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Dear all,
We had such a lovely year in Lower Pre-Primary. Over the last few weeks we were very busy with our ‘Up and Away’ unit. We had a great ‘entry point’ outside in the playground flying kites, gliders and parachutes. We watched a short video about kites and saw that kites can come in many different shapes. We shared our thoughts about our own favourite kite. Each one of us made some beautiful artwork of kites flying in the sky and we created our own special kite out of a paper bag. We had so much fun flying our own kites in the playground.
We learned about hot air balloons and practiced our counting skills counting hot air balloons. We all took part in a fun project creating a big hot air balloon out of an empty box. We enjoyed playing in our hot air balloon corner pretending we were flying up and away visiting different places in the world! We looked in our atlas picture books together and each chose a place that we would like to visit (a country with many animals, a place with a big river and a boat, a place with a very long train or a place with lots of snow).
We had a lot of fun playing with bubbles which we made from soap and water and we enjoyed playing with a parachute, testing the flying ability of different objects. We read stories, sang songs and played different games related to our topic and improved our fine and gross motor skills in many ways.
We celebrated Sally, Aura, Alexander, Arthur, Constantin and Elize’s birthday. We wish them all a happy birthday and thank you for the delicious fruits and cakes.
Over the last two weeks, we learned about the summer season. We looked at some pictures of summer and talked about the differences between summer and winter. We had a nice class discussion about things that we love to do during the summer and then we created our own special boats and played some summer games. We had an amazing trip to a beautiful nature reserve and to the local park and we enjoyed some lovely picnics outside.
It was a great year in Lower Pre-Primary and I would like to wish you all a lovely summer holiday. Enjoy your family and friends and take care.
For those of you who are leaving for another adventure, good luck from all of us. We will miss you.
Happy summer everyone, lots of love,
Ms Inbal.
Dear parents,
First I would like to give a warm welcome to sweet Yihe who joined our class in February and settled in so well. We are very happy to have you in Lower Pre-Primary.
Over the last few weeks we were very busy learning and discovering new facts about plants and flowers. We had a lovely ‘entry point’ in which a colourful flower bouquet was delivered to our class. It was such a nice surprise and we all enjoyed smelling the flowers and exploring the different shapes and colours that they have. Then each child chose their favourite flower and drew it.
We had so much fun opening our own flower shop in class. Some of us were shop keepers, others were customers and some of us worked in the shop keeping it clean and organised.
We also played many games related to plants and flowers. We sorted flowers and seeds by colours and size and created a big plant using different kind of materials.
The children were very enthusiastic to learn about the parts of a plant and the five needs of a plant. We planted sunflower and bean seeds and took care of them by giving them water every day and making sure they had enough sunlight, soil and space.
We read the lovely story of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and we really enjoyed acting out the story. We also practiced our gross motor skills while pretending we were Jack, climbing up the beanstalk. Then we pretended we were a giant who was walking in his castle.
We enjoyed different arts and crafts activities. We all painted a giant beanstalk together and we cooperated so well. We made flowers from clay and have practiced our fine motor skills while cutting photos of plants and flowers.
There are many new songs that we love to sing, you can ask your child to sing it to you at home. (sing a song of flowers / I like the flowers / In the spring time / 5 little ducks).
Our 'exit point' was a real success, we made flower cookies and had a lovely picnic full of songs and games!
We celebrated Rachel and Spandan’s birthdays, they have turned 3 and we would like to wish them all the best and thank you for the delicious cakes.
The last week was all about spring and Easter. All children were very busy painting their Easter baskets, chicklets and bunnies. On Friday we had our Easter egg hunt which was a lovely way to end the week before the holidays.
I wish you all a very nice spring break. Enjoy the time with your family and friends. See you in two weeks.
Let’s go shopping, let’s go shopping, let’s go shopping you and me
First I would like to give a warm welcome to our new friend Alexander who joined our class in the beginning of january. Alexander we are very happy to have you here in LPP. I’m glad that you are already doing so great and have so much fun at school.
Welcome back also to Aura and Anan, who have been visiting their homecountries for some while. We are happy to have you back here at ISG.
A warm welcome also to Monica, an erasmus intern from Barcelona, who will be assisting in LLP for 3 months. She is a great help and the children like her a lot!
The last weeks have been very exciting, because we have been learning a lot of things about shopping, had a little shop in our class and even went shopping to the bakery.
