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Diversity and considering different perspectives were central as we explored a variety of flower inspired artworks by historical and contemporary artists from different backgrounds. Afterwards learners created their own interpretations of a selected artist based on what attracted them most. They proudly spoke out when sharing their creations at assembly with the rest of the school. Additionally, the children learned about simple responsibilities by caring for their seeds, which they can continue to do with the plants in their fairy garden at home. They also took care of the local environment by collecting trash, preserving plants, and planting new ones. Maintaining acceptable behaviour was emphasized, particularly during visits to different botanical gardens or when waiting their turn for workshops.
We enjoyed a variety of stories, including several non-fiction books and different versions of “Jack and the Beanstalk”. Learners had fun cutting and sequencing their own storybook. They also learned plant-related vocabulary, including types of plants, their parts, and their life cycle. The golden learners have started digraphs or 2 letter sounds (such as ai, ie, ee, or,…). The blue learners have been introduced to and are revising lots of single letters.
The children engaged in counting and sorting seeds, flower petals, and leaves, as well as exploring different ways of representing numbers and practicing number bonds or friends of 10. Learners had many opportunities to focus on numbers up to 20 during our morning routine, through games like bingo, and with guided practice. Golden learners even delved into numbers up to 100.
The children observed the natural environment and witnessed seeds and bulbs grow. We also grew and tasted microgreens. Additionally, they played in the class flower shop and learned about plants from various regions, including their own national plants. They crafted representations of plants using a range of materials, from pipe cleaners to finger paint. Other materials were offered with garden-related plans, diagrams, or spatial representations for interpretation.
As always, the children had numerous opportunities to make choices and extend their concentration span. Well done everyone!
The children learned about the local area and the diversity within it when they visited a local supermarket, the bustling Friday market in the city centre, a bakery and a second hand shop. These excursions sparked meaningful discussions about packaging and food miles, enhancing their understanding of environmental sustainability. Engaged in the concept of reducing, reusing, and recycling, learners eagerly identified litter along the roadsides.
Learners were proud to show off the currencies of their home countries and it was fun to look at the intricate details on the coins and notes using magnifying glasses. We also played a memory game with different currencies as well as a shopping boardgame and lotto fostering a positive attitude towards competition. In class they enjoyed role-playing as both shoppers and shopkeepers. As our exit point the older learners applied their newfound skills when selling snacks to their younger and older friends in school. They decided the proceeds from the sale were to be spend on a chocolate cupcake party as well as on helping people in need. They also requested to go on a walk to pick up trash after the break.
We thoroughly enjoyed various stories and songs, including the classic "5 Current Buns in a Baker Shop". They also practiced the rhythm of spoken language with the ‘grandma is going to the grocery store’ jazz chant. Some learners also designed their own currencies and made rubbings of existing coins.
In addition to our regular literacy practice we ‘read’ shopping lists for in class shopping. We also made lists using stamps or by writing in powdered sugar.
Th shopping topic provided ample opportunities for students to engage with money-related math. Through hands-on activities, we explored higher numbers and practiced simple operations, counting in tens and using pretend euros. Worksheets allowed us to circle the coins we would use for payment, while our advanced learners in the golden group tackled challenging tasks like calculating the profit from our snack shop. Activities like creating price tags and barcodes offered opportunities for tracing and writing numbers.
We also weighed items using non-standard units and measured ingredients for cooking. When dividing in halves and quarters we linked this to telling the time on the clock.
The learners were sorting and classifying the shopping: even identifying without looking different types of packaging. Upcycling activities such as making collages using advertisement folders, transforming milk cartons into wallets, fashioning bracelets from plastic bottles, and weaving their own shopping bags exercised learners’ creativity.
They also enjoyed the tactile experience of molding dough into pastries. Their sensory explorations were further enhanced during our cooking sessions in class, with students experiencing a range of textures, smells, and tastes. Not entirely surprisingly, many found the aroma of the soup and meatballs to be more enjoyable than the taste itself—a phenomenon not observed with the sweet treats from the baker or our class cupcakes.
During our trips we continued our learning about keeping ourselves safe in traffic. learners were also regularly involved in making choices for example about what to buy or spend money on.
We ended this engaging topic in Carnival spirit: it was great to come to school dressed up in a costume of our choice and join the whole school in a colourful parade.
Have a lovely break!
Our learners have got used to our class habits and enjoy all the opportunities to work alone, alongside, and with other children. We started our unit by looking at patterns on clothes, then we investigated patterns in our surroundings, and then we celebrated our diversity by looking at traditional patterns from around the world. The patterns of wrapping paper led us into the festive season. We were exhilarated to perform our rainbow dance for our friends at assembly and later, at our exit point exhibition, for our parents. We also loved the Sinterklaas visit as is custom locally as well singing together at the ISG Winter Show.
