EY ES NEWS

EYES

HALLOWEEN CELEBRATION

In celebration of All Hallows’ Eve this October, SWA Students are encouraged to wear an appropriate Halloween costume on Monday, October 31st, 2022. There will be an internal Trick-or-Treat in EY ES classrooms. Students will also be visiting the "Haunted House" in the Arts Building and participating in some fun Halloween theme activities.

We will be more than happy to accept the contribution of candies from parents for distribution to the children. If you would like to donate candies, please pass them to our EY/ES Admin Office by Friday, October 28th, 2022.

Don’t forget to remind your children to wear their costumes on Monday, October 31st, 2022 for the Halloween activities at school.

EARLY YEARS

EY UN DAY CELEBRATION
Written by Ms. Klara

The world celebrates United Nations day every 24th of October to honor the interstate organisation promoting human rights, social progress, and world peace. This day also reminds us about acknowledging and accepting cultural diversity wholeheartedly.

The UN Day theme for this year is, “Our Planet. Our Future”. The EY students focused on one sustainable development goal, which is “Responsible Consumption and Production”. Each class represented a continent to promote awareness of the culture and tradition and chose a specific country of those continents, such as:

• Nursery - Japan from Asia

• Pre-K - Germany from Europe

• K1 - Egypt from Africa

• K2A - Brazil from South America

• K2B - Hawaii from North America

Each level was challenged to create a class “3D Recycled Art” inspired by one of the landmarks or any popular symbol or object from the continent they represented. The finished products were displayed in the 3D Recycled Art Exhibit in the Layang-Layang building.

In addition, the K1s and K2s became more aware of the importance of waste management. They started to discard their fruit peelings in the compost bins and are hopeful that they can use the soil for our EY garden.

To commemorate further UN Day, the EY family had its first face-to-face assembly after the pandemic. The program started with the “Parade of Nations” and then a community singing the song “Hello to All the Children of the World”. Then, each level was called to present a dance number and ended the assembly with the song, “It’s a Small World”. Finally, the parents were invited to visit the 3D Recycled Art Exhibit.

INFANT - CHINESE LANGUAGE

Written by Ms. Bi Qin

Infant 幼儿学习的主题是《海里的动物》，宝宝们听音乐，熟悉乌龟、鱼、虾、海豚等动物的中文名称。幼儿触摸不同质地的乌龟，比较乌龟的大小，培养幼儿的观察能力。在摘海洋球活动中，引导幼儿爬过来，伸手摘海洋球，有利于幼儿动作能力的培养。幼儿把海洋球放进有洞的盒子里，培养幼儿模仿和解决问题的能力。

The theme of Infant's study is, "Animals in the Sea". The children listened to music and became familiar with the Chinese names of turtles, fish, shrimps, dolphins, and other animals. Children touched turtles of different textures, compared the size of the turtles, and cultivated children's observation abilities. In the activity of picking marine balls, children were guided to climb over and reach out to pick ocean balls, which is conducive to the development of children's motor skills. Children put marine balls into boxes with holes to cultivate children's ability to imitate and solve problems.

NURSERY - INDONESIAN LANGUAGE

Written by Ms. Mona

Our nursery students have been enjoying their Bahasa Indonesia learning experience throughout their first term here. They always showed excitement to move and dance by following the songs at the beginning of the lesson. Our students learnt vocabulary about parts of the house in Bahasa Indonesia. They expressed their concepts of a house by doing building block activities. Upon their first experience as students, they learnt about school and class activities. Surely they are getting comfortable and confident to learn and play in the school. We can’t wait to see our beloved students’ progress in the future!

PRE-KINDERGARTEN - LITERACY
Written by Ms. Ruby

In Language and Literacy, the Pre-K students showed enjoyment in learning letters and in developing their phonemic awareness, as they were introduced to the sound of the letters ‘i’ and ‘p’, through Jolly Phonics songs and actions. They were exposed and listened to different stories and Nursery rhymes like, “House for Hermit Crab”, by Eric Carle; “The Itsy Bitsy Spider'', by Iza Trapani; and “Mr. Pink Pig Meets Ms. Pig''. The children had fun doing the Pyjama Party. They were very creative in making different art activities to culminate the letters they learnt and the stories they heard. Certainly, with all these activities, learning is forever cherished in the hearts and minds of our young learners. We will continue to discover and explore more fun-filled activities this coming term.

