Thank You

We would just like to say thank you very much for this year. It has flown by! We would like to wish you to very best for the next school year and please stay in touch. Have a safe and happy holiday everyone.

Term 3 Week 9

House Keeping

• Congratulations to both Kaia and Leone, for hosting Kaz, both children have been working really hard this week to achieve their goals in relation to being confident and caring communicators. 
• As you may have noticed the children didn't receive levelled readers this week. Next week they will not be borrowing new library books. If you have any school books floating around at home please start returning them. 
• Unfortunately, I have had to delete photos from our Chinese New Year Field trip however, if you have photos from that day could you please send them on to Soumee. 

This week in pictures...

Our expert came to talk to us about what's happening to The Great Barrier Reef.

Thank you Tiana, for sharing your reef photos with us. 

Make and Take with Liz

Make and Take with Liz

Making a reef out of clay

Making a reef using the language of clay

The beginnings of our coral reef.

Working with our DLC, as he shows us how to use stop motion animation to make our reef come alive.

Starting to animate our characters for our Puppet Pals stories.

I read the children 'The Hidden Forrest". We noticed that the illustrations were made out of different materials (collage). Some children tried to make their own ocean collage. 

Exploring Boomwhackers with Ms Luiza during Discovery Time

Visiting the K2s to listen to them share their knowledge about Singaporean animals. 

Our reflection session after Discovery Time.

Misha's News

Zara's News

Thank you Xiaodan for being our Mystery Reader. 

Thank you Hilda, for being our Mystery Reader. 

 

Week 8 Term 3

House Keeping

• Congratulations to Artemis for receiving Kaz this Wednesday for showing a commitment to care with her friends in the playground this week. Congratulations also to James for showing a commitment to care and trying hard to make good choices throughout your day. 
• In your child's blue folder this Friday you would have received a note regarding our K1 year farewell party at school. Please read the note, as it has details of a small snack we'd like your child to contribute. Please do not return the note to school it is for your own reference. 
• Please inform school and myself if you are planning on leaving on holiday early. 
• If anyone has photos of coral reefs (The Great Barrier Reef) please feel free to email them to me this weekend/Monday. 
• Here's the link to our Arts Festival Video. Enjoy!

Diving in to Inquiry This Week

Now that Arts Festival is over, we've been able to spend more time focussed back on our inquiry. Last week we read a book called 'One Cool Friend', in which The Great Barrier Reef was mentioned. Many of our children hadn't heard of The Great Barrier Reef and asked to know more about it. Then later in the week Liam said he wanted to find out more about creatures in the water. This week we've been taking a closer look at the wonders of coral reefs. 

First we watched a documentary about the wonderful creatures in The Great Barrier Reef. There were some beautiful reactions as the children watched on and drew what they found interesting in their Investigation Journals. Artemis said, "Oh! It's so beautiful!"

Have a look at the great reaction on Maya in the top left corner of this photo!

Then with Wilbur's Mum, Alice, (Thank you Alice for coming in and the photos). A few children used their journals and imaginations to create 3D models of something they saw from the morning. These children presented what they had made to their class with confidence.

Describing his fish.

Showing her coral to her friends.

As a class we then decided to become scientists to take a closer look at the reef. We used a Y - Chart to help narrow down our investigations in to three parts. What does a reef: Look like, Sound like and Feel like. First we re-visited our understanding of what made something living: It's breaths, grows and eats. Then after looking at some non- fiction books and comparing a rock to a piece of coral we discovered that coral is an animal! We also discovered just like animals, coral comes in many different shapes and sizes. 

Filling out the 'It looks like' section of the Y-Chart

While the children were drawing, here are some of the conversations that were happening:

Artemis "It looks like there's so many corals. Some look like houses and some look like tunnels."

Natalia "The coral look likes crunchy orange things."

Livio "I look on the book and it has a rectangle at the bottom and at the top it had lots of lines."

Lucas "Do you know water has to begin it. We (Takuma and him) saw some rocks. The water goes up and down, up and down."

Misha "It's like a busy town you know cause there's lots of fishes."

Takuma "I went to the ocean and saw some rocks."

The next day the children were issued with a construction challenge. Each mat in the classroom had on it a big white A3 planning sheet and marker. It also had different types of construction materials and a non-fiction book about reefs. The children decided amongst themselves, which type of construction material they were most interested working with and went to that mat. 

Their challenge was to...

•  Use their Critical Thinking Skills to plan what their reef would look like, using the non-fiction books to help them. 
• Their Communication Skills to share and listen to the ideas in their group. 
• Their Collaboration skills and Commitment to Care to take turns to contribute to the construction of their reef.
• Their Creativity to make their reef unique, like no others in the class. 

