Term 3 Week 7: June 6th – June 10th

Posted on 10/06/2022 by sian.py

Dear EY1 Community,

Congratulations on completing your first year at KIS! It has been an interesting year, to say the least! We really appreciate you all keeping an open mind and positive attitude during those challenging times of remote learning, the hybrid model and then our transition to on-campus learning. The children demonstrated many of the IB learner profiles attributes throughout the course of the year. They should feel very proud of their achievements this year and we look forward to watching their continued growth as they move on within the KIS community.

 

Thank you to this weeks Special Helpers!

Etta, Summer, Ella, Elle, Soma, Elsa, Vicky, Proud, Smile and Mabel!

A big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Sea and George who celebrated their birthdays with us this week! 

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This Week’s Learning & Fun
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Step-Up Day

Our EY1 children got to go and visit the EY2 classroom and meet the teachers one morning this week. Some children were excited, some were nervous and some were feeling neither and were indifferent. All those feelings are very normal. Mr. Rich and Ms. Magda showed us the classroom and all the different centers. They played a game, danced with the children and read a story. All in all, it wasn’t very different from EY1! 

It was so lovely to celebrate our learning and the wonderful class community created this year by having a party. The children had so much fun wearing their special party clothes, eating all the delicious food and then being able to play on the BIG kids playground at the end of the day. Thank you to all our EY1 families for providing all the yummy food for us yesterday and making it so memorable. 

We can’t believe the school year has already come to an end. Thank you all for such a great year of learning together. We feel extremely grateful for having the opportunity to teach and get to know all the children and their families this year. We wish you all the best of luck in EY2!

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Parenting Corner
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Below are a few of ideas that parents and children can do during the summer break.

IB Learner Profile

See attached link for a copy of the IB Learner Profiles that’s easy to understand for EY children. Perhaps it’s something you can print out and refer to over the summer. These same Learner Profiles will be used throughout their academic career at an IB school.

Cutting Skills

The attached file contains pages that parents can print out for their child to practice cutting. Building scissors skills is a good way to build up muscle strength and dexterity that is crucial to handwriting development. Here’s the link to the parent’s guide if you would like to understand more.

Tracing Skills

If you children enjoyed the morning check-in tracing activity, Here are two pages that they might enjoy doing at home too: Tracing Insects and Tracing Vehicles

Have a wonderful holiday and we will see you all in August!

Lots of love,

EY1 team

Video: It’s Been Fun in EY1 2021-2022

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Term 3 Week 7: May 30th-June 2nd

Posted on 02/06/2022 by dinnhe.kr

The children were so happy to be able to celebrate P’Nit’s birthday with her this week!

Happy Birthday P’ Nit!

Thank you to this week’s Special Helpers!
Smile, Yadin, Lalin, Gawin, Kim Sea, Ty and George

Lockdown Drill

We had our lockdown drill on Monday and the students all did fabulously. We discuss beforehand what it is and why we practice it. We did our own mini-practice last Friday. When we had our actual whole school drill, the children were quiet, calm and patient. They should all feel so proud!

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This Week’s Learning & Fun
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Unit of Inquiry

Even though this week was the second to the last week of school, the students continued to be engaged with their learning. Our current unit of inquiry, under “How the World Works,” continued with students exploring the “research” aspect of being a scientist. Together, we looked into the different ways to find answers and information to some of the students’ questions and wonderings. Be sure to have your child share with you what they learned from the discussions that these questions have brought up.

  • Where does rain come from? 🌧
  • Are there volcanoes in the sea? 🌋
  • Is there grass in the ocean? 🪴
  • Is pink in the rainbow? 🌈

Literacy

The children loved the “Spin and Trace” morning check-in activity this week. Compared to the beginning of the school year, the children have made much improvement in their pencil grip as well as their tracing skills.

Swimming

The children have all made notable improvements in dressing themselves after swimming class. They felt so proud of themselves. Thank you for practicing this important skill with them at home. 

In swim class, many students have advanced from using noodles for support to using kickboards. Some can even swim a short distance independently (while still under supervision, of course!).

Slim Fun

The children really enjoyed engaging in a sensory activity this week when Ms Ran made slime for one of our new science centers. The children practiced taking turns and were risk-takers for trying a new experience. They were able to make many wonderful connections when asked what they think the slime ‘feels like’.

EY1 Car Wash

Early this week the EY1 children engaged in water play on the playground. They were exploring different ways to use the equipment such as using the bamboo to transfer water from one place to another, making a water slide for the leaves. Amongst the equipment, Charkin found a scrubbing brush and decided he would like to wash one of the bikes because “It was very dirty”. We were then inspired to create an EY1 Car Wash so we could clean ALL the bikes and cars so they are ready for next year. As you can see from the photos, the children had a blast! Now we are wondering: What else might need cleaning around the school?


