Author Archives: Leigh Emma Sim

Weekly Update – Term 3 Week 2

Hello and Happy Friday!

We have had a super busy week this week in Year 1/2 and time has just flown by.

In Maths this week, Year 2 have been getting wet and having fun experimenting with litres of water. We were learning all about capacity and used lots of hands-on activities to develop a sound understanding. The students were presented with problems and had to solve them in our water tank. We practised estimating and then testing to see if we were correct.

Year 1 students worked on subtraction this week using a number line. They have done very well with this objective and some students even asked me for more work today! The homework is related to this. I hope they can show you how great they are doing.

In English this week the students have been working in their differentiated groups and making great progress. The Year 1 students are getting better and better at reading and the Red Ditty books have been sent home for them to read with you.

Year 2 students worked with our lovely Miss Mary this week and reviewed punctuation and connectives. I am really proud of how well they have worked this week. Well done!

In IPC, the students continued their music unit with Ms Temple. Mr Green showed the children all of his instruments and they had great fun exploring them. We learned all about how to be a good digital citizen in our Communicators and Creators unit. This linked in with our digital literacy unit this week.

In games today they children had fun playing a new game where they had to try and score a goal by sliding the cone. We rotated around and the children got to play against different friends. 

We finished off the week with a little birthday celebration for Yena. The children had some chocolate cake and golden coins. They all thoroughly enjoyed!

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

Hello and Happy Friday!

We have had a super busy week this week in Year 1/2 and time has just flown by.

In Maths this week Year 2 have been getting wet and having fun experimenting with litres of water. The focus this week has been on capacity and we have used lots of hands-on activities to develop a sound understanding. The students were presented with problems and had to put them to the test in our water tank. We practised estimating and testing to see if we were correct.

Year 1 students worked on subtraction this week using a number line. They have done very well with this and some students even asked me for more work today. The homework is related to this. I hope they can show you how great they are doing.

In English this week the students have been working in their differentiated groups and making great progress. The Year 1 students are getting better and better at reading and the Red Ditty books have been sent home for them to read with you.

Year 2 students worked with our lovely Miss Mary this week and reviewed punctuation and connectives. I am really proud of how well they have worked this week. Well done!

In IPC, the students continued their music unit with Ms Temple. Mr Green showed the children all of his instruments and they had great fun exploring them. We learned all about how to be a good digital citizen in our Communicators and Creators unit. This linked in with our digital literacy unit this week.

In games today they children had fun playing a new game where they had to try and score a goal by sliding the cone. We rotated around and the children got to play against different friends. 

We finished off the week with a little birthday celebration for Yena. The children had some chocolate cake and golden coins. They all thoroughly enjoyed!

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

Weekly Update – Term 3 Week 1

Hello and welcome back! Here we go Term 3! Yay!

It has been so lovely being reunited with the children after the break. I have loved hearing all about what they got up to. I bet mummy and daddy are happy to have them back at school too!

This week we have spent some time reviewing routines and getting back into school life. Two weeks is a long time for young children so I like to give them time to adjust again after a little break. We reviewed our jobs, our schedule, our responsibilities and we had a little chat about how to be respectful, kind and loving to others around us 🙂 This week we are continuing on with our goal “Remembering to be respectful” on our Positive Pathway and the students have been doing wonderfully. We are speaking nicely to teachers and friends and trying to stay calm and solve our problems through words.

Pen pal Letters

The children were very excited to get their letters from their pen pals in Spain. They arrived during the break. Their little faces when they were opening them made me smile. After we have replied to the letters I will send them home for you to read.

In Maths, Year 1 students have been learning how to add using a number line this week. They enjoyed drawing the little jumps to find the answers. We also looked at different ways that we can regroup numbers and reviewed number bonds to 10.

Year 2 started their new unit and have been busy weighing things, making “pancakes” with objects to work out how many grams we need of each ingredient and halving and doubling recipe ingredients.

In IPC this week we have started two brand new units! Yay! In the first unit we explored ‘Creators and Communicators’, and tried to experience different ways people communicate with each other. We sent notes to other classrooms, practised calling each other using cups and string, and even had a go at using the Morse Code. On Tuesday, we started another unit all about musical families. We learned the names of the four musical families: strings, brass, woodwind, and percussion. This unit will be taught every Tuesday and will give the students a chance to look at these musical instrument families in more detail. 

