Upper-Primary - Ms Kelsey

ISG Values

 

At ISG we have five school values we find important - Love of learning, Happiness, High expectations, Respect and Diversity. Every two months we focus on a different value. Throughout February and March we are putting Diversity under the spotlight! In the Primary class we discussed what diversity means both in wider society and in our school community. In co-operative groups students then brainstormed ideas about what Diversity 'sounds like', 'looks like' and 'feels like'.

 

We all agreed that we are lucky to have such diversity in our class - a diverse range of ages, abilities, languages and cultures!

Our brilliant music class!

 

Over the last few weeks the Primary class have been working away on a puppet show. The project involved students drawing their own puppets, creating the story line and adding sound effects to create a fun audio-visual story of their own.

We had the premier of 'The story of Brilliant' in class today, and now we can share it with you too!

 

 

The Story of Brilliant from ghent.isg on Vimeo.

Reflecting on this project with the students, this is what they enjoyed, learnt and would do differently next time.

  1. What I’ve Enjoyed
    1. Sound effects for the animals (Ivan)
    2. Singing part (Alana)
    3. Performing actions with the puppets (Chavelli)
    4. Favourite part: - the fighting scene with the dragons (Emma)
                                     - capture of Mr. Simon
                                     - celebration (Idil)
    5. Drawing the puppets and  performing (Vedant)

 

  1. What I’ve learnt throughout the making of 'The story of Brilliant'
    1. Drawing skills
    2. How to perform in  a Puppet show
    3. Not to put your hand in the screen while performing
    4. Not to touch the backdrop with the puppets
    5. Not to bump the camera while recording
    6. The process of putting a movie together is hard
    7. How to make a movie
    8. It takes a long time to put together a movie of 7 minutes
    9. Intonation: speaking loudly and clearly
    10. Learning to work as a group

 

  1. What could we do differently next time?
    1. Listen even better to instructions
    2. Speak more loudly and clearer
    3. Work more carefully with the puppets and touching the backdrop
    4.  Make your own backdrop

Thank-you to our music teacher, Mr Simon, for this fun and worthwhile project!

Environmentally friendly pupils

Primary learns more about recycling on PhotoPeach

Our Greek vases

 

We first made the structure of the vase with a balloon and thick card.

Next we did a few layers of papier mâché.

And a final layer of white tissue paper.

Then we each mixed orange, red and brown paint until we created a colour that we liked.

Once the paint had dried we were able to draw patterns on our vases, inspired by the real Greek vases we had seen.

Finally, we represented a Greek Legend we had read by drawing a scene from the story on each side of the vase. We are so pleased with the final result.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Centina's research and our Dream Catchers

Centina's research: "The Native American people, also know as American Indians, are the indigenous people of the Americas. /.../ The Ojibwa people have an ancient legend about the origin of the dream catcher. Storytellers speak of the Spider Woman, known as Asibikaashi; she took care of the children. So the mothers and grandmothers would weave magical webs for the children, using willow hoops and sinew, or cordage made from plants. The dream catcher would filter out all bad dreams and only allow good thoughts to enter our mind. Once the sun rises, all bad dreams just disappear. In Lakota, the dream catcher was believed to help you reach your goals, making good use of your ideas , dreams and visions. If you believe in the great spirit, the web will catch your good ideas and the bad ones will go through the hole. It is also said that the dream catcher holds the destiny of the future." Art task 3, Dream catchers on PhotoPeach

History task 3, Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt, gods and goddesses on PhotoPeach

IPC and Literacy

 

Using the Greek Legends that we have been reading in class, the students have been practicing the skill of summarising the main events in a story and sequencing them. The Lower Primary students completed a story line and a story circle, while the Upper Primary students completed storyboards which also involved re-telling the story in their own words. It was a lot of fun! Have a look for yourself!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Legendary day in Brussels!

 

When we first arrived in Brussels we visited the most significant landmark in Brussels, the beautiful Central Square.

After that Miss Maija told us the Legend behind another important tourist destination in Brussels - the Mannekin Pis! Parents, ask your children if they still remember the story about why, since 500 years, there is a little statue of a boy doing pipi!

All the students were very excited when they heard that Mannekin Pis had a friend! So we went off to look for Jannekin Pis!

After having our lunch in the lovely park surrounding the Art and History Museum, we were ready for the most important part of our visit...

to look at Ancient Greek vases!

Our guide told us all about the legends represented on the vases. After reading so many Greek Legends in class, it was great to hear some familiar stories and characters and to see some real vases.

We learnt about how the vases were made and how they got the images on the outside. We learnt about what they were used for and who used them. The most interesting part was definately the stories depicted on the vases and how there is an element of truth to the Legends, but also a lot of fantasy!

Parents, you can see more photos of our day in Brussels in the Photo gallery.

Now you can look forward to seeing our own vases, we have nearly finished them!

 

How heavy is it?

The Lower Primary class students were presented with a range of objects. First of all, they compared the weight of the objects by direct comparison. After discussing the relationship  between grams and kilograms we then estimated and then measured the weight of each object. At the beginning of the activity the students' estimates were quite far off! However, after weighing a few objects to find their exact weight, their estimates were closer as they were able to compare. It was a fun practical activity to do together. Parents, try to talk to your children at home about how much things weigh. Doing a cooking activity together can also be a fun way for children to develop their understanding of weight and quantity.

 

We learn something new every day

The IPC -focus this week has been legends and myths, where we have worked with two History tasks in the IPC-unit "The stories people tell".

The pupils have learned more on how to summarize the main events in a story and how to describe the characters and the setting in a story. There has been a lot of different activities going on in our classrooms. The pupils spent quite some time searching for synonyms for frequently used words, by using a thesaurus. They also wrote character portraits or filled out character description grids, to show that one can describe both appearance and personal characteristics when describing a character. They worked hard with their story maps, and since we had read "The legend of Robin Hood", there were many trees to colour in in the end. We have discussed the fact that a story can be told in so many ways - we can read a book, see a movie, hear a song, read a poem or look at a picture.

Tuesday afternoon we went to the library to borrow new books. We tried to find books with a legend or a myth, but we also looked for books about bears, since the Primary pupils soon will read storybooks to the Pre-primary children, and the Pre-primary children are momenterily working with an IPC unit about bears. We are looking forward to this exciting activity, but first we need to practice, practice, practice!

Of course we have done a lot of other things as well! The pupils have worked with their reading and follow-up in class and they have worked in their numeracy books, played numeracy games and discussed numeracy! We are quite certain that everybody learns something new every day!