Photo Gallery – Week of May 30th-June 2nd


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Parenting Corner
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Mind in the Making – The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs by Ellen Galinsky

Essential Life Skill #7: Self-Directed, Engaged Learning

What is Self-Directed, Engaged Learning?

“Setting goals and strategies for learning fosters children’s innate curiosity to learn and helps them be better prepared to change as the world changes. It’s through learning that we can realize our potential.

The Life Skill of Self-Directed, Engaged Learning calls upon the executive function skills, including not going on automatic but instead reflecting upon the experience or situation and setting goals and working toward them (inhibitory control); and being flexible in thinking about how to learn something in a new way (cognitive flexibility).” (from mindinthemaking.org)

Here are some ideas on how to promote this skill with your children.


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Upcoming Dates & Reminders
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For Next Week:

  • June 9 | EY1 End-of-Term Party
    Click HERE to see the food sign up list.
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  • June 10 | LAST DAY of the School Year – Early Dismissal
    ⭐ Please note that pick up time is 11:40 AM.
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Thank you for your continued support and partnership! Have a restful weekend!

EY1 Team 😊

 

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Term 3 Week 6: May 23rd-27th

Posted on 27/05/2022 by sian.py

Dear EY1 community,

Thank you to our Special Helpers this week Zuri, Charkin, Anya, Proud, Netan, Myra, Asher, Grace, Vicky and Elsa who continued to help us test our theories from our morning check-in questions, check and predict the weather while also reflecting on what was fun for them at school each day. Along with our usual jobs such as helping us stay organised throughout the day by moving the star on the daily schedule, turning off the lights and lining up nicely with our belongings. Thank you so much for all your help!

 

 

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This Week’s Learning & Fun
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This week the children in EY1 continued with their UOI ‘Investigations. Through our morning questions the children have been challenged to observe certain objects and determine whether they are lighter or heavier. Sometimes we have been able to use our prior knowledge to support our thinking, for example; which do you think is lighter and which is heavier, a bowling ball or a beach ball? When reflecting as a group, friends shared if they have been tenpin bowling before and shared about their experience, such as not being able to lift the bowling ball and using a ramp to push it down the lane. This helped us to determine that the bowling was heavier than a beach ball. We also used a balance scale to check our hypothesis on objects we were unsure of. Great work, Scientists!  

It was a very special week in the Primary School. Our Grade 5 students celebrated their graduation on Wednesday morning. The EY1’s joined in with the rest of the school to share their support by clapping and cheating for them as they came down from the auditorium. 


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Last week we were exploring floating and sinking and conducted our own experiments using toys from home. During our group discussion, Yadin made a very interesting connection. He said “Kites also float in the sky”. Mr Max supported our learning this week in PE by showing us his kite and how to fly it. Luckily our special helper Proud, predicted some windy weather for us the day before. It turned out to be a great day for flying kites on Wednesday. Thanks Proud!

The children had so fun much participating in their first in-school House Challenge on Friday morning. EY1 and EY2 students worked together in their House groups to try and complete the obstacle course as fast as possible. It was lovely to see the children working together and cheering for friends when it was their turn to complete the course. 

 

 

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Parenting Corner
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Mind in the Making – The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs by Ellen Galinsky

Essential Life Skill #6

What Does It Mean to Take on Challenges?

“Life is filled with stresses and challenges. All adults and children will benefit from the Life Skill of Taking on Challenges by learning how to manage stressful experiences proactively. It calls upon executive functions, including not going on automatic (inhibitory control) but rather reflecting on the experience or situation (reflection) and being flexible in thinking about solutions to the problem (cognitive flexibility).

Children who take on challenges instead of avoiding or simply coping with them achieve better in school and in life.”” (from mindinthemaking.org)

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Upcoming Dates & Reminders
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For Next Week:.

  • June 2 – Book Returns
    Please return your library books before the long weekend. 
  • June 3 | HM Queen Suthida’s Birthday – (School & Office closed)

Looking Ahead…

  • June 10 | Last Day of the School Year

Thank you for your continued support and partnership! Have a restful weekend!

EY1 Team 😊

 

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Term 3 Week 5: May 9th-13th

Posted on 20/05/2022 by sian.py

Dear EY1 community,

A big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Zuri who turned 4 on Wednesday! Thank you for celebrating your special day with us.

Thank you to our Special Helpers this week Smile, Mabel, Asher, Proud, Netan, Yadin, Kim and Summer who continued to be great role models, helping us stay organised and eco-friendly. They were also great scientists this week by testing out our floating and sinking experiments from our morning check-in questions and predicting the weather each day. Great work friends!

