Happy Friday everyone! Do please forgive another brief update. To make a long story short, I’ve pinched a nerve in my back and using the computer is difficult. I am doing my best to use my pain-free moments to prepare wonderful activities for the students.

Homework this week: Find symmetry. We learned that butterflies wings are symmetrical. We also learned that symmetrical means that something is the same on both halves. So! Go on a hunt looking for symmetrical objects in our house or community. If you can’t find anything, maybe you could make a symmetrical design with blocks, or play dough, or you could even draw or paint a symmetrical picture. Please send photos to mariemcclellan@hyundaiforeignschool.com and thank you to everyone who sent in this week’s homework the students were so excited to share with their classmates today. There is also paper homework going home this week.

We looked at bugs in books and tried to make realistic bug models out of clay. We fed a hungry caterpillar some food after playing a memory game with the food. We went on a hunt for butterfly crysalises (plastic eggs) hidden around the room and found butterflies inside them. Then we looked at their symmetry. We looked around the room with mirrors to see what we could find to make symmetrical We made symmetry art with paint and own own symmetrical butterflies.

In Maths we continued learning about 9 and 10 with 2-part and 3-part number bonds and also doubles to 10. I’ve included our doubles poem in the homework that you can read together!

We continued with phonics although no ditty books will be going home this week with the paper homework. I expect ditty books to go home again fromnext week.

All in all, it was a great week! Have a restful weekend. Enjoy the extra day off (but don’t get too wet in the rain). And I look forward to seeing everyone on Tuesday!

Hello! Please forgive the very brief update.

Homework this week is to go out and look for bugs. Try to take the picture yourself instead of having your parent take it! Send any pictures you may have to mariemcclellan@hyundaiforeignschool.com so we can share them at our Friday Homework Sharing Time. There is no paper/book homework this week.

If you have recieved a Read Write Inc. Ditty Book in the past, please be sure to return it when you return your library books on Fridays.

We went to Happy Boat on Monday and had a great time. Book day was excellent! We looked at different insects throughout the week. We played with actual worms and made a worm house! We had phonics and math. It was a really great week.

And we must say a big hello to our new friend Yeseo! Welcome to the class!

Please enjoy the photos from this week!

Wow! What an exciting week back. Before I start the recap of this week, let me remind you of some things upcoming next week.

Monday the 22nd we are visiting our friends at Happy Boat!

Tuesday the 23rd is Book Day. If you want to come in costume as your favourite book character, you can! Also, Tuesday is the day to bring in your Read-a-Thon forms and donation money. Keep reading and don’t forget!

And now! Our weekly recap!

We began our new IEYC unit, The Brilliant Bug Ball. We’ll be learning about all kinds of small creatures known as minibeasts (we use term so we can include animals like worms, snails, spiders, and others that are not technically bugs).

The weather wasn’t cooperative on Monday to go on our planned bug hunt, so we made some paper plate bees. Then on Tuesday we were able to get outside to go looking for bugs all around the school grounds. We caught them gently and put them in our “bug hotels” and were able to take a really good look at them before letting them go in the nature garden. It’s lucky we got outside on Tuesday to do this as the air has been bad for the rest of the week!

On Wednesday we wrote kindness notes to the minibeasts as we talked about how to care for them in the environment.

We also made our “Mini Me” avatars which we then used on Thursday to go around the school imagining what it would be like to be a minibeast trying to navigate the world. Sadly, due to air quality we weren’t able to explore what it would be like to be tiny outside. I’ve saved the avatars so hopefull we can revisit this activity again, outdoors.

We also learned about the butterfly lifecycle and we’re trying to grow butterflies ourselves in our classroom!

Hopefully we’ll have more news to report on this in the coming weeks.

In Maths we continued looking at 9 and 10 to get a solid foundation in our studies. We had lots of activities looking at more/less and number bonds to 10.

In Phonics we continued with our Read Write Inc. program and I’m happy to see everyone progressing. You’ll notice that some students have progressed from photocopied story pages to books! How exciting! Everyone is learning so well and at their just-right pace.

Well that’s it for this week, stay dry this weekend and let’s hope the rain cleans up the air!

Hello! We had an excellent last week of term. I know the children enjoyed their time with Mr. Green while I was away. Thank you all for your understanding in this matter. However, as a result, we’ve got no pictures to share this week!

Thank you so much to everyone who participated in the Food Share on Friday. It was an amazingly fun and delicious time for the whole school.

We’ll be continuing with phonics, maths, and a new IEYC unit in the new term. I’m excited for a great learning experience as we begin Term 3.

I hope everyone has a very restful Spring Break and I look forward to seeing everyone in 2 weeks!

Another week in the books and we’re definitely on the homeward stretch! We had some special events and some great learning happening this week.

Not only did we have our excellent field trip to the Toy Library, we also had a very important fire drill and got to tour around the fire truck!

Phonics continued as expected with some students learning letter sounds, others beginning to blend words, some reading short passages, and others reading longer passages. Everyone is practicing reading right at their own level and it’s great to see.

In Maths we started looking at 9 and 10. We counted our fingers and toes (we have 10 of each). We did sorting activities of 9 and not-9. We used buttons on a 10 frame to count groups within 10. We went on a photo walk around the school grounds looking for 9s and 10s. And we began making a counting book that will go in our classroom library.