For our ‘entry point’ we had a very exciting shopping and pizza baking day:
In our classroom we made a shop with all that you need in a shop: A till, shopping baskets, shopping trolleys, shopping bags, money and of course things to buy. The first few weeks it was a little supermarket with fruits, vegetables and all kind of groceries. After some weeks we decided to make a toy shop with different toys from our classroom. We enjoyed it so much to go shopping in our little shop and to be the shopkeeper .
We learnt about different types of shops for example the bakery, the supermarket, the butcher, the toyshop, the clothshop, the bookshop, … and what you can buy in these shops.
In our circle time we learned two beautiful songs about shopping (‘Let’s go shopping’ and ‘This is the way we like to shop’). We loved to sing them and to walk or dance around, it was lots of fun.
To go shopping in our classroom shop we made a shopping bag: first we coloured it and than we decorated it with a lot of glitter.
Each one of us designed a shopping basket. They all look wonderful, each one unique and different just as we are. We used this basket also to go shopping in our own little classroom shop.
For our ‘exit point’ we went shopping to the bakery outside of the school. Our buddy class (year 4 from Primary – Miss Anelda’s class) came with us. It was really exciting and fun. We orderd chocholate cookies and everyone paid for their own with 1 Euro. Back at school we ate our cookies together with our buddy class. We enjoyed it a lot and made some new buddys.
It was definitly a fun and exciting shopping unit!
During this month we have also been learning about MORALITY and how to make the right decision in a conflict situation. For that, we made a traffic light, to help us make the right decision.
RED = Stop!
ORANGE = Think!
GREEN = Do the right thing!
Today we had a super fun carnival party. We’ve been dancing in the classroom, had a yummy snack and have been dancing with the whole school. It was a lot of fun and now we are ready for the holidays.
I would also like to welcome back Miss Inbal, who will take over LPP after the midterm break and would like to thank you for your trust and cooperation.
I had a wonderful time here at ISG and it was a pleasure to teach the little ones in LPP. I will bring a lot of wonderful memories back to my homecountry Austria, where I will contine my masters degree.
I will still be here the first three days after the mid-term break together with Miss Inbal.
I wish you and your children all the best and a lot of wonderful experiences in their life.
Kind regards,
Miss Riccarda
First I would like to give a warm welcome to our new friends who joined our class. Aura and Spandan, we are very happy to have you here in Lower Pre-Primary. I am already so proud of you both - you settled in quickly and are having so much fun at school.
Happy birthday to Anan, who turned 3 years old in October. Anan was so proud of his birthday crown and showed it to everyone at school! We had a wonderful birthday party with lots of singing, counting and jumping 3 times. Thank you for the yummy birthday cake!
The last weeks we have been busy learning about PATTERNS. It was a very exciting IPC unit. For our ‘entry point’ we had a fun pattern day where we came to school wearing clothes full of patterns.
During the unit we learnt about different types of patterns and what they look like.
We explored the patterns in our surroundings and went on a pattern exploration walk in and around our school. It was amazing how many different patterns we found together: the bricks of the wall, the pattern of a wheel, the pattern of the ground, the pattern of the trees and lots more. To remember our beautiful pattern walk we made a ‘pattern book’ with photographs we took on our walk. The children loved looking at it in our little classroom library!
We also designed our own patterns with lots of different colours and made a very special pattern frame. The children also had the opportunity to paint patterns on the easel, two children together, super teamwork! We also clapped patterns with our hands and made musical patterns using the instruments.
In our classroom we played various pattern games such as pattern memory and designing patterns.
We read the beautiful story about the wonderful, patchwork elephant ELMER. The kids loved the story, so we read the book several times! We discussed how we are all different, unique and wonderful, just like Elmer and all his friends. We made a beautiful Elmer artwork designing our very own Elmer with his colourful patterns. Each elephant is unique, different and beautiful just like all the children in our classroom! We also learnt the song “Elmer the patchwork elephant”. The children loved singing this song while moving like elephants and shouting ‘booooooo’, just like Elmer and his friends! For our Elmer artwork we made funny elephant photos using our arm as an elephant trunk, and in our role play area we could even dress up like an elephant. It was lots of fun and we laughed a lot. At the end of the unit each child got a special Elmer medal during our Elmer theatre ‘exit point’.
We have also been visiting our school library. We returned the books from our classroom and borrowed new ones. The children loved looking at the new books.