 

 

Student-Led Conferences 

It was so wonderful having all our Mums and Dads come to school this week for student-led conferences. There was an awesome atmosphere around the school with parents on campus for the first time in 2 years! The children did an amazing job at showing their parents all the centers in the EY1 classroom and we hope you enjoyed getting some insight into what a typical day is like. Thank you to those parents who filled in our parent reflection forms. It was great to hear such positive responses on the things you enjoyed and thank you for your suggestions on what could be improved for next time.

 

 

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This Week’s Learning & Fun
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The children had so much fun experimenting with floating and sinking objects this week. We practiced a range of skills such as problem solving, enquiry, experimentation, hypothesising, researching and investigating. Through our morning questions the children were challenged to predict if certain objects were going to float or sink. From this we learned that the size of an object doesn’t affect its ability to float however what an object is made determines whether it will float or sink. We also observed objects that float at first but sink to the bottom over time such as the popsicle stick and the leaf. The children were able to share some great connections as to why something might sink such as, “Because they are in the water for a long time.” (Ty)  “The water is pulling them down.” (Kim). 

Many of our EY1 friends enjoy expressing themselves through song and dance. This week we took turns at sharing some of our new favourite songs. The children have demonstrated one of our KIS core values  ‘Nurturing Passion in Self and Others’ by sharing these new songs, dance moves and also why they like them so much. The children have practiced being ‘Principled Learners’ by taking turns each day for song requests. We have been making request lists on the whiteboard, helping us stay organised while also making sure it is fair for everyone. Check out some of our EY1 TOP HITS this week in the video below:

https://youtu.be/MOcsk_ImY5Y

This has also tied in nicely with many of the children enjoying dressing up and engaging in imaginative play. We have had many princesses in EY1 this week such as Ana, Elsa, Snowhite, Rapunzel as well as Tinkerbell, builders and of course, scientists! 

Fun Friday

For Fun Friday this week, the children were invited to bring a small artifact from home to create their own float or sink experiment. First we drew pictures of our artefacts, then we made observations and discussed what they might be made of. From this we were able to make predictions on whether we thought it was going to float or sink based on our knowledge of the materials it was made from. We tested our theories and then reflected on our findings.

 

 

We made some fascinating discoveries which led us to many further wonderings for our wonderwall. Such as…

  • What are marbles made of?
  • Do people float? 
  • Do all leaves float?
  • Do all seashells sink?
  • Do all trees float?


Photo Gallery – Week of May 16th-20th

 

 

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Parenting Corner – The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs by Ellen Galinsky

Essential Life Skill #5

“This Life Skill is the ongoing search for valid and reliable knowledge to guide beliefs, decisions and actions. Critical Thinking involves executive function skills, including using what you know to search for information (working memory); seeing information in new ways as you seek to deepen your understanding (cognitive flexibility); and not going on automatic and reverting to outdated information but using the information you have obtained (inhibitory control).

Critical Thinking is essential in making sense of the world and being a problem solver. It follows a developmental path, emerging in children over time, but its use must be promoted.” (from mindinthemaking.org)

 

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Upcoming Dates & Reminders
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For Next Week:.

  • May 27 – Library Day
    Bring books back to swap!
  • May 27 | House Day
    Students to wear House Shirts to school

Looking Ahead…

  • June 3 | HM Queen Suthida’s Birthday – (School & Office closed)
  • June 10 | Last Day of the School Year
    .

Thank you for your continued support and partnership! Have a restful weekend!

EY1 Team 😊

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Term 3 Week 4: May 9th-13th 

Posted on 13/05/2022 by dinnhe.kr

It was so lovely that we got to celebrate with Elle for her birthday this week!

Special Helpers continue to be great assistants with different classroom jobs. Thank you to Myra, Soma, Ella, Elle, Elsa, Etta, Grace, Anya, Vicky and George for being our Special Helpers this week. 

Thank you Special Helpers!

 

Important | Student-Led Conferences | Monday, May 16th

The children are very excited about the Student-Led Conferences on Monday. Please note that it will not be a regular school day for students. 

On this day, students are to come with their families only at the time that they have signed up for. Students are expected to come in their school uniforms. Please note that a negative ATK submitted the day before is required for everyone coming onto campus. This is the first time in two years that parents are able to visit the classrooms, so we are all very excited! Student-Led Conferences are a great opportunity for students to share a variety of classroom learning experiences with their family. 


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This Week’s Learning & Fun
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Unit of Inquiry

For our unit, we continue to explore different types of “Investigations.” This week, the focus was on color mixing. Students had an opportunity to make guesses of what colors to mix to get a desired color. Through testing and trial and error, they began to learn that different combinations of colors will yield a certain color. For example, mixing yellow and blue, we get green. And a “yucky brown” is the color we got when we mixed all the colors together. The children are enjoying being scientists in how they are approaching their thinking and learning.

