Using the concepts of change and causation to go further into our inquiry about how communities evolve we again focused on our host country Singapore. We looked at comparison photos of old and new photos in Singapore. We noticed changes as well as some things which had stayed the same and sorted out these ideas in a Venn diagram. After working on one as a class we set to work comparing a pair of photos independently. Finally we shared our findings with the rest of the class. Using the causation concept again we inquired into the impact of rapid growth in Singapore. With so many people and not much land we discovered that parts of Singapore are built on reclaimed land. After watching a sped up video of Singapore’s land reclamation we did a see think wonder thinking routine. We wanted to know how it was done, did they use sand or bricks, where did the water go? We also wondered what happened to the coral and fish that lived there? After watching a video that explained how land is reclaimed we had a go at it ourselves in the sandpit!
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As part of our inquiry into the diverse community of the ISS Primary School we did some research about the nationalities of everyone in the Primary school. We even managed to interview a Grade 7 class too! After the data collection we added the totals together. There are 22 different nationalities represented in our primary school. We really are a diverse community!
In our Math work with a money focus this week we were counting different amounts of coins and we also really enjoyed setting up our class shop and taking turns to buy things and to be the cashier. We also reviewed our doubles and learned how to add near doubles by doing ‘double plus 1’ as an addition strategy.
To begin our inquiry into the ‘How communities evolve’ line of inquiry we did a sorting activity to learn about the different ethnic communities that make up our host country Singapore. We had to match places of worship, traditional clothes, language and traditional music. During this activity we learned the names of special places of worship in Singapore by sharing our prior knowledge of temples, mosques and churches with each other. We added labels to our sorting. Next we had our own set of pictures to sort, this time foods were included too which made it a little more difficult. Afterwards we wondered why there are Indians in Singapore and how people from other countries came to live in Singapore. We wondered if they travelled on a plane.
As social skills are a focus for our Who We Are unit because in a community team work and social skills are important, we did three focus activities to practice our social skills using teamwork in our Grade One class community. First we had to work out how to divide 3 pieces of bread evenly between 4 of us. This took discussion, negotiation and a compromise of ideas to make sure all voices had been heard and everyone’s ideas considered. Next we had to pass a hoola hoop around our closed circle by passing it over our heads and then stepping through it. This required cooperation and encouragement from our team mates. Finally we had to work out how to use only 3 lilly pads for the 4 of us to get from one playground to the other. This involved sharing, supporting our friends and cooperation.
To begin our money focus we explored lots of different Singaporean coins as well as a few other different ones. We sorted them in different ways: by colour and by value. After sorting them we made a tally chart and finally graphed our information in bar graph.
This week we began tuning in to our new unit of inquiry ‘Who We Are’. First we did a think boxes thinking routine to see what we already knew and to help us begin to generate some questions at the beginning of the unit. Then we played a guess who game with special items from our country, culture, religion and communities. We had fun guessing which item belonged to each person. We had lots of discussions about what some of the items were used for. For our literacy this week we used the writing process to plan, draft, edit and publish a piece of factual writing about ourselves. We also read ‘The colours of us’ to explore the word ‘diversity’ from our central idea. Then we mixed shades of paint until we had a close match to our own skin colour. We then used oil pastels to draw our self portraits.
We are all very excited to move into our newly renovated Block 5 classrooms. There was a special opening with a ribbon cutting ceremony, it was a great way to being Semester Two.
This week Grade One ran a Christmas post service for the Primary School. We sorted and delivered letters to all the classes. We did our final states of matter experiment - mixing vinegar and baking soda which produced a gas. This gas filled a balloon! Ms Berna came in to show us how to make snowflakes! We had a lot of fun learning how to create these impressive looking decorations. We had visit from Santa and enjoyed making oobleck! We are looking forward to moving in to our newly renovated classroom in block 5 in January.
Naomi showed an a demonstration of dissolving a solid in liquid which creates a gas at the same time. The vitamin C tablet was fizzing and bubbling while dissolving. The change was irreversible because we couldn’t get the solid out of the liquid again after it had dissolved. Ian brought in an icepack which has gel inside. We had it out for an hour in the classroom and it barely melted so we thought gel must take a lot longer than water to melt. Imran brought in some pepper to explain about the density of different substances. He got us to put pepper on a plate of water and tough it with our fingers. Nothing happened. Next Imran got us to put soap on our finger and try again...this time the pepper dispersed to the edge of the plate!
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May 2021
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