It is the most wonderful time of the year!

For starters, we would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and the Happiest New Year from everyone in Lower Primary 1!

The past two months have flown by, and the children have been incredibly busy improving their mathematical skills, becoming more independent during literacy time, and learning fascinating facts with their IPC unit, The Magic Toymaker.

Year 1 has been exploring new strategies for addition, skip counting by 2s and 10s, and learning about 2D and 3D shapes. Meanwhile, Year 2 has been working with 2-digit numbers, discovering near doubles, and exploring new methods for addition and subtraction.

The children are also becoming more independent with their Daily 5 activities. They now confidently Read to Self, Read to Someone, Listen to Reading, Work on Writing, and complete Word Work activities to develop their reading and writing skills. They have been writing recounts about their weekends and discovering new sounds during their phonics lessons.

This term, we also visited the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels as the exit point for our unit, ‘Who Am I?’ During our visit, the children participated in a treasure hunt, allowing them to engage with some of the museum’s most iconic paintings. We also explored the wing dedicated to René Magritte, where the children discovered more about his unique and inspiring works.

During our IPC sessions, our class dove into the world of toys! We studied toys from the past and how they relate to the ones we play with today. Together, we built a timeline featuring iconic toys from the 1900s onward. We also invited parents to share stories about their favourite childhood toys, and some even brought their treasured toys to the classroom for us to see!

The children also explored the fascinating world of programming, receiving an introduction to coding and using it to create short algorithms for Bee-Bots and mBots2. We also explored the famous painting Children’s Games by the Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The children discovered many games from the past depicted within this fascinating artwork.

For our exit point, we had an exciting trip to the new Toy Museum in Mechelen. The children explored the museum and experienced firsthand many interesting games from both the present and the past. It was indeed a fantastic experience, and we’ve captured the best moments in a short movie for you to enjoy.

On the 6th of December, we had a very special visitor at our school—Sinterklaas! He brought us presents and shared some valuable advice.

Ms. Maija also gave us the the joyful task of delivering holiday cards to our school’s neighborhood, spreading holiday cheer and warm wishes for the New Year from all of us at ISG. The cards featured the winning drawings from our recent competition, and our class wrote personal messages to share the festive spirit and to wish them a happy new year!!

As the year comes to a close, we said goodbye to our wonderful interns, Ms. Alexandra and Ms. Gemma. They have been fantastic assistants to both the teachers and students over the past few months, and we will miss them dearly. We wish them every success in their future endeavors!

Finally, thank you to everyone who attended our Winter Show! The kids were so excited to perform their Christmas dance for you, and we had so much fun putting it together.

We wish you and your families a safe, relaxing, and joyful holiday break. We look forward to seeing you all in the New Year!