Important Notices

Friday November 18th is a Teacher Inset day and the Academy will be closed.

Book Week this week 14th –17th November. Students

to come in dressed as their favourite book character on

Thursday November 17th.

Welcome to our new students Elliot (R 2), Ashwin (Year

One) and Wyatt (R 1).

“Play is the highest

development in

childhood, for it alone

is the free expression

of what is in the

child’s soul, children’s

play is not mere sport.

It is full of meaning

and import”

- Friedrich Frobel

BIWEEKLY

NEWSLETTER October 31st — November 11th , 2011

1 0 W i n s t e d t R o a d , B l o c k C # 0 1 - 1 6 , S in g a p o r e 2 2 7 9 7 7 T e l : + 6 5 6 8 3 6 1 1 2 8 F a x : + 6 5 6 2 3 5 6 7 9 7 w w w . l e a r n d i f f e r e n t . c o m .s g

The two primary occupations for a child are to play and learn. Children learn best through

play as it provides them with a medium to explore their world and make sense of their sur-

roundings. Children learn and grow through play; it promotes physical development (gross

and fine motor skills, in hand manipulation skills, balance and sensory integration), cognitive

development (logic and reasoning, visual/spatial skills, language skills), creative skills

(aesthetic appreciation, creative expression, risk taking and initiative, flexibility and relaxa-

tion) and social and emotional development (interaction skills, autonomy and independence,

positive self-esteem and self-expression).

Ways to engage a child in play

choose an item that they are motivated to play with (e.g. a favourite toy) and use this as

a starting point. You can begin by making a conversation about the toy e.g. the cat likes

to sit on the grass and lick his fur...and see if the child will add to that.

messy play is also another really good medium for children to learn about themselves

and their world; allow your child to do some finger painting, get some sponges and do

some painting with sponges or different materials such as old brushes and see what the

child can create!

allow the child to play outside as much as possible, climbing up ladders, through tunnels,

as this will not only develop motor skills but also encourages sequencing skills.

If a child is experiencing difficulty with imaginative play, play dress up and begin to cre-

ate different characters and then stories with the child

maintain a light and positive affect in your voice to keep the child interested and willing

to continue playing

Lastly, remember that there is not much that you can do wrong by playing with your child as

any interaction they have with other people and their environment is going to foster their

development.

The Importance of Play! By Bianca Ravi, Occupational Therapist

“Celebrations.” In prepara-

tion for this, we decorated

our class for Thanksgiving.

For our Entry Point, each

class decorated their clas-

ses like a particular holiday

or celebration, and then

shared information, crafts

With only a few short weeks

left to the term, we have

had quite a busy time lately.

We came to the end of our

“My World” Unit and for

our exit point we had a

great activity. Two ladies

from Fun Mosaic came to

the school and helped us all

make our own mosaic coast-

ers using plastic tiles.

Our boys were so creative

and did a great job following

instructions. This week we

started our new Unit,

Page 2

On the Year One side, it’s been an eventful past two weeks prepar-ing for the exit point for the ‘My World’ theme. The kids used their fine motor skills by creating and designing their own coasters with tiny col-ourful beads and tiles when the people from

Fun Mosaic visited. In Literacy, the Year One students have also been busy learning all about nouns, adjec-

and treats about that spe-

cific celebration to the oth-

er classes. Besides learning

about Thanksgiving in our

class, the boys learned

about Christmas, Deepava-

li, Chinese New Year, and

Easter. In that same day,

our school had a blast on a

field trip to see the musical

play “The Elves and the

Shoemaker.” Last, but cer-

tainly not least, we also

welcomed a new student

to our class this week. His

RECEPTION TWO , MS. ASHLEY ’S CLASS

tives, verbs and specify-ing plural or singular nouns. In Maths they have been working on ordinal numbers, along with the very latest topic for this week, Place Val-ue! The field trip to see the performance of “The Elves and the Shoemak-er” was very enjoyable and our students were all very behaved. Our next IPC unit is ‘Different Places, Different Lives’. To kick start our learning,

YEAR ONE , MS. KATRINA’S CLASS

each class chose a cele-bration and transformed their classrooms into that specific holiday. Year one started with, Deepavali, followed by Easter in Re-

ception 2, Thanksgiving by Ms. Ashley’s class, Christmas by the Recep-tion 1 Class and, last but not the least, Chinese New Year hosted by Laoshi. The children learned about some of the history behind the celebrations, the food

week. His name is Elliot and

we are very happy to have

him in Reception 2.

Welcome Elliot!

decorations and crafts that people use and where in the world these holidays are celebrated.

We also welcomed a new student, Ashwin, to our class. Welcome Ashwin, we look forward to having you in our class!

Page 3

RECEPTION TWO , MS. KARINA’S CLASS

RECEPTION ONE , MS. GETTY ’S CLASS

Show was amusing and en-chanting. The musical and artistic performance by the talented artists taught us one thing: we all have a little “magic” in our lives. Following the field trip to the Drama Center each class transformed their classroom into a different selected cele-bration for the Entry Point

The past two weeks have simp-ly flown by because we have been so busy with many ex-citing activities. The end of the theme “My World” has brought us all into the memo-rable story about our child-hoods. The children also learnt more about themselves in rela-tion with their homes, their school and family. They made very special books called “I am special” which feature all the special things about them. The children were very enthusiastic about where they live and keenly asked about how to write their address. Now they know their home telephone numbers and the names of neighbourhoods in which they live. Watching “The Elves and The Shoemaker” at the Drama Centre was a special bonus at the end of last week. The

unit, ‘Celebrations’. The chil-dren were so excited to expe-rience Deepavali in Ms. Katri-na’s class, Easter in our own class, Thanksgiving in Ms. Ashley’s class and Christmas in Ms. Getty’s class. They did a lot of hands-on activities in each celebration and went home with goodie bags for the work well done and, of course, a treat from the teachers. In Maths, the children in the younger group learnt about tall-short when they compare each other’s height while playing “jumble the line” game during Maths. The old-er group learnt about the tens and ones and successful-ly created the family of tens and the family of ones using Unifix cubes. In Literacy, the children in the younger group enjoyed doing tongue twisters and created

their own twister using the words with graphemes /oy/, /oi/. The children in the older group delved into the world of reading compre-hension while sharpening their basic punctuation skills. It’s been a fruitful two weeks and we are im-pressed with our students hard work!

time making their coasters with different colored tiles and buttons, and creating their own designs. We welcomed our new unit “Celebrations” with an explosion of different festivities from a variety of cultures and countries. The school had Easter, Thanksgiving, Deepavali

As we ended the week of the IPC Theme “My World” we reinforced the information we have learned regarding the heart by completing a worksheet and labeling the basic parts of human heart. We also tested our coordination and stamina during physical exercises once again to compare with our previous results to see if we improved at all. We had Fun Mosaic visit the Academy to mark the end of our unit, and the kids had a fabulous

and Christmas. We went to each classroom learn-ing about the history of each celebration and par-ticipated in fun activities. We also went to a fantas-tic modern revision of “The Elves and the Shoe-maker”. The whole thea-tre was filled with laugh-ter and amazement as the classic story came alive in front of us. The kids are excelling in Literacy as they master “qu”, “sh”, “ck” for the beginners, and “ay”, “oo”, “ee” and “igh” for the in-

termediate ones. And in Maths they learned the different ways in solving addition problems, both the long and short meth-od. We also welcomed a new student to our class, Wyatt! Welcome Wyatt!

Every child deserves the right to be taught in the way he or she learns best!