Lower Pre-Primary - Ms Erin

Shopping!

We kicked off the new year with our shopping unit. We decided to cook soup and created our own shopping list. Following this we went on our entry-point trip to the grocery store, where we explored the different sections in the shop and bought all the ingredients. Then, it was time to make our cauliflower-bell pepper soup. The children were excited and happy to cut up all the vegetables themselves. After some cooking and mixing, we all enjoyed the soup, and everyone wanted to take the leftovers home. This week, we also started playing in our pretend store, taking on the roles of shopkeepers and customers.

In the second week, we delved into the market, discovering that it resembled a store but was located outside with many stalls. We explored markets from different countries, finding many similarities and some differences. This week, we also experimented with using a weighing scale and learned words like "heavier," "lighter," and "even." Balancing different groceries with blocks was fun and a great way to practice counting. On Friday, we went on a trip to a real market in Ghent. Using all our senses, we observed the stalls and noticed that the fish stall, in particular, had a strong smell. Here, we bought dried pineapple and mango to try back at school—a delightful treat after such a wonderful trip!

In the third week, we moved on to a different kind of store—the bakery. Our class transformed into a bakery. We made salt dough by following a recipe and created our own bread and pastries. When they were finished, we put them in the oven to bake and painted them in appropriate colours. We also played a game, helping the baker fit pastries into boxes—a fun way to practice spatial awareness. We ended the week with a waffle writing dance and then went on a trip to the bakery. We had the chance to go behind the counter, look at the bread cutting machine and the big oven. Additionally, we bought a cake and enjoyed it together with the UPP.

During the fourth week, we learnt about second-hand stores and learned how to reuse, reduce, and recycle. We began the week by weaving our own reusable shopping bags. Initially, this was a little difficult, but the children proved to be very resilient, and made beautiful bags. On Tuesday, we visited a real second-hand store and donated items we no longer use.  We also chose a toy to buy to reuse in our classroom—a coffee machine for the pretend area. Later that week, we saved some plastic bottles and milk cartons from our recycle bins and gave them a new purpose by making bracelets and wallets. We used these wallets during our exit point, buying treats at the snack shop set up by upper pre-primary and lower primary.

The fifth week was all about money. We took a closer look at the different kinds of prints on bills and coins. Everyone brought in different currencies to observe. We also created our own bills and made rubbings of the coins we liked. We played a currency memory game, matching numbers on bills and coins.                                                       On Wednesday, we reviewed all the letter sounds we have learned so far by sorting different objects according to their first initial sounds. A fun, learning activity the children enjoyed. We ended this week in Carnival spirit! On Friday we came to school dressed up in costumes of our choice and celebrated  with the whole school during the carnival parade.

Happy holidays everyone!

 

 

Patterns

After the autumn holidays, we jumped right back in and started our second unit, Patterns. We began this unit by exploring the patterns on our clothes. During the entry point, we observed clothes with stripes, dots, zigzags, numbers, checkers, and even dinosaurs. All the patterns had different colours too. After exploring the patterns we were wearing, we designed our own patterned shirts or pants for Mr. Frog. Later, we got to make our own patterned sweaters by writing patterns in shaving cream. 

In the second week, we examined patterns from different countries and cultures. Everyone brought a pattern from their home country, and we observed them with all our senses. We saw patterned pig statues from Russia and clothes and fabrics from India, Hungary, Ghana, and Slovakia. It was fascinating to see the differences and similarities between the patterns. During this week, we also focused on patterns outside and in nature. During our pattern walk, the learners saw, shared, and described so many different patterns. We also had a special visitor this week—Dhven’s mom came to school and brought henna with her. We all got a henna pattern on our hands; it was so pretty and a little ticklish. 

In the third week, we focused on butterfly symmetry and patterns in art. We used a mirror to reflect our patterns and practiced mirroring butterfly wings; this was really fun. We discovered that the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama uses many patterns in her art and got inspired to make our own. This week, it was our turn to share at the assembly. We practiced a patterns song, and the performance was amazing; everyone was very brave! 

In the fourth week, we got to know Elmer, the patchwork elephant. He likes making the other elephants laugh and made us laugh a lot too. We learned that he is a special elephant, full of patterns, and played many Elmer games. We even worked on a group project where we made a patterned elephant together. Later that week, we had an early visit from Sinterklaas at night, and he dropped off some letter cookies for us to practice making our names with. This was a yummy surprise. 

