UN Day

UN Day

I love UN Day! It's such a colorful day with proud, excited children celebrating our nationalities. Every child talked about their costume before we went to the gymnasium for UN Day assembly. 55 flags were presented, representing the nationalities of the 1000+ students of Pres-School - Grade 2. Everyone claps and cheers for their own country, so you can imagine the noise they make when the US flag arrives!
Thanks to all the parents who brought food and stayed to share the lunch with us. What a fabulous range of foods.
You can see many more UN Day photos here

Trick Crayfish
You can also see here the first photos from our new science unit on Balance and Motion. We were experimenting with the "Trick Crayfish"

Walking in our neighborhood

This has been such a fun week, especially today.

As part of our study of communities, our class went for a walk around the shopping center/hawker stalls here in Woodlands.  Prior to our outing, we spent some time talking about the different people that work in our neighborhood.  During our walk, we saw food stalls, clinics, dentists, barber shops, florists, fruit stalls and more.   It took a long time to get away from the pet shops with all their lovely displays! Besides shopkeepers, our students saw taxi drivers, seamstresses, and we were lucky to be allowed to go into Dr. Tan's clinic and ask him a few questions about being a doctor. It was a great field trip. 

We would like to thank the Moms who came to help us. Thanks!!!

This afternoon, each child has made a box model of one of the shops. They were very creative and did a great job. I loved the way they shared and helped each other, and Hannah sang in the background the whole time. Several kids commented on what a happy day it was.
You can see more photos of our day (the field trip and the box models) here

The Stone in the Road

Last week we were invited to be part of the audience for the High School drama class who were performing the fairy tale "The Stone in the Road". The children really loved it and were keen to draw about it. Here's our newest bulletin board displaying their work.
You can see photos of the show here
Look for lots of other photos in the Photo Gallery too. 

Celebrations!

Hi there Moms and Dads,

Celebrating Writing

Last week we finished the first Unit of Writing called "Launching the Writer's Workshop." Each child chose the piece of writing they were most proud of and made it into a book. Then we all had a turn at sharing our books with the class. To finish off, we all had a cup of apple juice to say "Cheers!" to celebrate all our wonderful writing. One of the photos is below, but you can see lots more here

'Small Moments' Writing

This week we will begin the Small Moments (narrative) writing unit. Children will be encouraged to write about events in their own lives. Sometimes children remember events more clearly if they have a “snapshot” or picture to look at. If you have time, it would be helpful to print out some small photos of different trips, birthday parties or other fun recent moments to trigger your child’s memory and help “Zoom-In” on the details of a story. Feel free to send in these photos anytime during the first semester. We will keep the photos in your child’s writing folder. The photos need not be high quality printing or high quality paper since the point is to simply help your child remember. The photos will probably not be returned.

Reading

This Friday we will celebrate the end of the first reading unit with a 15 minute silent reading session in the Group Room with 4 other classes. This class will have no problem reading quietly for 15 minutes because they do it each day. Today I loaded more photos of kids reading in their 'book nooks'. See them here

There are lots more photos of this class online. You can find them here
 
Last Thursday I was away so there was a sub teacher in the class. She left me a note to say what an incredible class I have. She was so impressed with your children!

How is 1st Grade going?

We have fun in 1st Grade! We also learn a lot. Here's what we like about it:

• every day we do math, some writing and lots of reading. (You can see photos of us reading here.)
• We can read by ourselves for more than 10 minutes. We are building up our stamina for reading. 
• we love all the stories that Mrs. Woody has been reading
• there is Lego to play with
•  we love to dress up. 

On Monday we had our first session with our 5th Grade Buddies. We just had to read to each other. Look at the photos here