Grade 3 Class Blog

G3 students and families,

We would like to start by saying thank you for your support today and patience as we prepare the learning resources and finalise/tweak lesson plans to accommodate for remote learning which commence in full tomorrow starting at 7:50am.

 Dear G3 parents and family,

We hope you were able to have a relaxing and enjoyable break and a very warm welcome back. It’s certainly not how we had hoped to be starting the new term however we are well rehearsed now in the proceedings of remote learning.

The following message has been uploaded to the blog, however we wanted to ensure it was received by all. Here are a few quick updates for tomorrow’s remote learning and we will be sending a second email tomorrow afternoon with more details of what to expect for the next two weeks. I am also aware that Ms June will be sending out an email shortly with more information so please look out for that one too.

As you know, it takes a little time to prepare learning packs and resources so tomorrow the G3 teachers will be in school to plan and prepare for the next two weeks. Learning packs will be ready for collection on Tuesday from 8am-5pm. We will commence a full remote learning program and timetable starting on Tuesday.

For tomorrow, students will find all tasks and activities for the day on Google Classroom starting at the usual time of 7:50am.

Please encourage all G3 students to check their Google Classroom for full instructions at 7:50 and if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us:

jennifer.ja@kis.ac.th

ronyii.gi@kis.ac.th

toni.lo@kis.ac.th

Many thanks and please check the blog & email tomorrow at 2pm for more information.

G3 Team

Wow, just like that we are heading into the last week of school for the term. Looking back over the past term there is so much to be proud of. The challenges we as a community have overcome, and the resilience and growth the students have demonstrated is noteworthy. We couldn’t be more proud, and know that everyone is looking forward to a well deserved break!

Here are some snapshots of learners in action from the last week:

Coming up this week:

Literacy: Building on last week’s persuasive writing, students will use key features to create a persuasive campaign and develop a poster either by hand or using canva to persuade others to take action in order to protect the environment.  Students will draw on knowledge and understanding of the key features of persuasive writing and apply these into their poster.  

Math: Students will be building on their understanding of factors and multiples along with the inverse operation of multiplication and division.  This week we will begin by reflecting on the way they would approach solving the 2 digit by 1 digit division problem.  Together we will review the different strategies that students are familiar with and build on these in the follow up lesson practising solving 2 & 3 digit division problems.

UOI: This week, students will be reflecting on their learning from last week, particularly the taking action and work on their persuasive writing. Students will think about how this message can now be shared with a larger audience to persuade others to take action in order to protect the environment. Students will explore how people can take action to support the protection of the environment by making more sustainable choices. 

Reminders:

Swimming

A kind reminder to everyone that swimming is a part of the curriculum here at KIS. We have been waiting for a window of opportunity to include swimming back into the programme and now we are able to swim and when the weather is warm. It’s important that everyone takes part in the programme. If your child is sick, please bring along a doctor’s note to excuse your child from the programme, and if they are really sick then you need to keep them home until they are fully able to participate. Please, let’s ensure our learners are getting the exercise and developing the life skills they require as a part of a balanced and healthy lifestyle. Thank you for your support and attention.

School Photos 

KIS will be having our annual school photo sessions from Monday, April 19th to Monday, April 26th.  During this period, we will have professional photographers coming in to take photographs of all classes from EY1-G12 in groups as well as individual student photos.  Faculty and staff will be obligated to take part in the faculty and staff group photo and individual portrait as indicated on the photo schedule. Please see the photo schedule here. Should students wish to bring in their favorite items that represent themselves and help to make them feel proud in their individual photo, they are welcome to do so.  Suggested items are books, sports equipment (football, football kits, etc.), certificates, etc.  Please do not send in any inappropriate items such as toy guns, princess/superhero costume, toy sword/weapons, etc.

The photographer’s team will strictly follow the time stated on the photo schedule. If a student is late or absent for their class photo as per the schedule, it will not be possible to have the whole class retake the photograph again. However, the student will be able to have their individual photograph taken.

