weekly letter

Firstly I would like to thank all the students and parents for the well wishes and cards that I have received over the last three weeks. As requested, I will post a photo of little Oscar up as soon as I log into the blog on my phone.

Last week was spent going over a few things that needed to be finished from the last two weeks. One thing that we did was to explore the school. To begin with we drew maps of the school and coloured in areas according to how often we visited an area (often, sometimes, never). As a class we then voted on the two areas that we have never been which we most wanted to visit. The two areas that the class picked were the basement opposite the boiler room and a steel door with a big padlock next to the computer room. The students had three tasks, 1. write what they thought was in each room and why 2. write down what they saw, smelt and felt when they when into each room and 3. how can they use their new knowledge in the future.

The class was surprised to find the basement room well lit, fresh and full of cleaning supplies and spare school chairs and tables. The room with the large padlock was dark, musty and looked like a safety room from the 1950's. Everyone had fun drawing maps, remembering places that they have been in the school and exploring new areas.

It was great to see that everyone did a great job on exploring an area in their neighbourhood. I was also pleasantly surprised to hear how many parents took an interest in this homework as well.

Since the start of the year for half an hour each Monday we have been helping PYP 1 with their reading. Each of us has a Year 1 friend that we help. Last Thursday we meet up with our Year 1 friends in the computer room to help with a computer programme for their Inquiry. By the end of the lesson we found that we had just as much fun and learnt as much as the Year 1's did!

Week 43

This week we will be focusing on mapping and coordinates which will help us in our latest Inquiry. We will also continue with writing in our Explorer journals (even if it makes the room smell like old coffee and burnt paper :) ), as well as our Inquiry into Exploration. We will spend some time combining grammar with case studies on Explorers that changed the world.

Week 43 is International week and our floor is the Continent Asia. The class has voted to turn the class room into the city of Shanghai for the week. We will be need to do a lot of research over the week for us to do this. If you have any ideas, knowledge or anything to contribute to our mini Shanghai please let me know. The two things that we have come up with so far have been the dragon festival and dumplings!

Please remember that school will be as normal on Wednesday during developmental talks. (Parents) please turn up to the talks with an idea of what you think your child is good at in school, what you think they need to work on and three goals you think they might like to achieve. Each student has a work sheet where they have filled this out for themselves,  there is also a place for the parents and teacher to do the same. At the end of the talk each student will have three goals that they will try to achieve between now and next developmental talk.

On Friday we will be having snack in the class and all students are encouraged to bring in something that has some cultural significance to them like baklava, short beard, surströmming, etc that they can share with everyone else. In the afternoon we will be having a Halloween party with spooky activities. Some parents have spent a lot of time and energy organising this party and they have my gratitude for doing so, thank you.

Expect loads of photos next news letter.

Finally, week 44 is school holidays!