In English this week, the students started a new unit called, “You’ll Never Believe It”, which is all about Fantasy stories and poems. It’s going to be a fun one! They looked at the difference between real and pretend places, and read the story “Dragon Land”, which included plenty of pretend places. The students thought up some of their own magical pretend places, by using imaginative language. Later in the week they listened to a story about a quiet place and discussed why certain places would be considered quiet and why some would be considered noisy. We also looked at making sentences longer using commas and wrote our very own stories. (Year 2).

In PE we had lots of fun with Ms Temple this week! The students started the unit “Healthy Bodies” This health-focused unit involves learners developing their understanding of the importance of being physically active and how they can improve their health through the foods that they eat. This week we looked at the importance of warming up and cooling down before and after physical activities.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend! I hope the air clears so we can get outside and enjoy the lovely spring weather.

Love Mrs.Sim

Term 2 Week 10

Dear Parents,

I hope you are all well and having a great start to the weekend.

In IPC this week we continued our unit, “It’s Shocking” by looking at batteries and electrical circuits. The students were so excited to bring in their battery operated toys and do a ‘Show and Tell’ presentation. They all spoke with such confidence. We learned all about electric circuits and how to make a light bulb light up. They all had so much fun! We also looked at electrical devices around the classroom and school and made a chart of which ones needed batteries to work. The homework is to find electrical items around the home. I hope they will enjoy looking for things in their home too 🙂

In English, we learned about different features of a recipe and why they need to be written a certain way. We also looked more closely at what verbs are usually used in a recipe and why they are so important. Next week, we are going to be putting our hand written recipes to the test! The Year 2 students made their own recipes for ‘Jam Sandwiches’ and we will use them to make some delicious sandwiches next week. In rotations, Year 1 students are working on their reading fluency and trying to read words without sounding each word out one by one out loud. We call this “Fred in your head”. The children can read it like d-o-g in their head but should try to say the complete word ‘dog’ as they read out loud. Year 2 students have been working on extended sentences in their rotations and had fun trying to convince the character to eat her peas! The students had to think of things that would encourage her to eat them. They practised using commas and ensured they used the correct punctuation when building their sentences to make a paragraph.

In Maths, this week Year 1 students were learning all about mass and capacity! Two new words for them! We had fun weighing different objects, checking to see how many objects we could hold in our hands and making our own bodies into scales! We used our arms to show which item would be the heaviest and slanted one arm down to the side to show the heavier item. This helped the children visualise that the scale always goes down at the side that is heavier. The Year 2 students were learning all about time this week. We looked at quarter past, half past and quarter to. Time is a very difficult concept and it takes some time for the children to learn. For our American students, I am sorry! It is even more confusing for them! Hopefully the Homework will help consolidate what we learned and give them a little more practise.

Year 1 Ditties

Year 1 students who are studying the red Ditty books will have been sent a book along with a ‘Red Ditty’ book. We work on this book during our rotations now. The book will be sent home each week to practise. This will have been read together in class and the idea is that the children should be able to come home and confidently read it to mum or dad. The writing book has been sent home to complete. Whatever we don’t manage to do during rotations time will be sent home to finish. Please use the Ditty to find the answers. For the “Hold a sentence” section, which only a few didn’t complete, you may read a sentence from the book to your child and have them write it in the space.

Positive Pathways

Positive Pathways is our class behaviour support programme where we work on meeting ‘destinations'(goals). We set goals as a class and work on them, usually over a few weeks. Some take longer than others. This week’s destination is “Remembering to be respectful”. We discussed how we can be respectful to our friends and teachers and we all try to remind each other how to achieve our goal. We moved half way along the pathway this week-well done Year 1/2.

The start of our pathway
Some previous destinations 🙂

Spelling Test

You may have noticed there are no spelling test words this week. Next week we will be having a little PTA event so there will be no spelling tests taking place next Friday.

That’s all for this week 🙂 Take care and have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Sim

Working hard on our Maths technology station with our new cute tables.

Weekly Update – Term 2 Week 9

Hello to you all on this lovely sunny spring day! It is finally getting warm out there 🙂 We have had another busy week with lots of learning happening. 

Maths Workbooks (photocopies)

Your child will have brought a large file of maths worksheets home with them yesterday. We have been completing them at our “meet the teacher” station, however it is quite time consuming to organise them all afterwards into the four different groups and folders and the children find it hard to slip them in. So from this week I have decided to photocopy each unit we are working on in advance and then send them home after each unit is complete. This way you can see what your child has been working on after we finish each unit. Please be aware that some of these worksheets will not be marked. However, verbal feedback is given to the children during our small group rotations. I believe in spending every precious second on teaching and supporting the students! I always check and ensure that answers are correct and students are given help where needed.  

