NTSIS PYP Primary Newsletter (18th November – 22nd November 2019)
Transdisciplinary Theme: Where we are in place and time
Journey of Unit 2 had come to an end. Students had explored cities, and some went across the continents. They learned about interconnectedness and migration through their explorations. At NTSIS, students are geared toward being global citizens of tomorrow. Let us check out some of the highlights of the week.
What a busy week…
Grade 1:
Central idea:
A city is a place where people work and live
Line of inquiry 1: Things that make a city
Line of inquiry 2: Differences and similarities of cities
Line of inquiry 3: Thoughts, words and actions affect relationship
Last week, we finished our collaborative task of creating our city. The children named it “Pokemon City” and explained why a city is a place where people live and work. They even invited Mr. Brett from G2 to present him their city and answered his questions.
Language and math learnings centered on comparative adjectives and subtraction with regrouping. We also explored the sound of the digraph “wh”.
Additionally, we built thanksgiving trees, wrote the things and people we are thankful for on colored papers, and used them as leaves to decorate our trees.
This week, we will be starting a new unit under the theme, HOW WE EXPRESS OURSELVES focusing on sounds.
What a busy week!
Grade 2:
Central idea:
Connections between people are necessary for personal growth
Line of inquiry 1: How travel has changed the way we connect
Line of inquiry 2: Social connections
Line of inquiry 3: Opportunities to connect
This week, we continued with Line of Inquiry 3: opportunities to connect. Opportunities to connect have had us looking at Christmas, which is fast approaching. We have made decorations together, as well as individually. We have looked at and listened to songs, stories and images related to Christmas.
There was a great improvement in this week’s spelling test. Everyone had done well. So well done everyone and thank you parents for your support and encouragement at home.
In Math, we worked on 3D shapes and continued to reinforce and practice our tables on addition and subtraction by playing the dice challenge in groups.
What a busy week!
Grade 3/4:
Central idea:
A sense of interconnectedness and cultural awareness develops through analysing other cultures
Line of inquiry 1: Choices are influenced by geographical location
Line of inquiry 2: Difference between home culture and other cultures
Line of inquiry 3: Ways to be international-minded
We made more research on Japan, the United States, Thailand, China and India. We shared about and presented knowledge about these countries in class. We also read and discussed an article about Japan. Students learned about Japanese Tea Ceremony, the Summer Olympics and hi-tech robots.
Additionally, we inquired into what it means to be an internationally minded person, accept and respect other cultures and how learning about other cultures broaden our horizons.
In Math lessons, students were solving 2-step word problems involving the 4 operations. We learned about the British currency and solved real-life situations where money conversions are involeved.. They also worked toward math mastery in addition and subtraction. In language inquiry, we focused on adjectives, adverbs and comparative forms.
What a busy week!
Grade 5/6:
Central idea:
We are who we are because of immigration.
Line of inquiry 1: Migration changes cities
Line of inquiry 2: People of different cultures assimilate
Line of inquiry 3: Migration affects social and environmental conditions
Students played the migration game which modelled a flock of migrating through cities and discussed the advantages and disadvantages of migrating through cities. We also discussed some solutions to reduce migration hazards for these birds and how people could make cities and towns better places for migratory animals. In summative, we made bird feeders as our project and hanged them on the trees. We did further practice and reviewed on composite figures. We continued to study on the life story of Marco Polo; how he travelled from Italy to China hundreds of years ago and how long he took to get there. We also did a review on the parts and functions of the various organ systems in our body and shared how the organ systems are involved in some of the activities.
This week, we feature specialist subject: Dance
For the past weeks, we had been busy preparing for the winter performance. G1 and G2 students worked with preschool students for their piece. In the process, they learned how to work cooperatively and effectively with others. All the students had practiced hard to get dance sequences, positions and directions right. G3/4 students were challenged to perform in different languages and a variety of movement. I have to say, they had done it with such confidence and enthusiasm! G5/6 students sang alongside with Mr. Ron and some Y7 students. They collaborated to achieve common goal and participated actively in the experience.
