This year, we will be doing a countdown of the last 26 school days. Can you believe that starts May 17th! We’ll kick off our Alphabet Coundown with A: Adventure Day on May 17th which is our Field Trip!
There are certain days where your child will need to bring or do something like F: Favourite Book Day, G: Bring a Game Day, and P: Pajamma Day. If you have any questions please let me know but I will be sending clarification as the days approach.
I have emailed you this countdown as a PDF and a copy will be going home tomorrow for your reference.
The students had such fun creating their superhero Mission Control boxes and going on their Superhero Training with their costumes after The Mighty Freeze had kidnapped our precious Bunny! We are now full-fledged Superheroes!
We spent some time learning about real-life superheroes: the community helpers who do so much for us in our daily lives such as doctors, nurses, sanitation workers, and firefighters. We’ll continue on this theme next week.
We got back to small-group phonics lessons, literacy centers, and maths centers.
Of course we had lots of puzzles, colouring, and play time. The children were very happy to see the return of play dough to our classroom and have been engaging in a lot of creative play with that.
Just some more information about our field trip: in alignment with this IEYC unit on Superheroes, we will be going to The Lightning Man Experience. Lightning Man is a superhero who works with electricity! It should be lots of fun. The trip will be Wednesday May 17th. There is a cost of 10,000won/child that can be paid in an envelope to the admin office. A permission form will go out early next week.
When we return on Monday, the Happy Boat children will come visit our school for a great day of learning exchange. What fun that will be to see our friends again!
That’s all for this week! Have a great Children’s Day. Have a good rest this long weekend and we’ll see you refreshed on Monday!
Wow! We had an adventurous week! We began Monday by finding out The Mighty Freeze had hidden all the pages of the storybook Ms. M went to the library to get. We saw their signature snowflakes all around and were able to retrieve the pages. Then we had to put the book back in order! After putting the book back in order and telling the story of the Three Little Pigs, we returned to the classroom and imagined what it would be like if Super Daisy from the previous week hadn’t saved us from Planet Pea. The peas we made got into the strawberries and sandwiches! Later in the day we made our own superhero 3-panel comic books and practiced writing some words.
On Tuesday, we used our tablets to create our own superhero avatars. We linked them with the IEYC personal goals and gave them names. For example, Kind-Heart is Empathetic and Dr. Change is Adaptable. We created a lovely display to remind us of these qualities that now hangs on our board in the classroom.
On Wednesday we painted superheroes using our imagination and watercolours. I’m so impressed with how much the children’s artistic skills have improved over the course of this year.
On Thursday The Mighty Freeze struck again, kidnapping a host of superheroes. We rescued them from around the room and soon after began designing our own superhero costumes.
On Friday we had a day that was not nearly as messy as anticipated. Thank you, parents, for dressing your children in appropriate clothes. We began making our superhero costumes. We began this unit by making our masks and on Friday we painted our wrist bands and belt buckles. We also tie dyed our capes. The final result will be revealed tomorrow.
Throughout the week, we had plenty of play time as well. The children are very proud of the structures they’ve been building with our blocks and the puzzles they’ve been solving.
With Mr. de Klerk’s and Mr. Dunn’s class away on the school residential trip, we had a special assembly on Friday dealing with our core value of Respect. Sometimes the students across the school do not treat each other or the teachers with appropriate respect and we felt it was a good idea to focus on this core value as a whole community. We divided into groups and researched respect. We drew pictures of how we could show respect (that was largely done by our class), we found the definition of respect, some synonyms, and some quotes about respect and made beautiful posters to help remind us of this most important of core values. It was great seeing the children across the year groups work together and help each other.
That’s it for Week 3! A quick note that we will be having a trip in Week 6. A permission form and details will come out soon. Let’s keep learning!
What a great week we had. We began our week with a fun trip to Happy Boat Kindergarten where we planted seeds with our new friends. Those flower pots went home with the children on Monday. Don’t forget to water them every 5-7 days and keep them in sunlight.
Before kicking off our new IEYC unit we made a lovely spring craft of coffee filter butterflies. They turned out so beautifully!
We had a fun time in PE. We stayed indoors this week because the weather on Tuesday was not cooperative. Among the activities we did, we used a video working to do calisthenics and construct a paper airplane. The children got a great working and had lots of fun.
