleeves and we ate yummy opor ayam and ketupak ! Before we had a vacation the Mentari students shared generously

Assessment Test for K2

We will have an assessment test for all those children who are interested in enrolling in SD Men-tari.

The assessment is taken to see whether your child is emotionally ready for Primary school or not and how best we can help to prepare him for the transition. Parents need not worry about teaching anything to their child before the test… -just let your child be healthy and happy and come to school as usual. We will send out forms within the term.

Homework Cards

Homework on Reading and Phonics cards as well as Math sheets are sent every week. The Nursery will be provided homework starting this term reading cards. Kindly help your child work on these so they can de-velop good study habits as early as now.

After School Activities

After school activities are offered every month for English Conversation, Reading and Math for Nursery, K1 and K2 levels. The classes run for 8 sessions (30 minutes each). Please talk to your head Teacher or Teacher Melanie for further inquires. Next session begins by November.

The Playroom is Open!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wow the 2nd room play-room is the kid of play-room I wanted to have as a child. LOL!! It has a mini kitchen that makes bubbling sounds, doctor’s corner, ironing area, car

mats and toys ! toys ! toys! We also have the soft toy pil-lows to roll, slide and tumble at. Pre-school also has it’s own Tv and video watching is doubly fun!

MENTARI PRESCHOOL TERMLY CALENDAR

2nd Term (17 October to 16 December 2011)

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday

17 Oct 

18 Oct 

19 Oct 

PTC Day

20 Oct 21 Oct 

Open House

22 Oct 

Open House

24 Oct 

25 Oct 

26 Oct 27 Oct 28 Oct 

UN Day

29 Oct

31 Oct 

1 Nov 

2 Nov 

3 Nov 

4 Nov 

5 Nov 

7 Nov 

8 Nov 

9 Nov 10 Nov 11 Nov 12 Nov

14 Nov 

15 Nov 16 Nov 17 Nov 18 Nov 19 Nov

21 Nov 

22 Nov 23 Nov 24 Nov 25 Nov 26 Nov

28 Nov 

29 Nov 30 Nov 1 Dec 

2 Dec 3 Dec 

5 Dec 

6 Dec 7 Dec 8 Dec 9 Dec 10 Dec

Holiday Show

12 Dec

13 Dec 14 Dec 15 Dec 

Class party/ Issuance of report Card and portfolio

16 Dec 17 Dec

Holiday Break for Preschool : December 16 – January 8,2012 

Classes for Preschool will resume on January 11,2012