Wow, what a wonderful Term 3 this has been. The children really expressed their enjoyment for moving and grooving through the Unit of Inquiry How We Organise Ourselves, we move for different purposes. We reflected today on some of our favourite moments while inquiring into this unit. We also reflected on how our environment helped us to learn. Thinking about what helps us to learn develops their metacognition. You can do this at home as well by asking higher level questions, and extending answers by asking ‘'how do you know that?’
From there we spoke about our next Unit of Inquiry: How We Express Ourselves. The K1's are really excited, and came up with lots of ideas on how we can change the classroom to help them learn better for the new unit. I'm looking forward to setting up the classroom using their ideas! We also had fun making play dough, and playing with agar agar strips. Such a simple activity with so many benefits. The children developed fine motor skills, hand eye coordination, teamwork and cooperation skills by working together. The Season Wizard I cannot express how proud I am of the K1's for the their work, determination and efforts they put into practising and performing The Season Wizard. All of us here at ISS felt very proud of them, and they felt very proud of themselves! Unfortunately, I did not get any photos of the night! If you have any stellar photos feel free to send them my way!
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Wow! The K1s really had a blast on their Somerset MRT field trip! Once we got back we looked again at what was quicker, walking or MRT? It took us 20 minutes to walk to Somerset, and only 7 minutes to return by MRT! We made a tally chart showing their preferred method of travelling. Even though walking took longer, the majority of the K1 students preferred walking for reasons such as: being outside is nice, you can look at the trees and birds, and it gives you exercise. The ones who preferred MRT chose it for the reasons: it has aircon, you can sit down, it was quicker. Author Visit Book Character Parade We even found some teachers who matched our costumes! Book Swap Quiet Reading Time Parent visitor
This has been a busy week! On Monday we explored walking to the back of the room without bumping into anything, that was so easy! On Tuesday, I gave them a challenge, how can you walk to the back of the room if you can’t see? Each partnered up and took turns being blind folded, then navigated each other to the back of the room. This proved to be far more challenging. We spoke about how life must be for those who are visually impaired, and what help there is for them when moving around outside. The K1’s came up with the following help: walking stick, someone to guide them, sound at crosswalks and bumps on the ground (like in the MRT). That afternoon, a guest came to speak to K1. It was one of the K1’s dads! He posed a different question, how can you walk to the back of the room if you can’t use both legs? He spoke to the K1’s about what it was like to use crutches after fracturing his foot. It also proved to be tiring to move around when you can't use both legs. They even had a race to see which was faster, hopping on one foot or using crutches? Hopping won! On Wednesday we put on our safety inspector badges. Did you know that safety inspector was a job? The role is to make sure we're safe! The K1's were thinkers and made the connection to moving safely with safety inspectors! We carefully inspected our classroom and playground to make sure it was safe to move around. We even took action by reporting what we found to Mr. Taylor, who took our information and will act on it! Well done, safety inspectors! On Friday we developed our communication skills by interviewing each other and our Grade 2 buddies. We asked each other “How do you get to school?” We recorded this information on bar graphs. Our bar graphs showed us that taking 'taxi/car' to school was the most popular way of travelling. I wonder what impact that has on Singapore and the Earth? Hula Hoop Comepetition Inspired by all the K1s travels during the past Chinese New Year holiday, I set up an International Airport in the K1 classroom! After reading Going on a Plane by Anne Civardi, the children connected with their own experiences of travelling through airports and all the different steps it takes. It was amazing to watch the children problem solve, use creative thinking, develop communication and social skills as they each took the initiative to embrace individual roles in the airport. They tried out multiple roles such as pilot, flight attendant, passengers, security, check in attendants and more as they navigated their way through flying. When problems arose such as: the x-ray scanner "breaking", food on the airplane running out, and running out of space on tickets to stamp, the children were thinkers and came up with a variety of solutions. Lets see where our play takes us next week! After discussions about where the children wanted to travel in the airport, we looked at maps to see all the places they wanted to go. The children all inquired about where ISS was on the map and from there we interactively navigated our way through Singapore using Google Maps. We made a list of all the places we thought we could find on a map, such as: school, home, parks, playgrounds, Gardens by the Bay, the zoo and more. Next we created pictorial maps of our own classroom and then drew maps of our own! The Lion Dance
