Primary eNews – May 27, 2022

Summer/School Break Reading Lists
The Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, has released its Summer/School Break Reading Lists for 2022. The lists are divided into age/grade ranges, up to Grade 8. You can view the lists here. 

BIS “People’s Perpustakaan” free mini lending library featured in local media
BIS’s wonderful marketing department has worked to promote our “Services As Action” project to some local media outlets. Check out their 2 articles here and here! Hopefully more to come….

Preschool Science Fair

Our last Unit of Inquiry for this semester is about How the world works with the Central Idea People learn about how the world works through observation and inquiry. During this unit, preschool students were exposed to many different types of experiments and they also learned how to conduct an experiment and record their observations in their Lab Journal. They prepared the experiment that they wanted to show to their parents. Here are some photos showing the preparation, the process, and the celebration of our learning as a scientist.

Making groups based on our interests! 

We are so happy to be in a group with our friends that has the same interest in how things work so that we can move on to the next step which is the Experiment! Scientist always starts their experiments with questions, and so did we! We made a question, did some predictions and the most important thing is we did the experiment! We always remember to record the process of our experiment and our observation so that we can remember and people can learn from our Lab Journal.

Observation and Inquiry

These are the pictures of us doing the experiment, we observed what happened and record our investigation.

Sharing our Knowledge

Here are some pictures of us doing performances and showing our learning in front of our parents to celebrate our learning.

Grade 3’s Adventures Outside the Classroom!
On Tuesday the 17th of May, the Grade 3 students didn’t go home at hometime… instead, we stayed on campus until after dark to enjoy the Grade 3’s Evening with the Stars. A G3 tradition since 2014, it was exciting to have the opportunity to enjoy this again, after a slight pause due to COVID last year. We all enjoyed a relaxing movie session in the MPR, followed by a scrummy pizza dinner. Highlights of the evening included stargazing using our devices, an after-dark tour of the school and performing our fave planets song to our Mums and Dads at pick up. Unfortunately, the cheeky moon only decided to show its face right as the last student headed home. It’s ok though, we still managed to see the lovely orange moon and we had an awesome time.

The Adventure Continues…
In relation to our final unit of the year, we had a fantastic day trip on Wednesday the 18th of May to the Kevala Factory and Kevala Studio Ceramic. Under the transdisciplinary theme of How we express ourselves, we had a tour of the ceramics factory, with a close look at the creative process and the numerous steps involved in making plates, bowls, mugs, and decorative tableware. 

The second part of our journey involved getting our hands mucky with clay! It was so satisfying to have a go at ‘throwing clay’ on the pottery wheel. We made our own little pots as well as painted a ceramic piece of our choice. We can’t wait to get our pieces back when they have finished the glazing and firing process. 

We made thank-you cards for our wonderful parent transport crew, as well as cards for Ibu Wendy, Pak Yugie, Pak Surya, and Ibu Erica who guided us so professionally throughout the day.

What an incredible 2 days of adventures we had! Best Days EVER! Here is a video of some of our Kevala trip. Enjoy!

Grade 5 Explore How The World Works
Under the transdisciplinary theme of How the World Works, Grade 5 students have been exploring How humans use their understanding of scientific principles, focusing on using systematic inquiry to explore force and motion. 

As we tuned in to this unit, students completed an exercise to identify their prior knowledge and identify any misconceptions. They also considered what they were curious about. 

They were given several images and had to categorize them, justifying their choices with a short oral presentation.

Some of their wonderings included:

• I wonder what would happen if there was no gravity
• What happens if there are no forces?
• Who discovered forces?
• Why is it different when you fall in water and air?
• How does buoyancy work?
• What causes friction?

These fantastic wondering guided our unit, allowing students to choose areas of interest to share with their classmates. Students created presentations with a hand-drawn poster to share their understanding of a variety of topics listed below. This project supported students in building their understanding of scientific concepts while also building their viewing and presentation skills. 

Students completed a variety of experiments that allowed them to build their scientific skills including:

• Observe carefully in order to gather data.
• Use a variety of instruments and tools to measure data accurately
• Use scientific vocabulary to explain their observations and experiences
• Plan and carry out systematic investigations, manipulating variables as necessary
• Make and test predictions
• Interpret and evaluate data gathered in order to draw conclusions

Their final task was to apply their knowledge of forces and the scientific method by creating a system to support an egg being dropped from a height. Students worked in pairs with a limited budget to plan, design, and test a system that would be dropped from a height. 

Here are some of the systems made by our budding scientists.