Grade 1.1 and 1.2 went on a trip to the theatre this week to experience art using their senses which is our central idea for our current unit of inquiry. First of all we went on a short walk around the Robertson Quay area to look at a bridge. To end our shaped unit we have been studying, planning and building bridges. The children admired the artwork and discussed the shapes of the bridge structure as well as the materials it is made of. The children thoroughly enjoyed the performance of Chicken Little. They experienced different music, sound effects, lighting and saw bright costumes, dances and the use of props.
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Antoine shared a traditional dance from Normandy which is where his mum was born. We discussed all the senses and how they were being used for the performance as well as the sense the audience used. www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTcFTT731nA Gracie brought in a painting of the sea she had done at home with her mum. She held an ipad behind it with an ocean soundtrack playing. Gracie explained she had used watercolour pencils to create her painting. Hugh was inspired by Gracie's show and tell and he brought in some snake paintings which he had done. First he drew the outline in pencil and then used crayons and watercolour paints to complete his work. On the areas where he had used crayon the wax resisted the paint and showed through clearly. Hugh had a hissing soundtrack playing from the classroom speakers. Again, inspired by Gracie and Hugh's work Erica shared two paintings, one of sunrise and one of a sunset. Erica had birds tweeting as her backing and explained it was the birds waking at sunrise and going to bed a sunset. Daniel showed us his playdough and then he demonstrated sculpting it into a face. He changed the mouth to express happy, sad and neutral. Sosuke brought some photos showing different art installations at Nafa Campus on Bencoolen street near where he lives. The sculptures to have two functions, some are for sitting on and the others are for playing on. Julien showed some work by the Belgian artist Margritte Delvaux as well as some famous comics, Tin tin and The Smurfs. Saki shared 4 drawings she had done of a cherry tree in each season spring, summer, autumn and winter. She said spring is her favourite. Holly explained about a drama production 'The Rock Monster' she was part of last year and brought in the programme from the event. It took her lots of time to practice, learn her lines and the moves for the dances. She explained that she had to use her sense of hearing to help with knowing when to move in the dance. Holly also helped with making scenery and props as well as her headband as part of the costume. She shared some photos on the big screen of her performance. Shoichi showed a video of himself taking part in a Karate class. He explained there are 3 teachers and about 14 students in the class. He does Karate every Sunday morning and uses his sense of touch, sight and hearing. Then Shoichi showed a video of Japanese Karate experts taking part in a competition. Their movements were perfectly synchronised as their spend a long time rehearsing and also use their senses to be aware of each other's movements. Athan told us about a traditional Indonesian dance called the 'Saman' dance which means 1000 hands. Here are the links to two videos. www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SehE7WtUPE&feature=youtu.be . www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFaB39jSj74&feature=youtu.be Sara told us about her Aunt that is a pastry chef in America. She showed us picture of chocolates, macaroons and pastries that her Aunt has made. They looked beautiful as as Sara said "They are too pretty to eat". Each food was a work of art.
We have been focussing on shapes and making patterns with shapes. We have also explored symmetry and symmetrical patterns. Shapes and patterns are all around us in everyday objects and nature. We had a shape hunt around the school, made collages on the ipads of our photos and played a guess the pattern from nature game. In class we have been making different shapes by filling outlines with pattern blocks, painting butterflies and glueing shapes to make different patterns.
This week we began our new unit of inquiry 'How we express ourselves' where our central idea is 'We experience art using our senses'. Monday was the pre assessment where the children scanned QR codes and watched performances of opera, classical music, puppet shows and dancing. They recorded which senses they were using and noted questions about what they had seen and heard. On Tuesday we had a 'Tuning In' session with 5 experiences to rotate around. Tasting foods, listening to sounds, smelling covered cups of scents, a feely bag of textures and making optical illusions. This helped familiarise children with our senses and how we use them. On Wednesday and Thursday we did two experiments to find out if the senses are linked and rely on each other to work together. We held our noses to taste skittles, then repeated the activity without holding our noses. The taste for all the skittles except orange score higher with an unblocked nose. To find out if sight affects touch we had a guided blindfold walk through leaves, rice, stones, marshmallows, whipped cream and cotton balls with bare feet. We discussed as a class different points of view from the activity. Some children thought they felt each texture more as they couldn't see. Other children said seeing the texture didn't make any difference to the feel. It was great to see the children helping each other and being risk takers to walk through unknown textures.
