K2 News - 27 March 2015

Arts Festival

We have had such a busy last week of Term 2 with end of unit assessments, wrapping up our Unit of Study ‘Telling Tales’ and our ‘Stories’ in Writing Workshop, the publishing party, not to mention the Arts Festival technical rehearsals, two dress rehearsals and an evening show! No wonder we all feel tired and are in need of a rest!

This year’s show, ‘Once Upon a Time’, was produced with as much involvement from the children as possible. This began weeks ago with a class ‘brainstorm’ of what was needed to put on a show. The children’s ideas were fantastic: an introduction, actors, costumes, posters, props, invitations, lights, music, microphones, a stage, tickets and rehearsals.

Under our guidance and supervision, and with a sharing of ideas, the children have sent home invitations, made tickets, helped to paint props, developed actions and movements, given ideas for words of songs, recorded songs, and worked together brilliantly in rehearsals. We are so proud of their efforts in learning their parts, from the movements and positioning on stage, to the acting, speaking and singing.

The culmination of all their efforts was their final performance for you on Wednesday evening. The level of excitement on the evening was unsurpassed, and we believe this was because the children were involved in so many aspects of the show and had real ownership.

Thank you for coming to watch and support the children. They really benefited from having such a lively, interactive audience. We hope you enjoyed watching as much as the children enjoyed performing for you.

Maths

We will continue developing the children's skills in addition and subtraction. In a natural way, children develop strategies that are based on counting to solve addition and subtraction problems, progressing through several stages. 

Children will continue to explore which strategy works best for them and are being encouraged to talk about how they arrived at the answer. 

For example: 12+4=?

One child might say “I just know it’. Another child might say ‘I put 12 in my head and counted on’. Another might say ‘I used the number line to count on’ and another child may say ‘I know 2 and 4 is 6 and then I added 10 more’. It really does not matter which strategy your child uses as long as the answers are consistently correct.

As we teach, we will have the following objectives in mind:

• I can decompose numbers less than or equal to 10 into pairs in more than one way.
• I can calculate the number that makes 10 when added to the given number.
• I can count all or count on to find out how many.
• I can fluently add within 10.
• I can fluently subtract within 10.
• I can use objects or drawings to represent addition and subtraction.
• I can solve addition and subtraction word problems.

For those children who have clearly demonstrated that they have achieved these goals, they will be challenged appropriately at their level.

Over the course of the first three weeks of term, we will also be reviewing Geometry, Measurement and Data Handling in a hands-on way.

Literacy

Phonic Work: we will be looking at ‘Married Sounds’. This is a term we use when two letters put together make one sound, e.g. ‘ee’ and ‘ea’, as in meet, beep, team and heat. Over the coming weeks we will be introducing many ‘married sounds’: 

• ai/ay/a_e
• ie/i_e/igh/y
• oa/ow/o_e
• ue/u_e/oo/ew

Writing Workshop - Poetry

Poetry is a particularly accessible genre for children as young learners already think and speak in poetry. Students at this age are natural poets, observing the world around them with wonder and awe. Their receptivity to the music and descriptiveness of this genre is infectious. Children will attempt to emulate the different skills and strategies of the poets they read. Before they can write poetry well, they must first read, study, and name what they notice about the poems they are reading/hearing each day. It would be lovely if you could read some simple poems to your child over the break so that he/she can get a better idea of poems and what they can tell us.

We will be looking at some essential questions to help the children with their writing:

1. How will I choose what to write about?
2. How can I use other poems to help me with my writing?
3. How will I 'paint a picture' for the reader with my words?
4. How will my writing look different on the page (line breaks/white space)?
5. How will I use illustrations to make my poetry clearer?
6. How can I use my senses in my writing?
7. How can I use poetry to write about nature, common objects and my feelings?

First Day of Term 3

We hope you all enjoy the break and are looking forward to seeing you bright and early on Monday 13 April, for the start of our final term in K2.

K2 News - Friday 13 March

Congratulations

On Wednesday 11 March, we had our second Performers' Assembly in the Infants. The children watched a variety of performers from K1, K2 and G1. Congratulations to Roan Dagur from K2SMH and Rustam Halpert from K2ZBr who performed, and delighted the audience, on the big stage in the RBT.

Arts Festival 

Wednesday 25 March 6:00pm in the RBT

We only have eight more school days until the Arts Festival and the children are so excited about performing for you!

This year’s show, ‘Once Upon a Time’, has been produced with as much involvement from the children as possible. This began weeks ago with a class ‘brainstorm’ of what was needed to put on a show. The children’s ideas were fantastic: an introduction, actors, costumes, posters, props, invitations, lights, music, microphones, a stage, tickets and rehearsals.