In the fifth week, we were getting ready for the real Sinterklaas visit. We learned a very pretty English Sinterklaas song, made a portrait of Sinterklaas, and even helped him deliver presents by boat to the right houses. On Tuesday, we made him a drawing and put out our shoes, and luckily for us, on Wednesday, we got a visit from the real Sinterklaas and were surprised with some very fun math learning toys. They have brought us much joy so far! Since Theo was moving to Australia this week, we researched the country, schools, and nature a little bit. Then it was already time for the exit point. We all picked out our favourite pieces of art from this unit and set up an exhibition for the parents to visit. We started the exhibition with our pattern song and then guided our parents to our own art. 

In the sixth week, we were all in the festive mood because we started learning about New Year and different ways to celebrate the new year and bring light to the winter days. For this, we crafted our own tealight candle holders for some extra light and warmth. We also practiced our New Year’s poem and made our wishing star for the winter show for the parents. Everyone was very excited for this and did amazing. 

During the last few days of the seventh week, we created our own "magic" scratching paper. We also researched life in London, as this is where Luca is moving. Afterward, we reviewed all the sounds we learned throughout the year and sorted objects into the right piles based on their beginning sounds. It was a fun way to end the year together! 

We wish you and your family a joyful holiday season and a happy new year. We can't wait to see what 2024 has in store for us. 

 

 

 

Houses and Homes

During our first week of school we took the time to get to know our new friends and feel comfortable in the classroom. Our first IPC unit was houses and homes, we started this unit with our entry point, which was a walk around the neighborhood. During our walk we saw different kinds of houses, house numbers and building materials. After this we built houses in many different ways, we built with Lego, blocks, cylinder rolls, rings, milk cartons… We also crafted our own house and put our family pictures inside.

The second week we built walls for the classroom and discovered that if you use the zigzag brick pattern, your walls are way stronger. We also learned about different rooms in the house and the furniture inside. We crafted our own house together with different rooms.

The third week we read a story about an architect and we designed our dreamhouse and tried to build it. This week, we focused on the houses in our home countries. We looked at the pictures and discussed the similarities and differences. This was very interesting, later we made the pictures into a bingo game to play.

The fourth and fifth week was all about the 3 little pigs. We read the story in different ways, acting it out with masks the children made. The students enjoyed telling the story to the teachers. During these weeks we experimented and built houses with straw, bricks and sticks. We practiced huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf in arts and crafts but also in a numeracy game where we wrote those results down.
We went on two house visits and explored all the different rooms.

During the sixth week we helped animals find their home with a problem solving game and searched outside for more animal homes. We also focused on castles and even made our own castle out of 2D shapes. This prepared us for the exit point, the visit to ‘The castle of the counts’ where we toured the inside and outside of the castle. It was a wonderful experience for the children.

The seventh and last week of the unit we followed Hansel and Gretel on their adventure in the woods. We listened to the story and even made our own gingerbread house. We did this by following a step-by-step recipe that we read together. Later on we even decorated it with real candy. We also learned a very spooky song about ghosts and we practiced all the sounds we learned during the unit. Everyone remembered the movements and songs. On Friday we ate our house during our Halloween party, along with other homemade healthy snacks and it was delicious!

 

Sand and Water

The sun has finally come out in Belgium and we have just finished our last IPC unit for this school year: Sand and Water. What an exciting unit for our younger students! Experimenting and exploring were at the heart of this unit.

For our entry point we created an indoor beach and a sand room! The children put their swimmers on and dived into the wonderful world of sand and water. We absolutely managed to sparkle their curiosity!

During this unit the children learned about the water cycle - thank you Ms Chiara for leading this learning activity! The children were able to observe and participate in experiments to understand that water does not always look and feel the same! Water can be liquid, solid and gas! Wow! We also explored the concepts of floating and sinking and experimented with different objects trying to forecast what would happen to them once we put them in the water. During this unit we also learned about the names of different sea creatures and some of the things that make them so unique. We watched some amazing videos such as an octopus changing colours, a male seahorse giving birth and a puffer fish getting scared!

