100 Days of School!

We  had a wonderful day on Tuesday celebrating 100 days of school.  We had a range of math activities revolving around our 100 theme in all four K2 classrooms.  The children moved  between the classrooms, joining in with activities.  In our classroom, Ms Diep and I, along with many children, made over 100 pancakes.  Luckily, we had lots of K2 friends to share them with.

Mystery Reader 

Today, K2D enjoyed listening to our first mystery reader.  Thank you to Flynn’s Dad, Patrick, who read Did You Know Pippi Longstocking?

Please click here to sign up for you turn to be our mystery reader. If your child has older siblings or grandparents that would like to read we would love them to have them read too.

A Message from the Walkathon Organisers

Our Blue Dragon Walkathon was such a wonderful experience for everyone in our community! It certainly turned out to be a memorable and inspiring occasion AND a gorgeous afternoon. All elementary students raced or walked with pride, enthusiasm and spirit! Donations to Blue Dragon are currently being calculated and it looks like we may have raised more money than last year. Please remember to send in pledge forms and indicate how many laps your child walked/ran. Please also put the total amount you are donating on the form. Pledge forms are due to homeroom teachers by February 22, 2019.

Reminders 

• Snack sale this Monday 18 February.  Please send your child with 20,000 VND to buy 2 healthy snacks at the snack sale.
• Please ensure your child has a hat at school every day.
• A lot of children are enjoying playing in the mud kitchen or with the water at breaktime. This can result in very wet children. A spare set of clothes in the school bag is very helpful if your child becomes wet or muddy when they are playing.
• Donkey Bakery field trip Wednesday 20 February. Thank you to Karen, Esther and Sujoy for volunteering to join us for the morning.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Emily

Dear Parents,

It was lovely to meet with so many of you on Wednesday at the Parent Teacher interviews and also see you at the Walkathon today. One of the things that makes our UNIS community so special is the fantastic participation, support and commitment from parents. Thank you!

Home readers 

On the first Monday after Tet break home reading will commence.  You child will bring home three reading books to read with you each day for the week.  On the following Monday the books will be returned to school and your child will choose three new books to read.  More information will come inside the home reading folder with the books on Monday.  please

Mystery Reader

Please sign up to read a story book with our class here.

Reminders 

• School returns on Monday 11 February
• Home reading starts on Monday 11 February
• Sign up for Mystery reader
• Donkey Bakery field trip Wednesday 20 February. We need 3 parents helpers for the morning. More information to come.

Have a wonderful Tet Holiday.

Emily

We are very excited to welcome three delightful additions to our K2D family: Sophia, Ga Yun and Seo Hyeon.  Seo Hyeon and Ga Yun come to us from other schools in Hanoi. Sophia and her family have just moved here from Hong Kong. Please join me in welcoming these girls and their families to UNIS.

Inquiry 

This week we built on our understanding of needs and wants to explore goods and services and producers and consumers.  We continue to play buying and selling in our class shop. With our Grade 4 buddies we talked about consumers and producers in preparation for Grade 4’s Market Day next Thursday.

                                                           Walkathon

Next Friday is the Elementary School’s Walkathon.  This is the ES’s biggest fundraiser for the year.  You will have now received a sponsorship form in your child’s school bag.  For more information click here.

Reminders

• 28 January – Reports will go home to families
• 30 January – Parent teacher conferences all day (No school for students) 
• 31 January – Grade 4 Market Day. (Please send your child to school with 60 000 VND to spend at the Market Day Stalls)
• Tet Assembly – If your child has an ao dai,  it would be lovely for them to wear it on Thursday for the Tet assembly
• 1 February – Blue Dragon walkathon
• 1 February – Tet holiday commences
• 11 February – School returns after Tet break

Have a lovely weekend.

Emily

Today is a sad day for K2D.  Today we say goodbye to Inbar and Hoang Linh. Inbar and her family are moving home to Israel and Hoang Linh and her family are moving to Japan.  We hope both girls have a wonderful time in their new schools and countries.  We will miss them very much here at UNIS.

Walk-a-thon

Birthdays 

This week we celebrated, Claire, Katie and Inbar’s birthdays. We wish them all a Happy Birthday and hope they all enjoy being 6!

Reminders

• 28 January – Reports will go home to families
• 30 January – Parent teacher conference all day (no school for students) 
• 1 February – Blue Dragon walkathon
• 1 February – Tet holiday commences

Have a lovely weekend.

Emily

Welcome back to school!

I hope all K2D families had a happy and relaxing Winter break.  I had my first trip back to Australia since moving to Hanoi.  I had a lovely time with my friends and family but I was also very happy to return to my new home in Hanoi and to rejoin our lovely K2D community.

This a photo of my family celebrating my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary.

New Inquiry Unit

This week we have commenced our How We Organise Ourselves unit of inquiry with the central idea:

‘People organise themselves through a process to create goods and services for the community’  

This will be our inquiry from now until Spring Break.

The lines of inquiry for this unit are:

• The needs and wants of a community
• Parts to make a whole
• Processes to create a good or service
• Our responsibilities as producers and consumers

This week we explored the concepts of needs and wants. The children drew their current understanding of needs and wants.

Math

In Math we have been shopping!