Math and Literacy

Through our Morning Check-in questions this week, the children have had opportunities to practice their measuring skills. Many of the children are making great connections on how to measure properly, such as where to start and stop as well as making sure that the things we are using to help us measure, whether they are Lego pieces, paper clips or our feet, are lined up right next to each other, leaving “no holes” in between. 

The children continue to “read” and make sense of the data we collect each morning from our morning questions. They also love “reading” the daily schedule to see what we have for the day and what is coming up next.

Fun Friday

For Fun Friday this week, in celebration of the wonderful work of our EY1 students in the ‘Cartoon Exhibition,’ we invited all of the children to dress up as their favorite Cartoon Characters. We also had a mini-excursion to the AudiBox where we got to watch We Are In A Book  by Mo Willems on the BIG screen! Then we watched as Mo Willems showed us how to draw Piggie (link to video here)! We also got to dance to one of our favorite superhero songs, Superheroes Unite by Koo Koo Kangaroo. Feel free to watch these at home again. The children enjoyed the excursion!


Photo Gallery – Week of May 9th-13th

 

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Parenting Corner
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Mind in the Making – The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs by Ellen Galinsky

Essential Life Skill #4

“The Life Skill of Making Connections is central to learning. The ability to make connections underlies the ability to see that symbols—such as numbers, letters and words—stand for real objects (symbolic representation). Making Connections involves executive function skills, including drawing on what you know (working memory), figuring out what’s the same and what’s different (cognitive flexibility) and sorting these things into categories (inhibitory control).

All children and adults can benefit from improving their capacity to make usual and unusual connections—a core component of creativity.” (from mindinthemaking.org)

 

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Upcoming Dates & Reminders
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For Next Week:

  • May 16 | Student-Led Conferences (No school for students)
    Please see above for more details.
    .
  • May 20 – Library Day
    Bring books back to swap!
    .

Looking Ahead…

  • May 27 | House Day
    Students to wear House Shirts to school
    .
  • May 27 |8:00-9:00am | Auditorium | Primary School Parent Forum
    .
  • June 3 | HM Queen Suthida’s Birthday – (School & Office closed)
    .
  • June 10 | Last Day of the School Year
    .

Thank you for your continued support and partnership! Have a restful weekend!

EY1 Team 😊

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Term 3 Week 3: May 2nd-6th 

Posted on 06/05/2022 by dinnhe.kr

Happy Birthday to Ella and Elsa! Thank you for celebrating with us.

Even though it was a short week this week, we managed to get in a lot of learning and fun. First, we would like to thank this week’s Special Helpers – Ty, Gawin, Zuri, Sea, Charkin and Lalin. Although names are selected randomly, those selected students are still asked if they would like to be the next day’s special helpers. Some have chosen to accept while others have declined. In doing so, the students are getting a chance to practice choice-making skills and exercise their autonomy. Many students continue to be very proud of their extra responsibilities being a Special Helper for the day.

We also want to say a huge Thank You! to our P’Nit and P’Annie for making sure our toys and classroom are cleaned everyday after school so that they are ready for us to use the next day! We are so lucky! ❤️

Important | Student-Led Conferences

Please save the date! Monday, May 16th is the date for our Student-Led Conferences. This will not be a school day for students. On this day, families can sign up for one-hour time slots and students are expected to come in their school uniforms with their family members at the time they have signed up for. Please note that a negative ATK submitted the day before is required for anyone coming onto campus. This is the first time in two years that parents are able to visit the classrooms, so we are all very excited! Student-Led Conferences are a great opportunity for students to share a variety of classroom learning experiences with their family. Please note that sign-up sheets will be sent out from the Primary School Office soon. Students with siblings in the Primary School will get the sign-up sheets a little sooner so that these families can organize their children’s conference times accordingly.


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This Week’s Learning & Fun
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Unit of Inquiry

This week, we started our new unit, “Investigations,” under the transdisciplinary theme, How the World Works. In this unit, we start our inquiries into what is a scientist, who can be a scientist and what do scientists do. Over the coming weeks, we will look into what wonderings we might have about the world around us and how we go about investigating possible answers to our questions.

In line with our new unit, a new center has been set up. Students are loving opportunities to explore all the different things at the Science Center.

Math and Literacy

For this term, our Math focus is on measurement. The students have been asked to tune in about measurement through our daily morning questions. Further discussions are carried out in the day as we look at our guesses to the morning questions and what we need to pay attention to when we practice our measuring skills. Some students noted, “The Lego pieces have to be the same size.” Another student added, “There are ‘holes.’ They have to be next to each other.

For Literacy, we continue to focus on exposing students to rhymes and listening for rhymes. Rhyming helps students learn about “words, sounds and language formation,” which is critical to students’ development of their early literacy skills. (source) Songs are a fun way to learn about rhymes. A favorite continues to be “Down by the Bay.” We started learning “This Old Man” this week. Feel free to sing these at home too.

