SCHOOL in the PAST

This week, Grade 1s had a chance to experience how was it in the school in the past. They came to school wearing formal clothes. They formed a straight line outside the classroom. They were standing nicely and quietly. They waited patiently for the teacher to ask them to enter. They greeted the teachers with a bow. They were all quiet and focused on their work. Not even a pin drop could be heard. The Grade 1s were so polite. They used the magic words 'please' and 'thank you' all the time. Nobody went in and out of the classroom without permission. It was a very quiet and peaceful morning. It brings back a lot of school memories.

HALLOWEEN

One of the events that children look forward to is Halloween. Why? It is because during that time, they can dress up as creatively as they could, they can get treats and they can trick their friends. This year, Grade 1s dressed up in various costumes and got useful stationeries and cute toys as treats. They did not get sweets as we are promoting bening Balanced when it come sto food choices. Surprisingly, they enjoyed this year's little treats.

PAST and PRESENT

Grade 1s have started exploring the unit on Where we are in place and time. This unit, we will look into the central idea: Children in the past lived differently from how we live today. To TUNE them IN to the new unit, we looked into what and how much is their understanding about PAST. They defined PAST as 'a long long time ago', 'time before NOW', 'had happened' and others. They also made a clear distinction between CHILDREN in the PAST and CHILDREN NOW, them being part of the CHILDREN NOW and the adults such as teachers and parents as the CHILDREN in the PAST. They also looked and sorted out pictures into two categories: THEN and NOW or PAST and PRESENT. After the break, we will start FINDING OUT information to help us understand life in the PAST. Happy Autumn Break to all!!!

TAKING ACTION

As Grade 1s officially completed the exploration of the first unit, How we organise ourselves, they left suggestions for them and their fellow DSKI students on how to avoid FOOD WASTE from happening in the school. They looked at the reasons why students do not finish their lunch from the data they collected from the survey. They also looked at their own personal reasons why they do not finish their food as well. These are the ones they came up with.

To show their sincerity to take part in solving FOOD WASTE in the school, Grade 1s have shown more consistency and willingness to finish their lunch everyday. The following statements also came up from their UNIT reflection: " I will make good choices when it comes to food." - An " I will not waste food." - Tamaki " I will eat more natural foods because I want to be healthy." - Yorinobu

Taking Responsibility

As Grade 1s end the unit, we went further by looking at the reason why the unit is significant and how we can apply our learning in action. We looked at the problem of FOOD WASTE that is happening at school. The Grade 1s did a survey by asking homeroom teachers to note down how many students in their class do not finish lunch and the reasons why they do so. The survey result showed that a total of 25 students did not finish their lunch. Looking at this data, the number seems small, so we tried to see the bigger picture by checking if this is consistently happening everyday, then that would be 125 lunches a week, 500 lunches a month and 6,000 lunches a year. Then they worked in groups to share possible small steps that DSKI students can take to lessen or totally prevent food waste at school.