hiatus

For those of you who follow this blog, apologies for the lack of posting the last few months. With the proposed power cuts from TANESCO, I had prepared to slip away from writing for a few weeks.
The power cuts didn't happen, I know, I'll try and jump back in for these final few days of school and then next year, I'll strive to be more consistent.

Field Trip

P1 and P1/2 field trip to Dorobo Camp

We have been talking about the words value, use and interact.  Before our trip students defined landscape as “…when you are looking in one place and you are looking at everything in front of you.” While walking around Dorobo Camp and the village of Olasiti, we looked and talked about different landscapes and the ways we saw people (and animals) using and interacting with the land. Our landscape drawings (posted soon) and these photos may help tell the rest of the story… 

A huge thanks to all of our parents for ensuring your child was prepared to go on our trip! Thanks also to Rose and Faraja (our classroom assisstants), 'Mama Ashlyn' (Tierney and Ashlyn's mom), 'Kevin' (Lucas and Camilla's dad), and Mama Emilie (brave parents that joined us) and all those at Dorobo--without all of these people this trip would not have been possible. Thank you!

Welcome back!

P1C was busy this week settling back into early mornings, catching up with friends we had not seen for three weeks, telling stories about our holidays and thinking about words, numbers and praying mantids. Here's a recount of the week through pictures...

Our Reading Buddies came for a visit.

We have been talking about different ways we can think about and solve word problems.

We are learning how to use pictures to help us work with numbers.

We worked in small groups and independently to sort
short vowel sounds.

The beginning of our syllable graph.We are learning that listening for syllables can help us in spelling words.

We had a visitor to class: a praying mantis

parent letter sent home 29.04

Dear P1 Parents,

 Welcome back!

Despite being a short week, we’ve been busy!  We have exciting things to look forward to in the coming weeks.  I will aim to send another note home in two weeks time to share what we’ve been learning and what we will continue to work on.

Dates to note:

           

03 May (Tuesday): Chelsea to Moshi for curriculum planning; Maree Raeburn covering
05 May (Thursday): FIELD TRIP to Dorobo  (look for more details to come!)

06 May (Friday): EC/P1/P12 will host Share Time (students will be performing a story they have been working on in Music with Mr. Meinertz)

09 May (Monday)- 08 June (Wednesday) : CCA’s run

10 June (Friday): Whole Primary Share Time hosted with the help of Erik Meinertz

10 June (Friday): Portfolios and reports home

14 June (Tuesday): Parent/student/teacher conferences

-                      POI: Our new Unit of Inquiry is titled: TUPO TANZANIA

o        The following will guide our inquiry for the next 5-6 weeks (from 02 May-03 June) :

Central idea: people interact with, use and value the natural environment in different ways

Lines of inquiry:

·                                                                                  Local natural environment (form)  

·                                                                                  Human use of local environment (causation)  

·                                                                                  Actions that benefit or harm the local environment (perspective)

Teacher questions driving inquiry:

1)                  What is the local landscape? (form)

2)                  How do people use the local environment? (form)

3)                  What motivates people to act or use the environment the way they do? (causation)

4)                  Why do people have different points of view on using the environment? (perspective)

o        If you have insight or experiences you could share with us as we explore ways people interact with and use the local environment or, how actions benefit or harm the environment, please let me know. We would really enjoy having you visit class.

-                      Literacy:

Reading/Writing: Students will be encouraged in the process of independently selecting both fiction and nonfiction texts and as they start to recognize personal preferences in reading. The skill of choosing just-right books will continue to be a focus. Ask your child about their book basket! We’ll begin ‘shopping’ for books Monday morning. Through small group instruction we will continue to look at the strategies good readers use when reading and what we can do when we come to tricky words. As we continue expressing ideas in a variety of forms we will work on correct letter formation, using high frequency words and relying on the sounds that are most obvious in a word. Students will continue exploring spelling patterns through ‘word family’ work. A focus during our Weekend News recount writing will be giving descriptions of past events using appropriate tenses.

Word study:

§     We’re continuing to work with long and short vowel sorts

§     We will look at these blends the next two weeks: br/cr/df/fr/gr/tr/pr

§     Word families we will be exploring: in/et/it/op/un

-                      Math: We will continue working with graphs as we collect, organize and interpret information. We will review topics of ime, temperature, graphing and the vocabulary more than/less than, area and perimeter, sides, corners, straight, curved, face, edge and further our understanding of 2D and 3D shapes. Students will spend time identifying patterns within the 100’s chart while gaining skills of counting by 2, 5, and 10. We will also spend time exploring the value of Tanzanian Shillings.  

-                      A note on CCAs: Quarter 4 CCAs begin 09 May (Monday) and run through 08 June (Wednesday). Students will continue in their Quarter 3 CCA unless arrangements have been made through Jason Bowie.

Homework: Please continue to read with your child every night. Students are continuing to make incredible progress with their ability to recognize sight word s, can articulate the strategies they  use when working through a tricky word and  are building fluency and therefore greater understanding.  The Math activities being sent home are completely optional; I will send a math activity sheet home Monday.

