A great week before the holidays!

This week I am lucky enough to be going to Singapore for three days to attend a IB professional development. The conference will focus on IT and concept based learning. I had a chat to the children about not being at school on Friday but, I will be bringing lots of new ideas back to share with them after the Pchum Ben holiday. 

In class we have been making sure we can remember how to count all the way to 100 and some of us are even going beyond. Also how to count in twos, fives and tens to a hundred. We have lots of fun songs to help us remember. Not only have we been counting forwards but we are also working hard on counting backwards from 20 -0. It is a bit tricky!

Our Maths centres have all had an activity aimed at understanding the concept of subtraction. We have been using number lines to solve equations within 20, hopping and jumping our way to 20 and back, reading and solving words problems with both fish and apples. Finally making sure that all our written numbers are correct and facing the right way :-)

On Thursday afternoon we had a special treat. All of the Grade One teaching assistants organised a presentation to help the children understand the celebration that is happening in Cambodia next week - Pchum Ben. Ms Maden, Ms Chark Rya and Ms Nhoep put together a role play with some photos on the big screen to help set the scene. We saw them preform many of the different rituals that people do at the pagodas and were shown the kinds of offerings they make. The children had lots of questions and were really interested about the Cambodian people's beliefs.

The children had a great time and really enjoyed experiencing some of the culture that comes with living in Cambodia. Special thanks to the fantastic Grade One teaching assistants!

After our Pchum Ben celebrations we had a bit of fun creating and expressing the way we can feel. We made play dough expressions and then we had to try and match the same feeling on our own face. We had a great laugh doing this!

Thursday night was our Art and Music spotlight hosted by Ms Leigh and Ms Dana. Sadly I couldn't attend due to my travel to Singapore but by the look of the pictures from Ms Paula, it looks like the night was a great success.

Wishing you all a very happy holiday!