Friends International and Parachutes!

We started the morning with another fantastic guest speaker. This time we had James Sutherland from Friends International share with us the amazing things that Friends are doing for Cambodia. Some of the children were all ready very familiar with the restaurants and shops that Friends have and were very excited to hear that they would be making some magic beads.

The children got to have a go at making their own magic beads.

- Quotes - 

"It looks so easy but it is really, really hard"

"The people who make these beads are really clever"

"These beads are so beautiful, I can't believe they are made from magazines!"

"I like that these beads are magic!"

?? Please ask your child why the beads are magic ??

The idea behind the beads being magic was explained by James. 

- The beads are magic because they can transform someones life. They get a job, they can make money for their family and send their children to school for an education. They can learn new skills and work from home and still be able to care for their family -

Such a great cause to support and the jewelry is beautiful.

Have a look at us trying our best to make beads!

Parachutes

Last Friday we made a figure of ourselves. They were then attached to a plastic bag to make a parachute. The parachutes were awesome!! We decided to drop our parachutes from the balcony above our classroom. First we went in groups of 4 to see how well they flew. They flew the best when there was a little bit of wind! Then we decided to all go as a class and let our parachutes go. We had to do a lot of chasing once we came down from the balcony ;-)

Again another easy way to reuse our plastic bags and reduce the waste going into the landfill.

The week has started....

This morning we were treated to a guest speakers from ISPP. Taivan, a student in Grade 2/3 came to talk to the Kindergarteners about the action he took to help Cambodia tidy up the environment. Taivan takes a ferry across the river from his home to school. He noticed that there was rubbish everywhere and the reason for this was because there were no rubbish bins on any of the ferries. Taivan, with help from his peers and family organised rubbish bins to be bought from Cintri, decorated them bright and bold and placed onto each of the ferries. They put signs on the bins to encourage people to stop throwing rubbish in the river and put it in the bin. The bins are a great success and if you ever happen to be on one of the ferries do look out for one of Taivan's rubbish bins! 

It was so great for the children to see that someone from our school has taken action and they asked very good questions. I am looking forward to hearing all the ideas our kindergarteners now have on what kind of action they want to take to help Cambodia's environment. 

Book Day

This Thursday April 2nd ISPP is celebrating book day. This day is very special because it is International Children's book day and Hans Christian Anderson's birthday. 

The children are all encouraged to come to school dressed up as a favourite character from a story and bring the book if they can. 

Stuck for ideas? Here is a great website for inspiration.

Click on the link below:

World Book Day Costumes

Student - Led - Conferences

Outstanding performance!

If you made it to our assembly today, I'm sure you will agree with me..... that the children did an absolutely brilliant job!! I am so very proud of them all for using their big voices and being so confident on stage in front of a lot of people. 

All credit for the photos goes to Belinda Jones. Thank you so much :-)

More to come on Monday

Buddies

We had a great time with our buddies today. We have been talking about Earth Hour which is tomorrow Saturday 28th from 8:30pm to 9:30pm.

Please look at this video to learn more about this fantastic cause.

We made posters with our buddies to promote Earth Hour and why saving our Earth is important! We think that this is a great way to take action towards doing our part for the Earth. If you and your family are taking part in Earth Hour please send us in a picture of what you did for that hour to help the Earth. 

Recycling our recycling!

This afternoon we had a very productive time. We made flowers from plastic bottles and old cardboard boxes. We made a rubbish picture that actually looked really great! And we made some very cool parachutes. On Monday we're going to try out our parachutes by dropping them off the top of the bridge. We are very excited to see what happens. We will keep you posted!

We had Anton who was very busy at home thinking up ideas on recycling and brought to school a picture that he found. The picture is made out of all sorts of technology gadgets that have been recycled to create a dragon. He then decided to draw his own dinosaur (his favourite) out of all sorts of things that he can recycle. What a fabulous thinker!!


















Keep posted for next weeks photos of the parachute drop and our action plans.

