Author Archives: Leigh Emma Sim

A letter from your teacher on the last day of school

Teaching Year 1/2 this year has truly been a privilege, and I will never forget this wonderful class.

Our year has been filled with memories that will last a lifetime. It included exciting trips, fantastic learning, penpals and lots of joy and excitement along the way.

It has been so wonderful to watch the students grow, both academically and emotionally. Each day they made me smile, made me proud and sometimes made me cry! 

We had some lovely trips together and I was always impressed with how good they were. We went to see the acrobats show in Gyeongju and enjoyed fun times at the kids cafe. The bird park was both educational and fun. We enjoyed making our own yoyos at the botanical gardens and I was proud of their kindness and great manners towards the staff there. We ended with our trip to Gyeongju World and everyone had a blast! It really was a lovely day.

I will never forget how excited you all got starting a new unit in IPC and the passion you show for learning. We have all grown close over the year and have become a little family. One of the hardest things about being a teacher is having to say goodbye to classes each year.

I have been so lucky to teach a class who are respectful, well behaved, so happy and genuinely a class of kindness. I hope that throughout your primary school journey you carry on demonstrating these values and working as hard as you can. I know that you can all achieve greatness when you try your best. Keep challenging yourself and believe in yourself. You have been the most wonderful class and thank you for a great year. You have been exquisite.

Love Mrs Sim xoxox

Weekly Update – T3W7

Happy Friday to you all on this sunny afternoon!

It has been a quick week this week with having Wednesday off. The weather is getting warmer and the sun hotter. 

We started the week off right with I:Ice-cream in our ABC Countdown and the students enjoyed a nice strawberry popsicle. On J:Joke day we tried to be funny and tell jokes all day. 

“What do you call a witch on a beach?”

“A sandwich” hahaha!

Yesterday we had great fun on K:King Day and dressed the boys up in their king costumes. The boys made some fun rules for the class. Don’t worry there will be a day for the Queens in the class too and they will get to make some new class rules for the day. If they wish they can also dress up on the day. It will be on Monday the 13th June.

Today we took a lovely walk to the reservoir and enjoyed some lollipops for L:Lollipop in our ABC Countdown 😀

In English this week, the children have continued on with the book “An interview with a tiger”. The children read some of the interviews and answered comprehension questions. They also made some questions for the animals to try and find out some facts about them. The homework this week is related to this.

In IPC, we went back in time and looked at the history of suitcases and timelines. We tried to jog our memories and made our own timelines including things we had done each year we were born. We still have some work to do on these! 

Today we made our very own ‘Holiday Museum’ with all our wonderful souvenirs. We invited Ms M’s class to visit and we presented our souvenirs to them.

Today we went on a lovely walk around the reservoir during games time. We had such great fun singing songs and spending time with one another outside the classroom. Look at how happy they all were <3

Gyeongju World – End of Year Class Trip

Thank you so much for your speedy responses. It is great to see so many of you are able to come! If you cannot make it – do no worry, I can play mummy on the day too 🙂 We will be leaving the school at 9am and returning at 4:30 pm on Thursday 23rd June.  You can bring packed lunches or there are some restaurants in the theme park where you can buy some fast food. However, they tend to be very busy.

Personal Leave

I would like to notify you that I am going to be taking personal leave from the 9th of June until the 17th June. A family member is getting married and I will be her bridesmaid at the wedding in Scotland. The class will be covered by Mr Green and Mrs Leah during my absence. 

I hope you all have a lovely long weekend. It sounds like many of you have a great weekend planned.

Take care and see you on Tuesday 7th June.

Mrs Sim

Weekly Update – T3W6

Dear Parents.

It has been another busy week, filled with lots of excitement. Our ABC countdown is a huge hit and the students are really enjoying something a little different in their day.

This week we have had great fun, drawing, wearing hats, exploring spelling apps and reading our favourite books.

In English we started our new unit on information texts. We started to read the book “An interview with a tiger and other clawed beasts” by Andy Seed. The students are learning how to find facts within information texts. We began by interviewing each other and then looking at the story to find facts about the animals. It is a very funny book with lots of silly answers in the interviews.

In IPC we began the week by presenting to Mr Dunn’s class. We made presentations about everything we have learned in our previous unit “Green Fingers”. The students did very well and I was extremely proud of their hard work.