KIS families and KIS staff can take this opportunity to come and take family photo(s) with advanced booking by emailing kisevent@kis.ac.th The available time slot is indicated on the schedule as “Family & Staff”.

Dates for the diary:

• Friday 2nd April – Songkran Celebrations – We are encouraging all students to wear Thai costumes on Friday to celebrate.
• Monday 19th April  – Start of Term 3

Wishing you all a safe and enjoyable Songkran break!

-G3 Team

This past week has been a busy one, lots of great learning happening across the curriculum.  Student’s have loved getting back into swimming lessons and are enjoying the cool pool temperatures in this heat!

Here are some snapshots of G3 Learners in Action from last week.

Coming up this week:

Literacy: This week, students will be brainstorming ideas, planning and then drafting their own piece of persuasive writing on a topic they feel passionate about. They will be developing skills and vocabulary to introduce the topic, state an opinion, and provide reasons that support the opinion. Students will edit and improve their writing by using a checklist of persuasive features to ensure they have used linking words and phrases (e.g., because, therefore, since, for example) to connect opinion and reasons. 

In reading, students are continuing to work towards their personal targets through guided group sessions and independent tasks. Please continue to encourage them to read for 20-30minutes each night at home and have conversations about what they’re reading to build comprehension skills. (document attached with some possible questions to ask)

Math: Last week students were able to apply some of the strategies they have been learning to solve more challenging multiplication problems and word based problems. We have loved seeing the collaboration with one another as they share their methods and learn from each other. In the coming weeks we will be shifting our focus to division strategies and focusing on the inverse relationship between these two operations so students can check their work and ‘prove’ their solution.

UOI: This week in our unit, students will be ‘Finding out’ through a product evaluation. They will evaluate the suitability of a material for a given purpose (e.g: plastic bags). Students will be exploring whether there are alternative materials that would be suitable for the same product by considering the properties required. Students will set up and test the properties of a range of materials (e.g. absorbency and strength) They will follow the scientific testing process by developing a hypothesis, testing, observing, recording and evaluating results. 

House Challenge- Book BINGO!

Thanks again for your support at home, it’s wonderful to see the students so motivated to achieve their goals and only two more weeks before a well deserved Songkran break.

Have a wonderful week!

-G3 Team

Welcome back after the long weekend!

Thanks again to all of you who met with us over Zoom last week for Parent-Teacher conferences. It was a great opportunity to discuss the student’s strengths and next steps with you. We really appreciated all the feedback and it’s always a great opportunity to strengthen our home-school partnership so we can best support our learners to reach their goals.

Here are some snapshots of learners in action last week:

Coming up this week:

Literacy: We are continuing with our focus on persuasive writing. Students will unpack the features of persuasive writing, and plan for a persuasive piece by considering an introduction, body paragraphs and a conclusion. We will be working collaboratively to create a shared persuasive text using the key features and a clear structure so students can become familiar with this format. They will be continuing with this process and beginning to write their own persuasive texts on topics connected to our current unit- Sustainability in the following weeks.

Math: Last week students practiced using a range of strategies to solve increasingly challenging multiplication problems. It has been wonderful to see them developing a ‘toolbox’ of strategies they can draw on and working collaboratively, discussing their methods and recognising what works well for them individually. This week we will continue to work on multiplication and then start to focus on how we can ‘prove’ our solutions by using another method or doing the inverse operation (e.g. division)

UOI: This week we will be completing research projects on ‘Source to Resource’ and students will be presenting their findings to the class. They will then go on to evaluate what sustainable and unsustainable resource use is, and form their own definitions for these terms. Later in the week students will be looking at the effects of non-sustainable resource use on the environment and beginning to think about how they can take action.

Please note Swimming Lessons are up and running again from today (Tuesday 16th March) Please see the attached letter from Ms June with more information about swimming.

Swim Program resuming March 16, 2021

Hope everyone has a wonderful short week!

