Day at the Beach and our Budding Writers!

Beach Day was great fun!! 

Dressing up always leads to all sorts of discussions and this definitely made us think more about the ocean and both the positive and negative things about it. Many of the children could make personal connections recounting their own experiences of a time they had been to the ocean or a time they had been to the beach.

Enjoy the pictures of us dressed up and relaxing at the beach :-)

Our class also decided they wanted to try the 'Mannequin' challenge. Please ask your child what this is. We tried our very best not to move....

In small groups we also created and completed our very own narratives - using the format of realistic fiction. They are fantastic! Take a look :-)

Benjamin, Oan, Alan and Magalie

Enzo, Noel, Clement, Lucy and Peng Peng

Samnang, Vannissa, Liam and Maele

Thai Hak, Simon, Somnang and Micah

Vincent, Chin Hao, Somphoas, Jennita and Shae

Beach Day!

Come dressed in your beach clothes tomorrow for a bit of fun - as a tuning in activity to our new unit on 'Oceans'! A day at the beach is just what we need :-)

 If you need so help here are some ideas:

Mystery Reader!

A very big thank you to Rosemay (Simon's Mum) for coming in to be our mystery reader for the second time! We are very grateful to you for taking time out of your day to read to us :-) Rosemay read us two stories that had the children thoroughly engaged and almost had Rosemay reading a third!

If you or any of your family and friends are visiting and would like to come in and be our 'Mystery Reader' please do sign up. The children thoroughly enjoy having different people come in and share stories with them.

Mystery Reader - Sign Up

Please check under your child's individual page on the right hand side to see all of the amazing work they have done during our unit - 'How we express ourselves'

Another #Travellingtale completed!

Our class had another opportunity to join 4 other schools around the world to collaborate on another travelling tale. We joined with schools from Luxembourg, New Zealand, USA and Qatar. This time we were in charge of starting the tale. We had to introduce the main characters, describe the setting and create a beginning.

The class were given the option this time whether they wanted to join in creating the tale. 7 students were very eager to make this tale - Simon, Liam, Maële, Micah, Enzo, Alan and Thai Hak. A very big thank you to these 7 students who came up with such cool ideas and made a fantastic beginning for the other schools to build on.

Take a look at our journey:

Brainstorming our ideas and creating the setting and characters.

Making our illustrations to go with our beginning.

Recording our part of the tale.

Quality control.

After 4 other schools completed their part of the tale we are ready to share it with you. Enjoy our story about the Adventures of Robot Joe and Robot Bow.

We all thought the story was fantastic!

Thinking out LOUD!

On Thursday we got to spend some time reconnecting with our Grade Four buddies. We had a chat about what we will be doing this long weekend and read a few stories to each other. The Grade Ones are so confident now with their reading that they prefer reading to their buddies instead of having them read to them :-)

We spent so much time this week responding to the way we express ourselves with Art. Your child's individual page will be uploaded with a range of the work that they have completed with explanations as to their thinking. 

Proudly displayed outside our classroom - 'Thinking Out LOUD'

These were inspired by Diamante Poems that they wrote about a feeling or emotion they had experienced. They are amazing!!

Here is the process we went through...

Our finished product!

Next week you will see your child's amazing drawing on their individual page, as well as a poem that they wrote. They wrote about how the 'Crazy Hair' makes them feel and the emotion that they are expressing.

In PE with Mr Ben we have been very creative and expressed ourselves through dance. Can you guess what emotions we are feeling?

We also helped our very good friend Jennita celebrate her seventh birthday on Friday. A very happy birthday to you Jennita and I hope you have a great party today at Kids City. Thanks also for the delicious cupcakes :-)

Have a fabulous long weekend everyone and see you all back at school on Wednesday 22nd February!

Writing, writing and more writing!

We have been looking at poetry and the different styles of poems there are. This week we have been concentrating on 'Diamante Poems'. A Diamante Poem or Diamond Poem, is a style of poetry that is made up of seven lines.

