Friendships, chocolate and dance!

Welcome everyone to MP1’s newest blog post!

These last two months have flown by so quickly, but we have done and learned so much in such a short time! Let me tell you all about it!

In Numeracy, the children in Year 3 have continued to work on mastering their number bonds to help them count, subtract, multiply and divide quickly and confidently. They are all becoming great mathematicians, practicing different strategies to calculate faster, and they are not afraid of a challenge or two! They’ve been having fun learning about more advanced fractions and how to measure length, capacity or weight, and so much more!

In Literacy, we’ve been very busy exploring new types of writing, such as descriptive texts, explanatory texts, and composing letters. During Daily 5, the year 3 students are slowly but steadily getting used to parsing short sentences and understanding and using grammar concepts like verbs, adjectives and nouns. Meanwhile, Year 4 students are becoming much more confident and comfortable parsing more complex sentences, and they are becoming experts at consulting the dictionary. During our reading sessions, (every week on a one-to-one session with me, in small groups, and on their own) I am proud to say that all the children are making great progress, and their love for reading books is palpable!

To wrap up our yummiest IPC Unit “Chocolate”, we went to the Chocolate Nation Museum in Antwerp. It was a fantastic trip full of surprises and delicious chocolates to taste at the end! To celebrate the conclusion of this special unit, we invited all Middle Primary parents to learn from the kids through 6 different stations. The first station focused on geography, the second one had a kahoot quiz created by the students, the third station was about creating a logo and a wrapper for a chocolate bar, the fourth station was about tasting different types of chocolate and discovering the hidden ingredient, the fifth station was about the history of chocolate, and finally on the sixth station parents had to write about how chocolate makes them feel. It’s always wonderful to see the children so enthusiastic about teaching their family members, and for parents to witness how much their kids are learning!

Over the last few weeks we’ve started a meaningful and very engaging IPC Unit called “What are friends for?” One of the main topics has been learning strategies to solve conflicts with friends, and how to communicate our needs or worries in a positive way. This Unit has been a great opportunity for everyone to connect what is being taught in class with the real life challenges of sharing, working and playing together.

Our Fun Fridays continued with “Crazy Hat Day”! It was great to see all the children wearing such creative and fun hats, many of them totally handmade. I can’t wait to celebrate our next Fun Friday in January!

Our Thursdays mornings are always full of excitement as we get ready to see who will be our Show and Teller for the day! So far, we’ve had a great time with Sofia, who bravely brought in both of her violins to show us. She explained that the smaller one is the one she used when she first started playing years ago, and the larger one is the one she uses now. She played two songs for us, which was magical! Next, Arjun shared his personal tablet and told us about his favourite apps and how to use them. Then Kei showed us all the steps to make our own paper airplane. After that, we had Oscar, who brought in his special collection of football player cards. Finally, Alek made our hearts melt by bringing his lovely dog, and made it possible for all the students to remember about the importance of speaking softly to animals and how to approach them gently. I can’t wait to see who will be our next Show and teller!

Oh! I can’t forget to tell you about the newest members of the Student Council this year! Everyone in MP1 felt so proud and happy to learn that Matthew will be representing Year 4! We are sure you will make excellent choices for the school, the children and the teachers, Matthew!

Because I believe we can learn so much from each other, this term we’ve continued to celebrate our “Home Language” sessions in MP1! Leon taught us how to say several sentences in both Japanese and Flemish, his native languages at home. Cecilia also taught us ways to have small conversations in Danish and Portuguese, her native languages. I am so proud of both of you! I can’t wait to discover which student will teach us their native language/s, next month!

Last but not least, we’ve had a lot of fun celebrating the arrival of winter with Sinterklaas’s visit! A few days later, the whole school worked very hard to present a cozy and joyful ‘Winter Show’! The students in MP1 danced to a remix of “Carol of the bells”, and let me tell you, they rocked! We also held a book exchange, a tradition I love to do every year. The children bought age-appropriate novels, wrapped them anonymously, and then played a White elephant dice game. By the end, every child went home with a new novel to read and enjoy! 

But that’s not all! MP joined Upper Primary and ISG+ for an ice-skating adventure! To finish our last day before the winter holidays on a high note, we made winter decorations, prepared a ‘Chocolate Christmas Tree’ recipe, and enjoyed eating popcorn while watching a short movie. 

Now, we are totally ready for the holidays!!!

I hope you enjoyed reading about MP1’s adventures!

Ms. Cristi