From Week 5 onwards, we will start combining our playground time with the K2 classes. This joint, or community, play provides a great opportunity for both year groups to learn from one another. For the K2 children, its a chance for them to become teachers and to share their skills and knowledge with the younger students. For the K1 children, they are able to observe more developed play skills, particularly when it comes to group collaboration in play.
Over the last couple of weeks, the Dolphins have been going down to the playground early so that we can catch the end of the K2's Open Play. We have already started playing with the older children and were very excited to see family friends, bus friends, and siblings as we ran around and explored.
Bikes and Scooters
AM Collage
When we officially join the K1 and K2 Open Play times together, we will start bringing out the bikes and scooters regularly for both year groups to use. As we hadn't used them yet this school year, we thought we had better get some practicing in!
Our first step was to trial them on a smooth, flat surface. In groups of 8, we made our way downstairs, passed though the 'secret door' and found ourselves in the Bradbury School covered playground. Here we had lots of space to experiment with the balance bikes and razor scooters, taking a turn on each vehicle. Overall, our skills were very impressive! For those of us who were new to trying out bikes and scooters, we showed great bravery and persistence, putting all our focus into making sure we were able to balance independently.
We have learnt that we need to always wear our helmets, look where we are going, and brake if there is an obstacle in our path. When we moved to the Hillside playground, we talked about traffic rules and how we needed to follow the flow of the vehicles just like Hong Kong drivers on the road. Driving into oncoming traffic could cause injury.
PM Collage
Number Knowledge
After we returned from the winter break, we started looking more closely at numbers. At the moment we are focusing on our recognition of numbers 1 - 10 and developing our accuracy in counting and matching up to 10 objects. During Circle Time we have been counting from 1-10 and 1-20 and counted back down in reverse, and have now moved on to counting all the way up to 100! Although we are all at different stages in our number recognition and fluency, it's a great chance for us to work as a group to practice rote counting. Those of us who feel confident with our number knowledge have been excited to share their expertise, whilst those of us still learning about the patterns of numbers have benefited from the repetition of seeing and hearing the number lines along with their peers. I have shared some of the videos we have used below should your child like to practice at home with you, their older siblings, or teach their younger siblings about numbers!
In the classroom we have had number puzzles, a number fishing game, and a small group game wherein we had to spin the wheel to find our number and then build a tower with the same number of blocks.
During Circle Time we played a game where we focused on our 1:1 correspondence of the numbers from 1 - 5. In this game, we all sat patiently while we waited to be called up to the front. When it was our turn, we had to come up and spin the number wheel on the computer. As a class, we could shout out what number it landed on to help the player. The next step was to go to the object table and take the corresponding number of objects as our number, before placing them on the floor in a graph.
In Music and Movement, we sang songs involving counting down from 5 to 1. These songs were; 5 little ducks, 5 little monkeys, 5 little fishies, 5 little speckled frogs and 5 fat sausages. We turned this into a bit of a performance where 5 of us were picked to act out each song as we sang along as a class.
Growing Up
At the beginning of Term 1 we created our 'growing' wall. As we were learning about plants, we decided to represent our heights using colourful flowers. Our first step was to be measured with ribbon, we then decorated our flowers, stuck our photos on the bud and arranged them like a Dolphin garden on the wall. This time we had to locate our flower and stand as straight and tall as we could against it, so that Rochelle could mark our new height. We were impressed to see that we had all grown to some degree.
For our 'reach art', we had to see whether we could make higher marks than in the first term. For our first turn at this, we chose between blue and yellow paint. We then had to bend our knees and jump as high as we could, landing our painted hands on the paper. This time round we chose between orange and pink paint. When we were finished, we could see that both classes had new handprints printed at the top of the paper.
Photographers in Training Last week we delved into the artistic pursuit of photography. We started by asking a big question: What is a photographer? We looked at the very first camera, which was a long, long time ago! We learnt that the first cameras worked very slowly so people had to sit incredibly still to ensure there were no blurry effects when the photo was developed. We also found out that not many people had cameras at first, but now everyone in the class had access to one on their parents' mobile phones. We looked at how cameras started off bigger than us, and how they changed in size and shape as technology developed. We learned that photos aren't just pretty pictures; they can tell a story , show us different styles , or capture something truly beautiful or interesting. We even brainstormed some amazing things we'd love to photograph: sharks, beautiful paintings, unicorns and princesses, our holidays, and of course, our wonderful ...
Dear Parents and Caregivers, As part of our inquiry unit, we have been focusing on understanding the properties of different materials. In addition to paper, wood is a common material that the children encounter in their daily lives. They have been engaging with wood through playful activities using sticks and wooden pieces, observing how these items float and sink in water, and learning the story of Pinocchio (小木偶皮诺丘）. Through these experiences, the children have discovered that wood is hard, durable, and capable of floating. With Easter approaching, we took the opportunity to create colorful wooden Easter eggs using markers and read stories about Easter eggs （彩蛋）. This activity not only reinforced our understanding of wood but also prepared us for our upcoming unit on colors. Last Friday, we held a Chinese assembly themed around Easter. The children enjoyed reading the story "Spot’s First Easter" （复活节彩蛋在哪里？） which introduced them to the special tradition of egg hunting. Thi...
Exploring the Unit Sharing Our Experiences In this Circle Time activity, the Dolphins had a chance to try out their presentation skills in front of all their classmates and teachers. Reflecting on and sharing their personal experiences outside of school, each child who had photos in the class album felt brave and comfortable enough to take their place at the front of the class when their photo popped up onto the screen. We had a variety of presentation styles from pointing out interesting elements, to nodding and shaking our heads to questions from the teacher, to taking the lead and introducing and explaining the situation independently. This was also a great chance to practice our listening skills as we focused on being respectful of other people's turns, and showing kindness by paying attention to our peers and even ask them questions. We continue to reflect on our experiences in nature through the photo displays that are now up in the classroom. Planting As we wan...
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