In Lower Pre-Primary we love to have our water table accesible in the classroom. During this unit, the water table of course never left and instead, every week it was full of new surprising things to discover: sea creatures, shells, stones, beads, sand, water beads, …

Being creative is always an important objective and during this unit the children discovered three new techniques: Stencils, acrylic paint mixed with sand and watercolour paint. Over the course of the unit we even created our own collaborative beach art project!

Using water we also made ice lollies for ourselves and our friends at Upper Pre-Primary! We shared them together after listening to the story of The snail and the whale. So refreshing and healthy!

For our Exit point, we went on a class trip with many parents to play in the water at the Blaarmeersen! We enjoyed a full summer day, an amazing and exciting playground full of new challenges, a lovely picnic in the shade and had fun splashing in the water all together!

It has been an amazing year and a beautiful journey to share with our little family at ISG!

We wish you all a lovely and sunny holiday! 

Ms Laura, Ms Dori, Ms Celina and Ms Merve

 

They could barely stop talking about them...!

During this IPC unit we have learned much about the amazing world of bears. Children are always curious about animals and bears are an interesting and fun one to focus on! They could barely stop talking about them...!

 

Our entry point for this unit was a teddy bears’ picnic at school. Children were allowed to bring a teddy bear from home for the entire unit starting by joining our! As a snack, the children made their own sandwiches, which of course made them double delicious!

During this unit, roll playing was a key element. The children listened to the story of Goldilocks and the three bears and then role played it. For a whole week, the story kept being played over and over. The children never seemed to have enough! Later on, we removed the props and introduced the four puppets. The children loved using the puppets to tell the story.

 

Throughout these weeks we have learned much about bears: the different kinds there are, where they live, what they eat, about hibernation, … Very exciting things to learn!

During sports the students went on a bear hunt. They had to swim, jump and travel just like in the story We are going on a bear hunt.

The children created polar bear portraits with forks, made their own bear hats and binoculars and stamped bear pawprints.

In our water table, children classified bears according to colour by putting them in the right pipe. As a sensory activity, our students experimented with coloured ice cubes. They loved it!

During this unit we completed bear patters and practice making more challenging puzzles too. 

 

For our exit point we went on a trip to the Citadelpark! There we went through caves, did an obstacle course with our sports teacher, Mr Francis, and had a teddy bears’ picnic. To finalize we went on a bear hunt and found a bear that was hibernating (Ms Luna)! The bear was very kind and woke up to say hello to the children before going back to sleep.

Learning about bears has been an amazing journey and we look forward to the next IPC unit after the holidays!

Ms Laura and Ms Dori

Clothes

For the last weeks the friends at Lower Pre-Primary have been learning about clothes and it’s been quite a journey! Being winter, children have lots of work putting their own clothes on. Gloves, hats, scarfs, shoes, and jackets can be a tricky thing for our youngest friends! For this reason, it was a fascinating unit for them.

For our entry point, we wore our favourite clothes to school. We talked about why we like those clothes so much and carefully looked at each other’s clothes.

During this unit, we were able to see clothes from around the world and try some on. We learned that people are different and sometimes like to wear different clothes. Despite that, we learned that we still have a lot in common no matter what we wear!

Children leaned about weaving and even gave it a try themselves! We learned as well about why people wear clothes and explored the different types of fabrics there are. We connected clothes to the weather and the seasons. Here the children had to pack their own suitcases for either a summer holiday at the beach or a winter one at a snowy location.

We read ‘All bodies are cool’ and drew around ourselves on a big paper to later design clothes using paint and fabric. Sorting buttons, drawing with shapes made of felt, pairing socks and hanging clothes in a washing line were some of the other games we played during our unit.

Our role play area was broadened, and the children played out all sorts of stories. Children had the chance to wear many different clothes in the classroom. Sometimes that was a big challenge and a friend’s help was needed.

We had special celebration days in which we came to school wearing a pyjama, wearing blue clothes or wearing odd socks. We celebrated this special day together with our friends at Upper Pre-Primary. The last day before the holidays, we celebrated Carnival with the whole school!

Our exit point for this unit was making a tie-dye T-shirt. Each T-shirt is beautiful and unique, just like our wonderful children!

 

Yummy yummy!

Our second unit this year was Food. A simple thing for us adults, yet such a big wonder for the little ones!

