What's been happening....

A very big thank you to Katie Longhurst (Clement's Mum) who came in on Tuesday as our Mystery Reader. We were treated to a fantastic story 'Cloudy with a chance of meatballs' which had the children captivated and imaginations running wild with the idea of food being able to fall from the sky :-)

We are delighted to introduce you to another new friend that has joined our class this week. A warm welcome to Vannissa who has settle right into our classroom and is having a great time meeting all her new classmates and teachers. 

We have been finishing off all of our research and inquiries into weather. Everyone had a good think about one type of weather they were really interested in finding out more information about. Tornadoes and hurricanes were very popular! The children grouped themselves with others who were interested in the same weather condition and each came up with three questions. The questions had to help guide their inquiry so we chose to start our questions using the 5 Ws and H - Who, What, When, Where, Why and How. Once the three questions were done the children chose how they would like to research. Some went on the iPads - kidrex, others on the computers, some used books or talked to an adult about getting information to answer their questions. Everyone did a fantastic job!

We have also been very creative this week by planning a day according to the weather. From choosing a weather type and mapping out: What to wear, what it looks like, what activities can you do, what effects this weather has on people, what we need and where can you go in this weather. It showed me that the children had made lots of connections during this unit and were full of fantastic ideas when planning out their day.

Come and see our beautiful art work!! The children produced some absolutely stunning pieces of art that are now displayed with pride outside our classroom. Please be sure to come up and take a look if you are in school. A very proud teacher :-)

Here is a sneak peak of just one of our pieces :-)

Heart Maps! What we hold dear to our heart:

We also made weather collages and poems to go with them. Please do come in to see and read them, they really are fantastic! 

Here we are working hard on them.

Ms Dee worked with us on Friday and we reviewed 'Geckos Choice' and how to deal with little and big problems. This week we learnt about different ways we can calm ourselves down. We read a book together that gave us many ideas to help us to calm down if we get angry. Ask your child if they can tell you some of the ways they know or learnt to help them calm down.

We also did some 'Butterfly Breathing' which was very relaxing and had us almost falling asleep because everyone was so focused. 

Finally a gentle reminder that Monday is a holiday and there is no school. We will be back as usual on Tuesday, November 1st.

Have a great long weekend everyone!

Making Connections and Taking Action!

We have had a great week if a little shorter than usual. We spent time weather watching and predicting what the weather will be like. We checked our yahoo weather app and talked about what the weather conditions would be like. We asked ourselves: what would we like to do in this kind of weather? What do we need to look out for? What kind of clothing do we need to wear?

We also found out that there are lots of different types of clouds with some very tricky names! We decided to stick with the three most common - Cumulus/Cumulonimbus, Stratus/Stratocumulus and Cirrus. We had fun weather watching and throughout the day many of the children told me that they saw one or two of these types of clouds during morning tea and lunch time or just when looking out the window :-)

We brainstormed and reflected on all the things we have learnt about weather and the seasons. We also talked about what we would wear and the different activities we would do during various seasons. In groups we wrote all of our ideas down!

Magalie was so awesome and took action this week by bringing to school a cloud that she saw and decided to make at home. She did a show and share session with the class and told us what her cloud was. Great job Magalie!

We got to hangout with our buddies this week. Our buddies had decided on something that they wanted to teach us. There were so many different activities going on and Grade 1 had an awesome time learning from their buddies.

We also helped Peng Peng celebrate her seventh birthday. A very Happy Birthday, we hope you enjoyed your day.

Sadly we had to say goodbye to one of our very good friends Suixin. Suixin is moving back to China with her family, but the good news is, she will be back at ISPP for the next academic year. See you in Grade 2 Suixin, we will miss your smile and hugs :-)

Our Book Week!

Visiting Author

Our class got to meet our visiting Author in Residence: Ellen Leou from Hong Kong. She read us one of her books about Lulu the cat. She told us that her books are based on her own cat and showed us a short video of her inspiration. We enjoyed looking at the books that she had written and talking to her about writing them.

Poem in your pocket

It was such a nice start to the morning to have the children share a poem from their pocket with the class. Some brought a poem from home and bravely read them to the whole class! Well done Clement, Maële and Jennita.

Progressive Book

We worked very hard to design our page of the progressive book going through each grade in elementary. Early years started the story off for us, then KG added their ideas. When we received the book we brainstormed all of our ideas as a class and soon came up with an adventure for the story to continue with. We can't wait to see the finished product.

Our page!

Mystery Readers

A very big thank you to all the parents and grandparent that came to our class during book week to read to us. We thoroughly enjoyed all of the stories and it is always fun trying to guess who will be reading to us :-)

Character dress up 

How much fun did we have! Check out our awesome costumes :-)

Weather

I asked the children to bring to school or send in some pictures of them in different types of weather. Thanks so much to the children and parents who sent in their pictures. We had a show and share session where the children who had pictures were the experts and had small groups rotating around the class getting to see all the pictures and ask questions to our experts. There were lots of interesting questions and some great discussions about the clothes they were wearing and the activities they do in different types of weather.

