The Gorgeous Starlight Ball

Is there anything more gorgeous than a roomful of handsomely dressed 7 year old boys, taking their beautiful partners for the waltz? Didn't you just melt as you watched? The Starlight Ball is my favorite night of the school year, and now you know why. There is a selection of photos below, and you can see a lot more if you CLICK HERE. Huge thanks to Leanne Pepple who puts so much work into the Ball each year.

T-A-N-G-O!!

Such beautiful girls

What handsome young men!

Here is a short video clip of the Ball. It might not work on iPads or iPhones.

Adzooks Puppets
On Monday morning we were treated to a puppet show by the Adzooks Puppeteers. They are here all week, doing shows, helping the children create puppets in Art class, and giving puppetry lessons to us all. I admire their enthusiasm, and ability to keep 276 children entertained so well! There are more photos HERE.

Some of the puppets the children made.

Seng Kang School visit - you can find photos of the visit HERE.

Math App on iPad or iPhone

Here's a good App I have found to help the children who are still learning their math facts. It relates directly to the fact triangles that we have been using this week. I have only tried the free version and would recommend it.

Goodbye Julie!

We are so sad to be saying goodbye to Julie. She leaves us on Friday to move to Korea. We will miss her gentle manner and lovely smile. Good luck Julie!!

Julie with her puppet

100th Day In Mrs Woody's Room

How to make Mrs. Woody yell!!

 I love teaching nonfiction reading and writing to this age group. They have been excitedly finding captions, glossaries, tables of contents etc. They tried following instructions in library books to make origami, draw dinosaurs, and make clay models:

Julia & Xander are following instructions to make clay models

Payam and Sandy pore of a huge book called 'How To Do Everything.'

Max follows instructions to make origami folds

  Then everyone wrote one or two small "How To.." books. They had to choose topics they were experts on,  and write instructions in clear, logical steps. Children wrote books called "How to draw a butterfly", "How to make peanut butter and jelly toast", "How to make chocolate milk", "How to block a goal in soccer", "How to make a try in rugby" etc. Here are a few more:

 But the book that made us all laugh was this one:

Here's what he wrote:

STEP 1: Mess around

STEP 2: Put the microphone on the table

STEP 3: Let Kai sing Party Rock. Cole will dance back-up

STEP 4: After Kai stops singing, play soccer inside

STEP 5: Put on ear plugs then after that sing the Star Spangled Banner VERY loudly!

STEP 6: It's almost time for Mrs. Woody to yell. One step left: break dance with Kai, Sandy, Cole and Vittal.

STEP 7: She'll yell as soon as you finish so put ear plugs in!

Laying the How To book out on the floor, and sharing it with a friend, helps you see if any steps have been left out of the instructions.

 Today was Day 97 of First Grade. Next Wednesday we will celebrate the 100th Day! We have lots of fun activities planned for this.

Service Learning 

All Grade 1 classes are participating in a Service Learning project where we will be partnering with other students from two schools: Fuchun Primary School (FPS) and Seng Kang Primary School (SKPS) located  in the community called Compassvale, off of Punggol Road. Correlated to outcomes of the SAS Grade 1 Curriculum, these partnerships will enhance cross cultural understanding, provide an opportunity to form new friendships across cultures, and help students appreciate diversity while acknowledging commonalities. There will be a total of four sessions, two at S.A.S. and two sessions at,SKPS. Due to the Singapore Ministry of Education protocols, parent participation will be extremely limited for any session away from S.A.S. The first session is scheduled for mid-February and the final session in May will be a celebration giving students from these schools an opportunity to share their reflections on a culture other than their own.