Another very exciting event in December was when Sinterklaas came to visit! We learnt a song for Sinterklaas (Hello good morning Sinterklaas, hello good morning Sinterklaas) and dressed up like little Sinterklaas with our beautiful Sinterklaas hat. The children were very excited and some of the children were even speechless!
And then, our Christmas show: The children loved our “Jingle bells” song, especially playing with the instruments and dancing around. We had lots of fun practicing for the show and performing. I hope you also enjoyed our Christmas show!
The children loved singing the song “We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new Year”. On this note I will end this blog article. I wish you all a wonderful Christmas and a great 2018!
See you in January!
Dear everyone!
Is it me or have the last 5 weeks gone by very fast? But I guess time always goes fast when you’re having fun!
In the last blog you can read about the start of our IPC unit Houses and Homes. We continued the unit by being introduced to the story of the Three Little Pigs. Some of them knew the story, others didn’t! Everyone still enjoyed it very much. We got to know the three different types of material that are talked about in the story: straw, wood and brick. Using figurines we got to experiment with puppet play. The children were able to use the figurines of the story (the three pigs, the wolf, the different houses) to play the story for each other. We learned how to move the puppets and tell the story but also how to listen to each other and give applause.
Together we made our own brick house using little bricks and cement (flour and water). Using the pen grip we placed the bricks carefully onto each other and we put the right amount of cement in between (not too much, not too little). We had to be very careful and we were all concentrated doing it!
We got to celebrate Malin’s birthday by singing her birthday song, jumping to ‘three’ and we made her a nice crown! Happy Birthday Malin!
We also learned about different furniture that we can find in and around a house. We learned how to play the gme ‘Who What Where?’ that teaches us what items go where in the house. With all this in mind we designed our own house using a shoebox, paint, cutouts of furniture and anything else that the children wanted to use to personalize their house. The result was unique and lovely to see! We had a lot of fun doing it.
We got to explore different kind of shapes. With those shapes and glue we made more houses! We used our imagination, creativity and had to think about the composition of our houses. The children had a lot of fun doing it, seeing their houses come to life while sticking the shapes on the paper. After we finished the houses, the children came up with the idea to make a street where those houses would go on. Unlimited creativity in LPP! :)
We read two different books about animal homes. It taught us that different animals live in different types of homes according to their size and needs/habits. The ones the children liked the most were the spider and his spider web and the bat who lives in a cave!
We made spider webs by weaving rope and also a spider of course. The children came up with the idea to make a big tree so that we could hang up the spider webs we made. It was a big success! We learned the song Itsy Bitsy spider and we used instruments to play the song as well! I brought my guitar and we played music like a real band!
We practiced counting and recognizing numbers by counting spiders and finding their matching spider web. And also, how many legs does a spider have? We counted the legs and found out they have 8! With plasticine we made spiders with exactly 8 legs!
It was lovely to see that everybody in LPP came dressed up to school for our Halloween party. We had a ladybug, a fish (Dori), a monkey, a cow, a penguin, a pumpkin princess, a witch, a frozen princess (me) and a leprechaun (miss Anne)!
For our last activity together we made sugar cookies! Yum!!
I would like to thank all the parents for your trust, cooperation and many lovely gifts! I also want to thank the whole ISG team for making me feel like family during these 5 months. A special thank you to the Lower Primary teachers miss Anya, miss Mia and miss Inbal for all your support. Of course I also want to thank miss Anne and miss Reccarda for all your help!
I had a wonderful time and will miss everybody very much! I will come and visit soon.
Love
Miss Lori
Hello everyone!
What a great first three weeks it’s been! Welcome back Malin, Marceau and Anan. It was wonderful seeing you again. You all grew so much over the summer and I was happy to see you were very excited to be back at school. I also want to welcome Elize, Sally, Rachel, Arthur and Constantin to Lower Pre-Primary. Your journey at ISG has officially begun and we will have so much fun!
During our first two weeks we took our time to get to know each other and the routines in Lower Pre-Primary. We learned the songs that we sing during our morning circle time such as “Goodmorning” and “Sunday, Monday”. We also learned to sing “the wheels on the bus” and “pitter patter raindrops”.
One of the stories that we read was ‘Bye, Bye’ which talks about going to school and saying goodbye to mommy, daddy, grandma, grandpa, caretaker, etc. The story taught us about the different feelings that go hand in hand with saying goodbye and being at school! Turns out school is a lot of fun and saying goodbye is only for a little while :-)
‘Ladybug’, our class friend (mascot), is always there to give support when needed. He likes to say hello and give hugs.
