On Friday, the children took part in the Elementary School's Winter Concert. It was a wonderful evening with the children singing and dancing happily and confidently. It was great to watch the video at the start of the concert, which showed the process that took place to get the children ready to perform. The children have worked very hard in Music over the last semester and should feel very proud of what they have achieved. I was very proud of them all too!
Here are some behind the scenes photos from the concert -
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We have had a busy few weeks with going on a field trip, rehearsing for the Music Performance, going on a Google Expedition and, of course, exploring our Central Idea, 'how we live is a result of Earth's journey through space.' Here are some photos and videos of Grade 2.2 in action - Exploring what we can do in a minute Field Trip to the Science Centre Google Expedition to the moon Instructions are an important part of daily life. They can help to keep us safe, learn how to do something or play a game. This week we have been finishing off our procedural writing and decided to put our shared writing into the form of a video. Students also had to work on their group decision making skills to organise who would do which job in order to produce the best video that they possibly could. Please take a look at our videos below - This week we had a great time visiting the Maritime Experiential Museum to found out about the Silk Road. It was great to be able to see and touch some examples of things that people traded and really helped the children to further their understanding of exchange in the past. The children had a great time exploring the different countries that traded on the Silk Road and finding out what kind of things were traded. Here are some of the things the children found out -
Alex - "it was better to travel by boat than by camel because you can carry more things on a boat." Miria - "animal money was made out of tin and it made them rich and gave luck and protected them from evil and the most popular shapes were crocodiles, roosters and crabs. People used it instead of money to buy things and the Malaysian King and Queen started using them in the 15th century." Lana - "I didn't know that they also swapped dishes, material and jewels as well as food." Mei - "people travelled to countries like Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia and India to trade." Aditya - "India traded gold, saris and spices with other countries." Take a look at our photos below - It was wonderful to meet with you and the children this week to talk about how they have been getting on in Grade 2 so far. Most importantly though, I know that the children were very proud and excited to share with you some of the work that they have most enjoyed doing this year. The children all reflected on their time in Grade 2 and were able to identify areas that they feel they do well in and also think of goals that they wanted to set themselves. I will send these home so that when the children are doing their own learning at home, you can help them to think about these areas too.
Market Day Today, Grade 5 set up their own market stalls and we went to visit them. This was a great opportunity for the children to practise paying for things and trying to work out the change that they would get. We also thought about the cost of things. Did they think everything was value for money? It would be great for the children to continue to pay for things when they are out and about and to work out the change that they will get. These real life experiences really help to show the children the relevance of the learning they have done in the classroom. Take a look at the photos that the children made to record their exchanges- This week the students brought items into school to swap with each other. The idea behind our swap shop was to understand that there needs to be a system in place for exchange to work well. The children came up with a set of guidelines that they felt were necessary for the swap shop to be a good example of an exchange system. Take a look at our guidelines below - ,From our swap shop, we started thinking about the value of things. To begin with we all thought about value as how expensive something was. BUT when Toko told us that her most valuable thing was her mum, we started to think about value in a different way. By the end of our discussion, the children understood that each of us see value in different ways. Something valuable to one person may not be as valuable to someone else. To check the children's understanding of this, I asked them to swap their items in the swap shop and then come to the carpet with their new item. I then asked them to swap it with the person next to them. The children didn't think this was very fair!
Lana said "I have never played with it before and I don't want to get a boy's toy because I am not a boy!" Alex said "I don't want to swap because I don't have any buses and I really wanted this one." Noura said she felt sad because "I chose something that I can use and the other thing I can not use." Fortunately, I wasn't that mean! I told the children they did not have to swap again but by doing this, they really understood that the first item that they had chosen was more valuable to them than the item I had asked them to swap it for. I wonder how our exchange system helps our class community? Talk about this at home as a family. Do you have any exchange systems that happen in your house? For example, do children help to do things in the house in exchange for pocket money? Does the tooth fairy ever come and exchange a coin for a tooth? It was great to see the children come back to school with lots of enthusiasm to tackle to the new term ahead. We dived straight back into our inquiry into exchange systems and how they help our community. With our new Chromebooks, it has given us the opportunity to develop some strategies for researching, such as using the internet and watching videos. We have been practising pausing and rewinding videos and then talking about the information that they have gathered from watching the videos. By talking about this information with a friend, it helps the children to organise their ideas and to ensure that they have fully understood something before writing it down. The children showed great levels of independence while completing these activities and collected information on exchange in the form of the Silk Road. On Friday we had Math Day! The children were excited to play different Math games throughout the day and to explore different kinds of currency that had been brought in. However, the most popular activity was playing Live Mathletics to try and reach the top of the leaderboard. The children demonstrated a high level of competitiveness whilst also showing compassion and pride for the accomplishments of their friends. Take a look at the photos below to see what we got up to!
We are working through our new Unit of Inquiry with the central idea that Exchange Systems help our Community. We have been thinking about what the word ‘exchange’ means and have come up with some great ideas -
The children also suggested that exchange takes place when you take your Singapore money to the currency converter to exchange it for the currency of the country you visit on holiday. This idea came at a perfect time with lots of families going on holiday for the October break. If you do have any notes or coins of different currencies, it would be great if these could be brought into school for the students to examine when they get back. HazeUnfortunately, we have had a lot of haze over the last few weeks and, as a result, the students haven’t been able to spend as much time outside as normal. However, as teachers, we understand the importance of ensuring that the students get the opportunity to release some of their energy and have been finding different ways to allow this to happen. Here is just one of the activities we have been doing on Go Noodle; a website created to get children moving even when indoors. International Day The last day of term saw a hugely successful International Day. Many of the activities were created by students from the High School and gave the children the opportunity to try different food, games and crafts from around the world. It was wonderful to see the children in their traditional clothes or in colours found on their country’s flag and it led the way for a vibrant and high energy day. Thank you for your kind donations to the food fair and for contributing so enthusiastically with costumes and participation. Final WordsIt has been a wonderful first term in Grade 2.2 and I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday. Thank you for all of your support at home and I look forward to continuing to work with you to help your child to be a confident, enthusiastic and successful learner.
We were very excited to receive our Chromebooks this week. We were all allocated a computer and learned how to login and access some of the Google Apps that we have been learning to use this year. The children were very excited to demonstrate their skills and understanding and enjoyed setting up their eportfolios where they can display work that they are proud of. We will be ready to share these with you soon! Also this week, we thought about what we could send in our cultural box to a class that we are communicating with in Alabama in the United States. During this experience, the children will find out about the lives and cultures of the children in this class and will be in regular contact via various methods of communication, including Twitter, our Class Blog and Skype.
This week, our current Unit of Inquiry came to an end. Our central idea of 'Communication Builds Relationships' was explored further during our field trip where the children had to use various communication methods to build relationships with other children. The classes were mixed up, allowing the children to spend time and communicate with children who they might not normally spend time with. They were given 4 different activities, some using verbal communication and some using non-verbal communication and had to work together to complete the tasks. The children demonstrated the knowledge and skills that they have acquired over the last few weeks and showed great team work, appreciation for each others' strengths, and of course the ability to communicate well with others. We have a new class Twitter page @ISSG22 Please take a look and follow us to see what exciting activities we've been up to!
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AuthorGrade 2.2 are a class of 7 and 8 year old students who attend ISS International School in Singapore. We learn together and play together and enjoy sharing our discoveries with you. School BlogsMr. Pinchbeck - Principal
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June 2016
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