Weather Info Board

To practice our observation skills for our new unit on “Investigations,” a “Weather Info Board” has been set up. From next week, each day, we will observe and record the weather we see for that day. We will also practice making predictions (weather forecast) based on what we know so far and what information we can find.

Fun Friday

Our EY1 students had so much fun visiting the Science Lab in the Secondary School last week. Thank you again to the Grade 11 students who took time to show us some very cool experiments. For Fun Friday this week, we continued the fun and learning with some experiments of our own. Be sure to ask the students about the “volcanoes” we made in class for Fun Friday! The students made observations and then made drawings of their predictions of how much of a reaction there would be in the volcano.

Photo Gallery – Week of May 2nd-6th


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Parenting Corner
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Mind in the Making – The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs by Ellen Galinsky

Essential Life Skill #3

“Communicating calls on executive function skills, including paying attention in order to determine what we want to communicate (focus); thinking about how our communications will be understood by others (cognitive flexibility); and by substituting what we want to say for another way of expressing ourselves, especially if our original approach isn’t the most effective way to communicate (inhibitory control).”

“Children build the Life Skill of Communicating when they engage in back and forth conversations – through words, gestures or symbols to indicate what they want to convey – and pay attention to how it will be understood by others so they can continue the conversation.” (from mindinthemaking.org)


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Upcoming Dates & Reminders
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For Next Week:

  • May 9 – EY1 Swim Day
    Students bring swim bags and all necessary items.
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  • May 11 | 10:30am | Primary School Q & A
    [ for meeting link, please see email “Parent Update from HOS – May 6th” ]
    .
  • May 13 – Library Day
    Bring books back to swap!
    .

Looking Ahead…

  • May 16 | Student-Led Conferences (No school for students)
    Please see above for more details.
    .

Thank you for your continued support and partnership! Have a restful weekend!

EY1 Team 😊

 

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Term 3 Week 2: April 25th – 29th

Posted on 29/04/2022 by sian.py

Dear EY1 community,

It’s been another fantastic week of learning and fun in EY1! This is such a special time of year for our little ones. They have all worked so hard to get to this point in their EY1 school experience. They know the routines, are so comfortable in their learning environment and have formed so many meaningful relationships within the class community. We also wanted to take the time to thank you, parents! Thank you for taking the time to support your child, especially with the morning questions each day. Without you it would not be possible and it really helps make for a richer discussion in the classroom.

Next week we will be introducing a new center for the children. Please look out for provocations on how to best support your child on the tables and please ask your teachers if you need any support or guidance. 

Our students continue to demonstrate many of the Learner Profiles such as Principled, Reflective and Open-Minded through being Special Helpers. Thank you to Anya, Yadin, Lalin, Proud, Smile, Charkin, Netan, Myra, Etta, and Grace . We appreciate your help in making sure we follow the rules, stay organised and reflective on our learning each day. 

Happy Birthday to Asher who turned 4 years old this week!! Thank you for celebrating your special day with us and we hope you had lots of fun!


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This Week’s Learning & Fun
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Unit of Inquiry

This week we continue to revisit our Who We Are unit of inquiry on “Relationships.” We began to explore friendships and reflected on what it means to be a good friend as well as ways to create a caring and inclusive classroom community. During Circle Time, we looked at images of animals and children being friends with those who might be different from themselves, such as dogs and hedgehogs, buffalos and birds and children of different ages, hair colour, skin colour as well as boys and girls playing together. During our reflection time, we discussed some of their differences and why they could ‘of course’ still be friends. We came to the conclusion that kindness is a very important part of maintaining friendships with both animals and people. We also read a class story called ‘The invisible Boy’ by Trudy Ludwig and Patrice Barton that teaches us how small acts of kindness can help friends feel included and allow them to shine. 

Mind Yeti

We have also been exploring mindfulness and meditation in classroom with help from our new friend Mind Yeti. Mind Yeti introduces students to Hubbubbles (thoughts, feelings, and sensations) and the Hubbub (what happens when Hubbubles get too busy or too big and prevent us from thinking clearly). Mind Yeti provides us with some guidance on how to overcome overwhelming feelings and how to be kind to ourselves and others. If you would like to learn more about this we have assigned some ‘Mind Yeti’ activities for you to explore as a family over the long weekend. 


Cartoon Character Exhibition

This week the children were invited to participate in a school wide event, ‘Cartoon Character Exhibition’. The children had the opportunity to demonstrate their creativity and storytelling skills by either re-creating an exhibiting character they are familiar with or come up with their very own! This was a very popular activity for many children as they revisited this center throughout the week. We were then able to bring our drawings to life and have made them into an animated version. The children were able to choose what their character movements would be, such as dancing, walking, jumping etc. They were all so proud of their creations and were very excited to share with their teachers, friends and family. If you would like to do this activity over the weekend with your child, we have sent home some paper in their backpacks and you can also check out the flyer for information (see upcoming events and reminders at the bottom of this post).