We have experimented with paint, crayons, paper, scissors, pens and plasticine. We made puzzels, played with the fishing game and we learned how to play “memory”.
This past week we started our unit “Houses and Homes”. For the entry point we went to the gym and got to experiment with big building blocks, blankets, pillows, tents, etc. We made a house that had a separate kitchen, bedroom and living room! It was a lot of fun.
In our classroom we found a whole bunch of miniature furniture, but no house….. We came up with the idea to make our own house out of a cabinet. There was one thing missing though, the house did not have a roof. Together we made a roof out of cardboard, painted it and attached it to the house.
To practice our colours, we made a house using colour matching. The different sticks needed to build our house had coloured dots on them that matched with the lines on the paper. Together we named the different colours and tried to match the right stick with it’s matching colour! Afterwards we drew who lives in the house we made. The result was wonderful to see.
When Miss Anne came over on Thursday, she helped us building a real house with a roof in our classroom! The house even has a slide as an exit! How exciting! The new house gave the children a lot of new ideas for roleplay and we discussed the different dress-up clothes/options we have in our classroom. We love to dress up and play!
As the children are settling in well… I would like to thank you, the parents, for your trust, cooperation and brave “goodbye moments” in the morning. For some of the children it’s their first real school experience and it’s never easy leaving them behind. But always tell yourself… “How lucky am I, to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”
Dear parents
What a wonderful last few weeks it has been. We continued our sand and water topic by making a big cozy sand and water corner in our classroom where we had the chance to look at fish, explore the sensory bottles and relax on the pillows.
One of our tadpoles turned into a froglet who soon turned into a frog. Everybody was very excited to see how fast the transformation went! Our frog was so tiny but very cute. We kept him for a few days until we returned him with all his other tadpole brothers and sisters to the pond they came from. After this frog adventure we had two students who came into our classroom to show us how real toads look like! We were able to feel them and even had them on top of our head! We leanred about the differences between a toad and a frog and it was very interesting.
We also learned about different kinds of seacreatues. We learned about what they look like, what they eat, and all the other characteristics. We each made our favourite seacreatues and put them on a big ocean frieze that we made ourselfs. After this we exprimented some more with different kinds of sand and made sand and glue artworks.
To take a break form our topic we had artweek! The children made a variety of artworks in miss Anya, miss Mia and my classroom. We made Aboriginal dot art using cotton swaps, paint and black paper. On the rhythm of real Aboriginal music we put dots on the paper. We had a lot of fun and putting the dots on paper was very relaxing.
After artweek we learned all about rain, clouds and what to wear when it’s rainy. We discovered different kinds of clothing/materials and what it means when something is waterproof. We made cloud and rain artworks and learned a new song! The song was called pitter patter raindrops and the song came with fun dance moves!
Soon after that we learned about boats. What do they look like? And why do we use them? Together with this we learned about sinking and floating and did some experiments on this topic.
Of course… we can’t learn about boats without mentioning pirates!
Together we discovered the story of the pirates and the sea monster. The pirate ship sunk to the bottom of the ocean because the seamonster bit a big hole in the ship! The pirates had to swim to shore and the parrot luckily was able to fly away. The parrot came to our classroom on Monday and told us all about it. We made our own boats and pirates hats! To finish our pirates topic, a real pirate came to our classroom who wanted his parrot back! In exchange for the parrot the children were given a treasure chest with cookies inside. We had lots of fun!
In between all this we continued to practice our cutting skills. We also worked on our fine motor skills by learning how to use tweezers to pick up things. And finally we practiced holding a pencil.
Everybody was very excited when Ms Inbal came to our classroom to visit us with sweet baby Ben. The children came up with the idea to hide in our sand and water cozy corner to trick Ms Inbal into thinking they were gone! When she came inside they said ’surprise!!’. We sat with her and talked about the baby and how everybody has been since she left. We gave her many hugs!
We also celebrated Sebatians and Yagos birthday! Congratulations to you two and thank you for the wonderful treats.
During the last two weeks we opened up a shop in our classroom where we sold shells, rubber ducks, and other small items. We learned how to buy and sell, we payed with money and used the cash register. They all enjoyed it very much.
We had our sand and water exit point on a very hot day! All morning we played in paddling pools, water slide and played water games. We played with waterballoons and had a boat race using our own boats we made out of foam clay. Woohoo!