With so many amazing patterns to be found in art, we saw lots of little artists at work! Land art was looked at to inspire the learners to form patterns in the tuff tray using the autumn treasures we collected on our pattern walk. Some learners also pasted and or printed with dried leaves. We looked at aboriginal dot paintings and recreated them using cotton buds. Mosaic patterns with squares were created and Escher inspired pictures were coloured. Learners also had the opportunity to make chains with shapes or beads.
We emphasised the musical patterns in language such as rhythm and rhyme (or the same sounds at the end, as we also called it) and even some alliteration (or the same sound at the beginning). Awareness of these aspects helps learners in smoother reading and writing at later stages. Our patterns topic wouldn’t have been complete without rhyming stories as well as ‘Elmer the patterned elephant’. We also loved hearing patterns in stories told in other languages by our various mystery readers.
The Pattern topic involved plenty of geometric opportunities. The children looked carefully at patterns and copied, continued, and created repeating patterns of objects, colours, shapes, sounds, and actions. As time went by, these patterns became increasingly complex. We had plenty of fun looking at symmetry using mirrors or splatter paintings. The names of various 2D shapes were practiced in the process, as well as some positional language. Many learners discovered patterns in numbers when choosing to lay out numbers up to a 100 in lines of 10. The children were also challenged to count in 2’s and say one number only in their heads instead of out loud. Another Elmer song helped us to count backwards from 10.
The learners were able to choose and experiment actively with all their senses, a range of materials. We looked at patterns in our surrounding and nature, particularly during our pattern walk. We also used a lot of ‘plans’ or other forms of spatial representations to recreate patterns, symmetrical images, and even an Elmer elephant.
Throughout the theme, learners had opportunities to develop the skills of making choices, paying attention, and concentrating. The Elmer narratives covered expressing a range of emotions as well as embracing our own true colours that make us special.
1 Independence & interdependence
The beginning of the schoolyear requires learners to get used to, and gradually also take part in, the routines of the class and the school. In addition they need to respect the rules (such as we keep our hands and feet to ourself) and carry out their responsibilities (tidy up, sort their work in their drawers, pack their belongings, help friends or the teacher, etc.) We emphasised acceptable behaviour, our personal value respect and taking responsibility for your own actions when learning and playing alongside or with others. Within our IPC unit we looked at houses and homes in our vicinity as well as across cultures and time. We also celebrated our diversity by looking at buildings learners have visited across the globe as well as world landmarks. Our visit to our friend’s home as well as to homes from the past made everything more concrete.
2 Communication
Our learning was represented in different forms. Many children made their own book about the 3 little pigs, some made collages about the rooms in the house whilst others drew plans of their dream home. We worked with different materials including salt dough, pencils and crayons, different types of glue and paper. We also created a big cardboard home, build with milk cartons and did a lot of roleplaying.
Language & Literacy
Learning about houses and homes included practicing a lot of vocabulary: the furniture and rooms in a house, the building process and materials used, architectural elements, animal homes, etc. We enjoyed both fact books as well as a range of fiction, including the traditional tale of the 3 little pigs and Hansel and Gretel. The learners enjoyed different versions of the same tales as well as guessing the rhyming words and of course also saying along the repeated phrases.
In literacy the blue learners focussed on recognizing ‘home sounds’ and describing objects and animals sounds. They choose a favourite sound, came up with rhythms made with their bodies or shakers. They clapped to their name, distinguished loud and soft sounds and gave examples of onomatopoeias. In addition they listened to stories and enjoyed singing action songs. They are starting to work on recognising rhyming words.
Numeracy
We looked at numbers related to homes, the learners counting items at home and made comparisons in class afterwards. Some ordered house numbers and others added the corresponding number of pigs to each home. We also measured the ingredients for our salt dough and gingerbread house.
3 Exploring
Learners were encouraged to try out a range of more independent activities. There was a lot of practice of fine motor skills and hand eye coordination such as cutting colouring, tracing or stamping brick patterns and roof tiles, There was a lot of huffing and puffing and learners found out which materials they could move with their breath, some even took notes about their discoveries.
4 Healthy living
Learners are supported to take responsibility for themselves and for their learning. Beyond that they are encouraged to pay attention during our group circle time before they need to choose which more independent activity they want to focus on.
IPC Unit On ‘Sand and Water’
The Glitter Class
Upper Pre-Primary
Dear Family and Friends
We have had an amazing final IPC unit all about ‘Sand and Water’. The students have absolutely loved this unit and with the current wonderful weather it has been a perfect end to a beautiful year of learning.
Here are some highlights:-
We will all miss you very much and wish you a successful year of learning at ISG next year. Zayn and Aarna - we can't believe that you are leaving. Good luck in the USA Zayn and India Aarna.