 

 

‘The Wombat Wobble’

As you know, many of the EY1 students enjoy engaging in songs and dance as a way of expressing themselves and learning new things! This week we had lots of fun learning a new song/dance called ‘The Wombat Wobble’ inspired by many unique Australian animals.

 

Fun Friday

This week we were lucky enough to go on an amazing adventure to the Secondary School Science Lab. Ms Madhuri and the Grade 11 students had set up stations with various science experiments for us to explore. It was the perfect way to ‘tune in’ to our new unit of inquiry, ‘Investigations,’ starting next week. This sparked great excitement and curiosity amongst the children and we really enjoyed our time there. It was amazing to see how much the children had learned when we reflected on the experience. The children spoke with such enthusiasm and passion when explaining their observations and learning during their time in the Science Lab. We are very excited to try some of these awesome experiments next week and turn our EY1 classroom into our very own ‘Science Lab’.

Photo Gallery – Week of Apr. 25th-29th

 

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Parenting Corner
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Mind in the Making – The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs by Ellen Galinsky

Essential Life Skill

“Perspective Taking goes far beyond empathy: it involves seeing things as others would see them: their likes, dislikes, feelings and thoughts. It involves executive function skills, including remembering how others might respond (working memory); inhibiting our thoughts to understand the perspectives of others (inhibitory control); viewing situations in different ways (cognitive flexibility); and considering the thoughts and feelings of others (reflection).

Perspective Taking emerges in children over time but needs to be encouraged. Children with perspective taking skills are more likely to adjust better to school, to understand what they are learning through reading and writing and to build positive relationships with less conflict.”  (from mindinthemaking.org)

 

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Upcoming Dates & Reminders
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For Next Week:

  • May 2 | Labor Day Substitution, May 1 (school & office closed)
  • May 4 | Coronation Day (school & office closed)
  • May 6 | EY1 Library Day – Bring books back to swap.
  • May 6 | 8:00-10:00am | Auditorium | PS Parent Workshop (registration needed – see HOS Parent email)

Looking Ahead:

  • May 9 | Cartoon Character Exhibition – Drawings/ Entries Due
  • May 16 | Student Led Conferences | No school day for children except when they come with their parents during their allocated time. Sign-up schedule and more detailed information to come in the coming week.

Thank you for another great week! We hope everyone has a lovely long weekend. See you all again on Tuesday 😊

EY1 Team

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Term 3 Week 1: April 18th-22nd

Posted on 22/04/2022 by dinnhe.kr

🌎 Happy Earth Day! 🌎 We celebrated earth day today by joining our efforts together to make our EY1 Earth Collage. Some students also chose to make their individual earths to take home. We also talked about how our individual efforts to reduce waste can help save our Earth. Specifically, after washing our hands, if we only need one paper towel to dry our hands, we should take just one. We watched a video and learned that paper comes from trees!


Video we watched – “How Paper Towels Are Made from Trees“

This week is the start of our Term 3. It’s hard to believe that we are already in our last term of the school year. Before too long, we will need to send our EY1 students to EY2. “No goodbye!” as we’ve often heard this year. We will continue to thoroughly enjoy learning together until that time.

We would also like to take this opportunity to welcome Nabil and his family to the EY1 class and community. Nabil has an older sister in Grade 3 who has been attending KIS for two years now.

Our students continue to enjoy the added responsibility of being Special Helpers. Thank you to Kim, Elsa, Mabel, Ella, Elle, Vicky, George, Asher, Soma and Summer. We appreciate your efforts to model being good examples and to help us stay organized throughout the day.


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This Week’s Learning & Fun
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Unit of Inquiry

This week and next week, we will revisit our Who We Are unit of inquiry on “Relationships.” We started by looking at brain images of someone with a growth mindset versus someone with a fixed mindset. A person with a growth mindset will try different things, take on challenges and learn from their mistakes. In doing so, synapses happen and new pathways are created. Next week, we will extend this learning to friendships – befriending people who may look different from us, trying different friendships and exploring what it means to be a good friend. 

Math and Literacy

The morning questions and the data collected continued to be a great source of math and literacy learning for our students. Research is showing that it is easier for students in this age group to connect with the concept of “number path” as it is more concrete, rather than the “number line,” which can be a bit abstract for them. The students have certainly demonstrated that this week by sharing their answers to the questions about what they have done over the holiday and then by “reading” and making sense of the data.


Fun Friday

In this week’s main Fun Friday activity, we challenged the children to try something different – Vegemite bread. Hopefully, this activity sparked synapses and new pathways in their brains. Be sure to ask them about their experience. For those who are not familiar, Vegemite is a spread that’s made from yeast extract. It is relatively salty and is mainly eaten in Australia and New Zealand. Because of its intense flavor, Vegemite is one of those foods where people either love it or hate it. 