Under our guidance and supervision, and with a sharing of ideas, the children have sent home invitations, made tickets, helped to paint props, developed actions and movements, given ideas for words of songs, recorded songs, and worked together brilliantly in rehearsals. We are so proud of their efforts in learning their parts, from the movements and positioning on stage, to the acting, speaking and singing.

We would love to have all the children in school next week in order for them to feel comfortable and confident with their roles.

Technical rehearsals will take place on Monday 23 March. The Dress Rehearsal will be on Tuesday 24 March in front of a full audience. It is a very exciting couple of days for the children as it is the first time they get to see what the other classes are doing and how the whole show fits together, with sound and lights.

The running order will be as follows:

K2HWe
The Little Red Hen

K2ZBr
The Pied Piper

K2JiS
Hansel and Gretel

K2SMH
Little Red Riding Hood

We realise many of you will be coming directly from work for the performance on Wednesday, but please could you make every effort to arrive early, so that the children can begin the show with everyone in their seats. We will need the RBT foyer clear before the show can begin, so please take your seats in good time.

We hope you all enjoy the show!

IMPORTANT: 

Early Pick Up on Wednesday 25 March

On Wednesday 25 March, the day of the Arts Festival performance, we request that all K2 children are collected from school at 12:15pm. This will enable them to have a quiet afternoon and time to rest before returning to school to prepare for the show.

The buses will not be in operation for this earlier pick up, so you will need to come to school to collect your child from the Infant car pick up zone. Please do not come up to the classrooms, as this will impact on the K1 and Grade 1 classes.

Unless you hear differently from your child’s teacher, the children need to be brought back to school, and dropped off in their classroom at 5:15pm in order for them to change into their costumes and get ready.

Library Books and Reading Books

The children will take library books and three 'just right' books home, as usual, over the break.

Goodbyes

It is always a sad time when we need to say goodbye to friends who are leaving Singapore to start a new chapter in their lives somewhere else. This term we are saying goodbye to Olivia Georgiou from K2SMH who is relocating to London. Olivia, we hope that you will be very happy in your new school and settle in really quickly with your new friends.

Last Day of Term

School will finish on Friday 27 March at 2:00pm and reopens on Monday 13 April at 8:00am.

K2 News - 6 March 2015

Chinese

Message from:
Jiang Yingying
Head of Primary Chinese

Most parents may have recognised that the Primary Chinese Site is a students' learning platform for K1 to G5 students. Learning materials such as curriculum, unit booklets and other materials have been uploaded there to support students' learning. There are some discussions and other activities for older students, too. However, some parents have had problems accessing the site by using the link in our school website. After consulting the IT support in school, we would like to send the direct link to you for the parents in the infant school to access the site.

Here is the link:

https://drive.google.com/a/gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg/folderview?id=0BylRV6cgygkLeV9mWWxVS09pYmM&usp=sharing#

Please bookmark the link for your future use.

A reminder to parents who have children in the Infant School and Grade 2. 

Please make sure you inform the class teacher in writing if your son/daughter is going to the morning performance of the Grade 2 Arts Festival 'Around the World in 80 Days' on Thursday 12 March.  The performance  begins at 10:15am so  any Infant child who is  attending will need to have his/her snack early and we are collating a list so that these children can be collected from their classrooms and supervised. Please inform the class teacher on Monday, if you haven't done so already.

Arts Festival - Wednesday 25 March 6:00pm RBT

A letter was sent home last week asking for ticket requests for our Arts Festival, ‘Once Upon a Time’. Please send your returns in by the requested date. Tickets will be allocated, and we will then try to accommodate the requests for extra tickets.

Our rehearsals are going very well and the children are already so excited about the show. Some are even asking, ‘Is it tomorrow?’ Each class will be telling a traditional tale, as detailed below (the order of performance has not been decided upon):

K2JiS
Hansel and Gretel

K2ZBr
The Pied Piper of Hamelin

K2SMH
Little Red Riding Hood

K2HWe
The Little Red Hen

We are getting the children involved in the whole process of putting on a performance from the invitations and tickets, to the characters, words, props, costumes, songs, music and movements.

During this period of rehearsals, our daily timetables need to have a degree of flexibility to allow us to fit in scheduled practices in the RBT and Music lessons, as well as impromptu ones in our classrooms.

Parent helper schedules may be disrupted as a result. We really appreciate your understanding.

K2 News - 13 February 2015

Shoe Box Afternoon Tea

Thank you so much to everyone who came to our Shoe Box Afternoon Tea on Wednesday 4 February. Your help and support with our elderly guests and the children, and with the refreshments was greatly appreciated and ensured that everything was a wonderful success.

The children thoroughly enjoyed hosting the ‘parties’ in their classrooms and we were really proud of the way they interacted and talked to their guests. They did a superb job entertaining the seniors with their wonderful singing, playing bingo, making a picture and delivering the shoe boxes. It really was lovely to see everyone together for the event.

