Primary Press May 2016

FEATURING: Fr om th e H OP Year Level Pages Special ists' Updates Cou n sel l or s Cor n er Lear n in g Su ppor t

MAY

PRIMARY PRESS

earthday

assembly YEARONEINACTION

TERMTW OIN YEARONESO FAR.........

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UNIT O F INQUIRY Year 1 have had a busy term so far. We completed our unit of inquiry on ?Where we are in place and time? with an enjoyable excursion to The Koronivia Farming Research Centre. We were amazed by the different examples of technology in use at the farm including a massive machine for making animal feed, a combine harvester, a fully functioning science lab, and various other machines for planting, looking after and harvesting crops. We have now moved on to a new unit of inquiry entitled ?How we share the planet? in which we have been learning about The Water Cycle and other finite resources. We even managed to create a mini water cycle in our classroom without getting wet! Our whole school assembly performance fitted nicely into this unit of work as we begin to consider how we can manage different resources with sustainability. We spent this week recording each time we used something made of plastic or paper to build our awareness of the prevalence of these materials in our lives. Our next job will be consider what we should do about it and put our ideas into action.

LITERACY We have been following the Jolly Phonics Program for learning and revising phonics and spelling patterns in Year 1. The children are enjoying the stories and interactive activities to practise their reading and letter formation skills. The focus letters form the basis for our spelling program which began earlier this term. The home reading program is continuing as it did last term and we now have some parents volunteering on a regular basis to read with the children before 8:00am at school, which is a great addition to our reading program!

We have focused on identifying different parts of speech in the form of verbs, nouns (including proper nouns) and adjectives recently. The children are becoming more confident with this aspect of language.

The children wrote their own narratives at the beginning of this term as part of their unit of inquiry and did a fabulous job of thinking of solutions for the problem in their stories. They are now working on writing a detailed recount of their holiday, focusing on remembering capitals and full stops and providing details (through the use of adjectives and interesting verbs) to make it fun to read.

NUMERACY So far this term in Maths, we have been practising addition and subtraction and working on using different ways to handle data. We used breakfast cereal to help us understand the concept of subtraction (eating it is the same as subtracting it).

Keeping with the food theme in maths, everyone enjoyed finding out about the different colours of M&Ms in a packet and graphing their findings (then eating their data)! It was also fun to ask everyone a question of their own choosing and find out which answer was the most popular. We are looking forward to working with shapes over the next couple of weeks.

COUNSELLOR'S CORNER KatePassin Bula from the counsellor!

- Give in, cry, sulk, whinge

On the Mondays and Wednesdays that I am here, I?ve been busy in years 1/ 2, 2, and 3 implementing the Stop, Think, Do Curriculum. (Last term I worked with reception and year 1). Currently, we are focusing on the difference between aggro, weak, and cool strategies when problems arise. Here are some examples from each type of problem solving strategy:

- Tell on others before trying to work it out yourself, dob Go to (or imagine) a place you feel relaxed and comfortable - Feel unconfident, upset

The Cool way is t o:

- Feel angry, out of control

- Speak in a friendly but firm way

- Feel okay, in control, confident

The kids have learned that before you can even think about your strategies, you must first stop and calm your body down. We?ve discussed many ways to keep cool when we feel upset. Here are few you may find useful at home:

The Weak way is t o:

Ways t o cal m down:

- Stand straight, use eye contact - Stay calm - Ignore, compromise

- Mumble - Look down, slump over

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Make your anger cooling by running, walking, or exercising

The Aggro way is to: - Yell, abuse - Stand too close, threaten - Push, hit, kick - Tease, blame, put down others

In addition to Stop, Think, Do, I have been working with the girls? wellness group, seeing individual Walk away students, consulting with teachers, Take deep belly breathes, breathing meeting with all of the new in through your nose and out of your students, training the student mouth ambassadors, co-developing a Count to 10 slowly student protection policy, and assisting friends with conflicts. If Tighten and relax your muscles from you have any concerns, please feel head to toe free to reach out to me!

Get a drink of water Vinaka!

