What's on in March?

Please also mark your calendars for

Wacky Day with EYs and KG

Friday March 18th

The Student Council have organised this fun day

Students may come to school dressed in wacky/silly clothes, e.g., clothes turned backward, odd socks or shoes, mismatched colours, or dressed up in any wacky way. This is completely optional and if children would prefer not to participate that is completely ok!

Senses

Over the last few weeks, we have been exploring our senses. We've watched Sid The Science Kids to inspire our thinking. We've learned lots more about our senses as the inquiries progress. 

Sound

Exploring Sound - We went on sound walks and documented what we could hear by making marks like the sound waves.

After our walk, we transferred our notes to our journals

Some of us explored the different sounds that percussion instruments make

Sight

Exploring Sight - we looked at images with and without reading glasses.

Exploring Touch - we went on a texture walk and drew the things and textures we observed.

We used our sense of smell to guess the objects in the baskets and documented what we thought it might be in our journals.

We have yet to explore tasting :) 

The sturdiest bridge

At the beginning of the month, the children were tasked to build a bridge using sticks and tape. The main focus of the exercise was cooperation and collaboration. 

Since then we have engaged in learning experiences and play situations to gain a better understanding of structure. We've looked through books and viewed some clips. We've learned that shapes and positioning can make a structure stronger or weaker. 

Since we have to break our bridges to relieve the big Lego blocks for others to enjoy, we decided to take a closer look at our designs. We wondered which bridge was the sturdiest. 

Armed with weights to a total of 4.43kg we began the challenge. We decided we needed to use a chart to document the numbers. 

One bridge left to stand the test :) 

The children all understood the concept of strength by viewing the sheer quantity that they were able to pile onto their bridges. 

Taking action

One of the five essential elements of the IBPYP is 'taking action', and while we would love to experience it all at the school where we as teachers can see the 'fruits of our labor', that is not always the case. In fact action will often, and particularly at this age, happen outside of school. 

Following is a great example of action at home that was shared with me via email and of which I have been given permission to share with you all.




  


Another example of action last week was taken by Sohyun. After learning about spiders and how they spin webs, Sohyun remembered a fact she had learned elsewhere. She explained that some parts of the web spun sticky and others not. "What makes you think that?" I asked. "I read in a book at my home. My mummy read it to me," she replied. The next day she brought the book to school to share with her teachers and friends. 

Please do share when your child takes action outside of school, we love to hear about their new discoveries and experiences.

Balance

Brain Gym and wake me up exercises

EY2 students love our short wake up exercises. Each morning after our morning circle the children are invited to participate in a selection of 3-5 exercise before we starting our morning centers. 

With a combination of cardio, i.e., jumping jacks, yoga poses, and specific brain gymnastics, they get ready to start their day. During this time we also emphasise the importance of drinking water and how water is the 'food' for our brain. 

In addition all EY2 students participate once a week in a perceptual motor session. Here an excerpt from this website explaining the 'Why?' it's important.

Why Do Kids Need Perceptual-Motor Experiences?

Perceptual-motor skills allow sensory information to be successfully obtained and understood with appropriate reaction. Perceptual deals with obtaining information and motor refers to the outcome of movement. Thus perceptual-motor activities require children to use their brain and body together to accomplish tasks—for example, walking on a balance beam while reciting the alphabet.

Think about it: To perform well in school, children must do many things that require their mind and muscles to work together as a team. In fact, all communication skills—reading, writing, speaking, and gesturing—are motor-based abilities. We often think of them strictly as academic skills, but, for example, in learning to write, a child must not only know the alphabet and understand how words are formed by combining letters but also translate that knowledge into action by gripping, moving, and stabilizing a pencil while using perception (sight) to adjust her or his movements in order to create the correct pattern. In order for the child to learn, the mind and the body must work together.

You can read more detail here.

Symmetry and shapes

Symmetry

After viewing a short presentation on symmetry, we engaged in the learning activity below to deepen our understanding of what it looked like up close. We looked at the shapes created in our symmetrical art and used our imagination to describe what they looked like and or could be. We chose to use the colours red yellow and blue as we reflected back on our first-semester activity with 'Mouse Paint' and mixed colours. Surprisingly, however, the children did not want to mix :) and were careful to keep the colours separate.

Here some examples of their work

Learning is so much more fun when we can do it with our G3 buddies. We made posters showing our newly acquired knowledge and understanding of symmetrical and asymmetrical shapes. Our buddies helped us to cut out the shapes nice and accurately and with the writing. We sorted and glued. 

Later that day, Sohyun discovered that when she placed her shoes next to each other, they have a line of symmetry!

Shapes

We find that wonder and discovery walks are always an excellent way to get the children up and to move with a learning target in mind. This was again successful as they engage in a hunt for shapes in the environment. Using 'shape finders' they explored the ISPP campus, their discoveries were endless.