Mini Science Fair

Hi everyone
firstly a big thank you to the parents who came to visit the students presentations yesterday. During reflection time several students commented that they felt really pleased and proud that the parents came to see their work. Thanks.
We had a great turn out of other elementary classes and also some teachers and secondary students visited.
I have placed some photos of the day for you to see.
I would also like to wish all the students, Parents and families all the very best for the holiday season and if you are traveling a safe and stress free time. I look forward to seeing you all in January.
Mike

The Great Egg Drop Challenge

Hi everyone
Last week was the egg drop challenge and after studying Newtons laws the students were set the task within strict guidelines to design a box (with again limited supplies) to protect their egg after falling from the 1st floor landing. Needless to say some had a very HARD landing.
This experiment was to practice writing and presenting the whole scientific method before starting our summative. The students are now busy doing science for real. They are carrying out their own scientific experiment of their choice and will put on a mini science fair on Wednesday the 12th of December starting at 1:30. So if you are able to come and share in our science time it would be great to see you.
Mike

Becoming familiar with Newton

Hi everyone
In the last few days we have done some study and experiments looking at Newtons Laws of Motion. This will help us as we head toward the Egg Drop Challenge and then next week onto the students own experiments for the summative assignment.
We have had some fun and on Friday the students performed some improptu drama's demonstrating the laws.
Here are a few for you to look at.
Mike

Eugene, Hong Suk and Dong Hee

SDC10700 from mike stanley on Vimeo.

Dana, Erin and Yerine

SDC10698 from mike stanley on Vimeo.

Tivan, Michael and Kane

SDC10696 from mike stanley on Vimeo.

Ashley, Gina and Brendan

SDC10694 from mike stanley on Vimeo.

Science at last

Hi everyone
The students are very excited that we have started our Inquiry unit about the Scientific Method. As part of this we are undertaking a lot of practical hand on experiments, practicing each step of the process to become really familiar with it.
This week has been about experimenting with water rockets. The students built some understanding around pressure and the properties of air and water.
The fun part of course was building and testing of the rockets. Some students wanted to find out if putting different amounts of water in the rocket would effect how high it would fly and others concentrated on whether more air pressure was better.
Mixed results were obtained and the students were given the opportunity to modify and try again.

Here are some of our photos;

Grade 5 television advertisements

We have finished our advertising unit of inquiry and as promised here they are for you to see.

The first one is produced by Ashley, Eugene and Gina

Our Ping Pong Advertisment from mike stanley on Vimeo.

Hong Suk, Dong Hee and Erica produced an advert about animal cruelty

HDE dog movie from mike stanley on Vimeo.

Billy, Hidemasa, Dana and Tatiana star in a funny movie about exercising your pets.

PN H,D,B,T from mike stanley on Vimeo.

Kane and Michael try to convince you to get better outside toys and equipment in the school yard.

MK toys movie from mike stanley on Vimeo.

Rikumu, Souta and Brendan want better tasting juice in the cafeteria.

BSR lemonade from mike stanley on Vimeo.

Our media campaigns

We have come to the end of our unit of inquiry and the students are busy working in groups producing their media campaigns.
For the 'How we express ourselves'unit the summative assessment is to produce a print advertisement (poster or brochure), a radio advertisement and a television advertisement.
Tomorrow is the due date and I am looking forward to sharing some the the completed products next week.
Here is Billy, Hong Suk and Ashley working on their products.

Oral language

Hi everyone
As part of the oral language program in Grade 5S this year we are using Vocaroo to recite our weekly poems. Being an International School we have a large variety of accents within the classroom as well as large numbers of 'English as second language' students.
An important time for us in Grade 5 is the Exhibition in April and to build up the skills we need for this we are using our poems which we present in class on Fridays.
Please listen to some of our early examples.
Fantastic work from Rikumu who arrived only weeks ago with not a single word of English.


Voice Recorder >>
Kane


Online recording software >>
Gina


Voice Recorder >>
Rikumu


Record music and voice >>
Tatiana


Voice Recorder >>
Dong Hee

End of first quarter

Hi everyone
The first quarter is finished and with Teacher interviews this week I look forward to meeting with all the parents to discuss your child's progress. We have been very busy lately with ISA testing, school photos, end of the Immigration unit of inquiry, reports of course, and all the normal daily lessons with math and language. Our present Unit 'How we express ourselves has been going very well and the students have been looking in depth at the world of advertising. We have had some fun analysing different TV ads and disecting them using 5 questions.
1. Who is the message for?
2. Who made the message and why?
3. What is left out of the message?
4. How might others view this message differently?
5. How does the advert get my attention and keep it?

In a couple of weeks we will start the summative assignment for this unit which is a media campaign involving a radio ad, a poster or pamphlet, and a TV ad. We look forward to sharing this with you.
Another couple of things we have introduced are Studyladder and a vocaroo site. Both these have links on the Blog. (look down the right hand side to access our links).
Her is a sample of our vocaroo which we will use with our Poem of the week.


