Dear families,
Today marks the beginning of a week of school holiday at ABIS. We hope you all enjoy the extra time with your children at home or on vacation, wherever you might spend it!
Despite it being a short week, we managed to pack quite a lot in! We talked about the 6th key to happiness, the importance of having goals to work towards. We read a lovely book called Mae Among the Stars about a little girl who dreams of seeing the earth from space. Encouraged by her parents to believe in herself and work hard, she does indeed become an astronaut when she grows up! The children then shared one of their own goals. These ranged from learning to ride a bike without stabilisers, to becoming a skydiver and many more inbetween. You may have seen from the pictures the children brought home that after being inspired by Mae in the story, we may have quite a few future astronauts in our class!
In relation to our unit of inquiry, we talked about how one important use for water is to put fires out. We read books about fire-fighters and fire-engines and watched video clips showing how they use hoses to spray water onto fires to extinguish them. Naturally we took this opportunity to talk about fire-safety and how if they ever see a fire, they must immediately move far away and let an adult know. We also thought about how important water is to humans -every day we must drink plenty of water. But the children learned that not all water is drinkable. Although the earth is covered in water in the form of oceans and seas, this water is salty. We conducted a little experiment in which the children used a lollipop stick to sample both regular drinking water and drinking water with salt mixed in (like sea water). They all agreed that salty sea water is not drinkable. Finally, in small groups, the children were taken to interview different adults around the campus to find out how they use water during the school day. In this way they discovered from Mr Sekar that water is used for the goats and chickens (for drinking, cleaning and watering the plants that they live in and eat), water is used by the school nurse for when people need to take medication, for cleaning wounds and for making ice to use when people bump themselves. Water is used by our ECC custodian, Mr Manik, to keep the floors and surfaces clean. Mr Matt and his G6 class explained that they themselves use water for drinking, washing and cooking! You can see photos of the children interviewing some of these adults in the pictures below.
We wish you a wonderful week and look forward to seeing the children again on Sunday, 9th March. Kind regards,
Kristina, Rahma and Buthaina