Dates to Note

Tuesday, 06 April:
Student Led Celebrations! (SLC)
See Note from Head of Primary, Maree Raeburn on SLC:

Students will guide you through their learning. The teachers will be observing, recording and present as a support. Time is not set aside on this day for discussion with the teacher on your child’s progress.  We kindly request that, should you wish to make an appointment time for such discussion, that you follow the regular procedure ‐ i.e. via email or written communication arrange a time of mutual convenience. The time allocated is 40 minutes, with up to 4 students havingthe same start time’. Celebration of student learning is not confined to their classroom, and you are invited to visit Music,ICT, French and Swahili. Your child will lead… you follow!

This is the opportunity for your child to shine, as they lead you!


Wednesday, 07 April:
Whole School Culminating Sport Event.
Students dismissed at 12:00.


Wednesday, 27 April:
School Resumes

portfolios

Portfolios:

Portfolios went home with students on Friday.

Prior to taking them home, students in P1 talked about the word reflection. While demonstrating the skill of reflection, students took time exploring their portfolios and those of others in the class. Students were asked to share work they were most proud of, evidence of their learning (what they can do now that they couldn’t do before), and things they want to continue getting better at. The following were comments students made while carefully exploring their portfolios…

“…look Chelsea! Before in my Weekend News I wrote ‘went’  “w-e-t” now I spell ‘went’ “w-e-n-t”!” -AB

“…do we really get to keep these Just Right books forever? I think at the end of the year I will have a harder Just Right book than this!” –NA

“…look IM, you are writing a lot of words now!” – KS

“I like this one because before I didn’t draw so well. Now I do” - CP

“…I want to show my dad every page!” –PP

Guiding Questions for Parents

For Drawings/Photographs

·         What is happening in this photo?

·         Who is with you?

·         What did you do?  Why?

·         How did you feel?

Reading

·         Which book have you particularly enjoyed so far this year?

·         How has your reading improved this year?

·         What type of books do you like most?

Writing

·         What are you good at in writing?

·         How has your writing changed this year (September and now)?

Math

·         What is special about this piece of math work?

·         What Math activity do you like most?

POI

·   What did you most enjoy about this Unit of Inquiry? Why?

·   What types of houses do you remember thinking about?

·   Why do you think it is important to think about weather (environment) when building houses?

·   What would you have done differently if you were to host a cafe again?

·   Are there any jobs at ISM you would like to have?

·   Can you tell me what Juma, Ms Raeburn (Maree) and Rosie do at ISM?

·         These are some general questions you can ask to help with conversation while looking through your son/daughter’s portfolio.

                    -What did you learn from this?

                   -What was the easy part?

                   -What was the most difficult part?  Why

                   -If you had to do it over again, what would you do differently?

                   -Where did you get your ideas?

                   -What do you think you do best? Why?

-What areas would you like to improve in?

                   -What part of each school day do you enjoy the most? Why?

-What can you do now that you couldn’t do in the beginning of the year?

This is a time of celebrations!  Your child is proud of her/his work. 

a drama-filled week

A week of performances:

Through puppet shows (which students decided to perform for EC), short skits presented with the help of our P 5 buddies  and a viewing of the Braeburn production ‘Peter Pan’ students in P1 had a drama-filled week.

Puppet Shows: 

Little Red Riding Hood (1): ASM, NM, SS

Little Red Riding Hood (2): IM, KS, RO, CP

Chrysanthemum: ML, SV, BBE, CS

The Boy Who Cried Wolf: NA, EK, AB, PP

Lion and Mouse: AA, JJB

Skits:

The GIRL Who Cried Wolf: SS, AB, NA, CP, EK, NM

Lion and Mouse: BBE, JJB

Tortoise and Hare: KS, IM

Fox and Crane: RO, AA, ML

Stork and Fox: SVM, ASM, PP

Reflecting on our performances:

Peter Pan:

P1 and P1/2 Hosts the "Sweet Cafe" for staff working at ISM

P1 collaborated with P1/2 on the planning, organizing and running of Sweet Café

Collaboration, communication, and responsibility were words we used often during the process of putting on a café.

We also made a lot of lists!

We made lists of:

-          things to do before the café

-          things to do during the café

-          things to do after our guests would leave

-          jobs we needed to have in the café

-          guests lists

-          teams to work on writing invitations, making decorations and menus

-          questions we needed to find answers to

-          food we needed (and how we could get help preparing “…this big,big food we would need”

-         

These lists guided us to this…

Thanks to our lists and generous parents, students pulled off a fabulous café where guests left feeling appreciated and students left saying:

“….my favorite was to clin (clean) the dish[es]!”

“…my fvet  job was inviting the pepl.”

“...my fevert job was fidg (feeding) the people.”

“…my fevt job waz sving (serving).”

“[my favorite part was] cleaning the dishis.”

“I liked it when my pertner (partner) helped mi (me) with a hviy (heavy) box.”

“...[my favorite part was] to hear what the people want to eat.”

"...my favorite part was the food part!"