Grade 1 and 2 Newsletter November, 2013
PYP News!
UNIT 2: Who We Are Central idea: Relationships are enhanced by learning about other people’s perspectives and communicating our own. Lines of inquiry: An inquiry into: Social interactions and relationships How people communicate perspective Actions and interactions that enhance relationships Summative Assessment Task: A portfolio of tools and strategies collected by students that show how they can interact with others in positive ways. Developing critical thinking skills Lifelong learning has long been a part of the IB PYP. As educators we encourage each of our students to develop critical thinking skills, and question what they want to learn, as opposed to what the teacher wants them to learn. Some children find thinking critically about their own learning a challenge, but if at home, and school, we follow some simple steps to help us assist with developing and refining these skills, students will be able to think critically about their own learning and as a result feel more successful in their own learning. ● Stop and ask yourself, what do I really think? ● Ask someone else for their idea and listen to it ● Understand what it is you need to do ● Think again of alternatives, think of positives, negatives, feelings and the bigger picture. ● Change your mind ● Finally, know yourself and be confident in what you believe If you would like some literature to support this, please do not hesitate to ask me. Miss Lisa Hughes Grade 5 teacher and PYP Coordinator
Unit 2
LANGUAGES Writing: Students will continue to use the writing process to explore narrative writing as a way of expressing themselves. Reading: Students will continue using reading strategies of chunking, creating images, connecting, predicting, skimming, comparing and synthesising to support their reading. Students will be guided to focus on making connections with book characters as a way to understand relationships and interactions, and as a means of sharing perspective about other’s lives and experiences. Reading Eggs is a great online reading resource for parents to use at home to encourage and support reading in these areas as well. Speaking and listening: This unit of inquiry encourages students to put attributes of the learner profile into practice whilst developing positive forms of communication especially during conflict resolution, communicating ideas for problem solving and expressing perspectives. ELS: Using Big Books, group reading, guided reading, oneonone reading, the students are exploring the lines of inquiry of their unit. This is an opportunity for them to practise reading strategies and skills, as well as to write their own stories. Sue Fleming and Michael Ham
MATHS Central idea: Numbers can be organised and constructed to represent different information. This inquiry continues on from unit 1 where students show their understanding, knowledge and skills of how pattern, operation and placevalue are connected. This inquiry will include the organisation and construction of number as well as changes that happen to numbers and their values. The IXL website (www.ixl.com) is a good online resource for parents to support their children at home with these areas of maths.
THE ARTS In this unit Grade 2 and 1 students will embark on a journey around our musical world. They will inquire into how music is enjoyed by children everywhere and discover that music from other countries is similar in many ways to their own music. The students will sing songs about friendship; learn to greet in different languages; play instruments to echo rhythms and describe music by moving to it.
Key Dates ● November 15th (Friday): International Day ● November 18th (Monday): Early Finish, 11.40am, Three Way Conferences
● November 25th (Monday): Regular finish, Three Way Conferences ● Week starting December 9th: Book week ● Dec 12th (Thursday): Book week assembly, followed by Bookworm book ●
sale December 13th (Friday): Last day of semester, school finishes at 11am.
Assemblies: Assemblies take place on most Friday mornings at 8am in the auditorium. You are welcome to any of the assemblies. 8th November hosted by Ms Pushpa’s class 22nd November hosted by Ms Carla’s class 29th November hosted by Ms Georgie’s class
Mr Warren’s comment:
PSPE Grade 2 students are looking at invasion games this quarter. They will learn what invasion games are and what you need to be successful. They will learn skills required for football, basketball and tag rugby Grade 1 will learn basic hand/eye co ordination skills. They will learn to move with the ball, throw at targets (moving and stationary), receive the ball from various heights both catching and rolling.
VIETNAMESE Students learn about vocabulary and actions to keep good relationships (family, friendship etc) in Vietnamese language. Students show their understandings by making their own Vietnamese stories.
We would like to extend a warm welcome to Yun and Thai who have entered Grade 1G. As you can see on the Key Dates above, we have Three Way Conferences coming up towards the end of November. This is an opportunity for you, your child and the teacher to meet together to discuss progress and for you to set goals for your child for this school year. It is also an opportunity for you to visit the classroom and see evidence of the learning that is taking place in classes. I would like to congratulate Ms Carla Holmes who recently attended training to be a PYP Workshop Leader. This training took a whole week of intensive learning situations, and Carla has her first workshop coming up at the end of November. I would like to remind parents that you are welcome to visit the school at any time. We have elementary assemblies most Friday mornings at 8am and all parents are welcome to these.
Student Reflections From Grade 1: During our previous unit we listened to a story called 'Zoobots' without looking at the pictures in the book. Later we imagined what one of the new characters from the story might look like and tried to invent it. We learned people can express themselves in many different ways, and that everyone may have a different perspective. This unit of inquiry sees an extension of this story as we use it as a basis for creative narrative writing. The Grade 1s said they loved this book because the characters were made from junk and they got to bring in their own recycled materials to create their own characters. Grade 2 have developed a series of survey questions and have been off interviewing people in the school, to gather ideas. Some student questions that Grade 2 have developed and are investigating are: How do we make better relationships? What are other people’s feelings and experiences? How do I share my own feelings and experiences?
Hanoi International School enables all students to realise their full potential in a caring and positive learning environment. Through our broad and balanced international curriculum, we endeavour to develop responsible, globally conscious citizens. We strive to develop the whole child as a life long learner with a strong sense of self worth.
Unit 2