 

The entry point for this unit was going to a vegetarian restaurant called De Appelier. Taking the bus there was an excitement on its own. The kids loved visiting the restaurant´s kitchen too. They were very brave and tried lots and lots of surprising new dishes!

Where does food come from? At the beginning of the unit, some of the children answered ´from the box´ to this question. By the end of the unit, the kids knew that food comes either from an animal or from a plant. They even know from which for much of the food they regularly eat!

Which food is healthy and which unhealthy? The kids loved to learn about this and kept checking if what they had in their lunch boxes was healthy.

Making orange juice, boiling and peeling an egg, cooking an omelette, making a smoothie and making tea were activities that the children loved. After all, orange juice squeezed by your own efforts tastes way better than any juice you could ever buy!

During this unit, we worked much with the senses. Touch a vegetable inside a box and guess what it is; smell little bottles and find two that smell the same, then guess what the smell is; taste some food blindfolded and guess what it is; shake plastic eggs and find two that sound the same, then guess what is inside.

As an exit point, we made gingerbread cookies. The children kept a few for themselves and their families. The remaining ones they gave to some of the people that help care for them at school. The children choose to whom they wanted to give these cookies. They were very thoughtful and generous!

 

Have a great Christmas Holidays! See you new year!

 

Ms Laura

 

A Family of Friends.

For some of the children in Lower Pre-Primary, the 1st of September was the first day ever at school. Maybe the first day ever away from their parents for so very long. For a two and a half years old, this is a huge step. During the first weeks of school, I have focused on helping the children feel taken care of, safe, and loved. Amongst others, reassuring them that mom did not just vanish from the face of the Earth. I was very pleasantly surprised by how quickly the children adapted to the new situation. Within a week they were mostly happy to come to school and waved their parents away with a smile!

 

The second step for our little family was to progressively get used to the class routines. From the beginning I have encouraged children to be independent and do as many of their tasks as possible. For example, upon arrival the children must do the following: take their backpacks off, take their jackets off, hang it, open the backpack, sort out the items in the right box, close their backpack, hang it, take their shoes off, put them in the shelf and put their slippers on. For an adult, these tasks are self-evident, easy and unremarkable. For a toddler, being able to do all of this independently is an effort and an achievement. By being able to care for themselves, children develop independence, they regard themselves as capable and they develop a sense of responsibility.

A child that is used to get these sort of tasks done by an adult will, at first, resist my insistence that they do it themselves. By giving them enough time, asking them to persevere (‘try, try!’) and giving them appropriate assistance (e.g.: ‘pull the zipper’), children slowly master their tasks. Have you ever seen the face of a child the first time they master something that is hard for them? In that moment, if you can, stop whatever you had planned and jump with them celebrating that they’ve conquered the mountain!

 

Another big focus during these two months has been the socio-emotional development of the children. E.g.: What is acceptable in the class and what is not? Can we take the toy that a friend is holding without asking first? Can we run off wherever and whenever we want? How can we address and solve problems or conflicts? What can we do when we feel angry? How can we communicate our desires to our friends in the class?

There is never too much focus on socio-emotional development! The relationships they form early on help shape who they are, who they become, and their understanding of the world.

 

Family and Friends has been a great unit to start the school year. It allowed us to talk about ourselves, our families, our countries of origin, the languages we speak, etc. What do we have in common and what makes us different?

During these time each child chose the animal symbol that represents them, we made a group painting to decorate our class, we chose a name for our class tree (Mr Tree), we greet each other individually with a song and talk about who is missing and why, we learn the names of the family members of the children, we weekly visited our friends next door at Upper Pre-Primary…

It is now the end of the unit Family and Friends, but it is only the beginning of our little Family of Friends <3

 

Treasure, pirates, islands and lots of fun!

 

Ahoy matey! 

What fun we had during our "Treasure" IPC unit!

We started our unit with a great treasure hunt. All the children became little pirates with bandanas and a hunger for adventure! They followed a special map, avoided the scary shark, climbed on a boat and dug in the ground to find a hidden treasure chest filled with precious jewels and tasty snacks.

We read stories about pirates and decided to create our own pirate boat in class. All the children helped with painting the boat and then decorated it with their own drawings.

We learned a funny poem about pirates and talked about things that pirates like. The children brought a treasure from home and told their friends why it is so precious to them. They drew and cut out their treasure then stuck it into a special treasure chest.

