24 Nov 2017

Year 1 Update – Wk 14

Thursday 30th November – PTA Disco – Year 1 -3

Thursday 14th November – Christmas Concert and Christmas Bake Off

Friday 8th December – parents invited to come and help sort food after our Action Day

Friday 15th December – Last day of term. School finishes at 12.00.

Other pitch dates : 22nd, 29th and 6th December

Children should wear their normal PE uniform for these sessions and will take their water bottles and hats with them.

If your child has not got a hat or regularly forgets to bring it to school please make an extra effort to help them bring it to school.

Clay

This week, all of the year 1 children have had their first clay session with Miss Cassie. For the 50th anniversary of Beacon Hill School each class across the school is working with Miss Cassie to produce a clay tile. 1L are designing and making tiles based on plants, animals and insects. 1W are making tiles by printing everyday objects from around the school and 1P are producing their own self portraits. Miss Cassie will take the students through the whole process of designing, creating and evaluating. We can’t wait to see their final pieces of art!

Peter Sullivan

Thank you to all the parents who attended the maths workshop run by Professor Peter Sullivan on Wednesday evening. We hope that you all gained an insight into the importance of exposing the children to open-ended problem solving maths tasks that give them the opportunity to apply their maths skills and knowledge in real life contexts.

Central Idea:

Imagination helps us think, create and express ourselves.

This week the children have been tuning into our 3rd unit of inquiry. They have been exploring the concept of imagination by drawing pictures of what is in their imagination. Some of the children had some wonderful imaginative ideas! Each week we will be encouraging the children come up with creative solutions to problems at our “Maker Station”. They will be set a problem linked to a story or real life school situation and asked to use the materials to solve the problem using their creative thinking skills.

Next week the children will be exploring everyday objects and thinking about how they could be used in creative and imaginative ways.

School Uniform

Now that the weather is cooling down please make sure that your child is appropriately dressed.

We encourage children not to wear long sleeved tops underneath their P.E top. A warmer short sleeved top is a good idea. To keep warm the children can wear their P.E jacket on top of the P.E t-shirt. When it gets colder children can wear the red jumper under the P.E jacket. They can also wear the purple school uniform fleece on top of the P.E jacket if still cold. Also we would suggest foot less tights under the P.E pants in the winter as the pants are not very warm. There are some nice white warm tights in the ladies market. Even in the winter our classrooms are very warm. We are often still in short sleeve shirts. But outside at school it can get windy. We teach the children to take a layer off when they come inside and put a layer on when they go outside.

Please spend some time at home encouraging them to be independent and helping them to learn how to put their jackets and sweaters on themselves.

60s Dress Up Day & Disco

Thursday 30th November for Years 1-3

Friday 1st December for Year 4-6

To continue our BHS 50th Anniversary celebrations, we will have a 60’s themed dress up day next week. Children can dress up in 60’s style for school and then be ‘Disco ready’. All children should come dressed up even if they are not attending the disco after school. The fashion trend in the 1960’s was varied; hippy style, swing dresses, twin sets and more.

maths

Our main focus over the coming weeks will be to :

Recognise, model, read, write and order numbers to 100

This week the children have continued to work on place value and counting forwards and backwards on the 100 number square. We have focused on modelling numbers using tens and ones using manipulatives such as numicon and diens blocks.

Following on from Peter Sullivan’s work with us earlier in the week, we have spent some time working on a practical problem solving task linked to partitioning the number 10 in different ways. The children were given the context of a farm and told that there were 10 legs on the farmyard. They were then asked what animals they thought were on the farm. We were very pleased by the growth mindset that the children demonstrated towards this task. For many, this was a challenging problem but the children rose to the challenge and showed perseverance, communication skills and a willingness to listen to each others ideas and thinking.

Mathletics: Please spend some time each week exploring the different activities that we have set for the children. Under the ‘play’ section, children can practise their basic facts by playing games with partners from around the world. It is not intended that the children will do these tasks totally independently so please help your child to become familiar with the layout of Mathletics and how to go about completing the tasks.

This week the children have had the opportunity to write their own stories using a picture stimulus. Following on from our reading focus on retelling the children were reminded of the key elements of a story including, characters, setting, problem and resolution. Some classes have also looked at nursery rhymes and have had a go at writing their own letters to story and nursery rhyme characters.

Next week we will continue with our narrative focus by writing our own class stories based on familiar stories. As we are modelling the writing process we will look at sentence structure, the use of finger spaces, capital letters and full stops.