Have a great weekend everyone and don't forget Earth Hour tomorrow between 8:30pm and 9:30pm!

We are soooo busy

We have been so busy and worked so hard for our assembly tomorrow! We are all very excited to share it with you. The children have really done themselves proud with all their hard work. In between practicing for our assembly we have still been learning lots. 

In Maths we are continuing to tell the time to the hour and half past. We have had great fun making watches, clocks and marking the correct times on clocks. But our absolute favourite is definitely "What's the time Mr. Wolf!"

Also we have a great dice game where we are adding or subtracting two numbers and trying to cover our friends numbers up first :-)

Mystery Reader

Another very big thank you to Thilde Skaanning (Anton's Mum) for coming in and not only reading us a fabulous book but also planting some flowers seeds with us! Worked out very well with our current unit of inquiry. We planted Sunflowers and Petunias, so fingers crossed we will see them start to grow in a few weeks. 

Thilde read - "The Tiny Seed" written by Eric Carle. The story tells of a seeds journey into becoming a flower but all the obstacles that seeds face along the way to growing fully into flowers. 

We used egg cartons and coffee cup holders from our recycling boxes to plant the seeds in. Great to see the class using all of the recyclables in such environmental friendly way!

Floyd has also been very busy over the past few weeks at home creating amazing ships that pick up rubbish and recycle it, as well as suck all the pollution out of the air. The children loved seeing his creations and had so many question for him about his awesome ideas. Thanks for sharing with us Floyd!

Don't forget Assembly tomorrow - Friday 27th March at 7:45 on the basketball courts.

Hope to see you there.

Gentle Reminder

Our Kindergarten assembly is this Friday 27th. 

The children are practicing very hard and are very excited to show you all their hard work. 

On Friday could you please help me and have the children dress in a  certain colour for me? 

If your child is in the alien dance - can they please wear their PE shorts and a dark blue t-shirt.

If your child is in the magic woods - can they please wear a green t-shirt and if possible green shorts/trousers.

They can bring their PE kit to school and once the assembly is finished they can get changed.

Thanks so much and hope to see you on Friday.

Things just keep getting greener....

This morning we had two fabulous guest speakers from Funky Junk come and talk to us about their amazing recycled products. 

They shared with us how the products are made and how they are helping the environment. All the products are made from plastic bags! 

This is helping to keep a huge amount of waste out of the landfills and reusing them for beautiful furniture, bags, pencil cases and many other things. We learnt that one small cushion takes 600 plastic bags to make and the large cushions are 1200 plastic bags! 

Take a look at the slideshow:

Poems

After our guest speakers we went back to our class and talked about different ways to be 'green'. Then I asked the children just about the colour green. What does the colour make them think about? What things are green? 

I showed the children a great poem about the colour yellow. 

Yellow

Yellow tastes like a sweet pineapple,

Yellow smells like a yucky banana,

Yellow sounds like a flying duck,

Yellow looks like a shiny sunset,

Yellow feels like a hard drink bottle,

Yellow is my favourite colour.

Then in groups the children were given a piece of paper with the word green in the middle. They then had to draw or write all the things they knew were green or made them think of green. They came up with some many fantastic things and next week in the same groups they will be writing a poem together. I am really excited to see what they come up with.

Buddies

Our buddies came to visit us as well this morning. This week they helped us make our recycled garden. We took all the bottles that were in our recycled box and turned them into bottle pots. We planted lots of new plants and hung them from the trees outside our class and made a rockery by the gate on street 370. 

We talked how to look after plants and what they need. We have made sure we have given our plants a nice big drink of water for the weekend!

Finally
A few notices:
Assembly 
This coming Friday 27th March at 7:45am.

Book Day - April 2nd
Children are to come dressed as a character from a book. If possible they should also have the book with them.

Student-Led-Conferences
April 3rd - No school, you only need to come at the given time to share with your child their learning. You would have received a letter to from your child.