Service is a big part of the UWCSEA philosophy and it is fantastic that we are able to begin this with our K2 children. We really value your support as the event would not be possible without you.

K2 Arts Festival - Wednesday 25 March 6:00pm RBT

Please make a note of the date and time of our K2 Arts Festival. As it is an integral part of our ‘Telling Tales’ Unit of Study, we would really like all the children to be involved in the production and be able to perform on stage for a large audience. 

If you already know that your child will be absent for the show (due to a holiday or other family commitment), please let your child’s teacher know as soon as possible. It will impact directly on the allocation of roles and all of the practices and rehearsals. Children who will not be at school for the Arts Festival performance on 25 March will unfortunately not be able to actively participate in the rehearsals. For this reason, we sincerely hope that all the children will remain at school until the end of Term 2.

NEW UNITS AFTER THE BREAK

Maths

After the break, we will continue to explore addition and subtraction, and the inverse relationship between them.

Children will be developing their strategies to add and subtract, and determining which work best for them. It is important to realise that there is not one correct way to arrive at an answer. As teachers and parents, it is important to understand the strategies the children are using and then move them forward from there.

Word problems are a fun way of developing number skills and awareness. For example: 

• There are 8 grapes in your brain food box. You eat 3. How many are left?
• You had 15 stones in your pocket at play time but 2 fell out. How many do you have now?
• Tom was playing with 5 cars. Ben gave him 4 more. How many did Tom have altogether.

The first step is for the child to determine whether he/she needs to add or subtract, and then work out the answer.

We will also be revisiting Measurement and Data Handling in the second half of term.

Writing Workshop - 'Stories'

Children will be explicitly taught to tell organised, structured stories bit by bit in a sequenced cohesive narrative. Children will become accustomed to thinking of a character, a trait and a story, capturing it in drawings and words that span across a number of pages.  Children will expand their drawing skills and learn how writers can convey details such as feelings and actions through illustrations.  A balance of focus between developed content and conventions will enable children to raise the quality of their work by stretching out words, recording initial, middle and final sounds, rereading their own writing and adding more to a page. Grammar conventions, capitalisation and end punctuation will also be explicitly taught.  Rereading and revising will have a constant emphasis throughout the unit.

How can I write stories and write them so people can really read them?

How can I learn to tell my story step by step so people can follow what happened?

How can I include what my characters do, feel and say?

Reading Workshop - 'Readers Get to Know Characters'

Our relationships to characters are one of the most important aspects of reading that keep us returning to a book once we start. Whether we like the character or not we often learn things about ourselves and human nature by thinking about the character. We want them to be inspired by, learn lessons from, and think about the characters in their books.

Initially children learn reading strategies to get to know a character well and to name what that character does in a story. As they become more aware of characters they will learn to think and talk more about characters in their partnerships, growing ideas about them as they make them 'talk' and 'think'. 

Unit of Study - 'Telling Tales'

This next unit explores the idea of performance through drama and how we need to be creative, cooperate and collaborate. Key questions will be posed:

What does it look like when we work together?

What is your role/responsibility?

How can you communicate clearly to the audience? 

How does it feel when you perform? 

How does it feel to be in an audience?

The children will identify and learn about what is needed to put on a show, then work together to develop ideas for a script, scenery, props, costumes and invitations. This will culminate in the K2 Arts Festival performance, in which the children will be 'telling the tales' of Little Red Riding Hood, The Pied Piper, Hansel and Gretel and The Little Red Hen.

The K2 Team

K2 News - 30 January 2015

Shoe Box Afternoon Tea

Wednesday 4 February 2:30pm – 3:30pm 

We are very much looking forward to the Shoe Box Afternoon Tea on Wednesday. The vast majority of children and parents are coming to school for what should be a wonderful occasion. Your child needs to be wearing something Chinese or in the colours of red and gold when he/she returns at 2:15pm. We will aim to finish by 3:30pm.

Each elderly guest will receive a shoe box that our children have decorated and packed, with your much valued support. As each class will have about ten guests, not every child will get to give his/her own shoe box. We will talk to our classes about this and explain why, hopefully alleviating any upset on the day.

IMPORTANT

Please note that all the K2 children will need to be collected from the Infant Car Pick Up point at 11:45am to give us time to get the classrooms ready and prepare for the event. There will be no school buses at this earlier time.

We are all very much looking forward to another wonderful afternoon with our guests.

WANTED for K2 Art Project!

Please could you send in any old materials that you may have lying about that could be wound around a pole! Items such as fabric, wool, string, raffia, strips of plastic, wrapping paper, bubble wrap, wool/yarn would be perfect. Thank you.

K2 News 16 January 2015

Shoe Box Chinese New Year Afternoon Tea

Wednesday 4 February 2:30pm – 3:30pm

Two letters and a booklet were sent home last week. Please could you make sure you have returned the Reply Slip by Monday 19 January, saying whether your child will be attending the CNY Afternoon Tea? We need to know numbers before ordering food and drinks.