Maths

Year 1 students have been working on halves of numbers, shapes and objects this week and have had fun thinking about how they can share food! I brought in some oreos, some choco pies and biscuits and the children loved cutting them in half! It got a bit challenging when they had to think about how many items there were when they were shown in halves. However, we used our growth mindsets and tried our best. This unit will be sent home today in their bags 🙂

Year 2 students have been learning about angles and turns, looking at clockwise and anti- clockwise turns. We tried to create our own paths and see how many angles there were on our journey. We used a large sized real-life path in the hall to help us see where we would have to turn and in what direction. The students found it a little difficult to predict where a dot/shape would end up if it were to take a quarter turn or a half turn, so we will practise this again next week. Here we used large arrows to practise! 🙂

In IPC this week, the students became scientists once more in our new unit, “It’s Shocking”. In this unit they will learn all about electricity; how it powers our homes, how it helps people around the world and the dangers of electricity. The students carried out an experiment on static electricity and tested which material makes your hair stand on end, it was so much fun! We also did an experiment to see if we could build up enough static electricity to move a can. Here are some pictures for you to see!

In English, we have been looking more closely at imperative verbs and how we use these in instructions. Verbs are essential for giving and following instructions, and the students did this so well they were able to make their own origami ladybirds. 

In rotations, Year 2 have been working on statements, questions and exclamations! The students’ homework is related to this to give them some extra practise. Year 1 students are working well in their phonics groups and it is lovely to see them improving each week.

In Games today the children had a blast doing another fun circuit. I loved how there is something that everyone enjoys!  On Tuesday we did lots of fun parachute games with Ms Temple and they seemed to thoroughly enjoy them. I included a dance circuit today too and they were fabulous at following the moves!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend! Enjoy the nice weather.

Happy Friday!

Mrs.Sim

Weekly Update – Term 2 Week 8

Hello to you all!  🙂

It has been a very quick and busy week here in Year 1/2! I didn’t expect Kidzania to be as busy as it was so we never got to do as much as I had hoped. Next time we will try to avoid going during the Korean school vacation. However, I am still glad to hear that the students boasted about their water bottles and pencil sets that they purchased. (It’s the little things in life;)). Here are some pictures of us all.

Fashion show time!

For IPC this week, we looked at the melting process of ice cubes (solids to liquids) and how certain materials will slow this process down. Our scientists made predictions and tested different materials, including bubble wrap, tissue paper, tin foil, microfibre cloth, and plastic wrap to see which one would be better at keeping the ice cubes cooler for longer. The results were very interesting and it helped them to design their own cool boxes!

Maths

Year 2 students have been having a challenging time with maths this week. We have just completed the units on multiplication and division. Division in particular, has been a little difficult for them. I have therefore photocopied what we have done in class and sent it home for the students to review again. It is a lot, so please don’t feel obliged to complete it all for next Friday. You could review it little by little. I will try to spend a little more time on this next week also.

Year 1 completed their Geometry unit this week. They identified 2D and 3D shapes and looked at their properties. We now Know what a pentagon and a hexagon are too! The children explored what happens when we rotate shapes and had lots of fun sorting and making patterns. We even made a house out of shapes! How cool!

In English we looked at information texts and had so much fun designing posters for “Mrs Sim’s  special orange and grape juice”. It was a great way for the children to plan what we needed and write instructions for how to make it!

In Games class today we did some circuit training. This involved throwing, bouncing, jumping, badminton, being gorillas and using up a lot of energy!! 

That’s all for this week! I hope you all have a fantastic weekend! The weather is getting a little warmer and the sun is shining a little more! 

Take care and enjoy!

Mrs.Sim

Weekly Update – Term 2 Week 7

Dear Parents,

The students are getting very excited and counting down the days until our field trip next week.

On Tuesday 28th February we will be leaving school at 9am sharp and returning to school for 4:30pm. Those who usually take the 3:30 pm bus can take the 4:30 pm bus home. 

 What should I take?

  • A snack that is easy to eat on the go. We will have a quick snack on arrival but there is no seating at the entrance for the children to sit down and eat. If you could pack something such as a breakfast bar, chips or crackers that would be great. As long as it is easy and quick for the children to eat before entering.
  • A packed lunch. We have reserved the lunch area from 12-12:30pm for the children to sit down and eat their lunch together. The children are not allowed to walk around with their backpacks so I will take out their lunch boxes and snacks and put them in one large bag to take with us.
  • A water bottle as always.
  • An extra snack for the way home. Children are usually hungry around 3pm so a little extra snack would be good incase they are hungry before getting on the bus again.
  • Comfortable clothing. The bus journey is 1 hour 20 minutes, so comfy clothes all the way 😉

Myself, Ms Temple and Ms Barbara will be accompanying the children on the trip. It should be a fun-filled day of learning and experiencing!