What a wonderful year we have had together. Thank you!
Please enjoy a selection of photographs connected to our learning.
Happy holidays!
With kindest regards.
Ms. Marianne, Ms. Laura and Ms. Chiara
IPC Unit On Bears
We have had a bear-tastic time over the past 5 weeks. Learning all about bears has been immensely engaging for our Upper Pre-Primary cohort. Animals are always fabulous to connect with, but, actually the students just couldn’t stop thinking and learning about bears! It has been a beary interesting journey.
Wishing you all a wonderful break and safe travels.
Ms. Marianne and Ms. Laura
For the last 5 weeks we have been learning about clothes and have managed to discover more than we could have imagined was possible in such a short time. We were able to connect with each other through clothes, books and active learning experiences, but most importantly we have had lots of fun!
Alongside all of these activities we continue to work on literacy and numeracy. Some friends have been busy skip counting and ordering numbers to 10 and 20. Students have been listening carefully to phonemes (a single unit of sound) and diagraphs (two letters that make one sound) and blending them together.
We have introduced book making and students have been writing books and making cards to send to their friends too. During book making students shared their favourite books and they are beginning to distinguish between ‘fake’ (fiction) and ‘not-fake’ (non-fiction) books. Some books are specifically to give us information and help us find out more. Students have been learning about concepts of print and are recognising that books have titles, illustrators and authors and that some books are wordless whilst others have not just pictures but words too. Students have also begun to identify as authors which is a moment when as teachers we celebrate. Awesome work!
Our ‘Reading Buddies’ from Upper Primary are still our regular Monday visitors and we have been building relationships by sharing our favourite things including our books. Both students benefit from this wonderful connection time in many ways. Our older students have an opportunity to be leaders and demonstrate fluent reading and our Glitter Class friends are able to connect with a buddy who is able to display positive traits such as good behaviour, kindness and patience and fluent reading too.
‘Mystery Reader’ has continued and would not be possible without the many special volunteers that spare their time to come into school. Thank you! Creating a sense of belonging is valued at ISG and inviting family members into class really enables this strong bond between us all, it means that we have some incredible highlights that are shared. Remember don’t be shy, you are welcome to be a ‘Mystery Reader’ just contact us and we will find a convenient time.
Our Exit Point was a wonderful tie-dying experience. Students were totally absorbed as they watched their white t-shirts magically transformed as coloured dyes were dropped onto them. Colours clashing and colliding to form new colours and shapes. Students chose independently whether to use rocks, marbles, cylinders or an alternative method to design their own t-shirts. Every t-shirt will be unique just like our friends, a perfect ending to a great unit.
Have a wonderful holiday.
Where do we start? This unit has flown by filled with new experiences and opportunities to learn through the senses.
This year, without covid regulations we took full advantage of organising trips and having visitors from our community into the classroom to share their knowledge and expertise about food. We have been privileged in this respect, our class has 16 different nationalities and 16 different cuisines which meant that we could all learn from each other.
Our Exit Point was decided by the students who wanted to make Gingerbread cookies for some of their community. The Glitter Class decided to share them with their Reading Buddies and the greater school community. It was a tasty ending to all of the learning that had gone before.
We have been extremely lucky to have experienced a huge variety of foods, this would not be possible without the awesome support of our wonderful parents. Always willing to contribute to our programme and create those moments that will never be forgotten by our students. Thank you everybody for giving up your time, we had some absolutely amazing times together.
The food unit has offered special moments for the students to explore and be risk-takers whilst also learning about why we need to eat and how we can make good food choices.
Please enjoy a selection of photographs from this unit.
Have a wonderful break, see you in 2023!
It seems long ago that our journey began together but the reality is only eight full weeks! Sixteen students and two teachers, connecting for the first time.
The IPC unit of ‘Family and Friends’ was a fabulous starting point.
Our entry point was family photographs, firstly looking at the photographs together as a group and sharing different information about our families including how many people were in our families. This led to our ‘big block’ provocation, students had to find their families on different blocks. It was delightful hearing students shouting “look my family”, but also to observe students handing friends blocks with their brother, sister, mother or father on. A new level of connection because we did not just know each other we knew who our families were too.
We also counted and stamped family members into houses and listened carefully to stories about different kinds of family. We learnt that not all families are the same.
We had lots of fun looking at what we looked like as babies and learned to recognise our friends from their baby photographs. We had all grown in similar ways from drinking milk and not being able to take care of ourselves to walking and talking three, four and five year olds who are more independent but still need love and care from our families.
We are a class with 16 different nationalities. Our home languages reflect this and we embraced our “Mystery Readers’ for their diversity, enjoying stories not just being read in English. It was always a fun guessing game leading up to ‘Mystery Reader’ as we tried to find out who was coming using the three clues that had been given. We weren’t always right and this showed on surprised faces as we opened our eyes and smiled at our special guest. ‘Mystery Reader’ will continue throughout the year. The connection it offers is wonderful and we love to have family and friends visiting us.