Scribble a picture Kate Passin Write in a journal School Counsellor Talk to an adult about your feelings ISS Primary

WHAT'S NEWIN YEAR2 An inquiry into Inventions

Trip to the Fiji Museum to investigate Inventions

?Inventions create change that is reflected in our daily lives?is the Central Idea for our new inquiry into Where We Are in Time and Place. When asked what this central idea means, some of the students responses were as follows:

With the Central Idea firmly implanted in their thinking, the Year 2 students (with the company of Year 1 / 2 M) set off for the Fiji Museum last Wednesday to find out more about inventions.

Our students were fascinated by the number of inventions on display at the museum which were brought from India having already learnt a bit about Fiji?s history, in particular, that of the Girmityas or Indentured Labourers who came to Fiji from India over 100 years ago.

?Inventions help us to have a better life. They are changing things that are old.?Andie ?When you want something new, it changes something old.? Will ?Inventions change our lives every day.? Mohamed Over the last few weeks we have been asking ourselves, who are inventors? Why do people create inventions? And what impact do inventions have on society? We have begun to investigate famous inventors and track changes made to inventions using time lines in class. We hope to investigate inventions further as well as create a few inventions of our own during the course of our inquiry.

The visit had the added advantage of allowing the Year 2s to see the many traditional Fijian canoes or ?Waqa ni Viti?on display. Year 2 students had learnt all about the camakau, takia and drua in Fijian Studies during our last inquiry into the solar system which partly focused on traditional navigation. Our students were thrilled to share their knowledge with a visiting reporter from the Fiji Times who featured our trip in the Kaila! section of Wednesday 18th May?s paper.

FUNFOODTIPS by4H

Nathan's Banana Date Logs

Connor's Homemade Pancakes

Makes 16 balls

Serves 5

Ingredients:

Ingredients: 6 eggs

1 small banana

2 cups of flour

1 tablespoon of icing sugar

1 1/ 2 cups milk

100g chopped cooking dates

Tablespoon of butter

4 tablespoons desiccated coconut

Instructions: First put all the eggs in a bowl then add the flour and mix until it looks like a ball. After mixing while adding milk steadily until all the ingredients are in semi-liquid form.

50g plain sweet biscuit

Cooking: pour some of the mixture into a pan that you greased with the butter.

Medium heat on he stove. Each side of the pancake should take about 1 minute to cook varied on taste and heat.

Variations: you can serve them sweet with seasonal fruit or with hearty bacon and eggs.

fromMs Hel ena Breakfast is my favourite meal of the day. I often watch the food tube channel of Jool Oliver. She looks after a famous chef and four kids, so I thought I would share my inspiration for a great breakfast with you.

My favourite breakfast video at the moment: ht t ps:/ / www.yout ube.com/ wat ch?v=Z-cFK2UKb_s

4 table spoons of drinking chocolate Step 1 Peel the banana and break it into small pieces. Put the pieces in the bowl, use a fork to mash them. Shift the icing sugar and mix in the date and the desiccated coconut.

Step 2 Put the biscuit in a plastic bag and fold the end over. Use a rolling pin to crush them into fine crumbs. Stir the crushed biscuits into the mixture.

Step 3 Wash and dry your hands. Take a small spoonful of the mixture and roll them into 16 balls Flatten them and shape them into a logs about 2,5 com Step4 Sprinkle the drinking chocolate on a plate.

Roll the logs in the drinking chocolate on a plate. Roll the logs in the drinking chocolate to coat them completely. Put them into paper sweet cases and put them in the refrigerator for 30 mins.

MAYTHEFORCEBEWITHYOU YEARTHREE Year 3 students have been busy leaning about Forces and Energy. Students have been exploring how force is applied, properties of materials and how the use of force helps to make our work easier. A lot of learning has taken place in Music with Mr Tim where he has incorporated the teaching of forces in the use of musical instruments and voice.

Students are particularly excited about experiments such as the airplane challenge, launching balloon rockets, marbles, cars and are applying skills learned in Maths to measure distances in these science activities.

Working in teams for students with different leaning needs has been a great experience for all for there is evidence of students demonstrating the learner profile attributes and the PYP attitudes.

1/ 2M MARVELLOUS MUSINGS

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Recently we have been learning all about the solar system and how the way it works affects us on Earth.

