school

SCIENCE

EXPERIENTIAL EDUCATION (EXE)

HISTORY

GEOGRAPHY

SCIENCE

Sometimes, in order to teach your students, you have to be patient and guide the students to learn step by step. Here in R5, we have numerous aspiring scientists. We had fun learning about the different science concepts such as movement in particles and the periodic table, among others. Here we have recreated a series of events that have unfolded during our awesome science lessons. In this skit, we will be showcasing how much we have learnt in science class while enjoying ourselves. (Disclaimer: All of these scenes are exaggerated.)

Crystallisation practical experiment in the science lab. Image provided by Ishanvi.

Potassium practical experiment in the science lab. Image provided by Leonny.

EXPERIENTIAL EDUCATION (EXE)

We were originally going to learn team-based games for our EXE lessons like tchoukball, but because of the current COVID-19 situation, we were forced to adapt and play other socially-distanced sports such as badminton and pickleball. We had tournaments that were very useful in helping us build teamwork skills and better interpersonal bonds. It taught us to have sportsmanship when competing against others. The following is a skit of our EXE warm-ups.

HISTORY

Term 1 Group Project

The class was split into groups of 5 to discuss and create a 3D artefact replica from the past. The given civilisations to choose from were Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece, Ancient China, and Ancient Egypt. However, for this Open Classroom, we will only be featuring the projects from Ancient Rome and Ancient Egypt.

A sculpture of a Roman gladiator paired with a background of the Colosseum interior. The students used clay, paint, paper, and pencil to create this piece.

A recreation of an Egyptian armlet showcases the Ancient Egyptians and their rich history. The group used macaroni to accentuate its details to bring forward the golden piece.

How this project gave us a better understanding of History

We learned about the lives of different people in ancient times, and about the different political, economical, and cultural connections that were established throughout Ancient History.

This project also helped us to demonstrate creativity, teamwork, and responsibility, as we needed to work together to complete our respective tasks on time.

Comic Strip:

This was one of our HBL homework assignments.

The comic strip was about the history of Singapore in the 19th century. We were asked to draw a comic strip of the founding of Singapore in 1819. This helped us to revise and recap the things taught in class while expressing creativity.

Comic strip by Anjana Chidambaram (page 1).

Comic strip by Anjana Chidambaram (page 2).

Comic strip by Sherlyn Chow.

GEOGRAPHY

At the start of the year, we learned about topographical maps and the atlas of the world. We studied the different continents in the world and learnt how to identify them using grid lines called 'northings' and 'eastings'. After thoroughly studying the topic on maps, we had our first graded geography assessment, which was a 45-minute test.

During home-based learning, we started on the chapter of rivers. In this chapter, we learned about erosion processes, transport processes and landform formation. This was a difficult topic for us to grasp as it was taught through online classes. We did not have as much of a chance to clarify doubts we had because it was not the learning environment we were used to. However, we had a chance to display our understanding of the topic through creating a picture book targeted at young children explaining the river and hydrological systems in a simple way.

An excerpt of Hang Jia Wei (left) and Julianne Mathew's (right) picture books.

In Term 3, we learnt about the importance of water and water shortage. We then studied the causes and prevention of water shortage and how it occurs. After finishing up the syllabus on water, we had a project on water management. This project required us to analyse the water bills of 2 different families and understand how and why water usage differed. This helped us to understand the topic better.

In a nutshell, our Year 1 Geography learning journey was a thoroughly enjoyable and enriching experience. We discovered ourselves through not only written sit-down tests, but also through exploring different assessment types such as projects.

ELCT

English Language Critical Thinking, or ELCT, teaches us about youth issues in our society. Some youth issues we covered in class are relationships, self-esteem, technology and beauty.

In Term 3, we were given the opportunity to exhibit our artistic talents in our CR, which is also known as the Creative Representation project. The aim of the project was to raise awareness about various youth issues like self-esteem, relationships and mental health disorders. We were tasked with creating a work of art about our Term 1 oral presentations and showing the effects and different perspectives of that particular issue. Shown below are a few samples of the original works created by R5 for this project along with a short explanation/reflection by the artists.

Visual Arts: “Mental Health” by Sheryln Chow

I wrote a comic strip about mental health, touching on topics like self-image, self-esteem and self-worth. The diaries offer two different perspectives of negative mental health, and how it affects different people.

Theatre: “Azure Mask” by Brandon Chew

My story is about a boy that gets bullied at school and wears a mask over his head. He finds happiness online and is extremely unhappy in real life. However, the boy gets bullied online as well and ends up attempting self-harm. Another person with good self-esteem finds him and encourages him to stop self-harming and find healthier coping mechanisms.

Dance: Heelori Rawat

This dance is about the youth issue of self-esteem, which we learned about in ELCT. It is inspired by people who don't have a lot of confidence in themselves. My dance depicts people who, despite being insecure about themselves, are gradually gaining confidence.

Music: An excerpt of "Who You Are (Beauty Contest)" by Sue-Ann Ho

My song "Who You Are (Beauty Contest)" is based on self-esteem. This song is for all the youths nowadays who want to look like Instagram models and struggle with accepting themselves for who they are and how they look like. My song describes a young girl who is extremely insecure, but eventually learned to come to terms with herself. Below is an excerpt of the song.

Literary Arts: “Make A Wish” by Nyein Su Thar

I wrote this poem because the theme of my CR was self-esteem. In today's youths, body image is a weighty issue that often affects self-esteem. I decided to write a poem about someone resorting to unhealthy coping mechanisms (bulimia, as depicted in the poem) to make themselves feel better about themselves. That is why the shape of the poem is a girl vomiting into a toilet.

LITERATURE

At the start of the year, we learnt about prose pieces such as "Cave Of The Cyclops". We also learnt about a play called "Sisters" and how to annotate and read stage directions. In class, we even acted out some of the scenes. In addition, we learned about the tales of "How Coyote Stole Fire" and "Prometheus" and wrote an essay about how the titular characters are portrayed as heroic. Throughout the May holidays, we had to read a book and do a Creative Book Response. We were given the choices of making a miniature set, writing a letter, a poem, a book cover, a comic strip or an original piece of music. During the poetry module, we learnt many different poems and the literary devices used. We learnt poems like "The Trouble With Snowmen" which utilised the literary devices of irony and metaphor to portray the grief one feels at the loss of a loved one. There were also lighthearted poems like "Fossils". It utilised different kinds of imagery like visual and auditory images to show how creatures and fossils in museums came alive to have fun at night. The Poetry module taught us to appreciate poetry through less conventional assessments like Poetry Pairing where we searched for images which complemented the meanings behind the poems. This assessment allowed us to break free from the stereotype that poetry was a difficult, intimidating form and allowed us to expand our creative limits.

What is Literature? mindmaps

Mindmap of Cave Of Cyclops, Sisters and Prometheus

Nyein Su Thar's Creative Book Response to "The Fault In Our Stars" by John Green.

MOTHER TONGUE

MATH

The images for Pi Day (14 March) are shown above. (Note: photo is taken before Covid-19)

These pictures are from the Pi Day event during math class. On that day, we found different ways to represent and understand pi, such as through skits, song parodies, visual art pieces or words. Afterwards, our creations were presented to the rest of the class.

Our classmates performed skits with the theme of Rice and sang "Pi is 3.14", better known as a parody of "Love is an Open Door". We enjoyed math class that day as we learnt about the significance of pi in our daily lives.

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