We spent time singing ‘hello’ in the different languages of our class members. Learning how to say ‘hello’ in a student's home language is a wonderful thing and our students have been working hard to remember the different greetings that we can use. Alongside our different languages we have been excited to make flags and also find our countries on our world map and globe. “I can drive to you”, said David when we found our homes in Europe. “I have red, yellow and black too”, said Dylan as he noticed his German flag connected to Finn’s Belgian flag. Connecting once again through maps and flags.
We have also been building community at school and are lucky enough to have Upper Primary, join us as our ‘Reading Buddies’. Reading to us, with us and also sometimes working with us on special projects. We even drew our buddies and they drew us! We haven’t forgotten our Lower Pre-Primary friends who also join us once a week for a session of play, dancing and stories. This offers Glitter Class members an opportunity to be role-models and leaders within our own classroom which is great for our self-confidence.
The unit ended with a wonderful ‘Mystery Reader’ on location trip. Students were excited to find an invitation from our ‘Mystery Reader’ to their home. Students wondered who it might be and the guessing game began. The students were delighted to be going on a trip together, Ms. Mia and Ms. Lily were coming too. We set off and walked for a long way before finding the house we were looking for. The door was open, but nobody was home so we called ‘Mystery Reader, where are you?’ and out popped…Ms. Laura! It was a fantastic surprise. Ms. Laura read ‘Our Class Is A Family’ by Shannon Olsen and it is quite true that whilst we have been learning about families we too have built a family within our classroom. The Glitter Class family.
The trip was our exit point for ‘Family and Friends’, but the children had another surprise.
Ms. Laura gave a clue about what our next topic would be. She brought out a tray of croissants…..what did this mean, were we going to learn about croissants? After a few close guesses the students guessed that we would be learning about food. We walked back to school in the drizzle but didn’t mind at all because we had been on a trip!
Connection is important at the beginning of each school year, students finding out about their commonalities and differences and connecting through them. As teachers we offer students a safe place where they can be curious and interests are sparked each day. The Glitter Class have a sense of belonging and it is clear that some special relationships are developing on this year-long journey together.
Have a wonderful break.
What a wonderful year we have had in upper pre-primary, so much growing, so much learning and so much fun!
Our last unit on ‘Treasure’ was a great success. From the beginning the children became like real pirates! For our ‘entry point the children had to follow a map and work together, completing different challenges along the way to find the treasure. What a wonderful celebration when they found the box of treasure hidden in the sand- so many happy and excited faces!
Over the past few weeks, the children have been super busy and creative making all things related to pirates-treasure boxes, small pirate boats and treasure maps. They especially loved making their telescopes and cutlasses and of course the large pirate ship which they made together. As we were no longer learning about ‘transport’ the children thought it would be a good idea to turn our bus we made into a ship. Great recycling!
In the ship the children had many adventures, sailing the seas and oceans around the world. To further enhance this play the children made their own maps of the world and learnt the names of the oceans. They were very curious to learn about real pirates, where they sailed and what they did. Blackbird, Anne Bonny, Henry Every where names very regularly heard in upper pre-primary! Pirates survived at sea by fishing, the children become true fishermen and learnt how to catch fish using magnetic fishing rods. To extend their mathematical skills the children learnt how to measure the size of the fish they caught! Through our study on treasure the children also learnt about money, recognizing coins, sorting coins, counting and adding coins together.
Our unit on ‘Treasure’ lead us to a mini study on ‘islands’. The children were very curious to learn about different types of islands – tidal, volcanic, coral, and tropical. We talked about different animals that live on islands. We looked on the world map at the location of some islands and learnt their names. Stimulated by this learning the children created their own individual islands using recycled materials! They were beautiful, so creative!
We sang songs and read stories about pirates, some of the older children even wrote their own pirate stories. The class was full of treasure. The children enjoyed bringing special treasures to school, they loved sorting and exploring each other’s treasure.
To end this fun unit on treasure we had two ‘exit points’. An imaginary trip to a tropical island where they children pretended to be pirates searching for a coconut and a watermelon, having a big feast, and enjoying some friendly pirate fights with the cutlasses they made. And secondly, a trip on a real boat in Ghent. What a wonderful day we had, so exciting being on a boat with all our friends!
The last days of school was very special, the graduation for the older children going to primary, a special art day with Lower pre-primary, a water day, two birthday celebrations for Tulgar and Bruno and a school fun run!
Both Ms. Laura and I would like to wish you all a very happy and sunny summer holiday. We look forward to seeing you all when you return in September!
Lots of love,
Ms. Mia