We were all excited to learn that a month is as long as it is because that is about how long it takes the Moon to orbit the Earth, and a year is around 365 days because that is how long Earth takes to orbit our sun. The stars still shine during the day. We just can?t see them. The sun does not go down and the Earth spins on its axis to create day and night! We followed the Sun?s movement across the sky, charted the moon phases, and investigated why our shadows where different heights during the day. A lot of fun was also had testing the forces of air and gravity by making paper helicopters and then parachutes for our toy soldiers which we then dropped them over the balcony. Sadly, Ms MacKellar?s soldier with no parachute didn?t quite make it in one piece. Fortunately all our parachuted soldiers made it safely to the ground. We have now begun a unit of inquiry into ?Where we are in Place and Time? and focusing on investigations. We have been inquiring into what the most important invention ever invented is. What would your answer be. . . . . . .?

This unit includes how the girmityas (indentured labourers) came to Fiji and what items they bought with them. A visit to the museum helped us learn about some of the items the Indian people bought with them and Guru G helped us to see how these things have changed over time. We will now investigate why objects in our daily lives where invented and how and why they have changed over time.

Most days the children have ?Listen to Reading?time. This is where the children are read to and can hear how phrasing and fluency works to help us understand a text, what expression sounds like, and how to change voices when characters are speaking in a text. This term we have been using our ?Listen to Reading?to focus on giving a retell of each chapter. A retell is a short 2 to 3 sentence summary of the main points of a story and helps with our comprehension. We are now becoming very adept at retells.

Ms MacKellar is reading us Matilda by Roald Dahl and it is so exciting we are also plotting our level of excitement on a line graph in our maths books. We can?t wait to hear what happens next in the story!

Thanks to the efforts of a few wonderful mums, we are one step closer to having our ?Friendship Bench?.

A request has been put forward for funding to purchase a bench and we are waiting for confirmation that we can go ahead. We can?t wait to get designing and painting the bench for use in our playground.

Don?t forget to check out our web page regularly. All the latest newsletters and notices are updated as they come out and the homework is added each week so there can be no ?left my homework at school? excuses! There are also links to StudyLadder and Spelling City to complement the homework activities.

These sites are also good for rainy Suva weekends as they have a range of fun and engaging games to play while the children are learning.

Finally, we welcome two new students this term to 1/ 2m, a very warm bula to Elijah and Ciaran who are both from Australia. We love having you in our classroom and being a part of our amazing class!

Ms MacKellar, Mr Gerry, Ms Roshni and 1/ 2m

We introduce KIDS ATHLETICS into our PSPE Program in term two in order to help build up our children?s skills for athletics. KIDS ATHLETICS is one of the biggest grassroots development programs in the world and is totally different from the normal adult athletics. The objectives of the program are to make athletics the number one participation sports in schools, to educate kids into sports in general, promote a balanced and healthy lifestyle and attract and sustain the potential sporting stars of tomorrow. It is an attractive, accessible, instructive and exciting athletics program aimed specifically at children and is a fun team based competition comprising of modified athletics games aimed at avoiding early specialization. It offers better fundamental skill development and adds variety and the kids love it! Teamwork is a basic principle of KIDS ATHLETICS. All running events are performed as relay- or team-races.

Likewise, all technical events [jumping/ throwing] are scored as the overall results of team effort. Because all participants must necessarily compete as part of the team, even the less talented children get an opportunity to take part. An individual?s unique contribution to the overall team result reinforces the concept that the participation of each child is to be valued. In accordance with demand for skill learning, all team members have to compete in several disciplines of each event group [sprinting/ jumping and throwing] to prevent early specialization and support a multi?varied approach to the development of athleticism.

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We looked at the RUNNING skills in week 1-2 and then we did some activities with straight running, zig zag running and running over hurdles, followed by a running competition in week 3. We then went on to do JUMPING and HOPPING skills like jumping and hopping over cones, hurdles and on mats and we are now having our jumping and hopping competition in week 6. We then will be looking at THROWING in weeks 8-9 and we are planning to have a big competition in week 10 where all the children in the school will showcase their RUNNING, JUMPING/ HOPPING AND THROWING in an organized competition.

This program also helps to motivate our children to get involved in physical activity and to find out on their own the advantages of regular exercise; to encourage children to play in order to promote long?term health; it promotes team building and social interaction and stimulates children to work together and to realize the importance of cooperation.