We then moved on to our new unit “Hooray! We’re going on holiday”.The students had so much fun transforming our classroom into a hotel!  The children were given roles and had great fun checking into our class hotel. We even had our own hotel room with a nice bed and lamp 🙂 The students were so creative and imaginative and it was lovely to see them so engaged in the activity.

We then looked at holidays the children had been on. They had great fun showing their friends pictures of their vacation and telling them all about it. They interviewed each other to find out where they went on holiday, how the weather was, where they stayed and how they got there. They even tried to make a real life bar graph to see what kind of holiday was the most popular!

We then looked at the kinds of transport people use when going on holiday and also explored the continents and oceans of the world. The students made information cards including the name of the country and continent of their holiday destinations. We pinned our destinations on to our class map.

In PSHE, we looked at our world and the reasons why we love it. The children made posters writing what they loved and included things such as, mountains, oceans, animals, plants and flowers. Next week we will look at what we can do to help our environment.

In games today we had great fun with Mr Dunn’s class, focusing on teamwork. The students were put into  teams and carried out a number of various races. The weather was very hot though and we were all very thirsty by the end of it!

In PE this week the children focused on balancing. Mrs. Leah created a fantastic lesson filled with lots of skill practice.

Here are the photos from this week. Looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow.

Remember to wear school t-shirts 🙂 Tickets were given to the students today and are in their homework folders.

<3

Weekly Update – T3W5

Good Afternoon to you all!


I hope you have all had a lovely week!  It’s been a very quick week for us in Year 1/2,  filled with lots of of great learning, birthday celebrations and a field trip.

The students had lots of fun exploring the botanical gardens and Gyeongju Bird park.  Have a look at what we go up to! It was a great day out and reinforced what we had been learning in our IPC unit. I took a lot of photos this week! Enjoy!!

We have now come to the end of our unit on plants and what fun it was! Today we prepared for our presentations which we will do in front of Mr. Dunn’s class next week.  We will be telling that all about the process of germination and showing them all the experiments we have carried out.  Our beans have sprouted and are growing very quickly!

In English we worked on writing our very own stories.  It was quite challenging  so we worked on parts of it together.  We will be finishing these  next week.
In literacy rotations, the students completed a progress test.  It was very nice to see how much they have all improved throughout the year.

PSHE we explored the emotion ball ‘worry’  and read a lovely story which helped us to come up with ways we can manage this emotion.

It was both Carol’s and Alex’s birthday this week and the children were so lucky to receive lovely gifts and donuts from their mums. Thank you so much. We all enjoyed.

FAMILY FUN DAY TICKETS

If the students would like to buy any refreshments or snacks at the Fun Day next Saturday please could you send money in an envelope with your child’s name on it.  Tickets are 1000 won each. Refunds are okay if you don’t use them all on the day.

Masks

Please could you send extra masks in your child’s bag. Two would be great. We do have masks at school for them to use but some don’t like them and prefer the ones they use at home. Thank you!

ABC Countdown

The students have enjoyed signing their friendship autograph books, a breakfast in school and a craft and compliment day so far! Next week we will start from D for drawing!

That’s all for this week. Take care, enjoy your weekend and we’ll see you all on Monday.

Mrs Sim xoxo

Weekly Update – T3W3

Hello and happy Friday to you all! I hope you all had a lovely children’s day yesterday.

We just finished up another great week of learning in Year 1/2.

This week in IPC we have been busy identifying parts of flowers and their functions. At the beginning of the week we began by testing to see if beans germinate in warm or cold temperatures. We put half of our beans in room temperature and several in the refrigerator and we will check to see which ones grow best. Students are waiting patiently to see their beans begin to sprout.
Mrs Leah taught the children all about the parts of plants and flowers and studied their functions. Students produced some lovely diagrams and were able to label the parts and write sentences about them! We also spent time exploring different kinda of fruit and counting their seeds. The students had so much fun using their senses to examine them all.
We finished off today by taking a look at the life cycle of a sunflower. We read the book ‘Tiny Seed’ by Eric Carle and began making our very own diagrams.

In English this week we looked at prefixes and suffixes. We learned about using the prefix un- to write the opposite meaning of a word and how to use the comparative and superlative -er and -est. This week’s homework is to describe a character from the book we have been reading “The Invisible”. I would love to see the children use what they have learned this week in their writing. For example, “She was the kindest person but she was very unwell. People were very unkind to her in the story”.