We went on a walk around the school to see who we could find working in different places. We asked people's names and wrote down the job they do. Then we made up our own questions to ask someone so that we would be able to find out more about their role. We set up an interview time and went to ask our questions. Finally we shared what we had found out with the rest of the class. Now we know lots more about the different roles people in our school community have.
We had an extra library lesson this week. Mrs Grant taught us how to look up words we don't know the meaning of in the dictionary.
This huge map of Singapore, brought in by Gracie, shows different communities and their locations in Singapore. Working together to colour it in would be a great cooperative task. The children enjoyed discussing it and pointing out all the places they know and have been to. Antoine discussed the government and their role in the community. Holly said that teachers, children and cleaners were all citizens in Singapore. Shoichi showed his photo of working at the Kidzania hospital. He said that doctors are people in the community that help us. Then we discussed who the people are in a hospital community and came up with a list including doctors, nurses, cleaners, secretaries and pharmacists. This led to as discussion about the roles of workers at an airport. The children are clearly making connections in their learning and understanding our central idea 'Working together strengthens communities'. Hugh showed us a huge spider decoration for Halloween. We discussed that Halloween is celebrated by some communities and people work together to decorate their houses and other places in the community. There is also the tradition of 'trick or treating' which involves members of the community visiting each others houses. This is an example of a community magazine publication from Japan that Erica brought. It advertises and explains many of the festivals and events happening in the community to encourage lots of people to attend the events. It also has information about restaurants and dance classes and games in the community. It is for both children and adults. Sara showed us a plant pot she had decorated and used in Girl Scouts. The class were keen to hear more about Girl Scouts and the badges that you get. Sara told everyone she did many activities such as singing, dancing, crafts and playing games. We then discussed Girl Scouts and their role in the community. It is a group where girls can make friends and learn new skills. Often they do projects to make the community a better place. Holly talked about the importance of everyone in their condo community doing a their part to recycle. She told the class about how she helps put the recycling in the correct bins and explained about the labels for showing which bin to put paper, glass and metal in. Holly also talked about the importance of recycling that she had learned on the River Safari. Sosuke showed a picture from a Japanese book that explains the importance of children's safety on their walk home from school. In Japan children walk to and from school instead of going on a bus. There are signs to keep them safe and many people in the community work together to keep them safe on their walk. These people include the parent patrol, safety patrol, anti-crime patrol and teachers. Saki talked to us about her involvement in a community performance as an angle. She said everyone has a role in order to make the performance happen. Julien showed a poster about Scouts. He showed the activities children are involved in such as cooking, first aid and team games. Everyone works together to help clean dishes too. Scouts also get involved in projects to help the community such as cleaning rivers and beaches. Antoine explained a card game about people in a community. You have to trade and collect cards. It is similar to a game some of the children knew called 'happy family's'.
Thank you for signing up for the 3 way conferences. There will be a school book fair on that day, see the poster below for details.
Grade 1.1 were concerned about some problems that had occured in the playground as a result of children in several not following the playground agreements and the school '4 be's'. As part of our Sharing the Planet unit the children came up with some ideas of how to help out. Then they got into groups with others who wanted to work on the same project. The video group made a video demonstrating the wrong and right ways to use the playground equipment and balls.
The ebook group used the book creator app on an iPad to make an ebook of photos showing the wrong and right things to do in the playground.
The signs group made bilingual signs in English and Japanese to explain the right things to do and play with and how to keep safe.
The poster groups made a poster showing playground rules and they decided to include drawings of games from different countries which could be played in the playground.
International Day was an excellent way for the whole of ISS to celebrate an exciting first half term. After the colourful parade and entertaining dances in the tent the children were treated to some exciting workshops run by our high school students. In grade 1.1 we learned some games from Thailand and a harvest dance. Then we learned a dance from the Netherlands. Enjoy the slide show of photos from the day below. |
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June 2018
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