Monthly Archives: October 2012

Food Fair / Early Dismissal on Friday 2nd / School Holiday Monday 5th November

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Hello everyone – a couple of messages for the 5W community ahead of Food Fair on Sunday 4th and the YIS school holiday on Monday 5th next week.

Food Fair: Next Sunday 4th November is YIS annual Food Fair – to be held in November for the first time. If you’re new to the community, it’s a really fun and huge event at the school that serves as a primary fundraiser. Every year, grade 5 students help out with gomi (rubbish) sorting and collecting. This year, students will be cleaning up tables and sorting garbage. Fun! Students will sign up for a 1-hour shift. Please check to see which hour your child has agreed to help out in. The schedule will look like this: https://docs.google.com/a/yis.ac.jp/document/d/17b7Ewqkm7EWY0zzR6sNqfKgDVguFheWYKTgeHKgovgo/edit
This I Believe: As part of our second unit of inquiry this year on “Who We Are,” we have been exploring beliefs/opinions and habits. There have been some great discussions so far, and we’ll continue over the next couple of weeks. As a culminating project, students will be creating a podcast and writing a short, short essay about their beliefs. As teachers, we are going to try to do the same. We also would love to have your essays if you feel inspired. Take a look at the site. It’s from National Public Radio in the States. We are hoping to publish the student essays to the site–with your guidance. Please take a look at the site: http://thisibelieve.org/, listen to some essays and check out the guidelines here: http://thisibelieve.org/documents/TIB_Brochure.pdf If you are willing to try it out, send me your essay. We would love to share with the students!
Remember, this Friday 2nd November, YIS Elementary section will finish at noon in order to prepare classrooms for food fair set-up. Your child will be dismissed from school at 12:00 – there will be NO lunch service for Elementary students in the canteen.
I would like to remind you that next Monday (November 5th) is a school holiday as well – to help clean up the school after Food Fair.
Warm regards,
Julian Weekes

Thoughts from your field trip to the old people’s home

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Today you went to an old people’s home.  Could you please write a comment below telling us all:

1. an example or two of what the person you spoke to ‘values’ the most – finds (has found) really important in life

2. what advice did you get about what is important for a child of your age (from his or her point of view)?

3. anything else that you found out from the person/people you spoke to that you think is really interesting

So what is a ‘habit?’

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Would you agree that a habit is something you do often without thinking about it much? How would you define a ‘habit?’ What habits can you think of that you have?

Please write a comment on this post and include:

  • how you define a ‘habit’
  • a list of habits that you think you have
  • why you think you have these habits

What is a belief anyway?

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Is it something to do with?

beliefs, myths (true or false) culture, values, wishes/desires/wants, opinions, customs, luck, from ancestors, laws, important to me, right v wrong, likes, independence, helpful, safety, habits (good or bad), religion (anything else?)

Why don’t you leave your idea as a comment below? “I think a belief is …….. because ………”

our initial thoughts