Our comprehension focus for the next six weeks is visualising. This week the children have been introduced to this reading strategy by listening to stories and descriptions and drawing the images that appear in their mind. Next week we will continue with this work by asking the children to draw illustrations to go with text from a story.

Next week we will continue with unit 3 of our phonics programme. Below are our focus phonemes and camera words. Please support this work at home playing the games included on the phonic bookmark.

Phonics

Phonemes: v w y z j n k e

Camera Words: all me they is no said

Not all words can be decoded phonetically. We call these tricky words, ‘camera words’ because children must learn them as though they were taking a photo of the word with their ‘mind’s eye’. They are encouraged to memorise the part of the word which is tricky.

Congratulations to the following children:

1L – Chralotte Yim

1P – Ashley Duong

1W – Jacob Fung

Christmas Activities

Christmas is fast approaching and Hong Kong is already getting into the festive spirit. Below are some great ideas for things to do with your children over the Xmas break.

1. Huge Superpark Opens In Hong Kong *NEW LAUNCH!

WHAT: Now a whole park dedicated to free play arrives in Hong Kong all the way from Finland. The 45,000 square foot venue might not be embracing the great outdoors of the country it hails from – where the brand already has 11 parks – but the indoor SuperPark in Tai Kok Tsui offers a range of sports and activities to keep kids active and entertained.

WHEN: Opening December 16, 2017

WHERE: Click here for more details

2. The Nutcracker Ballet *BOOK TICKETS

WHAT: A classic for kids and kids at heart!

WHEN: December 15-17, 19-20, & 22-26, 2017 at various times.

WHERE: Click here for more details

3. Santa’s Secret Kingdom *BOOK TICKETS

WHAT: Join the latest of Glitter and Gore’s unique holiday events – Santa’s Missing Sack! Kids will interact with elves, discover a magic kingdom, and solve a Christmassy mystery to help save Christmas.

WHEN: December 9-10, 2017 from 10am-4pm.

WHERE: Click here for more details

4. Christmas Camping *BOOK IN ADVANCE

WHAT: Twinkling trees, mulled wine, and camping under the stars at this unique Christmas-themed camping adventure!

WHEN: Christmas 2017

WHERE: Click here for more details

5. Disney’s Sparkling Christmas *TICKETS REQUIRED

WHAT: A Fairy Tale Forest awaits the family!

WHEN: Now – January 1, 2018

WHERE: Click here for more details

6. AIA Great European Carnival *BOOK TICKETS

WHAT: Get ready for thrill rides, family rides, attractions and games at Hong Kong’s largest holiday event!

WHEN: December 21, 2017 to February 25, 2018. Tickets are available here (Kids under 3 are free)!

WHERE: Click here for more details.

7. The Snowman & The Bear *BOOK TICKETS

WHAT: Experience the delightful winter classic on the big screen with live orchestral accompaniment, singing, and storytelling!

WHEN: December 17, 2017 at various times.

WHERE: Click for more details.

8. Live Nativity Procession in Sai Kung *FREE

WHAT: A young “Mary” will ride a pony through town from Sacred Heart Church down to the waterfront where there will be a live nativity crib set-up. There will be a candle-lit service with mulled wine and food. Join for this unique family-friendly and interactive celebration.

WHEN: December 1, 2017 from 7pm.

WHERE: Click here for more details

9. Ocean Park Christmas *TICKETS REQUIRED

WHAT: Enjoy Hong Kong’s largest indoor Christmas lighting spectacle plus loads of other fun happenings. This year, the highlight will be the first-ever virtual reality (VR) rollercoaster in Hong Kong, as the Park combines the popular Mine Train with cutting edge technology to deliver a brand new and exciting sensory experience to guests.

WHEN: December 11, 2017 – January 1, 2018

WHERE: Click here for more details

10. Father Christmas *BOOK TICKETS

WHAT: Join him and watch how he prepares for Christmas this year! Brought to you by ABA Production, this show is great for under 6’s and their families.

WHEN: December 1-2, 2017

WHERE: Click here for more details

11. Holiday Movie Releases 2017 *TICKETS REQUIRED

WHAT: Family-friendly flicks opening in Hong Kong! Star Wars, Wonder, Paddington 2, and more in 2017.

WHEN: Ongoing.

WHERE: Click here for more details

12. Scrooge *BOOK TICKETS

WHAT: A classic Broadway musical for the whole family!

WHEN: Ongoing.

WHERE: Click here for details

13. Hong Kong Winterfest *FREE AND TICKETED EVENTS

WHAT: A night stroll full of celebrations plus loads more exciting happenings.