We received a delivery of a box full of coins, jewelry and seashells. The children helped to sort it by using different categories such as color, shape, size and value. 

Learning about islands led us to a fun art project. We made our own little islands using play-doh, paint, shells and paper.

One of the best ways to learn is to experience new things. We brought sand and water trays into our classroom so we could all practice fishing treasure out from the water and uncovering it from the sand. The children loved playing in our new exploratory corner.

We sang and danced like pirates, made necklaces from salt dough and shells, and created parrots from paper rolls.  We counted coins, fish, boats and pirates. We even wrote our own story about a group of pirates who went to a tropical island to look for treasure. 

Many of us can recognize the ‘p’ sound for pirate and parrot but also for pizza, pancake, pretty, panda and princess. The children had a lot of fun feeding our stuffed animal panda with pictures of objects that start with ‘p’. What great practice for hearing letter sounds in words!

At the end of our studies, we had a lovely exit point! We celebrated the Treasure IPC unit by going on a real boat trip along the beautiful canals of Ghent. We saw the magnificent Gravensteen castle, a beautiful dragon, the smallest house in Ghent, and so much more... The children were thrilled. The amount of smiles that we had that day was enormous. Needless to say, our "Treasure" unit was a success!

Last week of school was special. We had a lovely art day together with Upper Pre-Primary, a fun run event with the whole school, and a good bye party for Miss Anne and Miss Sophie.

We read Todd Parr's The Goodbye Book and talked about things we can do when missing someone.

On the last day of school we had a summer party, full of love and hugs.

We would like to thank you dear parents and loved ones for all your trust and support. It was a wonderful year thanks to you and your amazing children!

We finished the year with a group of 16 sweet little people who learned so much and became more independent and confident. We believe in each one of them and know that they will go on to do wonderful things. Let them follow their dreams and shine like stars. Best of luck to all the lovely families we had this year - we will carry you in our hearts forever.

Enjoy your summer holiday!

With love

Yours,

Miss Inbal, Miss Anne and Miss Sophie

 

 

Let's Pretend

Dear Parents,

Welcome back to LPP blog. First, we would like to welcome Miss Sophie who joined our team. We are so happy to have her with us. We would also like to welcome sweet Thiago who joined our group. He is such a great addition to LPP.

Over the last few weeks we have been busy learning all about fairy tales. We had a lovely ‘entry point’ to start our unit called ‘Let’s Pretend’. All children and teachers came to school with their favourite book and wore a costume of their favorite character. One by one we stood on the stage, telling our friends about the book and why we like it. We noticed that the stories were in different languages and that in order to read Ella and Meshi's Hebrew books, we needed to read from right to left.

We talked about the meaning of the word ‘pretend’ and then played some pretend games. We loved pretending we were eating an ice cream or going to sleep. We pretended to be birds, dinosaurs, kings, babies. The children had many great ideas!

We have been learning about puppets from all around the world. All children made finger puppets, hand puppets and even created their own puppet theater.

We got to know so many beautiful stories such as ‘Little red ridding hood’, ‘The frog prince’, ‘Goldilocks and the three bears’, ‘The three little pigs’, ‘The gingerbread man’, ‘Three Billy Goats Gruff’ and we enjoyed singing many new songs.

We have had nice activities followed by the stories we have read.

We made baskets and baked fresh bread, just like Little Red Riding Hood! We cut fruit and made porridge just like the family of the three bears. We built a bridge and made goat and troll masks and pretended we were The Three Billy Goats Gruff. The children loved it!

We talked about opposite words such as big and small, good and bad, right and wrong, Kind and mean, happy and sad.

Our exit point was a great success!  We celebrated the end of our Let’s pretend unit together with UPP. Each class acted out one story and it was so nice that for a minute we felt like in a real theatre.

We worked in small groups and practiced our fine motor skills. We have learnt to recognize and and to write our names and we enjoyed playing and learning about numbers.   

Lastly, we had many fun birthday parties over January and February. Finn, Lucas, Thibeau, Miwa, Paloma and Mariana, thank you for all your delicious cakes. We love you and we wish you all the best!

We would like to wish you all a happy and safe holiday.

Enjoy your family and friends and look for some spring signs…Its almost here.

Lots of love,

Miss Inbal, Miss Anne and Miss Sophie.