School Photos

Another special event this week was the student photos. Again, the children were challenged to go out of their comfort zones and do something new and different – school photos! Some embraced the whole experience. Some tolerated it and for a few others, it was not their thing. We honored the children, wherever they were at. The most important thing was that they were open-minded. They all ventured to the huge Auditorium, watched and waited patiently. They were all fabulous!

Photo Gallery – Week of Apr. 18th-22nd

 

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Parenting Corner
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Mind in the Making – The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs
by Ellen Galinsky

In her book, Ellen Galinsky “outlines seven essential life skills that all draw on the executive functions of the brain – the network of abilities that allow us to manage our thoughts, emotions and behavior as we pursue goals.” We highly recommend it, if you haven’t had a chance to read this book yet. In addition to the information shared, she also has practical tips and suggestions for parents for each of the life skills. Starting from this week, each week we will share one of the life skills mentioned in her book and some main points from that skill. 

The good news is that these “essential life skills can be taught with support and practice.” The other good news is that “it is never too early–or too late–to promote them.” For more information about the focus and self-control life skill, see the links below.


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Upcoming Dates & Reminders
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For Next Week:

  • April 25 – EY1 Swim Day
    Bring swim bag and all necessary items.
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  • April 27 | 10:30am | Primary School Q & A 
    [ for meeting link, please see email “Parent Update from HOS – April 22nd” ]
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  • April 29 – House Day 
    Students to wear House Shirts to school
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  • April 29 – Library Day
    Bring books back to swap!
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  • April 29 | 8:30am – 9:45 | HOS Coffee Morning 
    [ for meeting link, please see email “Parent Update from HOS – April 22nd” ]
    .

Looking Ahead…

  • May 2 | Labor Day Substitution, May 1 (school & office closed)
    .
  • May 4 | Coronation Day (school & office closed)

Thank you for your continued support and partnership! Have a restful weekend!

EY1 Team 😊


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Term 2 Week 12: April 4th. April. 7th

Posted on 08/04/2022 by sian.py

Dear EY1 community,

It’s been a wonderful last week of term in EY1. Can you believe we are already at the end of Term 2? This year has just flown by! We would like to say a huge thank you to this week’s Special Helpers – George, Zuri, Asher, Grace, Netan, Gawin, Soma and Summer for being great examples for others and helping with many important EY1 jobs in the classroom.

 

 

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This Week’s Learning & Fun
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Swimming continues to be a highlight for many students and it is a great way to start our week in EY1. We are becoming more confident in and around the pool and enjoy learning new skills each week with Mr Max.

 

 

Throughout the week we continued to reflect and deepen our understanding of our current unit, ‘Sharing the Planet,’ through our seed planting. Students used their thinking, research and observational skills to carefully explore the changes to their plants that happened over the weekend. The children showed great enthusiasm towards caring for their plants, taking on the responsibility of watering and making sure they received the necessary sunlight and air each day.

This week we reflected on our learning and demonstrated our understanding of our current UOI ‘Sharing the Planet’ through a fun life-size game of bingo. The children took turns at identifying the objects on the spinning machine and sharing their knowledge of the characteristics of living and nonliving things.

 

 

The children have also been busy preparing decorations for Songkran. The PYP school held a door decoration competition. The children helped contribute to the amazing display and expressed their creativity and individuality by designing their own hats, sunglasses and snorkel and masks for their photos. Check out the awesome efforts of the whole EY1 class community below!

 

 

Fun Friday

For our end-of-term celebration, we had our “Make-Your-Own Pizza Party.” The children have been making “pizzas” in the toy kitchen as well as at the Playdough Center. We thought this might be a fun way to celebrate their learning so far. They loved making their own REAL pizzas. Through this experience, we were practising many important Math and Literacy skills such as counting, pouring, measuring as well as listening and following directions, turn taking and fine motor skills to chop and make the pizzas. We were risk-takers as we embraced using all our 5 senses and kept an open mind to new tastes. Some children chose to eat theirs and lunchtime while others wanted to take theirs home. Creating our own pizzas independently and being able to make choices of topping gave the children a great sense of accomplishment and they were all very proud and really enjoyed the experience. Many friends were excited to share their pizza making skills with their family and perhaps might even have a pizza party at home over the holidays!

 

 

Looking Ahead…

  • April 11-15 | Songkran Holiday – No school for students.
    (April 13-15 school & office closed)
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  • April 18 | First Day of Term 3

Thank you for your continued support and partnership! Wishing everyone a happy, healthy, and safe songkran holiday!

