GRADE 3, 4, 5 EXCURSION TO VILA BOTANI.

Recount 

We were very, very tired when we were on the bus. It took us about 1 hour to arrive at Vila Botani!! 
Pak Jay showed us where to put our bags. He showed us some cool trees and told us some cities in Java were named after trees. “Citeureup” city is named after the “teureup” tree. Pak Asep showed us plants that can be used for medical reasons. We then went to the beautiful organic garden. Avi and Jordi had the super duper chilli challenge. Avi had a good time eating that chilli. Jordi wasn’t so well but made a fantastic recovery. We then saw some balloon plants and cool carrots! They pop like a balloon! We finally went to the smell cool compost place. When we got there we fed the goats. The girls name was “Snowy” and the cool boys name was “Bacca.” For snack we ate singkong and drank “teh jahe”. 
We played a cool game called Mexican hide out and I was “it.” After that we went to the waterfall which took us 1 hour to get to walking. When we got there our eyes were amazed. Nearly everyone took a dip. 
The waterfall was epic. We had a long walk back up to the top. Robin found a real snake skin. We met the bus half way along the track, got on and went back to school.

Persuasive writing 

You should go to Vila Botani because there are a lot of fun things to do. You will find many natural things like waterfalls, snake skins, medical plants and DOGS! The ride to Villa Botani is bumpy and fun. There are really interesting facts about how plants can be used as medicine. You boil the leaves or roots and drink the juice or rub the leaf on your skin.  It can be used if you have a headache, bruising, bleeding, broken bones, tooth ache, insomnia, fever, high blood pressure and even heart problems.
There is a waterfall there. It is cool and freezing and there is a risk you have to take because there are lots of stones but it is worth it for a Naturalist Learner. Also there are loads of animals there like eagles, monkeys, mountain tigers and loads of other animals. You can have a really good experience with nature. The last thing is that you can have a local snack like singkong or drink ginger tea.

Plants used for medicine
We showed a lot of appreciation and curiosity when Pak Asep guided us around the garden where plants were used for traditional medicine. Students researched about these plants back at school and presented them in a table. We were very impressed when Pak Asep (who is 45) said he had never visited the hospital.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4VAJoButfuWbWRzNjROYVNtSE0/view?usp=sharing

Sky scrapers design and technology 
We had a challenge to build our own sky scraper and balance a tennis ball at the top. We first viewed many sky scraper designs from around the world. did you know the tallest building is in Dubai and is nearly 1 km tall?

  

Sky scrapers Maths challenge
Working in groups we needed to construct 4 sky scrapers a total height of 2 meters. No matter how hard we tried the 4th sky scraper seemed to always collapse. This activity taught us the PYP attitudes of commitment and tolerance.

Can you blow out the candles?
The older you get the more candles you have on your cake. Do you always try to blow out the candles all at once? The students have drawn and painted images of a class mate trying to blow out candles that just will not go out but they show commitment to keep trying.

Thoughts about readers
As next week will be book week we had some reflections in relation to reading. Here are some of the students responses to four questions:

How do you learn to read?
*Use books and try to sound out the word and listen if they have heard anyone say the word before.
*First learn to speak and have an adult help you with small books.
*For me (no idea how). I just picked a book and read.

What do good readers do?
*Read books and try to understand the story and write some things that is or are new for them.
*They will be good at having good vocabulary, grammar and spelling.
*Think about what level the book is and if it is too easy they choose harder books but not too hard!

What do pre-readers do?
*Look at the pictures and try to know what the words say.
*Find picture books and look at the pictures.
*They try to read the words and look at the pictures to help. they focus more at the pictures than words.

What challenges do illiterate people have?
*They won't understand any written words in the whole wide world.
*They can't go to Uni because there you have to edit things.
*They will find it difficult to get a job that pays good money.

 Assembly
We were the host for Friday's assembly. It was our responsibility to educate the community about the PYP learner profiles and attitudes for each act. We played the role as presenters, actors, action dancers and singers. It was a busy schedule. There was time after assembly to reflect on our performance by giving 2 stars and a wish. These are some reflections below:

Stars
*I like the part where we all worked as a team. This attitude is called cooperation.
*I really love the assembly and hope it happens again.
*I liked in the choir everyone did it right.
*We made the play funny and people laughed.
*I liked my group was cool and sensible and nice to the whole group.
*I liked how one student tried so hard to sound like a goat.




  Wishes
*I didn't have to do someone's speaking part for them.
*Everyone had the confidence to speak.
*My back was not turned to the audience.
*I wish everyone participated in the drama because it is not fair on the other students.

GRADE 3-4-5

TERM 1 BLOG

Welcome to the school year. I hope you had a nice holiday break with your family.

This is the first blog entry to the new school year.

Captions will be written and photos selected by students and teachers throughout the year.

There will also be samples of students written pieces.

Blog will be updated every 2 to 3 weeks.

Ibu Hasanah and myself will be teaching 12 students in the grade 2/4/5 class this year.

On the first day it was interesting to listen to some of the stories students shared about their adventures over the holiday break. One student went to the BBC and got a strike 2 times. YAAAAY. While another saw a 1.5m lizard which bit them. My highlight was my golf approach shots being applauded by the gallery of kangaroos.

We worked together to make some classroom essential agreements. These will be reviewed at the end of each term. In the past this may have  been termed "Class Rules". We made an effort to keep our language positive and include no negatives like, no, don't, not allowed or never.