Noun

Adjective, Adjective

Verb, Verb, Verb

Noun, Noun, Noun, Noun

Verb, Verb, Verb, 

Adjective, Adjective

Noun

Together we organised lots of words into the three categories - Nouns, Adjectives and Verbs.

Together as a class we made up a poem about a dog. We used some great words to describe how dogs behaviour and the things they like to do. 

Next it was the students turn to pick an emotion and write their very own Diamante poem. They did a fantastic job!! These poems also inspired them to then respond to the poem by creating a piece of art work of their choice. These have been a work in progress for the past week and will be posted on their individual pages once they are all completed.

We have some incredibly creative students here in Grade One and I am really looking forward to them sharing their art pieces with you.

Not only have we been creating poems but we have also been writing narratives. We have been concentrating on two different styles of narratives - fantasy fiction and realistic fiction.

As a class we wrote a realistic narrative. 

Please take a look at our great story 'Peter goes Camping'

100 Days of School!

We have finally made it to 100 days of school in Grade One! We celebrated this special day with lots of fun activities throughout the day. We counted to 100, we read a book about 100 days in school, we shared 100 treats, we made hats and we showed 100 items we brought from home.

We sang our way to 100 by counting with DJ Double D:

Then we read a story about 'The 100th Day of School'

Followed by counting out 100 treats:

Next we made a 100 Day hat:

Finally we finished with counting and writing our numbers all the way to 100:

Swimming!

Please note a message from our swimming coaches:

Please make sure students have swim caps and goggles for every swimming lesson

Swim caps and goggles are necessary to support mastery of swimming skills. 

Caps keep hair out of the children's faces to allow continuity of movement so students can see and breathe. When children are not having to worry about their hair blocking their airways, they are more relaxed and swimming becomes easier.  (Wearing caps also helps maintain the cleanliness of the pool as filtration systems and pool vacuum cleaners work better without hair floating around in the pool.)

Goggles assist swimmers in swimming straight and help develop spatial awareness when looking underwater. When worn during the lesson, goggles also allow communication with the teacher underwater and prevent swimmers’ eyes from not becoming sore. 

Express yourself!

The Grade One classes got together for an afternoon of experiencing different ways to express themselves through dance. They got to experience a Khmer coconut dance, the Haka from New Zealand, Break dancing and the Hula. It was heaps of fun and really got the students talking about the different emotions that dances can make them feel.

Here are some of the things the students had to think about during the sessions:

* How did you feel when you watched the dance?
* How did the dancers feel? How did you know?
* What moves did the dancers do?
* How did you feel when you did the dance?

In my class the students were introduced to the Haka from New Zealand. This was a very different experience for many of them. They said it was scary but it made them feel strong and brave when they had a turn at preforming it. A proud moment for this kiwi teacher :-)

Break dancing, The Hula and the Khmer dancing were all hits with the students. I think we have some awesome dancers here in Grade One!

On Wednesday we helped our very good friend Shae celebrate her seventh birthday. A very happy birthday to you Shae and thanks so much for sharing both the delicious whoopie cakes and the story 'Birthday Monsters' with us :-)

We have been visiting Ms Dana in the Art room on Wednesday afternoons to learn how to express our emotions through drawing and painting. We were inspired by Vincent Van Gogh and how his paintings look like they are moving. 

Ms Dana set us a challenge:

Since we have been learning about 2D shapes we thought this would be easy! The class did an amazing job and I was so impressed by how they explained their art pieces and the emotions that they were trying to express.

Great to see so many of you at the New Zealand booth yesterday for International Day. It is always fantastic to share a part of our country and culture with you all. Plus a vey big thank you to the Swedish booth for inviting myself, Ms Karyn and Ms Helen to a challenge - assembling Ikea furniture! I hope it is still standing :-) Plus our neighbouring booth France who helped us to work on our waitressing skills!!