Student Club

Max wanted to start his very own club so Mr Green allowed him to hold one today at break time. He really enjoyed sharing his love of Star Wars with his friends. They coloured in some nice pictures.

In PSHE we looked at the emotion sadness and discussed how this emotion makes us feel. We know that it is okay to feel sad at times and that everyone does so. We looked at how people might look or feel when they are sad. The children were great detectives and together discovered that people who are sad may cry, have hunched shoulders, they may have a sore tummy and they may lose their appetite. We know that if we ever see somebody crying or looking sad we should to talk to them or let the teacher know. It is very important that students recognize their emotions so that they can manage them better.

PE this week we continued with our unit in  “My body, my health” and discussed some of the healthy foods that we should try to eat. We played a game with several flashcards that had healthy fruits on them. Students had to run to corners of the gymnasium when they had a fruit being called. They really loved it when each team then had to change places. They realized that their hearts were beating very very fast after this game!!

Gyeonju Bird Park Field Trip

If you have not yet filled in the permission form and would like your child to come on the field trip on Tuesday 17th May please do so as soon as possible. This allows us to book tickets in advance. Thank you very much.

Hotter Weather

It is getting hotter outside. The sun has been shining all day. If you wish your child to wear sun cream you can put some in their bags or apply some before coming to school.

Next Friday will be Sports Day and the children are really excited about it. There will be more information coming soon in the Newsletter. I hope to see you all there!

Have a great weekend and I will see you all on Monday!

Mrs Sim xoxo

Weekly Update – T3W2

Good afternoon!

Field Trip

As part of our IPC unit we will be taking a trip to Gyeongju Botanical Gardens and Bird Park to reinforce the students’ learning. This will take place on Tuesday 17th May and will be during school hours. Mr Dunn’s class will be joining us however, we will be separating on arrival and doing different activities at different times. The students will get the opportunity to do some art and craft work at the botanical gardens also. I am sure they are going to have lots of fun. Please fill in the Permission Form by next Friday 6th May.

This week in IPC we have had a lot of fun experimenting doing activities from the science part of our unit. The students learned about hypotheses and tested to see if plants need water and light. We first created two pots, one which had the seeds covered in darkness and the other was put next to the window with lots of light. Then to test to see if seeds need water to grow, we created another tray which had pots with no watera little water and lots of water. We are going to be checking these daily and recording our results. I also brought in some herbs and let the children examine them. These included mint, sage, basil, coriander and parsley. The children were told that these were ‘mystery plants’ and they had to guess, using their senses what they were. We enjoyed recording what we could see, hear, feel and smell.


On Thursday, we wanted to find out where the water goes after we put it in a vase of flowers. We decided to do an experiment using cabbage leaves, food coloring and large cups. We are already seeing results and the students are really excited to check on these each day.

In English, we read a lovely story named “The Invisible” by Tom Percival. We tried to empathize with the character in the story and made our very own murals with special messages to go along with them. This week, the homework is related to the story. Please feel free to watch the read aloud on YouTube to support your child whilst completing the homework.  The students had a great lesson with Mrs Leah writing book reports about our two most recent stories. They expressed why they liked them and learned about rating books by giving them stars.

Students have continued to work well in literacy rotations. Over the next few weeks, I will be carrying out progress tests to ensure each child is in the correct group and learning at a level which is just right for them.

In PE this week we had a lot of fun learning how to create our very own obstacle courses. The students were given a variety of equipment and were asked to create their own journey. They explored lots of different ways to move around and complete the course.

That’s all for this week. Have a great weekend.

Weekly Update – T3W1

Hello!

It has been such a great week back in Year 1/2. We were all very happy to be back in school and I was so happy to be reunited with the students 🙂

In IPC, we have started a new unit “Green Fingers” and are having a ball exploring the area and looking at all the flowers and plants around the school. We began the unit by making our very own ‘herb heads’. We used grass seeds and we are hoping they are going to grow lots of ‘hair’ through their sock heads.  

We went for a lovely walk on Tuesday to look at the beautiful flowers around the school. We used an application to take pictures of the flowers that we didn’t know the names of. We made sketches of them and really enjoyed exploring. We discussed the colours and leaves. Our favourite was the Japanese Blossom tree.

We then began our Knowledge Harvest part of the unit where we wrote down everything we knew about plants. We cut out large leaves and put all our knowledge on them. We then used them to make a beautiful display and we will continue adding to it. 