Grade 3, 4, 5 Essential Agreements

1. Use an inside voice
2. Please pick up abandoned pencils
3. Just close the door after you come inside the classroom
4. Please listen when someone is presenting
5. Tidy up the class when it is messy
6. Try as hard as you can
7. Please respect other people's work, opinions and efforts

After viewing the class schedule you may be aware of some changes to last year.

• Swimming will be every Monday and Thursday morning at VIP pool with Grade 6-9 class. Mr. Sigit, Mr. Tallis and myself will be teaching the students. Swimming will be only held in Term 1 and 4.
• Students will need to wear their swimming clothes underneath their school uniform. Please make sure everyone brings a towel, goggles and sandals or flop flops.
• P.E. will be once a week on Wednesday morning for Term 1 and 4. In Term 2 and 3 it will replace the swimming time and be three times a week. Students will need to wear their P.E. uniform on these days.
• 20 minutes before lunch will be times for goal setting, reflection and independent IT work using "Studdyladder.com.au", with a specific focus on mathematical concepts.
• Co-curriculum will now be called Personal project. Today browsed through a list of possible choices. This will start Week 2. These may include art, design, media, drama, music, IT and sports based projects.

Homework will start next week and be every Monday to Thursday. Students should be aiming to read their personal novel independently at least 30 minutes each night. Written 20 to 30 minutes tasks will relate to work covered relating to the current UOI with a language or Maths focus.

Our first unit for 7 weeks will provide students an opportunity to explore our own and others learning

styles.

Transdisciplinary theme – Who we are Central Idea: Exploring different learning styles helps individuals understand each other better.  Lines of inquiry:  Different ways of learning  How people learn best            Exploring learning communities  Transdisciplinary Skill Sets - research  Key Concepts - form, function, reflection  Key learner profiles – knowledgeable, thinkers, communicators  Key attitudes – appreciate, confidence, respect

On Friday morning Mr. Scott told us to go to the field and he sometimes says if you are wearing.....run!
The purpose is for being fit and awake because sometimes when you arrive at class you're sleepy.
We felt like we were doing a victory run (but personally I felt like I was doing wind sprints and I hate wind sprints) after winning a marathon!

In the morning we sit in the circle and sometimes Mr. Scott told us to say something about the weekend. We enjoy sharing stories. What I recall from those pictures  I think we were writing something about about learning styles (you can look at them at our classroom) and I like having nice classmates as well!

Open house

Mr. Scott was telling about the activity in the classroom to the parents.

We were demonstrating a fun game related to reaction time!

After that we played "Studyladder" with my account and I got 180 bonus points! 

Mr. Scott gave us the questions to answer and in the picture we were looking to see if we have the same answers.

Design and technology

Our design and technology challenge was to build a krupuk stand to play the original Indonesian game on Independence day. We would eventually use this to demonstrate the learning style of a kinesthetic learner at assembly.You have to try to eat the krupuk without using your hands.

If the krupuk falls to the ground it means you're out. The winner is the one who finishes the krupuk first. Everybody enjoyed this activity. 

Concentric circle art

In art we worked together to construct concentric circles. Twice a week this term the grade 3-5's will be involved in learning and teaching playground games to their peers. For the first week they focused on circle games. There was lots of fun to be had and some challenges taking on the role as a teacher.

Hosting assembly

In week 2 it was our turn to host the school assembly. We each have a role to play as presenter and we usually have some items to present. We demonstrated the three learning styles VAK. (Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic learners)
We painted the Indonesian staff with a different career path they may choose and matched this with their learning style. e.g.  A fire fighter,actress or athlete for kinesthetic, zoo keeper or farmer for naturalist, poet for linguist and musical for a music teacher 

We were introducing the Indonesian teachers to the new ISB families using pictures.
Some of the people laughed because of the funny drawings.

Reading

In the classroom we were reading each others journals.
Mr. Scott announced who had the scratch & sniff stickers!

I was reading my journal book with my friend.
We had to check whether any mistakes and to see how interesting the stories.
We were sharing our stories in journal book.

Mr. Scott was explaining that we had to write a journal. After that some of us get scratch and sniff stickers. This was to show if students can be motivated to learn by an external (reward) factor. Six stickers were given, two for the neatest and four for the most interesting story.

Independence Day

On Independence Day we had many games to do. Everybody got turn to do games.
My favourite game was Balap Karung (sack race). At the end we also had tug of war between teachers and students. The teachers won the game. The students tried hard to pull the rope but they loose. I like Independence Day because it has so many games. 

The Last Blogs of Term 4

Reading with Middle school:

We selected a student from the middle school and wrote them a story. We then surprised them by reading aloud their personal story.

Middle School Exhibition:

We had an important role to provide feedback to the middle school as they presented their displays for the exhibition. They were happy with the advice and made changes accordingly.

"Grooving to the 70's night" and ISB 40th Anniversary 2015:

We did something a little different this year for our end of year performance. Instead of having an international focus we had a 70's focus as we were celebrating ISB's 40th anniversary. Lots of cool people to be seen out and about that night. Students from our class played a major part in the choir, gamelan and Copacabana dance. Thanks to Pak Vicky and Pak Gatot for teaching the students and make it a memorable night.

The last assembly held by grade 3 - 5:
We had the role of presenting the final school assembly for the year. We worked hard on the script for introducing and ending the acts, highlighting a learner profile or attitude. It was great to hear the sounds of the gamelan to introduce the assembly. The Booyah dance got us shaking. We ended with the audience joining in for the Copacabana song. Well done to Java for being awarded "House Group of the Year.