Happy Birthday Thomas

January is a month of many birthdays in K2D.  On Wednesday we celebrated Thomas’s 6th Birthday!

Reminders

Here are some dates to put in your calendars.  More information will come in the weeks ahead.

• 28 January – Reports will go home to families
• 30 January – Parent teacher conference all day (no school for students) 
• 1 February – Blue Dragon walkathon
• 1 February – Tet holiday commences

Have a lovely weekend.

Emily

Dear Parents,

We have had a busy and productive last week before winter break.

Conclusion of our Structures Unit

The children worked hard to design and build a house for Snuffles, as the concluding project for our Where We Are in Place and time inquiry. I have posted all the children’s descriptions of their houses on Seesaw but here are a few photos of the designing and building stages.

Composting

K2D’s enthusiasm for composting continues. This week we bought and decorated compost bins for Discovery and K1 to use.

Happy Birthday Flynn! Flynn turned 6 on Monday.

I hope all our K2D families have a wonderful Winter Break. Diep and I look forward to seeing all the children back at school on Monday 7th January.

Emily

Dear Parents,

Inspired by the UN Day celebrations and our SDG week activities we have continued thinking about how we care for the environment and each other.  On Tuesday we had a visit from Darcy Lunn, the founder of the Teaspoons of Change movement.  Click here for more information.  Darcy shared his top five teaspoons of change with the class.  The children were inspired and curious about these five big ideas.  We will continue to explore these throughout  the school year.

If your child has encouraged your family to become more environmentally conscious or you are already doing some of these things at your house, I would love to hear about it.  Please send me photos, videos or anecdotes of your child/family taking environmental action.

Uno’s Garden 

Happy Birthday Seo Jun!

Nude Food 

As the children continue to encourage each other to create less waste through nude food snack boxes, here is a product that some families are using instead of plastic wrap.  The children asked me to share this with you in case you were interested in using it too.

Reminders 

• Next Friday 14 December is the last day before Winter Break.  School will return on Monday 7 January.

Have a lovely weekend.

Emily

Dear Parents,

Thank you for your kind words and wishes on Teachers’ Day.  Diep and I were humbled by your lovely thoughts and so impressed and proud of the students’ beautiful writing in their cards.

Teachers’ Day was also World Children’s Day and, although our learning is always fun here at at UNIS, we decided to make it even more fun by taking our math lesson outside.  We continued our exploration of shape through investigating bubbles. Here are some highlights.

RAZ Kids App

The children have continued to work hard on reading and writing in literacy centres this week. They are really enjoying exploring the RAZ kids app.  Today in your child’s school bag you will receive your child’s log in details so that they can access RAZ kids at home if they wish.

SDG Week and UN Day

In the lead up to UN day we are once again putting the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals front and centre in our thinking and our learning. K2 will be focusing on waste in our classroom.  We will be talking about school lunch and food packaging in snack boxes as well as teaching other classes in the ECC about composting.  Our primary focus will be SDG #12 Responsible Consumption and Production.  However, through our action next week we will also be touching on:

• SDG #3 Good health and well being.
• SDG #11 Sustainable cities and communities.
• SDG #13 Climate action.
• SDG #14 Life below water.
• SDG #15 Life on land.

Nude Food K2 Picnic

We continue to encourage students to bring snacks without wrapping to reduce waste at school and to build the students’ understanding of waste in our society.  We will be having a nude food snack time picnic with our K2 friends next Thursday 29 November.  Please could you help your child bring food without packaging to eat on that day.  I am attaching again a parent information sheet about nude food.

UN Day Shared Lunch

Continuing on this theme, we will be talking to the students about not wasting food at the shared picnic and being mindful of waste. Please refer to the emails from Esther, our class rep, for details and logistics of the shared lunch.

Reminders 

• Thursday 29 November Nude Food Day in K2
• Friday 30 November is UN Day. Please refer to the email from Nathalie and Esther regarding the shared lunch.
• Winter Break starts on Friday 14 December. Children return to school on Monday 7 January.
• Please ensure your child has a hat in their school bag every day so they are sun safe in the playground.
• I still need headphones for a few children to use the RAZ Kids app at school. Headphones are sold at the school shop. 🙂

Dear Parents,

Thank you to those of you who were able to come to one of the open classroom sessions.  I hope the opportunity provided insight into teaching and learning in K2D.

Literacy

Over the last few weeks Literacy centres have become a larger part of our learning.  On Monday and Tuesday morning’s the children engage in writing centres.  These rotations consist of journal writing, handwriting, drawing and phonemic awareness.  On Wednesday and Thursday morning the children work on reading centres. Reading centres include small group guided reading, sight word and phonemic awareness games, and independent reading using the RAZ Kids app on IPads.  I am delighted with the progress all the students in the class have made in such a short space of time.

Buddy Time

In our buddy session this week we talked about ways we can work towards achieving the SDGs with our Grade 4 buddies.  The children came up with lots of ways they are working to be kind to each other and to care for the environment.  We will continue to make this a focus in our buddy time in the lead up to SDG Week and UN day.

Celebrations

It was Ms Diep’s birthday yesterday.  Claire drew this lovely portrait of Ms Diep earlier in the week that I couldn’t help sharing with you. 🙂