9 Jun 2017

Year 1 Update – Wk 33

Tuesday 13th June – Year 3 bake sale. Please send some money to school with your child so

that they can buy a tasty treat.

Thursday 22nd June- Thank You Afternoon Tea for weekly parent helpers.

Please remember to RSVP bhs@bhs.edu.hk

Friday 30th June – End of the school year. School finishes at 12.00pm

Class Assemblies

It was wonderful to see our final Year 1 assembly this morning and the 1L students did an amazing job! 1L shared an important message about co-operation and included some fabulous ideas including the story of the Enormous Turnip with some fantastic drama, props and dancing too. Our class assemblies are a wonderful opportunity for the children to share their learning with the wider school community and they are invaluable in allowing the children to express themselves, develop confidence in their oral skills and appreciate the learning of others. Well done to all the 1L students for a fantastic performance!

In school the children have been enjoying our unit about the different ways to tell stories as well as enjoying the end of our learning about measuring.

Borrowing books

This is the last week to borrow books and will need to return their last books next week. This is so Mrs Lowe and Ms Jeves can do a stock count for all the books in the library.

Brainpop Jr.

Through the year, we have been enjoying the Brainpop and Brainpop Jnr website, which particularly helped the children learn about different concepts for our year long unit about the Earth’s changes. Since we have now finished this unit we are not watching the films or playing the games so much at school. However, the children do really enjoy this website and so we do encourage you to explore finding out about the different things you are interested in at home. The areas of interest are, Reading and Writing, Maths, Health, Social Studies, Science and Arts and Technology.

Please check it out: https://jr.brainpop.com

Username: beaconhillhk

Password: brains

Art Work

Ms Yu has been working with the children, each class for a lesson a week for two weeks. The children have been learning about primary and secondary colours, colour mixing and using our fingers to mix paint to make beautiful pictures of caterpillars and trees. The children have really enjoyed these lessons.

Traditional Stories

Thank you so much for the lovely traditional stories that have been sent in to us so far. The children have enjoyed sharing some but not yet all of the books we have received so far. Please do not worry if we have not shared your book yet, we will! Over the next few weeks we will be enjoying stories from different cultures around the world. If you have any favourite family traditional stories please send them into school for us all to enjoy. Please make sure that your child’s name is written in front of the books so that we can return them to their owners. Also, please share this book with your child first so that they are familiar with it and will be able to tell us about the story in school and so they know why they have brought it in.

Hats and Water Bottles

The weather is hotting up so please make sure that your child has a named BHS hat and a water bottle. We encourage the children to drink throughout the day and after breaks and lunchtime. They have access to water fountains to refill their bottles if needed.

Reading

The Year 1 children have all made great strides with their reading skills this year. Recently we have noticed that some of the children are becoming anxious about the colour reading band that they are choosing books from. It is very important that the children see themselves as readers and do not feel pressure to move through the colour bands. Learning to read is a complex process that involves many skills. Growing as a reader involves not only being able to read the words in a text but comprehending and understanding what they are reading by retelling texts and answering literal and inferential questions.

At BHS we want to nurture life long readers who love books and reading. When reading with your child at home try to talk about and encourage your child to be proud of how much progress they have made already and discourage any comparisons with other children. By trying to continually make improvements by making targets for themselves and reflecting on these targets to see how much better they are getting encourages a healthy growth mindset.

All the children in Year 1 are different but will all grow into great readers.

How We Express Ourselves

People tell stories in different ways to communicate

The Year 1 children thoroughly enjoyed being immersed in the joy of storytelling in their

shared area time and in the class room by having the opportunity to use puppet play,

role play and using small world story trays to help them develop their own stories. Next

week, rather than puppets the children will have dressing up clothes out for the children

to use costumes on our stage in the shared area to help them make up their own stories.

It has been pleasing to see the children working co-operatively in groups to come up with

their own stories. Storytelling is important in helping the children to extend their vocabulary,

develop their imagination, understand the roles of a storyteller and an audience and learn

about the features of a narrative. Please support this learning at home by giving the

children the opportunity to make up and perform their own stories.

Next week we are very fortunate to be able to ask qualified yoga instructor, Ms Fisher to do

the well known story Monkey Puzzle through yoga. This is another exciting way of being

able to tell a story, and it is fantastic to see how easily the moves can link to the story.

Please ask your child after their yoga experience on Wednesday to tell you all about it.

Yoga is a wonderful exercise, especially for children who need time to be calm and mindful,

and who are often active and over excited.

maths

Shape and Space- Location

The children will be learning a lot of vital vocabulary linked to this unit. They will be learning about giving directions and being able to follow them to locate different things. You may wish to play where is the teddy where you need to follow the words to find a teddy. Words such as over, under, below, behind, underneath, around, to the left/right, above are examples of what we will be expecting.

We are coming to the end of our measuring unit. Please talk to your child at home about how you can measure different things using balances, weighing scales, cups, measuring cylinders and rulers. At school we have all made magic potions. Ask your child how you could also make a potion.

Mathletics

Of course please continue to complete the relevant mathletics activities regularly at home. Please refer to the shape and space section of Mathletics to reinforce what we are learning at school, at home. Children need to complete their Mathletics learning with an adult. Together please focus on each question by drawing, acting or playing with manipulatives. Ask your child to explain their thinking. If your child can explain what they did it means that they understand it. At school we expect a thorough explanation rather than “I thought of it” or “I just know”.

Narrative Writing

Next week we will be continuing to do the very popular task of book making. The Year 1 children have been very enthusiastic to make their own books and next week we will encourage them to use a different style. They will be looking at different types of books and will be constructing their own books and writing their own stories. In our Writer’s Workshop, we will be looking into how to plan a story and all the planning that goes into a story from the initial ideas.

Phonics
Unit six continues during phonics. Please support your child at home by playing the suggested games and activities on the previous phonics bookmark.

Phonemes: qu, ng, x, ck

Camera Words: away, see, look, very, once, we

1F- Hayley Gan

1L- Lucas Chan and Obi Mak

1W- Hailey Yuen and Jamie Yuen

Mandarin- Olivia Bi

Well done to all our Golden Book Winners this week (Monday 5th June).

Other information

Special Ways is a new Hong Kong children’s book by Kirsty Sullivan and beautifully illustrated by local artist Cath Love. The book encourages kids to go to bed and actually stay in bed by giving them lots of ‘Special Ways’ to choose from. If anyone in your family struggles with this at home, you might want to have a look. It costs HK$100 or HK$35 for the e-book from www.52specialways.com.

Year 1 Update – Wk 33

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