Grade 2 Class Blog

What a wonderful show of Spirit we saw on Friday! Here’s a celebration of what was shared:

Spirit Day Slideshow

Thank you as always for your support in these events and we hope you had a great time too!

Our experiment for this week is how does temperature affect water molecules?

A link to Mr. Marc doing the experiment is here – Water Molecule Experiment

In writing, we are collecting recipes for a recipe book that we hope to make by the end of the term. Please help your child learn how to make their favorite dishes and maybe even let them help you make it.

Have a great week, looking forward to seeing you on Zoom at 2pm on Monday!

Last week we had one of our most productive weeks ever for home learning. So many of our students had 100% completion rate for their tasks, and the quality of the work that they are submitting is continuing to impress us.

Last week we did the balloon experiment to mixed results. On Tuesday, we will reflect upon what may have gone wrong and use that to help plan our next experiment.

THIS WEEK’S EXPERIMENT –

Students will need to melt ice cubes in a pot or pan and observe as it changes from a solid to a liquid to a gas. We will recommend that they do it with an adult.

Materials needed – A few ice cubes;  a pot/pan;  a stovetop;  and maybe a timer to record how long things take.

Here is this week’s Zoom’s calls. They all have a password now- KIS     .   It must be all capital letters.

Monday morning class zooms are cancelled as the teachers need to go into the school then and pack up our students’ stuff.

Parents can come to the school on Tuesday and Wednesday from 830-3pm to pick up the packets we are making for the students and their portfolios.

G2 Zoom Schedule – May 11-15 – May 11

First of all, we appreciate your patience from last week regarding the Zoom calls. We have checked all of the links for this week and they are all working. The schedule is much more logical and hopefully we won’t have any problems. The new schedule was sent out in the weekly parent email.

Weekly Zooms (1)

This week we are going to start digging deeper into our next unit. It’s a science unit and so students will have the chance to do experiments at home – hopefully with guidance from an adult. Some of the experiments on molecules will involve hot water and food coloring.

However, it is not a requirement and we will post a video of one of the teachers doing the experiment each afternoon. This way the students can still watch and learn about what we are focusing on for that day.

For this week, the students will need some items for their Thursday/Friday Math Tasks.

Thursday, we are asking them to create a balancing scale at home. Here are 2 examples that Mr. Marc made – Click here.  I apologize for my hushed tone of voice, but the baby just went down for a nap.  🙂

You can use anything to make a balancing scale. I used string and a hanger and string and chopsticks.

For Friday, you will need TWO BALLOONS, some SCOTCH TAPE, and a NEEDLE.

Basically, blow up each balloon with air. Put tape on the side of one of them. Balance them on the scale. And then poke a hole in the tape. Air should slowly come out and the balloon will drop.

Please email any of the teachers if you ever have any questions or advice.

As always, you can click here to find our more about what we are doing for this week – Weekly Schedule.

Welcome back to week 2 of our third term!

Please see last week’s blog about more information about daily/weekly Zoom calls and times with homeroom teachers.

This is a copy of the essential agreements that our students came up with using this Padlet, and then decided on which ones they thought were the most important.

As Miss Lisa mentioned in the parent email, we were quite impressed with the quality of work that the students turned in last week. And today, it continued with many students submitting 10 different photos of items they had measured in their homes.

This week, we are beginning our new unit, States of Matter. We will be asking the students what they know about science, introduce them to the scientific process, and then we will have them observe experiments at the end of this week.

We will be doing a few experiments this unit. Ideally, the students will do them at home with an adult. But if that is not possible, their homeroom teacher will post a video of them doing the experiment so that all students can participate in the thinking aspect.

For math this term, our UOI-focused math is on measurement, and so students will need to have a ruler, or (even better) a tape measure at home.

Math Link for Extra Work –

Measurement – 

Khan Academy – Measurement
Measurement worksheets
Measurement Games Online

Numeracy- 
Addition/Subtraction/Multiplication/Division practice
Addition Subtraction Games

All-around math –

Math Prodigy

UOI –

Experiments you can do at home –  link

(We will be doing these quite a bit in a couple of weeks, so if you want to get started, it could be a fun way of preparing and getting a head start)

As always, you can click here to find our more about what we are doing for this week – Weekly Schedule.

Welcome back!  We hope that everyone had a restful couple of weeks. The Grade 2 team has been working hard to try and make the home learning for this next term to be as enriching and efficient as possible.

Ms. Lisa sent out an email to all of the G2 parents about what we are doing this term. If you did not receive it, please email your homeroom teacher ASAP. We need to know if anyone is not on the group-email list.

For the parents – We will be hosting a Zoom Video chat at 2pm every Monday to answer any questions you may have about that week’s homework.

For the students – Each day, we will be having help sessions for students who have questions about the homework. This is NOT mandatory, and students should only join the Zoom Video chats if they have any questions.

– 1:00 pm – Reading with Ms. Lisa
– 1:20 pm – Writing with Mr. Jordan
– 1:40 pm – Math with Mr. Marc.

We will also be hosting small-group Zoom chats with the students each morning.

Since our next UOI is about science, we will hopefully be doing a lot of experiments this term. Our goal is to make it as less stressful for you as possible, and so we will do everything that we can to help support you and our students during these times.

Again, please don’t hesitate to contact your homeroom teacher if you have any questions or concerns.

As always, you can click here to find our more about what we are doing for this week – Weekly Schedule.