Below are some photos from the process...

                      

We then worked on the next part of our Y-Chart: What does the reef feel like? Small groups of children felt our very simple reef recreation and described what they could feel.

Zara "Eww! Slimy Sand!"

Isabella "It feels rough and playful."

Mya Jade "The coral feels very rough."

Lily "It feels hard."

James "It feels juggy."

"Feels smooth and a little bit rough."

"It's kind of bumpy."

Throughout the week to support the children's thinking around all things in the ocean I had been reading ocean related picture books to them. They were invited to make a story plan (storyboard) inspired by the stories read that week or their own imagination. These stories will hopefully be made into Puppet Pal stories they will share with their K2 friends next week, when we visit a K2 class to learn about the animals the K2s have been inquiring about. 

Mia wrote a story about Mermaids and their parties. Finn used his life experience to write about a shark that was nervous about school, but then loved it because he found a construction mat and was very happy. Zara wrote a story inspired by the book 'Mister Seahorse'. 

We ended our week by exploring our last section in the Y-Chart. What does a coral reef sound like? The children sat in a circle listening to a piece of ocean sounds and described what they could hear. 

Kaia and Mia "I heard some dolphins splashing."

Maya "It's like water swaying."

Livio "It sounds like it splashing on the beach."

Artemis "It sounds like whales are splashing."

Later that day a group of interested children used some musical instruments to make some oceans sounds of their own. 

Next Week...

The children will get to explore what is happening to our Reefs. The children will see how the reef connects to their world. We will welcome a guest who has worked for environmental organisations who will tell us about what happening and what others are doing about it. We will invite children to come up with their own ideas and thoughts about what they can do to play a part.

We may express what we know by constructing our own reef using clay and collage materials. 

We're visiting K2 to learn more about what they have learnt and hopefully share our stories with them too. 

 Other Highlights From The Week

Thank you to our communicators this week. 

Thank you to our Mystery Reader 

Thank you to everyone who joined us for Morning Of (Swimming) Sport!

Week 7 Term 3

House Keeping

• Congratulations to Isabella on hosting Kaz this weekend. You have showed some exceptional qualities in school particularly this week. Thank you for standing up for what you believe is right and making good choices. 
• Please check the Grade Blog for Updates this week. 
• We have Morning of Swimming on June 1st, which is this Wednesday please read the ebrief for more information.

Arts Festival

The video Ms Sue took during our Dress Rehearsal doesn't seem to want to load for me, I'm sorry - There will be an official video from school, don't worry. In its place here are the photos Ms Sue took from today. 

Communicators This Week

Mystery Reader

Thank you Delia.

Jungle

The Jungle may have seen its last few days - It's looking a little worse for wear. However some people this week continue to build on it. 

Lily makes a butterfly with Livio's advice. 

 

Making a waterfall stay where it's meant to be can be hard work!

A small group of children made a giraffe. Finn noticed a giraffe has ears as well as "horns".

Seasons

Thank you to those who shared their thinking in last week's blog. The children enjoyed looking at what everyone put up. This week we did some role play, read stories and expressed what we knew about seasons around the world in different ways.

"We go to the beach in Summer."

Making a Spring mixed media piece.

Term 3 Week 6

House Keeping

• Now that we're coming towards the end of the term Kaz will be handed out twice a week. If your child receives Kaz on Friday please try to return her by Monday. If your child receives Kaz on Wednesday please return her by Friday. Thank you!
• Congratulations to Takuma this week for receiving Kaz, you are trying really hard to achieve your goals and make your voice heard during class discussions. 
• Congratulations to Natalia you have done a great job picking up your role in the Arts Festival after joining in later than most (Thank you to Misha for helping to show Natalia what to do). 
• There is no school for children this Monday due to Professional Development for teachers. 
• Our Arts Festival performance is Friday 27th May at 11:45am please go straight to the Multi Purpose Hall. 

These Two Weeks

These two weeks have been and will be mostly focussed on our Arts Festival, however we're still being inquirers!

This week as a class we have made a non-fiction book about Changi Airport. Here's our book, enjoy!

                     

In your child's blue folder this Friday you would have received your invitations for Arts Festival made by your children.

We continue to discuss patterns and where we can see patterns in our world. Some of us were amazed to realise that patterns aren't always in a straight line! Some children made their own patterns using playdough.

                       

Thank you to our communicators this week: Isabella, Alex and Lily.

Thank you to our Mystery Readers this week: Alice and Tiana.

This week we've been talking about weather around the world in comparison to seasons. Some of your children might have asked you what causes the seasons. Please record what you discovered/thought/discussed/wondered at home below. There are options when you click below to add sound, video, attachments, photos and documents. Enjoy!

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