I have attached Julia Alden's blog (ES Principals blog) link to my homepage under links.... you can find this at the right hand side under archives!
Please do take the time to have a read through her blog and add any comments.

Regards
Ms Jenney

During our Math time, we have been looking at numbers that come before, or after a given number! We used large floor numbers to help us. The children had fun working on the floor in groups and exploring the numbers together.... helping and encouraging each other!
We will continue to work on this concept over the coming weeks.

Regards
Ms Jenney
 

K1JW and K1PA children presented to the Elementary School children, details of the Christmas celebrations at ISS. In groups, they presented their Learner Profile decorations they had created together and explained what they were all about. K1JW children created Caring, Risk-taker and Principled decorations!

I was very impressed at how the children stood up on stage, spoke clearly into the microphone and encouraged each other! "Team work" they called it! 
Their decorations are now hanging on the bottom floor of the school. 

The K1 children have encouraged the older grades to create some decorations and these are slowly being hung up along the bottom floor also. If you get a chance, please do come and read these decorations, as they say a lot about what the children in the school are learning and thinking about.

Regards
Ms Jenney

Last week our class explored the letter 'C'. We came up with many different words that begin with this letter such as clown, Christmas, Chikako, Carmella, Cinderella and cows! Cows were talked about a lot by the children.... so I managed to find a book called 'Click, clack, moo - Cows that type' by Doreen Cronin.
We read this book together and talked about what a typewriter is (many of the boys and girls have never heard of it!). We then created paper plate cows and used the computer to type letters (just as the cows did in the story). We mostly typed our names, family members names and letters we know. For many of the children, this was their first experience with using the alphabet keys on the computer!

Regards
Ms Jenney

In math we have been collecting data and creating picture graphs. We have made many graphs including our favourite colors, what sort of shoes we wear, different foods we find in the school kitchen area and most recently different types of toys that move. The children actively sort the data and come up with a way of displaying it. The moving toys was quite a difficult one.... we had to think of the different ways in which the items moved.... eventually the children settled on items with wheels, rolling items, items with moveable parts and items with legs!
Regards
Ms Jenney

Last week we were very lucky that it did not rain (as it usually does on Wednesday's) so we were able to get out into the sand! The children took some number shells with them, which they created birthday cakes with! A cake was given to me with 75 on it - (I am sure I really don't look that old!)
After finishing with the cakes, the children worked together to create a rather large sand hill (as they called it). They decorated it with numbers. I went along and added a few alphabet letters... just to see what would happen.... and yes, they were quickly removed! I was very impressed how the children recognised that they were not numbers and therefore did not belong on their sand hill.
If you are wondering, the children did make a second hill, and they decorated it with alphabet letters!  

Regards, Ms Jenney 

As part of our exploration of the letter 'p', the children became interested in puppets!
They also identified puppets as being moving toys, because they can wave, talk and jump (ideas about why from the children).
The class had lots of fun creating their own puppets and using them to tell stories to each other.

Ms Jenney

 This week our class along with the Elementary School, have been celebrating Deepavali!
We had a visit from G4SB who did a presentation on what Deepavali means and why it is important. The children learned that Deepavali means 'line of lights' and that new clothes are purchased for this special holiday. Food is also very important, as well as family member's coming together to celebrate.
Our class was able to create decorations and well as rangoli, to place outside the door. They were also given crowns to decorate and some special sweets to try made out of rice flower!
On Friday the children were presented with bindi's for the girls to wear and bracelets for the boys to give to their mother or sister. I was impressed by how the children became interested in this holiday, in how the girls were open minded by trying on bindi's, and how they all asked many relevant questions! Great Job K1JW! 

Regards
Ms jenney.

This week we have been exploring the letter P. I was quite surprised that the most obvious words such as pirate, princess and prince, did not really come up in conversation. Instead, the children were interested in Peter Pan, pumpkins and pancakes! We have been singing a song about "P" words in the pan, so you may hear this at home as it quickly spread and the children having been singing it at random times during the day!
Because the children were interested in Peter Pan, I was able to bring a Pop-Up book with sounds for the children to examine! They were in awe of the large pirate ship (again pirates were not discussed) and of the way the pictures pop out of the book. We discussed the different types of books there are and how they differ from one another!
The children talked about pancakes (it seems McDonalds breakfast in the weekend is very popular) so I was able to find a book by Eric Carle called Pancakes, Pancakes. We read the story together and found out where all the ingredients that go into making pancakes come from. We then mixed our own batter and cooked our own pancakes! The children enjoy cooking and have an understanding that ovens and cook tops are hot, and they warned each other not to stand so closely whilst I helped to cook and flip the pancakes. And of course, after we had finished we had fun eating our pancakes! Yum K1JW make great pancakes!
We will continue exploring the letter 'P' again this week.

Regards
Ms Jenney

In Numeracy this week we have been counting numbers forwards and backwards as well as creating picture graphs. 
To help us count forwards and backwards to ten, we used a hop-scotch to jump whilst we counted. We had to be careful about which number we were jumping on, especially when were were counting backwards!  We also used chalk outside on the concrete to draw trains with long carriages, which we numbered from one to ten. We then took turns counting the carriages on the trains starting from the largest number!

We have made 2 picture graphs so far, one to find out how many boys and girls there are in K1JW and the other to find out what types of shoes we wear. We found out that most of us have velcro on our shoes, and that Noam is the only person who has laces!

We will continue with picture graphs this week!

Ms Jenney