A Day in Wu Lu Ju Chinese School
Last Friday, we visited Wu Lu Ju Middle School to compare the similarities and differences between our neighbourhood Chinese school and BISS International School. We walked through the park to Wu Lu Ju and it only took about 7 minutes. When we reached the school, we went to look at their basketball court and running track. We noticed that their running track was much bigger than ours. Then the principal came to give us a tour. We walked throughout the building and looked at their hallways. The building was a 4-storey red-brick structure, just like ours. In the hallways, they had displays of historic figures with information about them and paintings of many kinds. We saw many similarities in areas of study, such as ancient civilisations. Next, we went into the 7th grade classroom to see what their classroom looked like. The desks were single like ours, but they were set up in rows, not groups for a different style of learning. The classes were also larger, with about 25 students in each. The students told us which subjects they have, such as: English, Chinese, Math, History, Geography, Music, Chemistry and Computer Class. After that, we joined an 8th Grade to do eye exercises. In the music room, we noticed many pianos (but not other instruments) and the library was filled with Chinese books (but not books in other languages). After that, we went to the art room to learn paper cutting with the 7th grade. We learned how to fold the paper and cut it. After cutting, we made designs of different shapes and sizes. They were amazing! After the art lesson, it was time to give out our friendship cards and say good bye to our new friends. At last, it was time to return to BISS. It was a great visit! We identified many similarities between our learning communities and also a few differences. Look at our Venn diagrams to see more! By Benedict & Geon Woo What was the most interesting difference you noticed between our schools? What impact would this difference have on a student’s experience at...
Read MoreMy Awesome Sports Day
Yesterday, the Elementary School had our Sports Day. At 1pm, Students from the BISS, BSB and the REGO Lions were all warming up excitedly on the track. The first event was 100m dash. Everyone was getting nervous and finally the wistle blew. I sped around the corner and crossed the finish line. I was in two races and got 3rd place on the first run and 1st place on the second run! I was very very proud of myself. The next event was long jump. Every competitor got a warm-up jump. When I warmed up, I thought about the positioning of the yellow line. Every school could have 2 kids in this event. BISS chose Joshua and me from Grade 4. After all the warm-ups, it was my turn to jump. I ran as fast as I could and jumped as far as I could. I got 1st place! I was very happy and I sprinted over to get my ribbon. At long last, it was the race I had been waiting for. It was the relay. In my relay team were Kazuki, Geon Woo, Jack and me. However, Kazuki was badly injured so Syakir replaced him. First Syakir ran and gave the baton to Jack. Then Jack ran and passed it to Geon Woo. Geon Woo ran towards me and as I got the baton I was suddenly very nervous. I took off and ran as fast as I could. But we were losing. I tried my best and started to take over. In the end, I beat them! My team won the relay! We were celebrating with joy! I couldn’t believe it! Overall, I was very proud of all my events. I feel like this was the best day of the year. I think I really improved in running and jumping because in one day, I ran 2 x 100m, 3 x 50m, plus a relay. I got a lot of exercise and had a lot of fun. The highlight was the exact moment that I crossed the finish line in the relay. It was the best day. By Kota Grade 4 What was your highlight from Sports Day? How did you show sportsmanship? Did you make any new...
Read MoreCan you make a square meter that’s not a square?
Can you make a square meter that’s not a square? We did! Last week, we enjoyed an investigation into area and perimeter. We were challenged to make two shapes with the same area of exactly 1 square meter but different perimeters. All our shapes looked different: triangles, hexagons, octagons and even an icosagon (20-sided polygon)! In each case, when we changed the form of the shape, the perimeter increased. At the end of the task, we recorded our understanding in a mathematical reflection. Take a look at Kazuki’s excellent explanation of the task below. Great mathematical thinking, Grade 4! It is wonderful to see you talking to each other, asking questions, checking measurements and solving problems! Square meter investigation new from...
Read MoreGrade 4 Goes Global
As part of our Communities Unit, we have joined a community of 800 students from all over the world. We are connecting via Edmodo to make friends and teach each other about “A Week in Our Lives”. So far, we have submitted a class handshake, to let the other schools guess where we are located. We have also posted individual handshakes, using pizap photo editing, to introduce ourselves to our teams. Now we are chatting in Edmodo about our commonalities, our differences and our topic. We have learned some important rules for participating in an online community. We have also learned about other types of communities, such as interest, cultural, language, professional or action. We are making concept maps to represent our identity through community membership. This is a busy and exciting unit! Stay tuned to see our final projects, which will be VoiceThreads made by students from all over the world! What are the benefits of belonging to a community? Why is the Flat Classroom Project fun and important? What are you learning about yourself and...
Read MoreOur Amazing Documentaries
About 3 weeks ago, we started inquiring into a natural disaster of our choice…and now we have completed our own science documentaries! It was a 5-step research journey to create the documentaries. The steps were: Choose one natural disaster that was interesting to us. Prepare a speech about the 4 big concepts (cause, impact, response and detection/prediction). To do this, we found sources of information, took notes and kept a reference list. Make a model or skit to demonstrate one concept. Rehearse, then deliver our speech on video. Use green/blue-screen technology to make our documentary exciting. We all wrote wonderful speeches. Each group had different information about natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes and avalanches. On the day of filming we were really excited and nervous to deliver our speeches. After recording, we used green screen technology to edit in iMovie. We used Google search tools to find large, colourful images that matched each of our big concepts. The images became a background for our films and it helped us to look like we were in the real place. We tried to use gestures to point at some of the images as we spoke. We had some trouble with editing, but Mr Papaseit helped us work out how to get our images the right length for each section of speech. Here are some screenshots from our documentaries. Please visit our individual wikis to see our films. We are very proud of our work. We hope you enjoy them and maybe even learn some new information! By Hyun Seo & Diana What are you most proud of in your documentary? What was the most difficult concept to explain? What was the most interesting thing you learned about natural...
Read MoreBook Week in Grade 4
Last week was a wonderful week in Grade 4. Guess what? It was Book Week! Book Week’s theme this year was “All the Bookshelf’s a Stage”. The focus was on performing arts. Our class had the special job of representing music, so we dressed up as rockstars. We sang a song called “All the World is a Stage” by a rockband from the 1970s called Slade. For our costumes we wore black t-shirts with BISS written on them in cool fonts. We also spiked our hair using gel. Then we sprayed our hair any color we wanted! We even drew cool symbols on our face like lighting bolts. It was really fun and we looked so cool. During Book Week we also had the Living Library, in which people came to tell us about their lives and jobs. Grade 4 really listened to what each person said and we asked good questions. At the Living Library there was a computer game engineer, a bronze medalist in synchronized swimming, a UN aid worker and many other interesting people. A published illustrator also came to vist us during the week. Her name was Anne Spudvillas and she told us all about the books she has illustrated. Her most famous book is the children’s version of “Mao’s Last Dancer”. She taught us how to draw using charcoal and we drew giant cats. During Book Week we exhibited our recycled book art. In art class, Grade 4 made disaster memorial books as part of our inquiry into natural forces. For this cool project we had to research a famous natural disaster and when, where and how many people died in this disaster. Then we found some symbols representing the disaster and created the number of symbols to match the number of deaths in the disaster. We also painted the book a color to represent the type of disaster (e.g. blue for floods, red for fires) and varnished our books. During SLCs, we showed our artwork to our parents. They were fascinated. It was such a busy and exciting week! What was your favorite part of Book Week? Explain what you learned from one of the Living Library...
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