Good afternoon,
This week as part of social and emotional learning, we began exploring the ‘keys to happiness’ as outlined by the Action for Happiness organization (you can find the link to their website here). Their mission is to ‘create a happier and kinder world’ by teaching simple ways to improve our own happiness.They suggest ten ‘keys’ to happiness that we can easily act on. The first key to happiness they suggest is ‘Giving—doing kind things for others.’ We discussed how acts of kindness not only make others feel good but also improve our own happiness. We talked about simple kindnesses such as offering help when needed, holding a door open for someone, making and giving a handmade gift, saying thank you, or even simply smiling at someone. We challenged the children to smile at as many people as possible, both at home and at school, throughout the day and the children talked about ways in which they have done something kind for someone else in the past. Next week, we will explore the second key to happiness: ‘Relating—connecting with people.’
We also continued this week to explore how important it is for us to work and play together in a caring and supportive way in class. To this end, we all had great fun playing collaborative parachute games, which required everyone to do their part by holding onto the chute tightly and working together to lift and ‘wave’ at the same time. With this activity, if someone lets go of the parachute, the game won’t work properly. As you can imagine, this was a very popular class activity! You can see some pictures of the fun below.
In mathematics we have been exploring measurement by comparing and describing attributes of real objects using the language; big, bigger, tall, taller, short, shorter, long and longer and ‘the same as’. The children had fun hunting around the room for an item smaller than their little finger or for something taller than them, for example. They were also asked to use foam blocks to build a tower as tall as their friend before swapping.
We are proud of KG1s collective progress! Today you will receive your child’s school report. Don’t forget to open it on Managebac to learn about your child’s progress and what their next steps might be in different areas of the curriculum.
We wish you all a lovely weekend. Warm regards,
Kristina, Buthaina and Rahma