KINDERGARTEN 1 - MUSIC

Written by Ms. Nathania

Music is an experience that each child must have. At any age, children are capable of connecting easily to music and to create beauty in music. In Music class, Kindergarten students learnt about the notes mi, so, la. They began with clapping the notes while singing the notes, doing the hand sign for each note, and playing mi, so, la on the xylophone to experience playing music. Through playing the xylophone, singing the notes, and putting lyrics together in the arranged notes of mi, so, la, they learnt how to compose their own song! And yes, it is as simple as that! Everybody can make songs! Way to go, Composers!

KINDERGARTEN 2 - MATHEMATICS

Written by Ms. Lorely

After 9 weeks of learning together and from each other, the K2 students have now developed a solid foundation in numbers. They have explored well with the numerals and number words 0-10, 2D and 3D shapes with a short exposure to adding numbers. They enjoyed using varied concrete materials such as counters, blocks, dominoes, uni-fixed cubes, and ten frames, during hands-on and mind-on activities everyday. They also had a great time learning how to measure length using the non-standard form. In fact, they were able to apply it in real life as they made sure their cubbies and table trays were well organised. This term, they will widen their knowledge in measuring capacity, odd and even numbers, and telling time. They will also be given enrichment activities to broaden their skills in adding numbers within 20. Way to go, K2!

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

HALLOWEEN PUMPKIN CARVING COMPETITION

We will be celebrating Halloween on the 31st of October. We are thrilled to announce that the Pumpkin Carving Competition is BACK!

Please see below for the requirements to join the competition:

1. The pumpkin must be real.

2. All the pumpkin carving must be done at home with ADULT supervision.

3. All the entries must be submitted to the EY ES Admin Office by Friday, October 28th, 2022 before 4:00 pm with the child's name and grade label.

HALLOWEEN COSTUME COMPETITION
Written by Jr. Stuco President - Aradhya

We all know how exciting this event is for most people, so we have some fun activities planned for all of you such as scavenger hunt with riddles, a haunted house with trick or treating inside, and some other special activities, such as costume competition.

We have 2 categories for the costume competitions, which will take place on Monday, October 31st. Please note that costumes that come with toy weapons like swords and guns or other items that may harm others are not allowed in school.

Category 1: Grades 1 to 3

Category 2: Grades 4 to 5

The person who wins the costume competition will get loads of candies and I mean LOADS.

WARNING NOTE:

If anyone is allergic to candies, then please inform the Jr. Stuco or your homeroom teacher.

ES FUN DAY
Written by Mr. Dominic

The ES family had their end of term ES Fun Day on October 5th, 2022. They had fun playing Pictionary, Stomp the Number, and Family Feud. The Gajah House took first place in 2 categories, Pictionary and Family Fued, while the Paus House was consistently in the top 3. Komodo was not feeling it today, as they mostly came in third place. While Elang needs to catch up on other events so that they don’t fall too far behind. They had a blast competing against each other and it was an event to completely unwind and relax after a hectic and challenging Term 1. Congratulations to House Gajah for winning the ES Fun day event!

ES POETRY RECITATION ASSEMBLY
Written by Mr. Marc

There was a poetry recitation competition in the ES and the finalists competed in front of the school on Wednesday, October 5th, 2022. Congratulations to the finalists who performed at the ES Poetry Recitation Finals: G5 Aradhya, Grace, Manas, G4 Reagan, Wen Jie, G3 Brian, Jeslyn, Madeline, G2 Abigail, Dipto, G1 Alice, Tyogo, and Wen Jin. And a big congratulations to the winners: G5 Aradhya, G4 Wen Jie, G3 Madeline, G2 Abigail, and G1 Alice.

ES UN DAY CELEBRATION

Written by Ms. Marcel

“Our Planet Our Future”

The UN day celebrated on October 24th, 2022 opened our eyes on how long we have lived on this planet and what we have contributed to it. Integrated to the Science project, our ES students came up with ideas on how to save our future on Earth. The Grade 1 and 2 learnt how to make compost to keep food sustainable. Then, it was followed up with planting activities, using the compost that has been made. Our Grades 3, 4, and 5 were focusing on the air, plastic, and water pollution on planet Earth. They researched what happened to this planet in the past and what we can do as an ES community going forward. Jeslyn, Jet, and Darrell as the representatives of each grade, presented their thoughts about pollution with some small steps that every child can take as a way to help improve things for the future. What an inspiration ES!

