Week 8

This has been an amazing week! UWCSEA East Campus hosted the Round Square Conference and we celebrated Service Day on Monday with seven Grade11 students. They did activities with us and we painted Mr Kazli’s portrait using acrylic paint (Kazli works in the facilities department and he manages lighting, stage, sound, etc). A big thank you to Mr Hamish Betts for designing the large portraits for Grade 1’s to colour in. We also used wires to create a wire sculpture for Mr Kazli - he’s on leave this week so we will present  the sculpture to him when we come back from our break.

So many birthdays were celebrated between last week and this week. Natalie celebrated her birthday last Friday and Thalia and Kjerstin celebrated their birthdays on Tuesday. This was followed by the most magical birthday! Teo’s mum transported us into the magical land where Nevi, the elephant lives! We listened with rapt attention to the story, which was written and narrated beautifully by Teo’s mum, Susie. 

The children have been doing summative assessments on their understanding of the role of communities and our responsibilities as members of a community. Our Service Day was a great way to address and highlight the importance of communities within our school and how we are all responsible for the well being of others within this immediate community. When we return after the break, we will be entering our new unit, My Body. If you have any expertise in this area or would like to share something on this, please drop me an email and we can fix a time for you to come to class and speak to our students.

Your child has brought back their pieces of writing- some of them are still works in progress. It would be great if you could ask your child to finish it during the break or edit and revise their writing. We have kept the final, published book at class so that it can be part of their Portfolio. They have written  “Small Moment” stories but you will notice that not all are small moment stories. The children have been given the skills to be able to practice this through the year and at this stage, we are excited to just have them writing with interest and motivation. In Reading Workshop, we will be looking at Poetry when we return from the mid-term break. 

We studied the works of the famous artist Piet Mondrian during our art session in class. Piet Mondrian was one of the founders of the “De Stijl” movement. He was famous for his abstract style of art using black lines and dividing spaces into rectangles. Mondrian used mainly primary colours and later in life, when he was in New York, started to inject other colour into his artwork. 

In Mathematics, students are having so much fun measuring and comparing objects around class using non-standard units/tools. We discussed what everyone knew about measurement and where they had seen examples of this being used in their daily lives. Some questions being put out for students in this unit are: 

Why do we measure?

How do we measure?

Why do we need standard units of measurement?

How do we use estimation?

Students are also continuing to find the most effective strategies to count and record a group of objects and collate data. Morning Meetings provide a platform to discuss numbers and concepts. We explore Calendars and use the vocabulary of Time (morning, noon, afternoon, etc.). The children have been learning a poem linked to Days of the Month - it’s the one I learnt as a 5 year old!!

See if they remember it - 

30 days hath September,

April, June and November,

All the rest have 31,

Excepting February alone.

Which only has but 28 days clear

And 29 in each leap year!

Reminders or events to look forward to:

Spirit Day (Creative Costumes) - Friday, 30 October

Forest Adventure - Friday, 6 November 

PD Day for teachers - NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS - Monday, 9 November

Diwali - Public Holiday SCHOOL CLOSED - Tuesday, 10 November

Workshare morning 8.20am to 9.40am - Friday, 13 November

Have a lovely time and see you after the mid term break!