Finally, we had to say goodbye to Teagan who is going back to the United Stated of America and to Loic who is moving to Canada! We wish you both the best of luck with this new adventure and we will miss you all very much. We hope to see you again some day and don’t forget to send us some mail!
I want to say a big thank you to Ms Anne, Ms Reccarda and Ms Esti for helping out in LPP!
And fnally want to wish you all a lovely summer holiday and see you in September!!
Big hug
Ms Lori
Another few weeks passed in Lower Pre-Primary and the summer is approaching! After the Easter holiday we were lucky to welcome Malin from Sweden and Anan from China. Welcome to ISG and we hope you have fun learning and growing at our school.
The first two weeks after the holiday we spent time getting to know each other and had a ‘unit free’ time. We did all sorts of painting including water and fingerpainting. We practiced our cutting skills and even painted with balloons! We played games where we learned the colours and what happens when we mix them. We also practiced the numbers and counting using fun blow-up numbers and blocks.
In the beginning of May we started our new IPC unit Sand and Water. Our entry point was a big success! We had a sand and water day in the classroom where trays were set up to engage experimenting and exploring with different kinds of sand, water, mud and toys.
Thanks to Sebastian and his family we were lucky to get some tadpoles in our classroom! We learned about the lifecycle of frogs and learned a song about five little speckled frogs:
Five little speckled frogs sat on a speckled log
Eating some delicious bugs, yum, yum!
One jumped into the pool where it was nice and cool
Now there are four green speckled frogs!
We made frog headbands and jumped around the classroom as frogs! As the tadpoles will grow we will keep an eye on how they change and wait (im)patiently for them to transform intro frogs.
We learned about the words ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ and what they mean. We blew bubbles outside and made bubble art! In the mystery box we had sandpaper that we discovered and felt. We even made art with the sandpaper! Together we came up with the idea to change the house corner in the classroom into a relaxing underwater cave with different sensory play items with sand and water. This is still under construction as we still have to make some decorations! To be continued…. :-)
Lots of love
Lori
Over the last few weeks we have been busy learning more about clothes. We had a ‘funky hat day!’ which was great fun! We saw different types of hats from all around the world. The summer hat from Vietnam was very light and we could fold it and put it in a bag. The winter hat from the USA was very soft and warm; it covered our ears to protect us from the cold weather. We had a very special hat from Nigeria which was actually a crown worn by the Yoruba chiefs in Nigeria. It was colourful and heavy, full of tiny beads. Thank you all for sharing those beautiful hats with us.
On that day all children designed their own special hat. They chose the materials, the colours and the shape they wanted. The results were beautiful! We read the story ‘caps for sale’ and acted it out in class. Miss Inbal was the peddler and the kids were the little monkeys
We have been learning about the routine of getting dressed. What we should put on first and last and why. We played a mime game in which a child was pretending to put on trousers, gloves, socks, a hat or a shirt and we had to guess what it was. We talked about the importance of keeping our clothes clean and had a great time washing all our babies' clothes in our family corner. We observed the colour of the water before and after washing the clothes and we noticed that the water became dirty. We also learned that wet clothes are heavier than dry clothes. We hung the clean clothes outside, developing our fine motor skills while using pegs. It was lovely to see how the kids cooperated and worked so nicely together as a team. Well done everyone!
We read the story ‘The emperor’s new clothes’. The kids enjoyed the play upper pre-primary performed, it was lovely!
We also learned about clothes that people wear for special jobs. Then we had a nice visit from the local police. They showed us their clothes and the objects they carry, and they even took the kids for a short ride in the police van!
The children designed their own T-shirts and our ‘exit point’ for the clothes unit was a lovely fashion show with all pre-primary classes. The kids walked on the red carpet, so proud of their t-shirts. It was a fantastic afternoon!
Apart from the work on clothes, we have also learnt about morality. We watched a puppet show and used a traffic light to explain how important it is to stop (red light), think (orange light) and make the right choice (green light). Lately the children have been trying to use morality very often, you can use this value at home too!
We enjoyed making gifts for our families for valentine’s day which we hope you liked. We finished the week with a lovely carnival full of costumes, music and dance.
On Friday, it was Grayson’s last day at ISG. We would like to wish Grayson and his family all the best in the USA. Grayson came to our class two months ago, it was a short but meaningful time. We will miss sweet Grayson and we hope he will come back to visit us in the future.
Have a lovely holiday everyone!