In Maths this week, the Y2 children have been working on subtraction and multiplication. They worked very hard to solve problems and enjoyed completing some challenges on the tuff trays.

Year 1 students started their unit on 3D Shapes and reviewed their names and their properties. We had fun making patterns, drawing our own shapes and building towers!

In English this week, we carried on with our current unit, “Do it like this!” where the students had the chance to talk about and design their own signs. The Year 2 students wrote about the signs and what they are used for. In their rotations they worked on ‘ed’ and ‘ing’ endings and did some writing work with Ms Mary. We also looked at colours and how you can make new colours if you mix them together. This knowledge will help them when they design their own posters next week.

In IPC, we continued on with our unit “Freeze It!”. We were scientists this week and carried out a few different experiments. I am so impressed by how seriously they have been conducting them! We tested how long it takes for liquids to turn into solids, how different liquids will freeze at different temperatures, and how quickly a solid can melt into a liquid. They even made their own ice lollies by putting solids (fruit) into liquid (water) and they enjoyed trying this healthy icy treat today! They were surprisingly delicious and it was a nice end to the week!

Just a friendly reminder that the school will be closed next Wednesday, 1st March – Independence Movement Day. It might be nice to have a little rest after our field trip hehe! 🙂

Enjoy the weekend and see you all on Monday,

Mrs. Sim

Weekly Update – Term 2 Week 6

Hello and happy Friday! 

It has been a week of sniffles and colds in Year 1/2 with a lot of the students feeling a little under the weather. I hope you all have a nice weekend of rest and that we are all back to good health next week. <3

Valentine’s Day

We spread some love on Valentine’s day and took some time to say what we loved about each other. I can never miss an opportunity to compliment our friends and raise them up! I hope the students liked their love balloon! 

Kidzania

Thank you so much for sending the money for the field trip. We are all getting super excited for Kidzania! We will be going on Tuesday 28th February leaving school at 9am sharp and returning to school at 4:30pm. Students who normally take the school bus at 3:30pm, can take the bus at 4:30pm on this day. More details to follow regarding lunches!

Penpals

We spent some of our English classes finishing off our wonderful letters to our penpals in Marbella, Spain. Their penpals attend The British International School in Marbella and are all in Year 2. On Wednesday, we took a walk to the Post Office to send them together as a class. The snow thankfully stopped for us and we had a nice little brain break on the way. We cannot miss the opportunity to fit in some Maths, so we looked at the scale together and worked out how much it was going to cost. 🙂(With a little help ;)). 

100th day of School

Yesterday, to celebrate the 100th day of school, Ms M invited us to decorate a special cake that her class had baked together. We had so much fun counting the M&Ms and putting them on the cake! We played with 100 balloons(!) and danced to some songs too! The cake was devoured by most, haha! They really enjoyed it! Here is a link to the recipe  if you would like to try and make it at home with your child. I have already bought the ingredients to make this weekend hehe! 

In Maths this week, Y1 focused on calculating 2 less and 2 more and moved on to working out 10 less and 10 more at the end of the week. Whilst the counting back and forth using a timeline was done wonderfully, I would like to review counting in 2’s and jumping in 2’s to solve word problems next week. Odd and even numbers will also be reviewed some more.

Year 2, worked on different methods to calculate subtraction sums. We tried using counters with a tens and ones chart, and used two different layouts to see which one was easiest for us. They all disliked using the counters and preferred to calculate the sums mentally. The Year 2’s also had great fun playing “Matholopy”, a game that is used to practise addition and subtraction. 

In IPC,we have started a new unit, “Freeze it!” where we have been looking at solids, liquids and gases. What happens to a solid if it melts? Can liquids become solids? What temperatures will affect this process? These are some of the questions we will be answering and I can already tell that the students will enjoy the science experiments we have planned! 

In English this week we started a new unit “Do it like this!”. We have been looking at how different signs instruct us to do different things. Some can warn us of danger, while others can help to inform us. The students had the chance to look at everyday signs they might have already seen, but perhaps didn’t know the meaning of. We will be making our own signs and introducing them to the class on Monday! 