On Wednesday we kicked off our IEYC unit To The Rescue! All about superheroes. As Ms. M was cleaning around her desk she found a surprise box left hidden for us. But the Supervillan The Mighty Freeze came in and stole it from us. We followed The Mighty Freeze’s snowflake track around the school and recovered the box. Inside were superhero masks which we decorated. We will be making a more intensive superhero costume in the coming weeks.
In the days following we read some Superhero themed story books such as Supertato and Super Daisy. In these stories we learned a lot about different vegetables and rescued the food from the Evil Peas. We made clay vegetables and painted our own versions of Planet Pea using green paint mixed with various substances such as rice, flour, and sand to make textured paint.
We did some whole-group maths and phonics this week. Small groups will be starting soon.
During homework sharing time those friends who brought in their Spring Break News had a great time sharing their vacations with the class. Everyone did exciting activities on break!
And of course, we had lots of great developmental play time.
That’s it for this week. We’ll have more exciting superhero adventures next week! Rest well and we’ll see you on Monday!
Welcome back from Spring Break! It’s so great to be back and see everyone again. I was absent for a few days at the beginning of the week but the children were well taken care of by Ms. Luna and Mr. Green.
We’ve worked on some whole-class and one-on-one phonics and maths as well as some creative tasks such as making flowers and a great springtime name activity. The students also had developmental play time where they are forever amazing me as they show their learning through play.
Homework this week is just a report of how you spent your spring break. If your child wants to present it during sharing time, please send it in before Friday either as a photo or the physical paper.
We’re trying something new with Star of the Week this term. Everyone in the class is helping Ms. M to say why the chosen student is special. I think this change will help students practice their kindness and empathy.
On Monday we will be having our second exchange with the Happy Boat kindergarten where we will plant seeds in their potted plant garden! How exciting.
Wow! We’ve almost made it! I can’t believe there’s only one week to go until our Spring Break!
Our trip to the Happy Boat Kindergarten was an absolute success. We had such a great time meeting new friends. I was so proud of many of the Happy Boat children who practiced and introduced themselves to us in English! What a welcoming experience. This exchange program will be a monthly event with us visiting them sometimes and their school coming to visit our school other times. I will let you know closer to April’s date when we are going again.
But that surely wasn’t the only fun we had this week! We learned lots about sea animals. The children had a very fun time learning about whales. We listened to a song from my childhood, Baby Beluga, and ordered different types of whales by size. We also made a fun paper plate whale craft. That was an excellent exercise with our fine motor skills.
We also learned a lot about SCUBA diving. We made our own SCUBA masks and tanks and then went on a dive in the corridors looking for sea animals. We brought those sea animals back to our class and used them to talk about some feelings like being sad and scared. We brainstormed things we could do when we felt that way in order to feel better.
In Phonics we looked at QU, NG, and NK. The last two are very tricky. We’ll be reviewing digraphs for the rest of this term and begin next term beginning to blend letters and start READING! How exciting! It’s been wonderful watching the children’s literacy skills blossom this year.
That’s all for this week. Have a restful weekend and come in refreshed and ready for our last week of the term!
Hello Parents! Let me apologize for not getting an update out last week. Time flew by and before I knew it, it was time for this week’s update!
Last week we explored floating and sinking. We looked at driftwood art and made some art of our own. We learned about sea turtles and their journey as babies from the sand to the sea. We said Goodbye to Ms Jasmine who has taken her childcare leave to care for her son and said Hello to Ms Luna who will be with our class till the end of the year.
Before we move on to this week’s news, let me tell you about an exciting opportunity for cultural exchange that our class, as representatives of HFS, will be involved in. Starting Monday, we will have a weekly visit and exchange with a class of children from a nearby Korean kindergarten called Happy Boat. On Monday we will visit Happy Boat for our first visit. We will meet our new friends and spend some time playing with them. The kindergarten is just up the road and this is an excellent opportunity to learn more about Korean culture and teach the local children about our respective cultures while helping them learn some fun English words and phrases. A big thanks to Mr. Kim for getting this program started! I’m sure it will be an exciting opportunity for everyone involved.
Now, to talk about this week. We began by saying Hello to a new friend called Naka from Indonesia. It’s so wonderful having him in our class.
We’ve gotten up to a lot of exciting learning this week. We read the book The Rainbow Fish and learned that we can be happier when sharing. We also made a beautiful fish for our Ocean Treasures display.
We learned about schools of fish and how they work together, like our core value of Teamwork to keep themselves safe from predators. We also learned about other creatures in the ocean like jellyfish. In PE we played a game like we were fish swimming away from predators.
