Our book

Over the past couple of weeks we have been incredibly grateful for all the family participation in our learning, with emails and blog comments from your family members all over the world! This has really made the learning we are doing come alive for the children and they are SO interested in the different things in the world and countries their families live in. 

Some of the highlights from the recent couple of weeks include visits from parents. Diya's Mum did an amazing job of making a presentation to show the class different dancing from four regions of India. We are looking forward to learning some dance moves in January! Aasha's Mum taught us about Diwali and Zara's Mum read us a traditional story from Africa. Myra's Grandad even made us a presentation about India which he emailed us all the way from Delhi!

After an email from Rupert's Grandparents from New Zealand, the children wanted to learn more about what the country is like. I used to live in New Zealand and was excited to share my knowledge of New Zealand and it's culture with the class. We also watched some video clips showing New Zealand scenery, animals and Maori traditions. We learnt so much, we decided to make a book for Rupert's Grandparents. We tested our story by Skyping my sister and her 2 year old who live in New Plymouth, New Zealand. Her 2 year old was very impressed! We hoped to also Skype my other sister's class in Nelson, New Zealand but due to time restraints from their end we couldn't squeeze it in. We thought we would make this video so they could still see our story, and all of you could enjoy it too. 

I wish you all a very happy holiday and can't wait to learn all about the various places everyone in the class has visited! I also hope their books and colour pencils come in handy and they can record what they learn as they have new experiences around the world and Singapore. I'm a big believer that learning doesn't just happen in the classroom (or at any age!) and I have no doubt they will be able to teach me a thing or two in January.

Enjoy our story!

What an exciting week...

Wow!

K1 at UWCSEA has had an incredibly exciting few days, much of which has linked in with our Meta Project on The World. We have been so busy today we haven't had time to sit down as a class and write our blog, so this post is from me (Alice...the class teacher). I think I can speak for all of the children though when I say it has been a fantastic couple of weeks and a huge amount of learning, especially about The World, has gone on in this time. 

It began with United Nations Day, where we sung songs from around the world and performed to a huge audience of family members. We dressed in our national costumes and shared arts and crafts from different parts of the world in our classroom with our families. In K1AWh we made Poi's from New Zealand, and Rangoli from India.

Today we had the United Nations Food Festival, where we were lucky enough to taste food from all over the world which was delicious! The hall was filled with different stalls and we could choose what we wanted. Then we came back to our snack area and sat, ate and chatted to the parents who had come in to help.

We have also been very excited to receive comments on our blog and messages from family and friends who live in different places. We have heard from family members in Canada, Turkey, USA, India AND New Zealand! We have written them emails and sent them messages. Some have replied telling us more about the places where they live. Today we looked up Istanbul, Turkey (amongst other places) on Google Earth, because Myra's family who live there had written to us. We found we could go into 'sphere's' where we got 360 degree views of the sights in Istanbul - it was amazing! We also looked at the Taj Mahal in India.

- If the children want to show you this at home download Google Earth, click photos (bottom left) and 360 cities.

Finally, yesterday we had some children visit us from THK Family Service Centre who spent some time in our classes. At the end of the day the UWC students gave them a gift of educational resources that they had funded and chosen specially for the students. It was fantastic getting to know the THK kids and watch them build relationships with our students at UWC.

Have a fantastic weekend!

Our first video and The Big Draw

Our Video

K1AWh has been so busy learning about the world that we thought the best way to show you all the things we have been doing in the past week was through a video.

It is just a quick look at some of the activities the children have participated in, but hopefully gives you an idea of the atmosphere and learning that goes on during the school day. 

We hope you enjoy it!

The Big Draw

Yesterday the whole class went on a trip to The Big Draw. An art related project that allows children to explore their creativity through play in an art based setting. Here are some of the children's thoughts about their time at The Big Draw.

I hate fun making my building. Diya

My favourite part was making trees made out of clay. Rupert

I had fun making my cake out of cups and straws. Tallis

I drew the dark behind the trees (shadows). Xander

I was trying to find the flowers. Ethan

I liked drawing. I drew a heart. Arricah
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I had fun making trees out of clay. Ava

I had fun making my house out of straws and tape. I did it by myself. I spun the tire. It spun and spun and spun. Armaan

The clay felt hard. Zara

I loved making what I made. I loved clay. Nadine

I was pretending to be a fly. Rafael

Where in the World?

