Upper-Primary - Ms Kelsey
We are researching
Research, research, research...
We have been researching, reading books and searching on the internet, to be able to answer questions about 'Ancient Egyptian family life'. During our Knowledge Harvest, we asked a lot of questions: How did they construct their houses? How did they start farming? How did they make their clothes? What did they learn in school? etc. Now we are finding answers!
We are working individually, but we are always helpful and kind if someone needs support.
There are many learning targets, both in History, ICT and Art, but we take it step by step and we show our teacher that we are learning new and interesting things the whole time. This IPC unit will also be connected to writing activities in Literacy, since we are reading both fiction and non-fiction, and we are writing and talking a lot about Ancient Egypt. At the moment we write non-fiction texts, reports, but we will also write adventurous stories. You will have lots to read when we are done!
We have also looked at the written language in Ancient Egypt and learned how to write our names in hieroglyphs. During an art lesson we made a name tag in clay. We hope you can read our names when you see them. It might be a bit tricky... You need to know hieroglyphs to be able to read them!
To prepare our next art activity, we have also made papyrus. That was both tricky and a bit messy. But now the papers are dry and we can continue working with them next week! That will be very exciting!
During the whole week we have had lots of fun during break time. We practice dancing almost every break and today we showed what we have learnt so far. There are still pupils here at ISG that get inspired and say that they want to join 'Dance for fun'. That's excellent! We will continue next week!
Ancient Egypt - here we come!
We started our new unit with an excursion to an 'ancient tomb' (Miss Jenny had built it during the break, so it wasn't that old...), where we had to pretend to be archeologists. We used a torch and crawled around in the tomb and sketched what we saw. We saw lots of beautiful things. We made nice sketches of our findings.
We shared our information and together we could make a map of the tomb and tell where all the different artefacts were. We then continued with our Knowledge Harvest and shared information and asked questions. There are many things we already know, or think we know, but we are also curious, there are still many things we would like to know! We will be Enquirers and we will find out as much as possible about life in Ancient Egypt.
We started by talking about when, where and how it all started. We start to know some parts of what happened back then. To understand when it happened we have started making a timeline. We will fill our timeline with more information as soon as we learn new things!
This week we have also talked about many things (languages, culture, traditions and holidays) and shared important things about ourselves with each other. We know that that is what International Mindedness is about, sharing and learning new things about each other! We also continue to gather evidence of how we can see the 8 Personal Goals in action here in our class. There are more post-its about Respect, Morality and Thoughtfulness than before the holiday! We like to show that we don't only know these words, but that we can show them in our daily life here in Upper Primary!
We would also like to share a nice moment here in Primary, where Upper and Lower Primary pupils together prepared and performed a dance in the hallway. We think they were really brave - they just started practising and still they danced in front of all of us!
Have a lovely weekend, dear parents, and see you next week again!
Have a lovely holiday
We have focused a lot on geography during this IPC unit. Atlases and maps are now familiar objects in the classroom and we know how to use the key to understand the map. During our lessons we have designed airports and airline logos, so we know that we have to think about layout and colours when we design things. We have learned more about making adverts and how to use persuasive language. We were supposed to have our Exit Point this Monday, but sadly enough Miss Jenny was ill, so we had to cancel that. Our countries, adverts and airline logos still hang in the hallway though, so you can come and look more closely at them after the holiday. You can also take a look at our 'good global traveler', to learn more how to prepare your own journeys in the future!
We really liked this IPC unit, we have learned so much and we have tried to use our knowledge - we have discussed a lot of things, we have read and written texts and we have created a lot of beautiful things (countries, logos, adverts, airports etc.). We hope that you at home have noticed that we know more now as well!
We have also talked about two important personal goals during this IPC unit. We talked about adaptability last week, and now we know what thoughtfulness means. Thoughtfulness is the schoolwide focus this month, and we thougth that it was a good personal goal to work with, both with Valentine's Day is coming up, but also because it is such a beautiful quality. Someone who is thoughtful thinks a lot about others. He or she is warmhearted and kind. He or she helps others and shares love. Someone who is thoughtful understands a lot and shows that in his or her actions. We have prepared beautiful art work this week to share with people we love, so we hope that you like your gifts!
We ended our week with Carnival. Primary pupils went swimming in the morning and only put their costumes on in the afternoon, but we think we looked lovely! We had a very cosy afternoon up here in our classroom, we finished off our gifts and then we had an extra long choosing time. Upper Primary pupils were happy the whole afternoon. After the last break it was time for music class with Mr Simon and then it was home time! Now we have one week of holiday! We wish you a lovely half-term holiday!
International mindedness
Oh, we have interesting discussions in Upper Primary. We have talked about moving to a new country and about going on a holiday somewhere. We tried to find similarities and differences between our experiences. We all agreed that moving somewhere made us feel something different than what we felt when we were going on a holiday for a few weeks. Going on a holiday is exciting, while moving somewhere can be more of a sad experience. It is difficult to leave people you love behind.
We talked about preparing a move or a holiday trip somewhere. Upper Primary pupils had so many great ideas. We know about booking and paying for the ticket and we know about packing clothes and belongings. We then said that we might have to check the weather and climate at the destination, to be able to pack the right things. We also said, after thinking for a while, that it might be useful to contact friends and family at the destination, or to find a map and make a list of attractions and things one should see or do in the new country. Then we realised that we might have to check if we knew the language at the destination, or if it might be useful to learn some words and phrases in the new language. It is nice to be able to greet others, to say hello, goodbye, please and thank you. And what about food at the destination? And culture and traditions? All the do’s and don’ts and the laws and the rules in the country. Is it safe to go there? Are there any dangerous animals or plants one should know of? And what currency is used at the destination? And what if… Finally we realised that all the things we were talking about was indeed International Mindedness – to have a global mindset and be aware of other countries, languages, cultures and traditions! We agreed that a good global traveler would prepare him- or herself for a journey this way. It is important to be open, respectful and adaptable!
The discussion about moving to a new country lead us in to yet another Personal Goal in IPC, Adaptability. Adaptability is about being able to deal with changes and challenges in a way where one is willing to change, adjust and adapt to different conditions. It is about the process where one is willing to be flexible and learn new things and to change oneself. Here at ISG we show our adaptability in many different ways. Some have learnt a new language. Some are learning to learn in a different way than they are used to from previous schools. We have all moved to a new country and learnt many things about languages, culture and traditions. We have all made new friends. Adaptability is about changing oneself to fit all the new things around. We think that we all have shown adaptability when adjusting to our new lives here in Belgium.
We have added more evidence of the Personal Goals that we see here in our class! We write post-it’s with comments about ourselves or others whenever we see Respect, Co-operation, Morality, Resilience, Enquiry and Adaptability in Upper Primary. As you can see we can find evidence every now and then!
We are now preparing all the things we would like to show the parents during our Exit Point. We want to share our learning with you again! An invitation will come soon!
We also had a visit from Lower Primary pupils. Ivan, Chinmay and Luka came and gave us a nice challenge. Lower Primary wants all of us to be aware of the connections between healthy body/healthy air and the way we travel to and from school. We are challenged to come to school by public transport or by foot tomorrow! If we come from far and have to come by car, we are kindly asked to park a bit further away from school and walk the last part to ISG. We like challenges! We will do our best!
Have a lovely weekend!