We hope your child has had fun doing some extra jobs to earn money to buy the requested items for the shoe boxes. This event could not happen without your support in preparing these shoe boxes and we are extremely grateful for your support. Thank you to those of you who have already sent the items to school in a named, plastic bag (Ziploc plastic bags are ideal!). The list below will serve as a reminder of the items that are needed:

• A face flannel

• A tin of tuna

• A tube of toothpaste

• A toothbrush

• A brush/comb

• A small pot of Tiger Balm

• A homemade card

• $20 (for items bought in bulk by UWCSEA and a Hong Bao) 

If you could send the items to school by Monday 19 January, that would be lovely!

Theatre Trip - Wednesday 21 January

On Wednesday we will be taking the children to see a production of ‘The Gruffalo’ It is being presented by The School of the Arts Singapore (SOTA) at the Drama Theatre on 1 Zubir Said Drive. Do remember to ask your child about the show when he/she gets back from school. We are sure there will be lots to tell!

K2 News 9 January 2015

Unit of Study

Our new Unit of Study is titled 'Me and My School' and is focusing on 'What school means to me'. We will be exploring the immediate environment: the natural and man-made features, people's roles, relationships and responsibilities.

This week the children have all been on exploratory walks around the campus, visiting areas that they have not been to before, using their ears and eyes to notice different things and creating many 'I wonder...?' questions. They have identified things that are of interest to them and these will be investigated further, beginning with some simple map making and discussions.

David Watson Library

Throughout K1 and the first term of K2, the children chose their library books from a selection brought to them from the DWL. This term will see each class visit the library, once a week, to share a story and select two books to take home.

The classes will go to the DWL on the following days:

K2SMH - Wednesday
K2JiS - Thursday
K2ZBr and K2HWe - Friday

Visiting a bigger library and choosing books from a much larger selection will be such an enjoyable experience for the children. We are very excited about this transition in our programme, as are the children, judging from our first visits this week! Enjoy sharing these books together. Please remember to return them before your child's next DWL visit to ensure he/she can check out some new books.

Swimming K2JiS and K2ZBr

The above two classes will begin the swimming programme on Thursday 15 January. They will swim on both Tuesday and Thursday, up to and including Thursday 12 February.

Your child will need to wear his/her school uniform to school and bring a separate bag with swimming things packed inside.  He/she needs swimmers, a UVA swim top (compulsory), goggles, pool shoes to wear down to the pool and a towel, or preferably, a hooded towel cape or a towelling bath robe. Please pack a plastic bag for wet swimmers. If your child does not have a UVA swim top, one can be purchased from the UWCSEA College Shop. Please ensure that all items (clothing, footwear, etc) are clearly named.

If for any reason your child is not able to swim one week, he/she will sit poolside and watch the lesson.

K2 Service - Operation Shoe Box 

Our main Service in K2 is our shoe box initiative.  Some of you will be familiar with this, if you have already had children in the Infants, but for some of you it will be your first time. In K2 we have a wonderful Afternoon Tea, where the shoe boxes are given to elderly guests. Please click on the link here "K2 Shoe Box Afternoon Tea 2014" to the video from last year to see just what a lovely event it is for everyone involved.

Today a letter was sent home today requesting items for the shoe boxes, together with a small booklet. Please could you send the items to school in a named bag by Monday 19 January.

All children will be packing a shoe box at school so every child will need the items, irrespective of whether he/she will be attending the Shoe Box Afternoon Tea. Any extra shoe boxes will be delivered by the Grade 1 students to elderly residents in neighbouring HDBs. The list below will serve as a reminder of the items that are needed:

• A face flannel
• A tin of tuna
• A tube of toothpaste
• A toothbrush
• A brush/comb
• A small pot of Tiger Balm
• A homemade card
• $20 (for items bought in bulk by UWCSEA and a Hong Bao)

Thank you so much in advance for supporting this initiative.

Shoe Box Afternoon Tea

Wednesday 4 February 2:30pm – 3:30pm 

Another letter was sent home today giving details about our upcoming K2 Service Initiative.

If you wish your child to attend the afternoon tea between 2:30pm and 3:30pm, please return the reply slip by Monday 19 January. We need to finalise numbers for catering purposes so would appreciate your timely returns.

If your child is attending, he/she needs to wear something Chinese or in the colours of red and gold.

IMPORTANT

Please note that all the K2 children will need to be collected from their classrooms at 11:45am to give us time to get the classrooms ready and prepare for the event. Children attending the afternoon tea will need to be brought back to their classrooms by 2:15pm. We will finish at 3:30pm.

We are all very much looking forward to another wonderful afternoon with our elderly guests.