Today we looked at evergreen and deciduous trees and the difference between them. We also completed a sorting activity, looking at the different shapes of leaves there are. The students have really enjoyed the first week of our IPC unit and I can’t wait for lots more fun learning to come.

In English, we started our unit on Stories from well known authors and have been reading the book “The Night Gardener”. We took a look at the animal topiary in the story and chose an animal to write about. We explained why we liked it, what the animal is like and what they can do. The students produced some great work and used lots of great adjectives in their writing. Just fantastic! We also completed some comprehension questions after reading the story with Mrs Leah.

In PSHE, we started our unit on Emotions and looked at the various emotions we can experience and how to manage them. This is a really nice unit that will help the students to find ways to deal with situations that may be difficult due to how they feel. 

In PE, we started our unit on ‘My Body, My Health’. We discussed how our bodies need lots of nutritional food and exercise to stay healthy. We then tried to check our hearts rates and see how they changed before, during and after exercise. We did moderate and intense exercises and found that our little heart beats went super duper fast after a lot of intense exercise! We were all very tired after Tuesday’s P.E. lesson.

We finished off this week with some games this afternoon and what fun we all had!

HAPPY Birthday to Nayra!
Thank you for the gifts! We all loved them!
Waiting for their gift bags. hehe!

Enjoy the lovely weather and have a great weekend! See you all on Monday!

Mrs Sim 🙂

T2W11 – Weekly Update

Good Afternoon,

We have had a great last week of term 2. I can’t believe how fast time has flied so far. It has been a pleasure teaching the students this term and I hope they have had as much fun as I have had.

This week we have been very lucky to have a new Trainee Teacher in our class – Mrs Leah. She will be joining us in term 3 and she is already loved by all the students. We have been having great fun getting to know her.

In IPC this week, we finished up our unit on “Buildings”. It was a long but really fun unit which the children have all really enjoyed. We completed the international activities of the unit where we looked at where we all call home. As the students are from so many different countries it was interesting to discover, that despite the countries and homes being very different, they all had one thing in common – they were all ‘home’ to us. We did an activity where the students had to describe their home to a partner, using detailed adjectives and instructions. The partner had to draw what their partner described and then compare the pictures to see if they really did look like their own homes. I drew Mrs Leah’s house and then we looked at her home on Google maps. The children were so surprised to see how alike I had managed to draw it. (Yay teacher teamwork!)

We also looked at various 3D shapes and explored which ones would be the best for making structures. We looked at various boxes and tried to make our very own. The students worked hard to test which shape would be the best to making a building. They used A5 card and balanced it on top of their shape. We then used dice to pile on top of the card. The students counted how many dice the shape could hold before it collapsed. They got a little competitive but worked so well in their teams. We discovered that cuboids and cubes were really good 3D shapes to make structures with!

In English, we finished out unit on Explanation Texts. We looked at how to build a dolls house and used diagrams to help us write information about each step. They really did very well with this unit and are confident making sequences and using time connectives now. Yesterday we learned about the lifecycle of a caterpillar and the students made their own explanation texts. I was really impressed with the work that they produced. Well done!!

Penpals in Spain

We opened our second letters from our penpals in Marbella, Spain. Oh the excitement! 🙂 Even more so, as when they opened their letters they realized they had received a chocolate all the way from Spain. Some got ‘Euro note’ chocolates and others got coin chocolates! They enjoyed them with their lunch yesterday. We had fun with Mrs Leah opening them and reading them together. As part of our digital literacy class we are going to be focusing on writing emails so that we can learn to send emails to our friends in Spain too. It is such a lovely project that brings so much happiness to the children. Not only do they love opening their letters but they are practicing their reading and writing skills at the same time 🙂

Watching Mr Dunn’s students making their presentations.

RAT Tests

Tests were sent home with the students today but I am really sorry that I didn’t manage to give them to Alex, Rachael, Ana and Louis as things were a little hectic at the end of the school day. (They were on the first bus and I forgot about putting them in their bags- so sorry!). The school will be open over the holidays so if you wish to, you are welcome to drop by for the tests before school starts back on the 18th April 2022. My apologies.

I wish you all a very happy Easter Break and hope that you all have fun with your family. Stay safe!

Weekly Update – T2W10

Hello and happy Friday to you all!

We have just finished off another week of great learning with some netball. I played this sport at university and loved teaching them some of my skills today. 