Record music with Vocaroo >>

Highlights of SEW Week

We all had a fantastic time at SEW week and many thanks to MR Raines for his hard work again this year. Time was spent in Chapel each morning and then on a variety of activities including; outside games, talking to missionaries in the field via skype, to having group time to discuss the message and create some representations of our theme 'DO'. This year is about taking action in the world. The afternoons were taken up by teacher run activities and lots of bonding and fellowship time with family groups. Here are just a couple of pictures and movie clips.

SDC10567 from mike stanley on Vimeo.

SDC10545 from mike stanley on Vimeo.

SEW week

Hi everyone well this week is SEW and this kicks off with activities and Chapel tomorrow. We have some exciting things planned and a great speaker this year so it should be great. Mr Raines has been working really hard and a big thanks to him for all the organization he has put in place. Last week we farewelled Jimin who is joining her family in South America. It was a sad time but exciting for her. here are a couple of photos from friday.

Farewell for Jimin

Hello parents
Very sadly we are losing one of our members of Grade 5S this week. Jimin is moving with her family to South America. Although we have only had 6 weeks of the school year we will all miss her very much as she is a very popular and established member of the elementary school.
In order to send her on her way knowing how much we like and admire her we are going to have a farewell in the last block ( 2:15 to 3:00 ) on this Friday the 21st of September.
If possible can you send along with your child some snack food to share (Healthy options would be great).
Also all the parents are most welcome to join us to have some food and fellowship.
I hope to see you on Friday

Mike Stanley

Journal Writing

During this unit we have spent time learning about journal writing. Part of the summative assessment for this unit is to write a journal as an immigrant. Here are some samples from the students draft writing that they have been working on.

On the plane I was feeling very tired and I slept very deeply. When I woke up it was time to eat the airplane food which was chicken soup. It was very delicious. I had only just finished eating and we were in Korea. I couldn't believe it. I was very nervous.
Clara.

When my father said that we were going to Korea my sister and I couldn't believe it because it seemed so unreal.
Hidemasa.

In this new country I will be a doctor and cure my mothers illness and I want to be the person who endeavors which is like my father.
Eugene.

Being an ordinary girl that lives in Seoul was a perfectly normal life until..... now!!!
Ashley

Immigration in Korea

We have spent time this week looking at one of our lines of Inquiry which is 'The impact of immigration on people, communities and immigrants. Robust discussion took place and the students decided to look at areas such as: sport,clothing,religion, housing,businesses,education,ceremonies,food and language. Today we went for a walk downtown Young tong and looked for evidence of immigration influences. We then spent time doing Venn diagrams and sharing our findings.

Immigration slideshows

Here are the slideshows I promised to share. To see the other students please go onto their e-portfolios.









Here are the slideshows I promised to share. To see the other students please go onto their e-portfolios.

Time to share with you

Well it has certainly been a busy time over the last 3 weeks with establishing all our new routines and getting to know and connect with all the new members of Grade 5S. With some of the start of the year assessment behind us, the last week has been a time to start finding out more about immigration which is the topic for our first unit of inquiry.
Our Central Idea is: Throughout history human migration has impacted our world.
we are using 3 lines of inquiry to investigate this and they are,
1. The reasons why people immigrate.
2. The struggles and successes of immigrants.
3. The impact of immigration on people, communities and the immigrants.
Being an international school we all have our own personal stories and experiences of moving and living in different countries. I am looking forward to hearing and reading some of my students stories and will share them with you.
This week we looked at immigration in the USA and took particular care to study this in relation to our lines of inquiry.
I have shared a few of the keynote presentations (sorry I tried to share them but they won't upload. I will have to get some clever person to help me) but if you want to see your child's please go onto their e-portfolio.
p.s. it was great to see so many of you at Open Night on Thursday evening.  Mike

Our Buddy Class

This year we are spending time working with Mrs Mun's Grade1 class. Reading, writing, art and inquiry are some of the areas we will collaborate on and this will benefit not just the Grade1 students but also us in Grade 5.  In writing for example, having to get the Grade 1's to think about improving their writing will help us think critically about what makes a good story and how we can transpose that to our own writing this year.
For the first visit we spent some time getting to know our buddies and then we completed a 'Wanted' poster together. It was a fun way to break the ice.

First week of school

The first week is almost here and we have been busy getting to know each other and working out our routines and expectations. We have 5 students new to GSIS and have loved finding out a little about them but just focusing on building those good relationships within the class. As with the start of every year we have some assessment to do and we will be ticking away at that over the next three weeks.

Our unit for the next six weeks is 'Who we are in place and time' and our focus will be around the issues of migration, impacts and problems immigrants face and cause to the communities they move into. This quarter we will have swimming for PE but that will not start for a couple of weeks. It seems a great  time to swim with all this hot weather.