Grade 1 and 2 Pre-UN Activities : Compost Making

A glimpse of our campaign to save our planet by Grades 3, 4, and 5

Planting activities by Grades 1 and 2

Jeslyn Grade 3 - Plastic Pollution

Below is the filtration system designed by Darrell to solve the water pollution.

GRADE 1 - ICT/ROBOTICS

Written by Ms. Kelly

Children are naturally curious and eager to learn. Programming is one of the most popular fields in the IT industry and parents can get their children interested in programming at an early age by providing them with a basic knowledge of coding through games. It is important for the school to give an early introduction to coding, that opens up opportunities for children to explore the world of technology. It also allows children to acquire skills that they can use in their future careers.

At SWA, students were introduced to simple coding lessons as young as K2. The goals of the coding classes are to help young learners to develop problem solving skills, resilience, and critical thinking skills.

Last term, the Grade 1 students continued their course in code.org to further develop their skills in sequential algorithms by solving different puzzles. Below are some of the videos of the Grade 1 students explaining the concepts they learnt during coding classes:

As you can see from the videos above, Tyogo and Sophie were tasked to solve a puzzle by applying the concepts of a loop (repeat) which is a sequence of instructions that is continually repeated until certain conditions are attained. Indeed, the drag-and-drop blocks used in the code.org are useful to help the students to visualise the action and simplify the programming language, so that even young learners can have a go for challenging tasks.

Other than learning the concepts of loop (repeat), the Grade 1 students were also tasked to identify the problem of the given codes and solve the puzzle. Let’s check out the video below:

The activities above help to further develop the students problem solving skills, resilience and critical thinking skills.

GRADE 2 - ARTS

Written by Mr. Ezard

In Term 2, the Grade 2 students learnt about unity as one of the principles of art. Unity, (also called harmony), is an important principle of art that gives the artwork a sense of cohesion or coherence. It is the wholeness or completeness of a picture. Unity and harmony in art are used by artists to tie a composition together and help the composition make sense as a whole piece of art. There are some ways used to show unity in arts, which are: Proximity, Similarity, Alignment, Repetition, and Continuation. The students focused on using similarity in terms of showing unity in art. Similarity could mean all the objects in the artwork have either the same colours, sizes, or shapes, etc. In this project, students used houses as the objects, and they developed their critical thinking to indicate and identify the unity in their artwork.

Students try to identify the unity among their friends (i.e: same uniform, same hair colours)

The students identify the unity between these markers (i.e: same colours, same type)

GRADE 3 - ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Written by Mr. Jay

LIGHTS! CAMERA! ACTION! Welcome to ‘SWAWOOD’? Well, it isn’t Hollywood yet, but you have to start somewhere. Grade 3 began this term furthering their knowledge of Playscripts. Additionally, they then created their own and acted them out in front of the class. You might be surprised by some of their acting skills. Playscripts bring out the creativity and teamwork of each student and are a fun way for them to improve their writing skills (their grammatical skills too). Don’t be too surprised if you see one of them on a TV show or in a movie in the near future. Nice job Grade 3!

GRADE 4 - SCIENCE

Written by Ms. Shirley

CREATIVE SCIENCE: MAKE YOUR OWN LUNG MODEL

The Grade 4 students took a deep dive to learn more about the parts of the respiratory system and their functions. They started the lesson by creating their own lung model using balloons, straws, and water bottles. The model helps the students to understand how the lungs work when they inhale and exhale. They were able to compare the parts of their model to the real parts of the human respiratory system. The lesson ended up with a lime test experiment, where the students investigated the presence of carbon dioxide when they breathed out.

GRADE 5 - INDONESIAN LANGUAGE LITERATURE
Written by Ms. Junita

This term, the Grade 5 students learnt about Indonesian poetry, Pantun.

Pantun is an Indonesian traditional poem consisting of 4 lines rhymes abab or aaaa in each verse. The uniqueness of this poem is not only in the rhyme but also the amusing chosen words. Students started learning the characteristics of Pantun and different types of Pantun. They also learnt some ways to create Pantun. At the end of the lesson, they worked in groups of two to create their own Pantun poems.