In English, we continued on with our unit on Explanations, exploring how to use a chewing gum machine. We looked at the steps to using one and broke it down into five sections using a flowchart. The children then had to create their own explanations ensuring they used a title, time connectives, capital letters, full stops/question marks and pictures. We then tried to make our own sandwiches so that children could think about the steps of making something. As we made it, we used the language we had learned e.g. “First, we get a bread roll”. “Next, cut the roll.”  The children said this was the BEST lesson ever. They not only enjoyed the making (and eating) but they produced some great explanations! 

Enjoyinh their sandwiches

In IPC, we have had a busy week of crafting and building. At the beginning of the week we completed our own town of wooden houses and buildings. Mr de klerk’s students came to mentor and help us make them and we were very thankful. Great teamwork and cooperation. We also put together our apartments that we worked on last week. We made blocks using card and lollipop sticks to look like a block of an apartment building. We spoke about shapes that work best to support buildings. After putting it together we added it to our display of wooden houses. It looks fantastic! 

We then moved onto our science section of the unit and looked at creating bridges using only 1 sheet of A4 paper. The students were allowed to change the shape of the paper but weren’t allowed to use any tape. We had a little competition to see whose bridge could hold the most coins. We managed to get up to 74! It was a really fun activity. Today, we spoke about what we could use instead of tape to make buildings. We decided that glue would be a great idea! So we tried to make our own homemade glue and compare how strong it was compared to glue stick glue and PVA glue. The children made predictions as to which one would be the strongest. We stuck buttons onto a paper plate using each of the glues and afterwards, turned it upside down to see which one would fall off. They all stuck well so we decided to check how easy they were to pick off. Our homemade glue came off straight away! The children enjoyed making the glue and it was great to see what they all predicted.

In PE, we continued with our gymnastics unit on shapes. The students made lots of new shapes using their bodies and we tried to see how quickly we could form the shapes when I said the name of it.

To end the week we had a lovely new student join our class and we were all so excited! Welcome Ana! We are so happy to have you here with us! One of the students wrote her a letter and it was so lovely I had to attach it here.

We are trying to be good leaders in class!

Have a lovely weekend! See you all on Monday!

Weekly Update – T2W9

Hello to you all on this very rainy Friday!

I hope the weather gets better so that we can enjoy the beautiful spring cherry blossoms soon! 

We have had a very, very busy week packed with great learning.

It was so great to be back in the classroom with my precious students. I really missed them. They also made my birthday very special with all their kinds words and cards.

This week we welcomed a new friend into our class – Vedanshi. She has had a great first week and everyone was very kind to her and helped her learn about our daily routines and classes. 

In IPC this week, we started our Design, Technology and Innovation part of our unit on Buildings. The children learned about the structure of buildings and worked on a very special project that you will be receiving soon. 🙂 They are all very excited to show you their beautiful work. We looked at how we can form shapes to make buildings, practiced cutting some wood and today we began making our very own wooden street. The students were each given a wooden mini house and they were very busy designing the exterior of the building today. I think it is going to be another great masterpiece when we finish it next week. Here’s a sneak peak. 🙂 

So cute!

In English, we have continued working on our unit on ‘Explanation texts”, specifically looking at the features. We spent time identifying time connectives, titles, short sentences and facts in texts named “How is chocolate made?” and “How do sunflowers grow?” The homework this week is related to this and the children should remember to try and use time connectives when completing it. The main ones we looked at this week are; First, Next, Then and Finally.

Rotation Teacher Time with Louis and Carol.

In PSHE, I decided to review friendships and kindness this week to welcome our new friend to the class. I believe that kindness is a very important thing and I love to encourage the students to be kind, respectful students. 

In PE, we started a new unit  “Body Shapes”. The students learned various rolls and shapes they can make with their bodies. They then worked in groups to make a sequence using the various movements they had practised. I was impressed with their flexibility (and also a little bit jealous hehe!).

In Maths this week, we have worked on Venn and Carroll diagrams. The students also worked on their mental maths, times tables and fractions. Today they sat a small mental maths quiz and did their weekly times tables grids. They are making great progress with it and each week they are getting better and better.

We finished off the day in games, learning about the importance of teamwork and spacial awareness. The students are still working on finding those spaces when they want to receive the ball from a teammate. We are going to be working more on this skill next week. 

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend. Let’s hope the sun comes out to play. 

Love Mrs Sim xoxo