Clouds

On Wednesday we talked a lot about the clouds. I read a book to the children 'Little Cloud' By Eric Carle. The book talks about a little cloud that sees all sorts of shapes and objects made by other clouds. It got us talking about what we have seen before in the sky and how the clouds create drawings if you use your imagination. Since it was book week and we had a classroom door decoration competition to do, we decided that we would like to make clouds. It fitted in perfectly with our Unit of Inquiry too!

We went outside and just lay down for a bit to see the sky and what was happening. What did the clouds do? Could we make any shapes or images out of the clouds? Each child had to pick one thing that they saw while looking at the clouds and recreate that using cotton balls. We had loads of fun and thoroughly enjoyed using our imaginations.

Our Door!

Grade One Collaboration 

Our Reading and Language program is going really well. All the children are starting to get into the routine and are enjoying time with different teachers and classmates.

We helped Simon celebrate his 7th birthday this week. We hope you had a great day and enjoyed celebrating over this long weekend.

Hope you have all had a very restful long weekend!

Candlelight Read Aloud

On Thursday, October 13th, there will be a Candlelight Read Aloud at ISPP from 6-7pm. Parents and/or guardians are invited to bring their children to school to listen to a variety of stories read aloud by parent volunteers. Afterwards, everyone can enjoy milk and cookies in the cafeteria! 

We hope to see you there :-)

Welcome Back!

It was so nice to see all the happy, smiling children after a lovely weeks holiday. Everyone had so much to tell me about what they did. So we spent our carpet time sharing our news with pairs and the whole class. Everyone was very happy to be back at school and so eager to write about what they did over the holiday. We spent some time planning out our writing and creating a story board with all our ideas. I will post your child's completed piece of writing on their individual page next week once all the planning, drafting, editing and publishing is complete.

Our week!

We have been using 'Gecko's Choice' to help us when we have a small problem. We know that when we have a problem or a conflict we can think about strategies to use to solve the problem or deal with the conflict before going to tell a teacher. Of course the children know that if it is a big problem they must tell a teacher or an adult who can help them.

Ms Dee helped us with our 'I' statements and we used a very cool app - chatter pics to record our statements "I feel.... when.... I want you to......"

Everyone did a great job at expressing themselves.

Guest Speakers

We were also very lucky to have Jordan and Jenny (Micah's uncle and aunt) come in and speak with us about their experience of living in Bolivia. The children really enjoyed learning about the different climates, the food that they grow and eat and the animals that live there, especially the Jaguar and Condor bird :-)

Thanks again for taking the time to share with us :-)

We have been tuning into our new unit on 'weather'. This week we have been lucky enough to have a lot going on with lots of rain and storms passing by our window! We took a time lapse video of the big storm and spent time outside talking about what we see and feel in different types of weather.

We had lots of discussions about everything we already know about weather and what we would like to find out. We talked about the different seasons and the different kinds of weather we have been in. How does it feel and what do we see during summer, winter, autumn and spring. What clothes would you wear and what kinds of activities you might do. 

Next week we will be looking at all the pictures you have sent to me of your child. Thank you to everyone who has shared the pictures.

Grade One Collaboration 

This week we began our Reading and Language program across Grade One. The whole Grade has been split into various groups and they have spent time with teachers making essential agreements, talking about the parts of a book and rotating around language activities. The children are all very excited about the program and are doing a great job remembering where to go and what to take with them. It is also a great opportunity for the students to mix with others through the grade and spend time with other teachers.

Next week is BOOK WEEK! Please make sure you check the blog for updates.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Next Week is Book Week!

Monday 10 - Friday 14 October 2016

All Week:

We need to make sure we are carrying a book with us so if we hear the signal we can, Drop Everything And Read! This book does not have to be in English, we welcome books in all languages.

Look out at school for the posters around campus and see if you can work out who they are.

Students will have time in classrooms to try to answer up to five questions a day.

Everyday, parents will be reading stories in their mother tongue at different areas around the school.

Monday:

The students will meet our visiting Author in Residence: Ellen Leou from Hong Kong. There are many different activities planned for us to do with her throughout the week. 

Tuesday:

Poem in your pocket - Students will keep a poem that they have written or chosen from the class in their pocket to read to friends as they meet throughout the day.

Wednesday:

'I spy' challenge - more information to follow soon.

Thursday:

Candlelight Read Aloud - On Thursday night at 6-7pm, everyone will come back on campus wearing their pyjamas! At different locations around campus, students with their parents will be listening to bedtime stories by candlelight. To end the evening, there will be milk and cookies served in the cafeteria, before everyone goes home and slips straight into bed!

Friday:

Character Dress-up Day -Please help your child chose a book character that they like and dress-up as that character. You must bring a book to match the character. We will have a parade, reflect on our week at assembly and share books that we collaborated on across all grade levels.