Dear Parents,

As requested, KIS teachers have compiled a selection of holiday activities to support families and the community over the Songkran break.

We have tried as far as possible to select activities which do not require a lot of screen time and can use what resources you have available at home, there are many for you to choose from.

These are all optional activities, there is no requirement to do any of them, just have fun.

We ask that you DO NOT post any of your holiday activities on See Saw as this will have two effects for us:

• disrupt the flow of our learning platform fo when we return

• create a huge amount of additional work for teachers who will have to clear posts when we return, time we would rather spend constructing high quality learning for your children

Please follow the links to find age appropriate resources and KIS Spirit Challenges.

This link will take you to the KIS Primary Library site where you will find three pages developed especially  for you to engage and enjoy:

1. An online resources page with online reading resources, read aloud sites and STEM resources

2. The Holiday activities page where you will find:

•  a slide show of play engagements for EY1 and EY2 by Ms Marie

• a slide show of fun activities and stimulations for EY3 – G2 by Miss Kirsten

• a booklet of choice activities for G3 – G5 themed around the profile of Risk taker (compiled and kindly shared by PYP teachers at Malvern College in Hong Kong)

• A selection of Physical Activity challenges from Mr Ben

• Stem and Reading Bingo from Ms Lindsay

• A selection of Musical Challenges and a singalong from Mr Chris

• A few IT challenges from Mr Eric

3. KIS Spirit Challenges

We hope that you and your family have a safe 2 week break and we look forward to viewing what has been shared through the KIS Spirit Challenges on our return to being a community together.

Have fun and enjoy, Happy Songkran,

Another week of home learning is finished!

We want to say thank you to the students (and parents) for doing such amazing work. We were really impressed by all of the videos that the students sent us of them cooking and doing chores at home. Most of the students also finished their stories and drew covers for them and shared them with us.

The Padlet for the word problems turned out much better than we had hoped.

Overall, I think we are all still trying to find the perfect balance of the right amount (and types) of work to do each day and each week, and we really appreciate the effort that everyone is showing.

Here are some fun links to browse, courtesy of Ms. Ronyii from G1.

Live Cams
If you click on this link you can watch live footage from around the world of different animals it’s amazing!!! Ms Ronyii is addicted to watching the gorillas!
https://explore.org/livecams
Math Website
Distance Learning with Zearn Math
https://about.zearn.org/distance-learning?utm_campaign=distance-learning&utm_medium=native&utm_source=homepage
Reading Websites
Audible.com have just opened up huge swathes of their library for free. There are all sorts of things on the site and there is no pay wall and one doesn’t have to put in any credit card details.
The address is as follows: stories.audible.com
https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/find-a-book/library-page/

Virtual Field Trips
https://freedomhomeschooling.com/virtual-field-trips/

Dear G2 Parents,

First of all, we want to thank all of you for your hard work this past week. We understand how difficult it is to have your children home all day and all week, and that we really appreciate everything that you are doing to try and keep them on task.

For us, home learning seems to be progressing pretty well. Almost all of the students have engaged with us through Google classrooms and Seesaw, and the students seem to be trying to do most of the assignments.

That’s the important thing that we want you to understand – the students do not have to do everything! 

It would be great if they could, but we know that they’re busy and it’s hard to keep them focused for so long, and that some things may require more of an explanation than we have provided.

It’s okay. Don’t stress about it. Below is a schedule of the work that we will be doing this week. But to put it simply –

0) Students should check in on Google Classroom at least once a day to see what’s happening and maybe leave comments and interact with their classmates/teacher, and see what the assignments are.

1) The students should try to finish writing their story and share it on Seesaw.

2) The students need to spend 20 minutes a day or so working on their addition or subtraction. They can do it through the activities that we provide, or by doing other activities that you may have found.

3) They should spend at least 30 minutes a day reading in English. Whether it’s RAZ kids, Readworks, or just reading an English book that they like, it’s important that they continue to improve at reading.

4) For our UOI, we are focusing on staying healthy mentally, physically, and spiritually, so we are asking the students to some zenden yoga, or make a healthy food at home, or exercise. If you have time, try to encourage them to get out and play and be active.

March 23 schedule

We will try to share links in a couple of days to websites and apps that are offering free activities/stuff for the children to be doing.

Dear all,

Over the next 2 weeks we will be posting home learning on your google classrooms (First posts tomorrow at 9:00 am). You are expected to check in twice every day; we suggest at 9am and 3pm but that is up to you.

For specialist activities, please visit Seesaw. Check the Activities link in Seesaw to find them!  Also check Ms Linday’s blog for loads of fun activities. Be a balanced learner and make sure every day includes every lesson from Art to Maths!

All updates regarding Home Learning will be on the Home Learning Page.

Any questions? Email your homeroom teacher and we’ll get back to you asap. Stay safe!

This week we will begin unpacking our new unit, How We Organize Ourselves, while also finishing up our visual and performance art pieces that we have been working on over the last couple of weeks.

The students seem excited about moving on and had a very lively discussion about the different events that we have at KIS throughout the school year, and what exactly needs to be done in order to prepare each one.

We will be looking forward to having several guest speakers this week who will share their experience with setting up events.

In math, we have begun to learn how read time using analog clocks (with hour and minute hands), while also continuing to improve our addition and subtraction skills.

IMG_0178

As always, as we continue inquiring into our new unit, you can visit this page to find out more about our learning outcomes and to see how we create transdisciplinary integration.