Of course, we went on our trip to the Big Tree Playground. It was an amazing space and the students had an exciting day.
We read Eric Carle’s A House for Hermit Crab and made wonderful art with paper plates, paint, and our own handprint.
In Phonics we revisited the digraphs SH, TH, and CH. The students are really beginning to get it, thanks in no small part to a wonderful song on YouTube by educator Jack Hartmann. (We are not working on PH or WH at this stage but it doesn’t hurt to learn it in the song).
And of course we had wonderful opportunities for play.
That’s it for this week. As promised in the homework paper, I will try to send pins for the fish markets in a following update. Keep your eye on this page.
Have a great weekend and we’ll see you rested and ready to learn in our second to last week from Monday!
Firstly, I’d like to give a big welcome to our new friend Diana.
And it is with a heavy heart that we wish a fond farewell to Alex who has moved to Europe.
It was an exciting week, however! We started our new unit Ocean Treasures. We got to play pretend that we were at the beach complete with popsicles.
We explored facets of the beach such as shells and sand.
We not only explored the realities of the beach, we also used our imaginations when we read a story about a singing mermaid and then made mermaid boxes.
We had lots of fun in PE designing our own games.
We’ve really been exploring numbers in our Maths centres.
As your homework said, we had lots of big feelings. We’re getting towards the end of term. Energy can be low and emotions high at this time of year. Lots of kids needed hugs from Ms. Jasmine and myself and we’re happy to give them. Nothing beats a hug from someone you love at home, however. Let’s keep our chins up for the next few weeks as we explore the ocean, play with our friends, and learn many exciting new things.
Well that was an exciting week! We finished up our Imagine That! unit with a lot of independent art exploration. We did phonics assessments to get ready to continue learning how to read. Having a strong base in phonics is so important for children’s literacy development. I’m excited to continue on this journey with them.
Of course, Thursday was the 100th day of school and we had an amazing time. The children had such a great time dressing up, playing with 100 balloons, making a delicious chocolate cake with 100 M&Ms on it, and simply being proud that they counted all the way to 100!
Many of the children really enjoyed the cake and asked me to pass on the recipe. This is my go-to chocolate cake that I make whenever I want to impress the recipient or just have a delicious treat at home. The recipe comes with instructions for making a chocolate ganache easily from melted chocolate chips, but as you can see from our photos, we used white frosting (Betty Crocker) which I ordered from Coupang Global. Here is the recipe: https://smittenkitchen.com/2017/10/chocolate-olive-oil-cake/
On Monday we will be beginning our new unit all about the ocean and sea creatures. This unit will take us through till the end of term and I’m very excited to dive into this new learning! So, have a great weekend and rest up. We’ll be in for some excitement Monday!
Thank you all for your kind understanding during my bereavement time in which I had to return to Canada. It was a sad affair but so comforting to see my family. I appreciate your support. I would like to assure you your children were well taken care of by Mr. Green, Ms. Jasmine, and the team here at HFS. I am happy to be back in the classroom working with all your children again. The hugs they gave me upon my return were delightful.
We eased back into learning with Ms. M by looking at animals with the book Supermarket Zoo and our art focus was claymation – specifically Shaun the Sheep. We also looked at flowers and their lifecycles reading Eric Carle’s The Tiny Seed. We made hand-print flower paintings. Then we looked at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers and began making a piece of flower art that involved dripping coloured water onto a coffee filter. That will be completed early next week.
Speaking of next week, Thursday 16 Feb is going to be our 100 Days party. We’ve been diligently counting the days of school since the beginning of the year and it’s all culminating soon. I spoke with many of you during the Parent-Teacher Conference about our dressup plans. This year’s theme is to dress as if it is 100 Years in the Future. This does not mean you have to dress as an older person, but as a futuristic person. Perhaps an astronaut or an alien? Maybe you’re a futuristic princess. Star Wars takes place in the future so that would be OK. Be flexible and creative with the theme. There is no right or wrong.
Next week will also see us doing our planned phonics assessment which may lead into new phonics groups. There is nothing to worry about there as all children will be getting the learning at the level which is right for them.
It was so wonderful seeing all of you in our Parent-Teacher Conferences this week. I am pleased we were able to connect. Never hesitate to reach out to me via email if you have a question or concern about anything at all and please know that if you would rather have a face-to-face conversation, I will always make time for you. My door is always open.
That’s all for this week! Have a great weekend and we’ll see you back on Monday!