Year 2 have been working on their sentence structure this week in rotations. I have been encouraging them to find answers within the text and use the information to write their answers in their own words. 

Year 1 are nearly finished set 2 sounds in RWI (Read Write Inc) and are becoming more confident with blending longer words. It would be great if the children could do a quick revision of the sounds each week at home using the small green/yellow sound books. Just a quick 5 minutes of reading them out loud to a parent will help them greatly 🙂

In PE, Ms Temple taught the children all about balance and did various exercises to practise! The children had great fun working their way around the different stations set up!

Wow, that was a long one this week! I hope you all have a FANTASTIC WEEKEND!

See you all on Monday! 

Mrs. Sim

Weekly Update – Term 2 Week 5

Dear Parents,

It was really lovely to meet you all this week and discuss your child’s progress. Thank you for coming!

Homework Year 1

This week for Year 1, there are a few new reading practice worksheets. I am working on getting the children to read short sentences. I made this short video with my model Jay to help you support your child reading. I hope it helps.

Penpals in Spain

This week we have been writing letters to our friends in Spain. Last year I connected with the British International School in Spain and set up the students with a penpal. It was a great experience and the children were so excited posting and receiving the mail. So I decided to do it again and I am so glad I did. The students are so happy to be writing and can’t wait to go to the post office to send their wonderful letters.

We spent some of our English time working on them this week and they have all done so well.

In IPC, we concluded our unit “Who am I?”. We posed the question, “What is a balanced diet?” The students were able to tell me which foods are good for our bodies, and which ones aren’t so good. We looked closely at what nutrients our bodies need, and what food can provide them. We learned about Carbohydrates, Protein, Fat, and Dairy. The children agreed that there is no such thing as good or bad food, but we need to mindful of which foods will help our bodies to be healthy and strong. We finished up today by recording ourselves talking about what we have learned throughout the whole unit. This included significant moments, emotions, food and clothes from our home countries, our family and portraits. It was a great unit and the children seemed to enjoy sharing their ideas and telling the class a little more about themselves and their country.

In Maths, Year 1 has been estimating and ordering numbers and will soon be finishing up the Numbers 1 to 20. The Year 2 students finished their unit on statistics and completed a little progress check today.

In English this week, we have almost reached the end of our current unit, “Joining in Stories”. We finished reading “One Day in the Eucalyptus, Eucalyptus Tree”. We explored the story and the students noticed that the word Eucalyptus was repeated a lot throughout. They learned that repetition helps us to remember and pronounce long and difficult words. The Year 1 students were asked to write sentences to re-create the structure of the story, whereas the Year 2 students were asked to rewrite the story using different characters and a different story-line. 

Literacy rotations are going well and I am proud of how independent they are becoming!

Here are some lovely pictures of our week in class! 

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Sim 🙂

Weekly Update – T2W4

Hello and happy Friday to you all!

We have had a great week and the time has flown by! I can’t believe it is Friday already.

Student Reports

Student report cards have been sent home with your child today. They are in the big brown envelopes. I tried my best not to squash them.

Parent Teacher Conferences 

Parent Teacher Conferences will be held on February 9th and 10th. If you haven’t done so already please use this form to choose a time. It will be great to meet you all! If these times do not work for you please email me directly to arrange a suitable time for you.

Field Trip

This term we will be going to Kidzania in Busan for our field trip. It is a fantastic learning experience and the children are going to have so much fun. The field trip will take place on Tuesday 28th February. The cost of the trip is 30,000 won. If you haven’t already, could you please bring the money in an envelope with your child’s name on it by Friday, February 10th. Thank you!

Let’s take a look at what we have been learning this week!

In Maths, the highlight of the week was making cereal necklaces to help us calculate and count up to 20. The year 2 students also got to taste some 🙂

Year 2 students continued with our unit on statistics and focused this week on Venn diagrams.

In English, we read a new story, “One day in the Eucalyptus Tree”  and learned about plural nouns and past tense verbs. We had great fun taking turns to act out the story. Year 2 has been predicting story endings and working on writing lists using commas and correct punctuation. They answered comprehension questions about their current story “Power Cut”. Everyone did so well on their spelling tests today! Great effort from all! Well done!!

In IPC, we continued with our current unit by becoming artists. The students practised drawing their own self portraits, the portraits of famous artists, and they even tried drawing each other. They learned that portraits aren’t always paintings and that we can find them in everyday objects, like on our money. 

Look at the fantastic work they have produced!

And last but not least some pictures from our PE lessons!

Have a lovely weekend and see you all on Monday!

Mrs Sim 🙂