Have a great weekend everyone

Maths, Mystery Reader & Our Environment

A very big thank you to Rebecca Konrad (Renia's Mum) for coming in today to be our mystery reader. It has been a long time since we have been treated to someone coming into read to us and it was a great surprise for the children.

Rebecca read - "The most magnificent mosque" written by Ann Jungman. The story is based on a true story in historical Cordoba, a city in southern Spain. Rebecca has visited this mosque which had the children very interested. They were also very interested in the three naughty boys! 

It is a fabulous story that showed by using co-operation and respect great things can happen. These two attitudes are something we as a class continuously strive for.

Going Green

This afternoon we went outside to look at our school environment. We talked about what we saw and whether it was natural or man-made. I asked the children to look at the natural environment and sketch what they saw. We had some very funny experiences with ants and birds! 

I listened to some great conversations between the children about what they thought was the natural environment and how they justified this to each other.

Quotes:

"I know this tree is natural because I didn't make it, it grows from the ground."

"Animals are also our natural environment because this is where they live."

"All the buildings are not natural because they are made from people."

"If people made it it isn't natural!"

Maths

We have been busy as always in Maths with measuring,weighing and telling the time to o'clock and half past. This week we made our own clocks. They look great and the children have been making up all sorts of games using their clocks to tell the time with each other. A real favourite is 'What's the time Mr. Wolf' which I hear the children playing at snack and lunch play, all the time!

We also had great fun measuring how far we could jump. We used a non-standard form of measuring with cubes. Everyone did a really good job working with a partner and counting all the cubes.

We have done a lot of predicting and weighing over the past few week with scales. The children were given a list of items to find in the classroom. They had to predict how many cubes would make the scales balance. The children really enjoyed the activity and got really good at predicting the right amount of cubes.

Take a look at our slideshow:

Assembly

It is fast approaching!! Our time in the spotlight!

We have been practicing very hard for our up and coming assembly. We have been singing, dancing, and making everything just right. Please make sure you mark the date and time on your calendar - we are starting the assembly so our part will be finished by 8:15am.

When: Friday March 27th

Where: Elementary campus basketball court

Time: 7:45am onwards

We are very excited to show you all of our hard work! 

Birthday Invitation

Today we helped Albert celebrate his sixth birthday. A very happy birthday to you Albert. Thanks for the delicious cake! 

Albert would also like to invite the class to his house today. Please see the invitation below. You can RSVP to Albert's mum Nirann. The party will be from 6pm onwards.

Have a great long weekend everyone!

With these hands I can....

With our 'Going Green' unit we have been looking at our behaviours towards the environment. We have discussed positive and negative behaviours and what kinds of things we can do to look after the world we live in. We have had some really great ideas about what we could do to make a change. 

First we sorted pictures into two categories. One being a positive effect on the Earth and the other a negative effect. It was really interesting listening to the different conversations happening at each table and what photos caused a lot of interesting conversations.

We talked about the things that we do that may have a positive or negative effect on the Earth. It was great that the children could reflect on their behaviours and recognise where they can take action. We brainstormed in groups doing 'I think, I wonder...' about different behaviours and how they impact our environment. Then we discussed as a class what each of us felt we could do to make a change in our behaviour. We had some really great ideas that showed me the children have really been thinking and reflecting on what is going on around them. Very proud!!

WE DID IT!

It didn't take us long at all to make it to 100 leaves. All the children were so excited and a very big thank you to those children that brought things in from home each day to recycle. We are now going to look through all the things we have collected and see how we can reuse them. Can we make something from it? Can we use it in the class? Can we give these items to a recycling company? We will have a brainstorming session and see what we come up with!

Mystery Reader

Sadly we have had no mystery readers yet this semester. Please, if you have time the children really enjoy listening to stories, especially from a special visitor! For more information please look under the tab 'Classroom Information'. If the time doesn't suit you please contact me and I'm sure we can find a time to suit your schedule.

Sign up - Mystery reader

Tomorrow is a half day. School will finish at 12pm and Friday 13th and Monday 16th there is no school.