Primary eNews – December 6, 2019

Whole School Assembly

Parents are invited to join us for our end of semester whole school assembly which will take place on the covered court from 11:00 am next Friday 13th December. The programme will include our Grade 2 students leading the primary school in performing ‘Epo I Tai Tai E’; Our Grade 3 students playing recorder to lead the school in singing ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’ and the entire Primary School leading the school in singing ‘Rudolf The Red-Nosed Reindeer’. During the assembly there will also be performances by secondary students, farewell to leaving students. This is a great opportunity for our whole school community to come together to celebrate the end of a successful semester at Bali Island School. 

Dismissal on Friday 13th December

All students will be dismissed at 12:00 pm next Friday 13th December. 

Primary Communication –  Class Blogs & SeeSaw Announcements

Primary Teachers will use SeeSaw Announcements instead of the current blogger format when we return to school in January. We have made this decision because a number of blogs are not functioning properly and the readership for many of the blogs is very low. We hope that by moving to SeeSaw Announcements, teachers will be able to more effectively communicate to parents about recent and upcoming events that are relevant to their class using the SeeSaw app so that parents can get their information from one place (ie SeeSaw for eLearning Journal plus class announcements).

A reminder that upcoming events from the School Events calendar can be accessed via school website > Quick Links and can be added to your own Google Calendars. The Student Parent Handbook as is available to all parents via school website > Quick Links. PTA Updates are published on the PTA eNews and also via Class Parent Rep WhatsApp groups. This Primary eNews will be published every second Friday.

Please email primaryprincipal@baliis.net with any feedback that you would like to share about our Primary School communications. We are also looking at whole school solutions for our eNews newsletters, so all feedback would be appreciated. 

BIS LIBRARY – FIGHT FAKE NEWS

Check out the library resources website FIGHT FAKE NEWS page https://sites.google.com/baliis.net/libraryresources/fight-fake-news  which links to 7 websites where you can find credible evaluations of news stories, social media hoaxes, disinformation and the like as well as detailed analysis and determinations about the credibility and trustworthiness of hundreds of media sources from all over the world. you can look at the day’s main stories on the homepages or search for specific stories/keywords on each of the sites. used together, these 7 sites will be able to inform you as to the truthfulness and dependence of any information sources you may come across in your research. see Mr. Marshall for more info.

What’s Been Happening in the Primary School Recently

Below is a summary of some of the fantastic learning that has been taking place across the school in recent weeks. Teachers post many of these things on their class blogs but by sharing them on the eNews it gives families a chance to see what is happening in other grade levels.

End of Unit Celebrations of Learning Feedback

Thank you to all of the parents who joined us for November’s initial End of Unit Celebrations of Learning. I appreciate the feedback already received, especially the events running at the same time in all classes making it difficult for parents to be in two places at once. Moving forward, the End of Unit Celebrations of Learning will be scheduled individually by class teachers and will not run at the same time. Please email primaryprincipal@baliis.net with any feedback that you would like to share so that we can take it on board as we plan for future celebrations. 

Language A Indonesian

As part of our  ‘How We Express Ourselves’ unit, students in Language A Indonesian have been inquiring into the different ceremonies from cultures around the world.

Students began this unit with a brainstorming activity. Vocabulary terms that will be used throughout the unit are posted inside a thought bubble and students are asked to post what they think the term means, or post other terms they associate with the word. Later, the class looks at what was collected and builds a definition of the term.

As they inquired into how and why we express our culture, students brought different artifacts from home that they used in their ceremonies. They shared these with the class and explained how they were used, why they were important and what meanings were behind them. They also learned how to make some decorations and offerings needed in Balinese ceremonies. Students became inquirers and showed curiosity as they asked questions to find out more about their own and others’ cultures.

They also read books about ceremonies and celebrations in different cultures and classified the information into what, when, where, who, why and how. They wrote about a ceremony or celebration that they celebrate and used a graphic organizer to help them organize the information they found from books, online research or interviews. 

Kristina Hutapea

PYP Language A Indonesian and Indonesian Studies