EY1 Team 😊

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Term 2 Week 11: Mar. 28th-April 1st

Posted on 01/04/2022 by dinnhe.kr

It’s been another fun and eventful week in EY1. Firstly, a huge thank you to this week’s Special Helpers – Charkin, Lalin, Ty, Sea, Yadin, Smile, Myra, Etta, Proud and Anya – for setting good examples and helping us stay organized. 


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This Week’s Learning & Fun
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This week, our EY1s go to visit the Auditorium again! This time, it’s to see the PYP Exhibition. This special celebration of learning happens at the end of a student’s PYP journey in Grade 5 where they showcase their learning by sharing their understanding of real-life issues they have studied.

“As PYP Learners, we are empowered to take action,” was the theme of the Grade 5 students’ presentations. The exhibition was very interactive and students could ask some of the presenters questions and try out some of the groups’ hands-on activities that they have set up.

Many EY1 students were able to make connections with our current unit of inquiry on caring for living things. Some shared that they felt sad learning that sharks were harvested for their fins. The exhibits on pollution, plastic waste and the negative impact of sunscreens on ocean life struck a chord with many children as well. One Grade 5 student’s call to action was to have more flowers planted around KIS campus because he noticed that there weren’t many. The EY1 children said they felt “happy” after seeing this exhibit because they, too, would like to see more flowers.

Photo Gallery of Visit to the PYP Exhibition


Book Week & Book Character Day

The theme for this year’s Book Week was “Tales From Around the World.” Not only did we get to hear stories from around the world, we even got to hear some of the stories in various languages. Our very own Ms. Ran read the story, il Brutto Anatroccolo (The Ugly Duckling), in Italian! Ms. Dinnhe was able to call in with the EY1 class and shared one of her favorite stories, Go to Sleep, Gecko!, a folktale from Bali. To listen to other stories shared by the KIS community for Book Week this year, click on this link.  

For Book Character Day, our students and teachers got dressed up in their favorite book characters. Have a look at the photos and see if you can guess which book these characters are from?

Photo Gallery from Book Character Day

 

Unit of Inquiry & Fun Friday

To follow up on their learning, the students practiced as a group and then they got a chance to show their understanding at a center where they sort the different types of living things that we had talked about and nonliving things into their appropriate categories. 

Last week, we were able to meet Mr. Gerry’s dog and asked questions about how to care for an animal. This week, our focus is on how to care for plants. So for this week’s FUN FRIDAY, the students planted their own seeds and began to care for them. We will continue to use our thinking and reflecting skills to form our understanding of what plants need based on our observations and our choices on how to care for the plants.

Photo Gallery – Week of Mar. 28th-Apr. 1st


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Parenting Corner
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Some food for thought…

One of the things (among many) that parents need to think about when raising children is to try and ensure that our children have enough to eat and that they are eating well. 

Did you know that many of the common foods we give our families have a lot of hidden added sugar?


Sources: Healthy Food Guide and Harvad.edu

What is the recommended healthy daily intake for children? 

For children ages 4-6, the recommendation is no more than 5% of their daily caloric intake, or approximately no more than 19g or 5 tsp of sugar per day!


Sources: Royal Society NZ and WHO

As we can see from the information above, a child who had a blueberry muffin from Starbucks (6½ tsp) or a cola drink (9 tsp) has already surpassed her daily limit of sugar consumption. 

Why is this important to know? 

Because much research shows that too much sugar on a daily basis can impact our health and well being negatively in many ways. The ratio of sugar intake to a child’s smaller body size means the impact is magnified in children compared to adults.

   
sources: Good Parenting Brighter Children, Health Ambition and HotzeHWC.com

What can we do?

Sugar can be swapped out for healthier alternatives. Below are a few sites with tips and suggestions to get started. It may seem like a lot of thinking and work at first, but once it becomes a habit, it’s much easier to do. Considering the health benefits and long-term effects on our children, the effort is well worth it.

 

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Upcoming Dates & Reminders
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For Next Week:

    • April 4 – EY1 Swim Day – Bring swim bag and all necessary items.
      .
    • April 6 | Chakri Day (school & office closed)
      .
    • April 7 | Songkran Celebration in EY1
      Students are invited to wear their Songkran outfits to school. There will be some activities for the children. As per usual, please pack a spare set of clothes.
      .
    • April 8 | End-of-Term Celebration in EY1
      More info to be shared early next week.
      .
    • April 8 – Library Day – Return books to check out a new one!
      .
    • April 8 | 8:30am | Special HOS Parent Coffee
      [For Meeting Link, see email “Parent Update from the HOS – April 1“]
      .
    • April 8 | Last Day of Term 2

Looking Ahead…

    • April 11-15 | Songkran Holiday – No school for students.
      (April 13-15 school & office closed)
      .
    • April 18 | First Day of Term 3

Thank you for your continued support and partnership! Have a restful weekend!

EY1 Team 😊

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Term 2 Week 11: Mar. 28th-April 1st