Our Mystery Reader this week was Maya's grandfather who is visiting from England. He is originally from Tibet and read a lovely story Saving the Himalayas to the children on Wednesday. He shared some information about the landforms there and showed children on our big world map where the story was set. Thank you to Maya's grandfather for the story and the geography lesson.
This whole week we focused on subtraction without and with regrouping. This is a tricky concept to grasp so we took it step by step and spent time with each student showing them how to work through vertical math problems. When the number on top in the ones column is bigger children recognise that it is just a simple subtraction of both the ones and then the tens. However having to borrow from the tens column when the ones can not be subtracted proves much more tricky. We will have a unit test on this next week so I will be sending home some subtraction with regrouping for HW next week and hope that parents will sit down with their children and go through the problems with their child even if they have grasped the concept. Below is an example of how we worked through the problems.
In Science this week we continued on our sound investigations focusing on hearing sounds and changing sound. Our focus questions were What information does sound give us? and How can we change sound? We went for a sound walk on campus to listen for natural and human made sounds and what information those sounds give us. We also investigated how to change the volume of sound. Students made simple xylophones and learnt that if they struck them hard they could make a loud sound and if they struck them with the mallet softly they would make a soft sound. Using a simple one string table guitar students learnt that a plastic cup could amplify the sound of the vibrations. Miss Larissa demonstrated how a simple cardboard megaphone can make sound louder.
Students had finished their animal report writing, diagram labelling and model making and so it was time to present their research to an audience. We invited Grade 3 to be the audience as G1b was so inspired by being the audience for G3 diorama presentations last month. Each child shared what their favourite animal was, what it looked like, where it lived, what it ate and one WOW fact. I was so proud of all the children who all used voices loud enough to be heard by the audience and could share lots of information without reading from their report papers. Miss Natasha also visited our classroom so children could share their models and some information about their animals with her. Well Done G1B!
Children received letters from their pen pals in America and enjoyed reading over and responding to these letters. The letters were emailed yesterday and we hope to get one more letter in return before the students in the American Elementary school go on their summer break.
G1 Field Trip - Wednesday, May 16th
Next Wednesday, May 16th G1 students will have a field trip to the Sony ExploraScience Museum to explore sound and light.
Cost per child (admission/highway fees): ¥300
Please send in your child's field trip money by Tuesday, May 15th next week.
Our snack time will be earlier on this day. Students will eat snack at 9:00 AM and we'll leave school at 10:00 AM. Our estimated arrival to the location is 10:30 AM. We'll spend time at the park playing and students will eat an early lunch at 11:00 AM before going to the museum at 11:30 AM. We will spend approx. 2 hours at the museum before returning back to school around 2:30 PM - 3:00 PM, depending on traffic.
Is your child ready for the field trip?
- orange field trip shirt (P.E. uniform)
- paid ¥300
- water bottle
- hand towel
- lunch (no yogurts or messy foods please)
- snack
- backpack
- hat, sunscreen (park)
Have a great weekend,
Larissa