Bollywood Veggies and ANZAC Biscuits

Dear Parents,
Thanks to all the parents who helped out on our field trip to Bollywood Veggies. It was a great day - but SOOOO hot! I hope the plants the children brought home are surviving. The children were told to water them twice per day. Here at last are the photos from Bollywood Veggies.

Today is ANZAC Day in Australia and New Zealand, which is similar to Veterans Day in USA. During our buddy class time we made ANZAC Biscuits today. Ask your child about the history of ANZAC Biscuits - why did people make them during the war?
Photos of our baking session are here.

And if you'd like to try baking these at home, click here for the recipe.

In science the children used anemometers to measure the strength of the wind.

Thanks,
Debbie Woodfield

Starlight Ball

The highlight of my school year is always the Starlight Ball. I love seeing the children all dressed up, and taking their dance moves very seriously! I have loaded lots of photos here for you.  I also took 2 very short video clips of the dancing. Look at them here:

Celebrations!

This has been a short week but we've done so much!  They oral presentations on the research topics were fabulous. Thanks for all the hard work that went into these at home. There are 2 photos on this page, but the rest of them can be found here. 

Nick is ready to present his work about Giant machines.

Zara told us lots of interesting facts about fish, especially the clownfish.

I also videoed each child as they spoke. The files have been compressed, so I hope you can view them from home. Look for them here.  If you hover the mouse over each file, you will see the child's name on it.

Here's a little 'test' video I took of the class at work. 

Today we had a celebration because we have finished the Non-Fiction reading and writing unit. Mr. Woody's 4th Grade class came down and rotated around the room, listening to my students talk about their research projects and diorama. 

Sanah teaches Kai about dolphins

Varun reads the book he wrote about tigers

Shreya and her classmates say "Cheers" with cupcakes to celebrate the end of the Non-fiction reading and writing unit. You can see Ruoyan in this photo too -she came to visit us today since her own Singaporean school is on holiday.

St Patrick's Day -since there is no school tomorrow, we all came to school dressed in green today. Imagine the shock when the children entered the classroom to find books on the floor, chairs overturned, toys strewn about and everything in a mess. We think it was a leprechaun because there was a trail of green glitter throughout the room AND a gold (chocolate) coin in every desk drawer. There are more photos of St Patrick's Day here.

Skye is shocked at the mess the leprechaun made in our classroom

Amber was pleased that the leprechaun left a gold coin for everyone.http://www.sas.edu.sg/gallery/10-11/Q3/PS/Grade_1/Woodfield/Leprechaun%20in%20the%20class/index.html

Your generosity is overwhelming!

THANK YOU!

New Zealanders working at SAS dressed in red & black. The sign says "Arohanui Otautahi" which is Maori for "Sending love to Christchurch" 

I've been feeling very emotional all day, seeing so many people dressed in Red & Black for Christchurch. This class alone raised $368 to go to the New Zealand Red Cross to help people in Christchurch. Thank you so much for your incredible generosity. The ground continues to shake there every day. Christchurch people were woken again at 4am today with another strong after shock. There are usually about 10 aftershocks per day, of varying strength.

All dressed in red & black.

Hannah was in Christchurch in January. She showed us a photo of herself jumping on a bungy in the center of Christchurch. Nobody is allowed in that broken area now.

You can see more photos of Red & Black day here


Research Projects
Most children have finished writing their research projects. It's been a fabulous week where kids are constantly begging for more time to write. They are so proud of their books. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday they will all present their books and dioramas to the class so try to get the dioramas into school on Monday morning please.

Conferences
Parent Teacher conferences will be held next Thursday and Friday. If you haven't signed up for your time yet, please go to the Primary Website and click on "SAS Conference Wiki"

Starlight Ball
I love love love the Starlight Ball. The children will look so angelic when they are all dressed up. Please don't go any any big expense for this. Just dress your child nicely so they know that this is a special occasion.
I hope you can all come to the Ball on April 8.

Back at last!

Well its a long time since the blog was updated!
So here's a round up of just some of the activities the children have been involved in lately. There are many more photos here

MATH

 Playing math games that help learn the addition and subtraction facts.

READING AND WRITING

Aedan and Ethan were involved in Reader's Theater. We were an excellent audience for them.

We have been learning to read and write non-fiction. These "How-To" books teach how to do something like "How to make a Friend" or "How to play soccer."

After writing little "How To" books we wrote longer books on a subject we knew a lot about. These books include the features of real non-fiction books e.g. table of contents, diagrams, captions, labels, factual information. Now, we are researching a topic that we don't know a lot about. We went to the library three times this week to read and make notes on our topic of choice. Every time we went, the librarians gave us compliments on how quietly we worked. Mrs Woody was so proud of us that she gave us a traffic light popsicle on Friday afternoon to thank us.

SOCIAL STUDIES

We are also learning about Singapore in social studies. We learned that it is part of the continent of Asia. We also learned some mapping skills when constructing maps of Singapore.

Today we made beautiful cards for children in Christchurch, to make them feel a little better when their homes and schools are ruined. 

SCIENCE

Discovering how air behaves in water

Balloon rockets - we learned that air is compressed in balloons and it will propel a plastic bag along a string when the air is expelled from the balloon.

North Pole Rock and Roll!!!!

Do you wanna Rock at the North Pole??
I  was so proud of the way your children performed today at the Holiday Program. They sang the song over and over and never seemed to get tired of it. I was also really impressed at their behavior when sitting for so long on the stage. I have a few photos in this album, but you are welcome to send me more and I'll add them (email me 2 or 3, or put them on a thumb drive.)

Ruoyan

We are sad to be saying goodbye to Ruoyan on Friday as she leaves us to attend a Singaporean school. She is a hard-working girl who always smiles! Come back and visit us Ruoyan!

Merry Christmas
Have a wonderful, restful holiday. I leave on Friday night to have 3 weeks in New Zealand where it is summer and should be nice and warm (but our summers are very unpredictable!)
I will see your children again on January 10 when we start at 10am.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

This week our classroom has been transformed for Christmas. We have a Christmas tree with blinking lights, a fireplace to read by, and advent calendars hanging all around. Every child wears a Christmas hat each day. Carols are playing and video clips of Santa in his workshop have been shown. It's so much fun! Here are some photos of it.

Messy Kids! Tarush celebrated his birthday on Friday. His Mom brought in cupcakes from the American Club which had LOTS of frosting on them - here's proof!

Science - last week, rolling cups were used on ramps for the children to discover how wheels of different sizes roll. Here are 4 video clips of that activity. This week we used marbles on polystyrene tubes to study the motion of spheres, We ended up joining all the tubes to create one long roller coaster for the marble. After several attempts the children finally worked out how to get the marble to travel all the way along their 'roller coaster.' Photos and video clips are here.


Technology - the children had their first try at making "Photostories" in the computer lab last month. They are gorgeous! I have emailed them to each family. If you want to see what the other children did, you can see them here (but they might take a long time to load!!) Hover the mouse over each icon to see the name of the child.