Wow! It was a short but exciting week! We learnt a lot and had a great time doing it.
Thank you to all the parents for reading my late-night email this week and getting a soft toy sent in with your children. I endeavour to give you more notice in the future. Case in point: please have your child bring one (1) toy of their choice to class on Tuesday when we come back. We will be doing a show and tell as well as some work around letters and sounds, names, and other activities using your child’s favourite toy.
But enough about next week; let’s talk about this week! We had a great time in IEYC learning more about letters. We went on a scavenger hunt around the school to find letters. Not only did we find letters but we found a parcel addressed to us. So, layer by layer we opened it. As each layer of wrapping came off, we found more letters. Finally we got to the box inside. Many guesses were made about what was inside (spoiler: it was letters). We played with those letters making our name, finding out the different sounds of the letters, and seeing if we could spell any simple CVC words when they were sounded out.
On Wednesday we spent our IEYC time writing a letter to ourselves 10 years in the future to put in the school’s time capsule. We certainly had a great time celebrating the school’s 40th birthday. I’m so proud of how well the children sat and listened to the speakers and how well they worked together to put our letter in the time capule.
Thursday was Chuseok and it was so lovely to see so many students in Hanbok or the traditional dress of their country. We had classes as normal – but it wasn’t entirely normal, we had our favourite soft animal with us! We started the day by learning a little bit about Paddington Bear and how far he travelled from Peru to London. We looked at a map carpet and globes to begin learning about different places around the world and to get a sense of where we live and where we are from. We made luggage tags because those are important if we have to travel far with our suitcases. Paddington came with a luggage tag attached! We learnt a little bit about animals who live underground like Mr. Mole and how they live there. So, we made dens to snuggle with our soft animal toys inside. Since it was Chuseok we also tried to play “gongi” – a Korean traditional game something similar to jacks (a game we played as children in Canada).
In our phonics rotations we added a new activity – letter magnet matching. Also in their free time, the students began to explore one of next week’s phonics activity centres (identifying initial sounds). Very soon we will begin small-group phonics with targeted learning for each child. They have also started exploring some of our maths centres activities which will be available to them in centres time from next week.
I think it goes without saying we also had lots of creative play time. The students are exploring different identities, social groups, and activities. They are learning to share and get along with one another. I am so proud of how wonderful our little community is becoming.
Have a wonderful Chuseok Weekend and we’ll see you on Tuesday! (Don’t forget to bring a toy!)