Have you ever tried listening to music and not moving before? It's really hard! This week after inquiring into patterns of movement (zig zags, back and forth, round and round, etc.) the K1's listened to different types of music and painted a reflection of how the music made them want to move. They let the different tempos and types of music (fast, slow, bouncy) inspire their paintbrushes as they made different types of strokes on their paper. This led us into the inquiry 'but what are patterns!?' In order to do this, Ms. Bustamante provided the children with a variety of different provocations for the K1's to tune in and demonstrate all they knew about patterns. After the short break we can find out more about patterns. When you're on holiday are there any patterns you can spot? After voting on our favourite movements we do at school, the K1s were more interested in discussing their favourite actions and movements at home. To develop their inquiry further, we went to the library to research books on their favourite movements. They recorded the new information they found on paper by either drawing pictures or making notes, working on their research skills. We then recorded a video of the children presenting their information, developing their communication skills. Stay tuned to see the videos in the upcoming future!
This week we explored one of our lines of inquiry; ways we move. We also continued to think about the concept of form to describe what different movements are like. We reflected on our obstacle course exploration last week, thinking about the different movements we made when moving over the equipment. The children made a class book, with each child contributing a page about their movements. Click through the slideshow below to read our book! Field Trip to Waka Waka The K1 children were risk-takers today on their trip to Waka Waka! They had so much fun and really showed that they were brave and willing to try new things even when it seemed a bit scary. They tackled the adventure course and went rock climbing! Before the trip we spoke about our lines of inquiry ways we move, reasons we move and moving safely. After reflecting on their movements the K1’s were able to explain that while at Waka Waka:
Fun Run!
This week we introduced our new Unit of Inquiry, thinking about The Central Idea that ‘'we move for different purposes.’ The children were asked what they thought this meant and what we might find out about and they came up with the following ideas:
The children were given a mannequin to explore and think about how it moves. They talked about the different sports or positions they moved the mannequin into and made connections with their own bodies and experiences, capturing a few of their favourite shapes on paper. Inspired by their ideas of different ways to move, we watched videos of different types of dance. Some children shared their own experiences of dancing and talked about the different dances they liked. They then recreated these movements by creating sculptures out of wire, looking at the form of the dancers, and thinking about what different parts of the body look like when they are making different movements. On Thursday, we worked with Mr Inman to explore different ways to move in PE. Mr Inman set up a fun obstacle course with different equipment and it was exciting to see the children’s confidence develop throughout their experience. Many tried different ways of moving and showed that they were risk takers and creative thinkers.
We had a great first week back! The children were refreshed and happy to see their friends again. We spent time this week re-adjusting to the school routines and learning about our new friend, Kelso. Kelso is a frog who has several choices on how to deal with conflict resolution for small problems. Why don’t you ask the K1s what are the Kelso’s Choices they’ve learned so far? We also had some time exploring the new centres in the classroom, as well as sorting colours, spelling names, and developing fine motor skills through a variety of fun activities. Stay tuned for next week when we start our new Unit of Inquiry!
I think this semester went as fast as the speed of light, which is quite fitting with our unit this term! What a fantastic semester it has been and we celebrated our time together and all the learning and fun that has taken place at our party on Wednesday. The children enjoyed different craft activities and delicious snacks provided by the families. It was wonderful to see so many parents getting their hands messy and helping to lead the activities. I know this was a very special time for the children. That's it for Semester One! I look forward to welcoming the children back in the new year, rested and ready to enjoy all the experiences that await them in Semester Two! Have a wonderful holiday! |
AuthorWe are a class of 4 and 5 year olds at an international school in Singapore! We learn by playing, inquiring and having fun. Our teacher is Ms Bustamante, and this is our learning journey! Archives
June 2019
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