As out Meta Project progresses we have begun to talk about our families. When thinking about 'The World' children were naturally beginning to talk about countries, and of course, discuss the countries they came from. As a teacher and 'third culture kid' myself I have found this a fascinating topic of conversation to listen in on! This week we have taken the family photos that you sent in and spent some time looking at them. Using the results of the online survey you filled out we started a visual representation on our wall of all the places in the world that immediate family members were born in. The results were amazing and the children have found them fascinating! I imagine this will generate many conversations over the coming weeks. 

The children below choose to be involved with the blog writing today.

We have been learning about the world. There are flags on the map so we know where we come from. Zara

We talked about where our families were born. My family is from India. Armaan

We've been learning where we come from. I am from Singapore. Daddy is from England. Mummy is from Canada. Nadine

The picture is of my family. My Mummy and Daddy and my brother. Evie

My my Mum and Dad were born in India. Myra

Here are some photos of dress up day today...everyone looked amazing!

UWC Day

Today K1AWh all had a look at our blog and together we read the posts from the past couple of weeks and looked at the pictures. The class were very excited that they could share their learning with their families online! From now on some of the blog posts will be written collaboratively with the children, either in small groups or as a whole class.  

We would like to tell you about UWC Day in our post today. It was a fantastic opportunity to get to know some of the High School students, learn more about the world, and also think about all the other UWC's in different countries. Most importantly we learnt a bit about what UWC Day means.

We loved having the High School students in! 

They talked to us and told us what they know about the world. Myra

We took turns talking to people and we looked at the map. Tallis

It was very fun with the High School students. They were very kind. Sam

We put on some songs in our class. Rafael

I played on the drums. Arricah

On UWC Day we went on a scavenger hunt.

When we on the scavenger hunt we went to see the whole of UWC. Ava 

We looked at the gardens. Diya

We found things around the school. Xander

I liked the scavenger hunt. Jamie and Ethan

I liked going around the school and looking at things. Jasper

We also had some visitors from Child@Street11

I showed them Google Earth and Drawing Pad. Rupert

Playground Songs

We sang songs. The big kids sang with us. Jan

What is UWC Day all about?

UWC day is about friends. Zara

It is about being kind. Naia

We talked about the world. Anya

UWC is big! Evie

There is a map of the world by the swimming pool. Xanthe

Exploring the World Outside Our Class

This week we have been looking at the things in 'our world'. We took inspiration from the projects that were completed at home with families and began to discuss the physical things in our immediate surroundings (or places we had been to). 

As a way to catogorise the objects we begun to think about natural things and things made by people. The children undertook activities where they sorted different objects into the two catogories (with some heated debates!).  

We made telescopes and looked outside our classroom window...

We went for a walk to a garden close to our class. This gave us an opportunity to inspect some natural things in the environment. We drew pictures of these trying to notice as many of the small details as we could.

As our Inquiry progresses I expect the children will have lots of interesting facts and anecdotes to share with you! If you have any ideas, suggestions or areas of expertise in this field please let us know, it would be fantastic to have some further involvement from home.

Reminders...

• Please check the previous blog post about books that are being brought home. There seems to be a bit of confusion about when each one is returned etc. If you need clarification beyond the last blog post please email me. Please also make sure the books are sent to school inside the blue folder so they are not damaged.
• Please ensure that the transport arrangements are ticked daily! : )

Beginning Our Metaproject

The World

Since our last post K1AWh have begun to talk about 'The World'. 
The question posed to the children was: What does the word 'world' in United World College mean?

Here were some ideas...

"We live there"

"The world has every colour"

"The whole world has every country"

"The world is traffic jams and traffic lights"

"The world has water from the river"

"Earth"

"It is big and round"

"There are people walking and shopping"

Over the past week we have begun to explore some of these ideas, mainly focusing on the idea of natural features in the world as this is an area of interest for the class. For example, we investigated an unusual photo of a rock formation and used different shades of paint to try and recreate the effect on the rocks. We have also looked at pictures and maps of the world on the light table and some children have chosen to trace these on plain paper. The children enjoyed making patterns with small rocks and stones over shapes of waves and mountains.

It has been wonderful to start receiving responses to the family project that was handed out last week 'What is your world?'. The children have proudly shared theirs with the class. Thank you for your help with this!

For the next part of this project, can you please send in (via email or a hard copy) a photograph of your family?

Things to remember:

• Books have now started coming home;
• Wordless books out Wednesday, back the following Tuesday at the latest.
• Library books out Thursday, back the following Wednesday at the latest.
• Song and rhyme books out Friday, back the following Monday.