Back to School EY with Notes

8/9/2019 Back to School EY with Notes

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Welcome to everyone, thanks for attending and comment on how the

students are settling into their new routines

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Overview of the IB Learner Profile and how the EY supports the development

of these desired characteristics by modeling and using the more accessiblewords such as caring, open-minded, risk-takers in EY1 and adding ininquirers, knowledgeable, thinkers, and communicators more regularly in

EY2. By using these terms, complementing students when they model them,and explaining what they mean we hope to help students develop these traitsas they go through the PYP programme.

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These are the 5 IB transdiciplinary skills. The EY uses these 5 skill areas for

our reports which are issued twice a year. They fit very well with what we arefocusing on in EY and therefore are a perfect complement to our reporting.This is unique to EY and a different report template is used once studentsreach Year 1.

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A closer look at the 5 transdiciplinary skills: Social skills are a huge part of the

EY programme. Developing students to understand their role in tidying up,talking through their issues rather than resolving conflicts by pushing orsnatching, working in small and large groups without disrupting are just asmall example of what we are teaching to help students social skills

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Self-Management skills are another very important foundation to young

students education. This includes all their large muscle skills such as running,climbing, riding a bike, swinging etc. It also involves all the small muscleactivities such as drawing, pencil grip, cutting, gluing which all help preparethem for writing. Self control, understanding routines, making positive choicesalso fall into this area.

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Thinking skills includes problem solving, many elements of our math

curriculum, and our Units of Inquiry often help develop thinking skills as weget students to think of and investigate questions, use their prior knowledge innew situations and more.

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Communication skills complement our Language Arts curriculum. Speaking

and Listening is the major focus within EY, helping to build up a richvocabulary within all the students, encouraging them to experiment with morecomplex sentence structures and learning how to listen respectfully to eachother and to their teachers.

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Research skills include some more aspects of our mathematics curriculum

and also link to our Units of Inquiry. Even with children as young as 3 and 4years, there are many meaningful, authentic opportunities to give themexposure to these skills.

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Our Language Arts Curriculum, as was pointed out, fits within the

Transdiciplinary skill of Communication. There is a major emphasis onbuilding rich oral language skills. We believe strongly that for those studentswhose first language is not English, that fostering their home languages is avery important part of helping to prepare them for learning an additionallanguage. Speaking one to one with peers, then in small peer groups andwhen ready in front of larger groups, with confidence, is a goal in the EY.When students are in EY2 we begin to introduce an informal reading andwriting programme meaning that we model explicit pre reading practices suchas reading aloud large books and pointing to the words, asking students toguess a word in a patterned text, talking about letter sounds in meaningfulsituations such as stories, encouraging them to independently recognize andwrite their name, and experiment with writing when ready. We supportstudents as they show interest in reading and writing, with a goal to havethem excited and ready to partake in the formal literacy programme that theywill experience from Year 1 onwards.

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Most EY classes have a morning routine which includes a form of Morning

Meeting or Circle Time. As demonstrated in the slide, these support ourLanguage Arts and Mathematics curriculums, as well as creating socialbonds. For those reasons we really encourage students to arrive at school ontime at 8:30am regularly.

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Our Mathematics curriculum, which is developed by the IB, is taught in EY

using hands on equipment. We aim to help students explore and learn themathematic concepts during meaningful situations where ever possible.When we cannot link the concepts into our Units of Inquiry then wesupplement the learning with fun, supported and differentiated activities toextend each students learning.

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Our Programme of Inquiry this year begins with How We Organize

Ourselves, which will run throughout the year. In this Unit well be lookinginto routines and responsibilities from simple concepts like how everyone in aclass needs to help tidy up and how there can be class helping jobs, to morecomplex concepts like how we can share responsibilities such as caring forthe chickens and rabbit.