This program is also conducted in such a way as to emphasize the virtue of ?fair play? which only adds to the educational values associated with the program.

ONTHE MOVEWITH PSPE

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FIJIAN STUDIES

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REFLECTIONS OF YEARFIVE'S EXCURSIONTO TOGALEVUVILLAGE

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Mike: On Thursday we went by bus to Togalevu village. We took off our shoes as a sign of respect before entering the clan leader?s house. Our guide did a ?tama?and also presented a bundle of yaqona roots informing the clan leader of the purpose for our visit. We listened and asked questions.

Rokoseru: I found out that in a Fijian village wealth is shared. Those who have wealth will share it with those who don?t have any.

Baylian: Togalevu was the first village to have a Credit Union which was started by Rev.Fr.Gainey.

Jinqui Cheng: One of the women?s traditional roles is to go into the bush, cut pandanus leaves and prepare them to weave mats.

Jia Sharma: The chief really enjoyed answering our questions. When asked about the advantages of living in a village he said that you don?t really need money to live in the village because there is land to plant food and you don?t have to pay rent.

Priyanshi: Living in a Fijian village is not bad. Everyone works together on village projects. Unity is their strength.

SUPPORT FORLEARNING Number Fun Developing number concepts should be fun and can be done in a play based way! There are many ways to make number value visible to our young learners. Here are just some of them.

Resource: Pinterest

PRIMARY CHOIR

bymr tim

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Our primary choir students are looking forward to launching our first original song and video which is dedicated to victims that suffered the loss of life, properties and livelihood during ?Cyclone Winston?.

We have completed our audio recording and our production team of teachers and students are now focusing on producing a suitable video clip as part of this production.

WEWILL RISEAGAIN

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Our second original song is well underway and we have introduced and have had our Primary students sing and enjoy this song in our Primary assemblies. We hope to have this song titled ?BULA? recorded as well by the end of this term.

We now also have a few year 5 students working on their original song targeting the theme: ?Children? (this is work in progress) and we hope to have these songs introduced to the school in the new future.

UKELELECLUB Our Ukulele students and teachers club have grown from strength to strength and after only 4 classes we are now able to play our first tune titled: ?You?re My Sunshine?. This song consists of only three major chords and our ?Uke? players are having fun learning to change chords in between the lyrics of our song as we work on mastering our first tune.

Enrollment into this club is now closed until the beginning of next term.

year 3/ 4b Happenings Year 3/ 4B has been busy learning about the Body Systems and Energy in the last couple of weeks. The Body Systems unit finished on a high note with a healthy breakfast that included parents, siblings and teachers.

Using their layered books for summative assessment, the students confidently shared their learning with their parents in discussing the interrelatedness of two chosen body systems. Their class presentation showed knowledge and skills in answering questions posed to them by parents and peers.

Our unit on Energy is also generating a lot of interest after the three classes visited the Energy Hut at USP. We saw renewable sources of energy tried out in Fiji; eg wind, solar, wave and solar powered cars.

Knowledge gathered and learnt from this unit will assist students with their final task of creating renewable and sustainable energy on an island.

Stu den ts pr acticin g yoga with M s Ch an dr a.

M r s Ch an dr a al so sh owed u s th e ar t of br eath in g an d exer cise.

Body System s

PYPSELF STUDYINREADINESS FOROURPYPEVALUATION, 2017 ISS primary will undergo an intensive evaluation where we will assess ourselves against the standards and practices set forth by The International Baccalaureate Organization (IB). The self-study is a process of formal reflection in which the school?s constituents (teachers, students, parents, board members and administrators) honestly evaluate our achievements and ongoing initiatives that enhance the implementation of the IB programme. The self- study evaluation is a common practice in all IB schools. It usually begins a year prior to the actual IB visit. Our self-study begins now and ends around the same time next year. Our visit is scheduled for September, 2017.

