SEK-Qatar Grade 1

The wonderful Grade 1 at SEK International School Qatar

Cafe Ceramique

Our final field trip this year was a lovely way to end our unit, ‘Signs and Symbols’. During our Celebration of Learning, the students designed their ceramic tile using different signs and symbols that represented themselves. They brought these sketches to the field trip as a reference and drew and painted their designs on ceramic square tiles. We ended the trip with games and dancing before return to school. Here are some fantastic photos of the fabulous day!

 

 

 

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Signs and Symbols: Our Celebration of Learning

Our fifth Unit of Inquiry looked at how different signs and symbols communicate a message.  This touched upon the origins and evolution of the first symbols used in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China via pictograms, cuneiform, hieroglyphics and Chinese characters. The students also learned about sign language and the symbols and symbolism that exist universally and in different cultures. This central idea integrated with Music, Maths, Literacy, Arabic, and Spanish courses this term, which provided a perfect opportunity for the students showcase their knowledge in their Celebration of Learning.

For the celebration, the students sang songs in Arabic about punctuation and the season of the year. A musical instrumental arrangement followed in small groups. In Spanish, the students wrote and shared a poem and played a charades game about their emotions.

Meaningful images were designed and painted to create a family crests by each child, which was revealed and explained orally and in their ‘Artist’s Statement’ to their parents. Finally, a geometry and addition activity and author’s reading featuring the student’s first published work completed the celebration.

A special thank you to all of the parents, siblings, and nannies who attended last week.

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Cafe Ceramique 2018!

The students visited Café Ceramique in ‘The Mall’ as our fifth unit of inquiry was signs and symbols. During this unit, the students looked at the key concepts of Form and Function. This field trip enabled the students to consolidate these concepts. We analysed universal symbols such as letters in different languages, Chinese symbols and sign language. We also inquired into symbolism that is represented through colour, animals and objects that can be found in nature.

During this field trip the students had the opportunity to design and paint their own ceramic tiles using signs and symbols that represented themselves. They thoroughly enjoyed using the variety of colours. They also enjoyed dancing in the break.

The tiles need to be put into a special oven that will create a nice effect on the tiles. They should be delivered to the school in a couple of weeks! We look forward to how they turn out.

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Save the Animals! Hashtags, campagne posters, and a new school initiative

As a final project in the unit, ‘Save the Animals’, the students chose an endangered species of their choice to research. The next task was to become experts on their species in preparation for a radio show interview, which was recorded individually.

The students were also introduced to the use of the #hashtag as a means to spread information and start movements. Using iPads, we looked at different examples of hashtags being used to help the plight of other endangered species.  Next, the students created collage posters of their endangered animal and their own hashtag.

As a way to reduce plastic at school, the students started an initiative – BYOUC – Bring Your Own Utensils and/or Containers –an alternative to using disposable utensils and plastic containers provided by the school canteen.

This proved to be an impactful, action oriented unit.

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Book Week 2018

The past week has been Book Week in school and I am sure you have heard all about the fun activities the students took part in.

We started the week by creating our graph to record all of our reading. We set a goal and made sure that everybody wanted to take part!

Each day at least one mystery reader spoke with us and even read in different languages. We absolutely loved the surprise that each one gave us.

As part of our library session, we created book marks with Ms. Annick.

On Thursday was the parade where we all dressed up as our favourite characters from books. We carried our book with us and shared them in class.

Have a look at the gallery of photographs below!

 

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Virtual Skype Field Trip to the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee!

For our fourth Unit of Inquiry, ‘Save the Animals’, the Grade 1 classes took a Microsoft Virtual Class trip to the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, USA as part of our study on endangered species.

We looked at the following Key Concepts to guide our inquiry:

        Causation: Why are the elephant species threatened and endangered?
        Reflection: How do we know the elephants are at-risk?
        Responsibility: What can we do to help the plight of the elephants?

Due to the time-zone difference, Todd Montgomery stayed up very late to speak with us.

Todd provided the students with information about:

  • The life histories of the elephants living at The Sanctuary
  • Daily life at The Sanctuary for elephants
  • The role that humans play in providing care for them
  • The difference between elephant species
  • The role of elephants as Keystone species in their native habitats

This was a great opportunity for the Grade 1 classes to integrate technology and visual arts into their learning.

For that week, the students perused through the Elephant Sanctuary website and YouTube channel via iPads and connected with the Sanctuary elephants via live ELECAM.

Finally, with the help from Ms. Maire, we created a mural of the our favourite elephants at the Sanctuary; this included trees and feed for the elephants!

Thank you once again to Todd and the Elephant Sanctuary for spending the time to teach us about the important work that you do!

For more information please visit:
https://elephants.com/
https://www.youtube.com/user/elephantsanctuarytn

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Public Spaces

This unit allowed the students to use their imagination and creativity to design and build their own public space to help improve and build a sense of community in Qatar. We began this unit by sorting out and looking at the form and function between public and private spaces. This lead to a discussion about the differences between spaces locally and globally. The summative assessment involve a task that connected to the idea of citizenship and community development. How can we improve the spaces in Doha? How could these spaces improve our community(ies). The students created a candy land that offered candy workshops and candy to the public for free, a waterpark that provided swimming lessons and restaurants to eat also for free – the list of innovative designs were all equally impressive. The students then had the opportunity to build their designs using Lego and presented their design in a gallery walk. Well done, grade ones!

 

 

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Scavenger Hunt – Souq Waqif 2018

Grade 1 students went to the Souq Waqif and took part in a scavenger hunt. Firstly, the students were split into four groups. All of grade 1 was mixed and had a different team leader. We were taken to the starting point where the rules were explained. The team that won would have to ask questions, speak politely, be tidy and principled.

There were four different clues; to the Pet Souq, Falcon Souq, Arabian Horses and Dhow Boat shop. Each clue was given once one was successfully achieved.

We walked around, interacting with the public, behaving appropriately and seeing amazing sights in the shops. We smelled the herbs and spices. We saw pets for sale and many other delights.

The children had a brilliant day overall and learned a lot about the culture and public space!

 

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Sports Day 2018

On Tuesday, all of the children thoroughly enjoyed their Sports Day! Each and every one of our students tried their best, worked as a team and shared positive and caring comments. Well done to all of the children involved and thank you to our wonderful spectators. We were all absolutely exhausted when the day was finished.

Here you can see the photographs from the class camera.

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Qatar National Library

Wow! Our trip to the Qatar National Library for our Unit of Inquiry, ‘Public Spaces’, was nothing short of amazing. The purpose of this unit is to look at the function of different public spaces, their uses and how we build a sense of community in these spaces. The sleek modern design, innovative ‘Maker Spacers’, assistive technology room, and collection of adult and children’s books makes QNL the most impressive library I have ever visited. We were fortunate enough to have our librarian, Ms. Annick, with us to lead a tour of the space. We also accessed the 4 ‘Maker Spaces’ and the assistive technology rooms. Computers, a green room, western and traditional eastern instruments, a recording studio, a digital photography studio and 3D printers are all available for use for FREE. Please go and get your library card and visit the Qatar National Library! This is definitely a space to bring all members of different communities together.

Please visit the website for more information about the space, upcoming events and workshops.

https://www.qnl.qa/en

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