G3 Team

Good afternoon Grade 3 parents and families.

We are looking forward to meeting with you all via Zoom for our Parent-Teacher Conferences over the next few days.

Some important reminders:

By now everyone should have signed up for an interview time on this sign-up sheet. If you haven’t managed to do this please contact your child’s teacher directly.  As our meetings are being done via zoom they will look, and be a different experience for all of us. Here’s a couple of helpful guidelines for a successful conference.

• Please be on time for your meeting, the time period is not long, however teacher’s are meeting back to back throughout the day making punctuality important

• Try to find a location where you can have a focused and confidential conversation without distractions.

• If you haven’t already, please have a discussion with your child about their goals and what they are working on so you can use this information as a basis for your conference. This information was shared with you by the teacher earlier in the week.

• Please try to be a couple of minutes early to the conference and wait in the waiting room, you will be invited into the zoom room at your given conference time. “

Many thanks for your support, any questions or feedback welcome, please enjoy your conferences

Learning Overviews:

Literacy: Students will be exploring descriptive language to help the reader to visualize something.
Connecting to our UOI materials work, students will play language/description games where they will need to choose the most suitable words to create the clearest description of an object, material or resource. Later in the week students can use their word banks to create a poem or riddle of ‘what am I’ to share with peers, incorporating interesting words. 

Math: This week we will be challenging current thinking and application of multiplication strategies to solve word problems, introducing larger numbers. Students will take their current knowledge of solving more difficult multiplication/division number sentences and apply this to solving deeper level/mastery challenges and 1&2 step word problems. 

UOI: Students will be exploring the source of a resource. Considering questions such as: where does the material come from? Is the source sustainable? What will happen if we keep taking that resource? Can we replace natural products at a quick enough rate?  Students will be sorting and organising whether a material is natural or man-made and creating a definition for these terms.

As always, please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

Hope everyone has a great week ahead!

G3 Team

Popcorn Sale

Good afternoon G3 parents and families, 

We hope you all had a lovely long weekend and were able to enjoy some time together to rest and recharge. The students enjoyed sharing some stories about their adventures and activities over the weekend with their peers today and wrote some great recounts about their memorable moments.

The week ahead:

Student Learning Goals:

Your child has been working hard to reflect and think about their current strengths and areas for growth across their learning which we will be discussing at Parent teacher conferences next week. They used the acronym ‘SMART’ to help them construct these.

The acronym SMART stands for:
Specific: Your goal is clear and involves a specific end objective (like mastering a skill or completing a project).
Measurable: You can easily track your progress on the goal and when you have reached it.
Agreed: Your goal has been agreed upon by everyone involved.
Reasonable: Your goal is challenging, yet within reason to meet during the goal period.
Time-bound: You have set a deadline to reach the goal by.will be bringing home a paper copy of their learning goals for discussion as part of their homework this week.

Please take some time to listen to your child sharing their goals this week and ask any questions you may have. We will follow up by discussing how we can support students to reach these in the Parent Teacher conferences next week. We’ve had a great sign up so far, please contact your homeroom teacher if you have had any trouble finding a convenient conference time on the sign-up sheet.

Math:

This week we will recap learning so far on multiplication and division by revisiting the key concepts and checking in with current understanding of multiplication using manipulatives (numicon). Students will be applying multiplication strategies to solve word problems, introducing larger numbers and working collaboratively to solve more complex problems.

Language:

Students started off the week with a recount of their long weekend. Focusing on strengths and next steps identified last week in students goal setting. Our new focus for writing to accompany the new unit is persuasive writing. We will be looking at lots of different examples of persuasive writing to be able to determine its purpose and identify its main features & structure.

UOI:

This week students will be tuning into the central idea for our new unit ‘Sharing the Planet’. Students will be unpacking the definitions of key terms from our central idea as a word study and going further through exploration of questions such as

• What is a resource? 
• Where do they come from?
• What are they used for?