For those of you who are new to the IB and to our school, I will take a moment to explain some background information in order to familiarize you with the procedure. Our previous visit was held in 2012. Two IB representatives visited for three days, meeting with all stakeholders (teachers, students, parents, board members and administrators) to verify the school?s self-assessment and to gather evidence in regards to the implementation of the programme. After the visit, a report was provided with commendation, identifying practices that were in place or went beyond the expectations of the programme. It also highlighted areas of the programme that needed further and immediate addressing. An action plan was then created with objectives and monitoring systems to ensure that the school was working towards achieving our aims.

The process of the evaluation visit is conducted in four stages: ·The self-study process, the school visit, the report from the IB and the refinement of the action plan.

What is the self-study?

The self- study is an important process guided by a questionnaire, which involves the whole school assessing the delivery of the PYP programme. The self-study questionnaire is based on the following practices and standards of the IB PYP Programme: · Section A: Philosophy · Section B: Organization · Section C: Curriculum Each section has a set of criteria which are measured both by the school and the IB. The self-study should reflect the results of discussions and reflections of documented evidence gathered in the process.

How will we be measured?

The school is measured against the IB Standards and Practices in its implementation of the programme. We will not be compared to other schools but assessed on the outcome of our self-study questionnaire. The completed questionnaire should reflect a broad view of the all the members of the ISC community.

How will it be organized? · Groups will be composed of teachers, students, parents, administrators and the council. · Each group will be responsible for answering different sections of the practices and standards · A time line will be defined of the objectives that will be achieved · Means of how information will be gathered, e.g. meetings, surveys · Resources to be identified as necessary Parental involvement is an important component in the success of the PYP programme?s evaluation process. As we begin to prepare, we will need parent volunteers from every grade level, committed to dedicating their time, energy and enthusiasm to this intense process. We are inviting parents who have been members of our school for more than three years. In conclusion, the process will be a learning experience for all, as we work together to acknowledge our accomplishments, as well as analyze the areas of improvement and growth.

Initial discussions will be had with primary parent representatives next week to gauge interest before parents are invited from the wider parent community. There will be a survey to accompany the self study which will be emailed out to all parents next term, allowing all to be involved.

Thank you t o t hose of you who are col l ect ing pl ast ic bot t l e caps and jar caps f rom home and bringing t hem t o school . We are l ooking f or a wide range of col ours t o inspire a f ant ast ic mural l ike t he one pict ured. Once we have enough caps, st udent s and t eachers wil l sket ch out t he mural design and paint t he background. From t here we wil l arrange t he caps ont o t he mural and saf el y dril l t he caps ont o t he wal l .

We wil l hel p t o beaut if y our school and at t he same t ime repurpose/ recycl e pl ast ic caps, keeping t hem out of our l andf il l s.

Pl ast ic bot t l e caps are one of t he t op 10 it ems f ound during marine debris beach cl ean ups. We wil l need at l east 2000 caps so pl ease, keep col l ect ing and sending t o school !

COLLABORATIVEBOTTLE CAPMURAL

This term, Reception students are looking at how people value the natural environment. With the Central Idea ?People interact with, use and value the natural environment in different ways? they have been looking at different artifacts made from natural environment.

Through ICT students have been learning about how to use a Microsoft PowerPoint to create a slideshow. As part of the learning process they will choose an artifact and present it using a PowerPoint slideshow.

Finally the students will print their slides and compile a booklet which will later be shared in the classroom. Students have the opportunity to explore and use Windows 8 to enhance their learning during this UOI.

ICT WITH RECEPTION

Canteen Procedures All primary school orders are via the school order/ lunch crate system. Write your order on a piece of paper and place in the named zip lock bag with the correct money (where possible). Students then place their zip lock bag into the class lunch crate in readiness for the teacher assistant to take to the canteen.

Orders are not taken via phone directly to the canteen or through siblings in the middle and high school. Parents will also be unable to place orders directly at the canteen for primary age students.

If a student is late to school, we will ensure that the order reaches the canteen before the lunch break.

When a product is unavailable, the teacher assistant, along with the student involved will visit the canteen to decide on a replacement meal. Please let us know if you child suffers from any allergies.

This should be done through primary office with the medical alert forms.

Primary age students are unable to visit the canteen without adult supervision before, during and after the school day.

Icebock orders are now done within the primary by our Year 5 students so students are asked to provide their order and money before Friday if they wish to have an iceblock.

The canteen menu changes each term. Please see below Term 2's canteen menu.