Our second Unit of Inquiry is Who We Are, where we will be looking into how

important our home languages are, learning about each others languages andculture, supporting development in language based groups and connectingthese concepts to childrens sense of identity. Our 3rd Unit is How We

Express Ourselves where we will be looking into the choices we make whenplaying. This will be a creative and expressive unit with lots of fun involved.Our last Unit for the year will be How the World Works. This will be a very

science based unit, with lots of hands on experiments looking into thebehavior of water, such as freezing, melting etc. It will also involve anenvironmental aspect as we look into water as an important and limitedresource and how we can conserve it. Its a great looking programme and thewhole EY team is very excited about all the opportunities for inquiry thatshould come about during the year.

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Each class goes to the library once per week, where each student can borrow

one book if they have their library bag and have returned their previous book.Parents are welcome to go to the library themselves to borrow extra books.Library bags should not be used for anything else other than library books, tokeep the books in good condition. The librarians name is Ms. Jennifer. They

also have Thai once a week with Khun Warunee where they engage inactivities helping to understand Thai language and culture. Sometimes KhunWarunee works with half the class at a time, differentiating activities for thenative Thai speakers and the non Thai speakers and sometimes she workswith the whole class. Swimming takes place once a week in the EY pool withthe homeroom teacher and AA present. Swimming is more about waterconfidence, fun and socialization with some informal activities planned basedon the childrens water confidence. Please inform your childs homeroom

teacher if they are unable to swim due to sickness. If they come to schoolwithout a swimming suit and we have not heard of any reason for them not toswim we will give them spare swimming suits.

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Cooking happens once a fortnight in our EY kitchen with the teacher or the

AA, usually in small groups such as half the class at a time. We try tomaintain a balance between sweet recipes and more healthy recipes. Wealso try to link our cooking to Units or Inquiry or to other events in the EY suchas a favourite story or cultural celebration. Our Perceptual Motor Programme(PMP) is facilitated by the homeroom teacher, Academic Assistant and othervolunteers. We are in the process of reviewing and adapting the programmeto best meet our students needs and more information will come home soonabout this. There will most likely be opportunities for parents to volunteer ifyou are interested to help support this programme. We have music once aweek in the Year 1 music room, taught by the homeroom teacher. During thistime we engage in rhythm activities, singing, exploring instruments andenjoying the large space for movement activities such as dancing, games,ribbons etc. Each class has an I.T. session once a week with either Mr. Jagoor Mr. Will and Ms. Nareeya is with all classes. Eventually all I.T. classes willtake place in the elementary lab, once the students are ready for this. Theyget to use fantastic touch screen computers and engage in programmes thatsupport many aspects of our curriculum such as hand-eye coordination,mathematics, creativity etc.

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Our outdoor programme is a large part of our curriculum. During the cooler

months all the EY students are outside, together, for 1 hour a day. This isreduced to 45 minutes when the whether is hotter. There are manypermanent features to our outdoor area, including a sandpit, bike track withtricycles which runs around the back of the EY building, climbing equipment,swings, water play, balls, large building equipment, a chicken coop and more.This is extended by an outdoor programme with extra activities that featuregross motor development, creativity, art, role play etc.

In addition to all these areas of our curriculum we also have our wonderfulcentral area which is an extension of the 5 EY classrooms. We have a weekly

Mix It Up time where all EY students are invited and encouraged to exploreother EY classrooms to help build up a sense of community beyond their ownclass. Once every two weeks we have an EY Singalong where the whole EYcomes together to share some songs, acknowledge special events andenhance our sense of community.

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Introducing Ms. Cassie. This is a new role in the EY and Ms. Cassie will be a

resource to help the EY team plan for and meet the needs of all individuals inthe EY.

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For EY Ms. Julia is an especially important resource for parents who wish for

support and suggestions about parenting concerns, dealing with behaviouralor emotional issues at home and school.

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Please do log on to Veracross if you have not done so already

www.veracross.com/nist/ and update your profile (as indicated by the bluerectangle) to make sure we have your correct and current contact details.

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Documents

Back to School EY with Notes