As always, if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Hope you all have a great week ahead!

G3 Present Poetry

We would like to start this week by saying a huge thank you for all of those who were able to make it to see the G3 Presents Poetry event, live on Youtube, last Thursday. I believe the link is still showing the recording so please follow the link sent in the email last week and check it out if you haven’t had a chance to do so already. All the students did a really wonderful job, using poetry as a way to share personal expression.

Sharing our Passions

We were also busy last week, recording short presentations using a green screen, and editing using iMovies. Students loved experimenting with the different effects and backgrounds that can be added. Students went on to reflect on why visuals are often used alongside sound to engage an audience. Please take some time to have a look at these on Seesaw.

3-Way Conferences

Thank you for your patience as we have been rethinking how we can undertake the 3-way conferences due to the current restrictions of adults on campus. The sign up sheets will be sent out this week, please look for this email.
The 3-way conferences will look slightly different this year. We are currently working with all students on the goal setting process. Students will be bring them home next week and will take the time (allocated as homework for next week) to talk through their goals with parents and families. Following this, the conference will take place on Zoom with the homeroom teacher and parent(s). The purpose of this meeting will be to further discuss the goals set by the students and explore ways of supporting them to achieve these both at home and in school.
The parent/teacher conference on zoom will be around 15 minutes, when you recieve the sign up sheet online, please select a time that is suitable for yourself on the given day of your child’s class:

G3A: Monday 8th March
G3B: Tuesday 9th March
G3C: Wednesday 10th March

Any problems, questions or queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Final Note: Fundraiser totals
The Chinese New Year fundraising total was B27,290, this included B14,090 from the CNY tree and the remainder donated from the KISPA holiday Marketplace. This money has already been donated to the Hub who are very grateful for our help. Thank you to all for your generosity and kindness. 

Upcoming Dates to Note:

Thursday 25th February: No Class (Teachers PD day)
Friday 26th February: Holiday (Makha Bucha day)
Monday 15th March: No Class (March Break)

We hope you all have a wonderful long weekend,

G3 Team

Since Christmas, we have been working on our new unit How We Express Ourselves exploring ‘Digital media changes the way we communicate’. Students have been comparing how digital platforms change how we communicate and who we communicate with. In addition to this, we have been learning all about poetry and how we can use word choice to express our feelings, ideas and experiences. 

This week we are combining all things expression and diving deeper into effective communication through the sharing of our own poems. We will be working on communication skills leading up to a presentation of our poems on Thursday morning. Unfortunately, as per the restrictions of COVID, we are unable to invite parents personally, however we are looking into the possibility of sharing this presentation using a Youtube link. Please look out for an email in the next couple of days for more information about this. We will be starting at 8:30am and expect the presentation to last around 30minutes. 

Chinese New Year was a great success and thank you to everyone who made donations to our Good Luck Tree, all the money raised will be counted and given to ‘The Hub’ this week who have been looking after children who are less fortunate and always in need of help to do so. The atrium was filled with colour and it was brilliant to see so many students in traditional Chinese clothing or red. 

In other news, we continue working on our decimal numbers in maths and thank you for all your help with finding lots of decimal numbers around the home. It was a pleasure looking through these and reflecting on how decimal numbers around used in everyday life. This week we will begin to work on applying our knowledge of decimal numbers to compare, order and begin simple calculations to problem solve.

We thank you for your support with helping our students understand the importance of staying vigilante with mask wearing, sanitizing and social distancing as we continue to navigate this second wave. Please keep up your efforts, it is a huge help to us.

Upcoming Dates to Note:

Thursday 25th February: No Class (Teachers PD day)
Friday 26th February: Holiday
Monday 15th March: No Class (March Break)

Please look out for the email with more information regarding the live showing of ‘G3 Presents Poetry’ via YouTube and in the meantime if you have and questions or concerns please do no hesitate to contact us.

Warm regards,
G3 Team