Week 7 Term 2

After all the excitement of the SLCs, it was back to business as usual this week. We have started to think about the systems we can put into place to support the school wide efforts. Together, we have created signs (on reused cardboard, of course!) to highlight what we can do in our own classrooms and to remind others...and we have put these up in prominent positions around the classroom.

We are always encouraging the children to take action and use their learning in the real world and this is the perfect example of how learning can become purposeful and, hopefully, stay with them for a long time. It is also fantastic that so many children are coming to school every morning with tales of how they are reusing things at home or creating things from household rubbish. Keep it up, everyone! At the same time, we have not forgotten the rubbish that leaves our campus and we have started making flow charts to illustrate the different journeys our waste can make.

This week, we also buried some of our classroom waste to see what will happen to it. We filled three bins with soil and buried a variety of everyday waste items, including paper, paper towels, drinks cartons, plastic bottles, straws, banana skins and apple cores...and a corn starch coffee cup from the school cafe! We recorded our predictions on a table and, in 3-4 weeks, we will dig up our rubbish and see what, if anything, has happened. Every morning, we are adding a little bit of water because "if it was outside then it would rain." Eventhough it has not rained for ages in Singapore!


In Writing Workshop, we have started our latest unit, “Authors as Mentors.” We are concentrating on the universally popular Mo Willems.We have spent a great deal of time exploring his books and starting to think about some of the skills and techniques he uses to make his writing even more special. These are called “craft moves.” We will continue to explore these throughout the unit and, over time, we might even have a try at incorporating some of these moves into our own pieces. We have also been thinking about where authors get their ideas from and have used this to generate our own ideas.



In Reading Workshop, our focus has shifted to “Reader’s Theatre.” This unit capitalises on children’s natural inclination for imitation and role-playing by inviting them to do the same sort of pretending with the characters in their books. The children will take on the roles of familiar characters and try to “walk in their shoes.” The unit will develop their reading skills further through inference, activating prior knowledge and empathising with characters. There is also a big focus on reading with expression...

As you have probably heard, next week is Book Week across the Primary School. The week promises lots of exciting events and happenings based around our favourite books and story characters. There is something different every day...

Art Attack Monday-create a project related to a favourite book
Poem in your Pocket Tuesday-come to school with a poem either in your pocket or your head
Buddy Reading Wednesday-share a favourite story with a buddy from MS or HS
Thinking Thursday-it’s nonfiction day! Read and find out something new
Dress Up Friday-come to school dressed as a favourite book character

Of course, the children are most excited by Friday, so, you might want to start thinking about costumes now! Mr. Morley is going to try and come as a Mo Willem's character!

We are also welcoming a couple of special visitors to K2 next week. The author, Sarah Mounsey, will be sharing her stories with us on Wednesday and the fantastic Nikole Horkin will be delighting us with one of her wonderfully creative puppet shows on Thursday. There is also a bookmark competition across the grades.

If you would like to order a copy of Sarah Mounsey’s book/s, please follow this link. Sarah is donating 10% of all sales to support our Global Concerns. There is also a Bookaburra Book Fair next week. We will be taking the class on Friday, so, if you want to send in any money for them to buy a book, you can do. Alternatively, you can purchase books via the order form that came home today. Of course, you are more than welcome to visit the fair with your child at any time...I have heard they stock a wonderful book called "The Silence Seeker" by someone you know very well!

In Mathematics, we have kicked off our “Addition and Subtraction” unit. We have been playing “Toss the Chips” as a way of exploring different ways to make a given total, decomposing numbers into pairs in more than one way (e.g 10=8+2 and 10=7+3). Next week, we will introduce tiles as a way of visualising a given total and to speed up our recognition of number bonds. We have even begun using Doodlecast as a way of explaining our understanding in Mathematics.


Lastly, it would be great to have some (positive?!) feedback about the SLCs to share with the children. Please do email any thoughts or comments you might have.

Every Friday, we show the children a "Friday Funny." This is a short clip (usually recommended by one of them!) that makes everyone giggle and finishes the week on a happy note. However, today, we wanted to show them something different. It is called "Caine's Arcade" and it is well worth watching together...

Have a great weekend.