Dear EY3 Families,
We hope that you all enjoyed your holidays on Monday and Wednesday this week, while we had a fun-filled but short week at school.
As our inquiry into how we express ourselves continues, the children dove further into their exploration of storytelling. They re-told familiar stories using role-play, toys, music and movement, made up their own original stories expressed through drawing, writing, dress-up, and puppetry, and enjoyed stories told through books and songs. Many children also brought their favourite story books to school to share with the class. These learning engagements provided opportunities to make connections between texts by identifying similarities and differences, and to build an understanding that stories can be told in different ways. They also provided opportunities to learn about story elements such as characters, setting, and plot structured around a problem. Learning about story elements and structure supports the development of reading comprehension skills, as well as writing skills, helping the children understand how to craft their own narratives.
This week children also continued to draw cartoon characters in the art centre in preparation for the Cartoon Character Exhibition. To mark Cartoonists Day on May 5th, the children attended a Zoom session with a guest speaker, a professional cartoonist and illustrator. They loved hearing him answer student questions and learning how he created some of his work.
Our math focus this week was on developing number sense, including building an understanding of place value, addition, and subtraction. The children took part in various hands-on activities where they represented number in different ways, such as numerals, drawings, words, Numicon shapes, ten frames, unifix cubes, and more. Such activities help students to develop a deep understanding of number, so that they can visualize them and mentally manipulate quantities. Many of these our materials and representations group quantities by tens, helping students to understand place value and the base-ten number system, which is essential for computational fluency later on. Some children also created “number stories,” simple scenarios that represent addition and subtraction, helping them to understand what these operations mean in real life. Children told their number stories with pictures, narration, and unifix cubes, finally connecting them with a number sentence (an equation). This was a wonderful way to connect with our storytelling inquiry, as the more connections we make, the more meaningful learning becomes in all areas.
Student-Led Conferences
Student-Led Conferences will be taking place at on Monday May 16th. Play and inquiry based learning centres will be set up in the classroom as a sample of what the children have been doing throughout the school year. Your child will guide you through these centres, where you are encouraged to engage and explore together. Teachers will be present, but on this day the children will be taking the lead! This is always an exciting day at KIS, as the children take pride in showing their families what they have been doing at school and how independent they have become.
Regular classes will not be taking place on the day of Student-Led Conferences. Instead, each family will sign up for a one hour time slot to attend. Please look out for registration information including appointment sign up sheets, to be sent on Monday.
A Note About Smart Watches
We have recently become aware that several students are bring smart watches to school, and would like to advise all families that these should not be worn at school. Bringing smart watches to school raises concern about privacy and online safety, not to mention the possibility of children losing or damaging a valuable item. If parents need to communicate with their child at school, they can always email teachers or call the PYP office. We thank you in advance for your understanding and co-operation!
Important Dates:
Monday May 16th – Student-Led Conferences
Friday June 3rd – HM Queen Suthida’s Birthday (holiday, school and office closed)
Friday June 10th – Last Day of School (half day, 12:00pm dismissal)
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