Discovery Time and the Learner Profile

Here in K1AWh we have been having an AMAZING time learning all about animals from around the world! 

If your children have told you they are becoming 'experts' on a certain animal...that's because they are! They have all chosen different animals to focus on and are working in groups. They will be sharing their learning with you in some form over the up coming weeks. 

I also wanted to mention that we have been working on different skills and qualities from the UWCSEA Learner Profile. So far we have talked about having a 'Commitment to Care', being great 'Self Managers' and we are currently looking at 'Collaboration'. Detailed below are the qualities we hope UWC graduates will develop over time. If you hear these terms being used at home you will now know where they come from! Feel free to let me know if your child does a great job of any of these things at home and we will talk about them during school time as a class.

Here is a short video to give you an idea of what happened in our Discovery Time this week. During these sessions the children can move between classrooms, through the POD area and outside. Over the course of the year they have built the independence to confidently make choices about where they want to go and who they want to 'discover' with. They love making friends from other classes and often enthusiastically run back into our class to show us what they have created or learnt in the different areas. 

Student Led Confrences and Metaproject Update

We have had a busy week this week with plenty going on! Student led conferences were a huge success, we have a new direction with our metaproject and there is some information below about your child's reading program.

Student Led Conferences

From the children who wanted to share their thoughts on this day...

"I liked the colours of the Playdough on the conference day" Armaan

"I got to show my Mummy in the Home Corner" Myra

"My best thing was playing with the iPads and doing art work with my Mum and Dad" Sam

"I liked it because my Mum was here and we were playing in the home corner. We ate together and played with babies" Tallis

"I liked the art work where we made a rocket ship" Xander

"I liked when my Mum came" Aasha

"My Mum and Dad and I were sitting in the writing centre" Diya

"I liked when me and my Mum and my Dad went to the canteen and had some food." Zara

"I liked when I made my rocket ship". Rupert

Below is a video showing the progress and final result of our Art Installation!

Metaproject

After a fantastic brainstorming session where we discussed possibilities for our future metaproject direction we have decided to start learning about animals from around the world. This seems to be an area of interest for all the children and they are already absorbing new facts and information about animals from all over the world. 

If you had talked to me about sharing parts of your culture with the class don't worry, we will still be looking at these kind of things and can't wait to have you in to share with us. Please keep an eye out for an email about parent help which I will get to you in the next few days.

Reading program

You may have noticed that your child brought home a book with words from our class library this week. This will happen every Wednesday and be sent home with the wordless book. Please feel free to keep these until the following Tuesday. 

Over the next few weeks your child will start to bring home levelled readers or alphabet books. I will be in touch with more information about this closer to the time. 

Have a fantastic weekend!

Welcome back

I hope you all had a fantastic break! The children are well rested and seem happy to be back at school. We have spent the week getting used to routines again and sharing our travels around Singapore, and the rest of the world. Thank you for the effort that was put into the scrap books that the children brought home before the break. It has been a fantastic way for them to share the new sights, sounds and tastes of the places they visited. If you didn't get round to working with the children on their books please don't worry! Keep them safe and maybe they could be used on the next trip you take with your family.

I also wanted to post some photos that were taken this morning, during a visit from our Grade 5 buddy class. 5MWh has been coming down to work with us every Friday morning for a few weeks. When they visit they pair up with a child from K1AWh and spend about 15 minutes doing an activity. These range from reading together to talking about 'The World' - both classes really enjoy the sessions. Mike Wheeler and I plan to continue this for the rest of the year and use the time for the two classes to build their relationship and work on the UWCSEA Learner Profile skills and qualities.

I look forward to seeing you all on Tuesday for the Student Led Conferences, have a great weekend!

Sharing our holiday scrap books and the things we learnt...

Reading with our buddy class...