In IEYC we looked at the simple fun balloons and bubbles and bring us. We brought in toys from home and enjoyed them out on the patio. We played some old fashioned games such as “Pinching Pennies” where we had to flick a coin as close to the wall as we could get without touching it. And “Kick the Can” a tag game where those who had been tagged out could come back in if the can (we used a cone) was kicked. We also used a colour spinner to find different items in the classroom of that colour and then made “penny spinners” of our own (although we used 10 won coins).

As some of you know, I am away on urgent personal business in Week 12. Mr. Green is taking good care of the class in my absence and I will return on Thursday.

I hope you had a great weekend and have an excellent last week of term!

Hello!

We’ve had a couple of great weeks of learning but I’ve been having difficulty getting the updates up.

Just a couple housekeeping items:

Tomorrow, Wednesday, I would like all the students to bring a toy that they can play with out on our patio. It can be a hard toy or a stuffy. Please only bring one toy and please make sure it doesn’t have any flying or shooting parts as we don’t want those to go over the edge of the balcony.

We have a field trip on Thursday. Thank you all for signing the permission form. Please remember to wear your uniform!

Thanks to everyone who wore appropriate PE clothes and shoes today. Please remember to continue this every week going forward.

I will let the pictures speak for themselves about our learning these last couple weeks as the update is late, I know.

Boy did we have a lot of fun this week.

In Week 7, Miss Mary read us a story about apple pie so we tried our hand at making one. The results were mixed. Some students loved it and others didn’t like it at all and some just liked the crust! It was a great experience in the Maker Space though!

In IEYC we had some teddybears get lost in our classroom and we had to find them. We had a great time hunting around for them and then having a picnic with them. We also took them on a tour of our school and made a book with the photos.

Phonics saw us continuing with our Read Write Inc. phonics program and also doing some hands-on literacy games.

In Maths we are still working with the numbers 6, 7, and 8 and got into the tricky work of finding and making doubles (i.e. double 1 is 2, double 2 is 4, etc). We spent a couple days on this skill as it’s a lot to master. We’ll be continuing with this unit in week 9 but will start a new unit part way throught the week

Homework

As you saw in the homework papers that went home, there was a name tracing sheet. Most of our friends can write their names but they do so in a mixture of capital and lowercase letters. I would like everyone to work on writing their name with an initial capital letter and the subsequent letters being lower case. That will help develop good writing habits.

For our home learning link activity this week, I would like you to take some photos of your favourite teddybear (it doesn’t have to be a bear) in places around your house or neighbourhood. Give them a tour like we did in school. If possible, let the children take the photos themselves. There is no need to print them unless you want to extend this further and make a book but that is not required. Do please send the photos to me and I’ll put them in a slide show for us all to look at.

Hello! What a grey and rainy week we had but it was filled with lots of exciting learning!

Before we get started, let me remind you of our Parent Teacher Conferences next week. If you haven’t signed up yet, please use this link: https://forms.gle/uPcrpojcK8VNA3NG8 and if none of the remaining time slots work for you, please send me an email and we’ll make alternate arrangements.

Now, onto our week!

We had an exciting visit from The Toymaker to kick off our new unit. They brought us some brand new toys as well as some toys that had gone into storage when we moved schools. With these new toys, we put some of our lesser-used toys away to keep play in the classroom fresh.

We had a great show and tell when the students brought their toys. You can view all 11 minutes of it at this link: https://youtu.be/1RbRZsNZRX0. It is an unlisted video so it cannot be found without the direct link.

We also watched the book Kipper’s Toy Box on YouTube and thought about ways we could catalogue our toys. We decided to take photos and put them on a poster. The students took the photos themselves and did their best writing the names of the toys using phonics at their level. Now we’ve got a great display of What’s in our Toybox. A featured toy in Kipper’s Toy Box was the Sock Thing so today we made sock puppets!

I’d also like to welcome Sheherazade back to our class who brought us a book in French from her travels abroad to enjoy. Ms. M pulled out her rusty French and read and translated the story for the class. I really had to use my growth mindset to not feel silly when I made mistakes in my reading after all these years!

In Phonics we worked on letters, short Ditties, and Ditty Stories each 1:1 and at the students’ appropriate level. For those students receiving a photocopy Ditty in their homework bag, I have highlighted “Hold a Sentence” at the bottom which is the sentence we have used for dictation. Feel free to practice writing that sentence (without looking, by sounding it out) or any other sentence from the sheet. We also played some Phonics bingo as a treat! We had a CVC word group and an alphabet group. The students had great fun.

In Maths we’re looking at the numbers 6, 7, and 8. We also practiced 1 more and 1 less within the numbers 0-8. We’ll be continuing with these numbers next week. During our whole-group learning we sang the song One Man Went to Mow to practice one more and one less. We had 7 students to participate. We also sang There Was One in the Bed and used a life-sized 10 frame to help us count down from a perfect 8 students present to 0. It was great fun.

Homework

For homework this week, why don’t you try cataloguing part of your toys. You could take photos or draw them and write what they are like we did in class. I imagine you have a lot of toys so perhaps you only want to pick one category (like stuffies, or cars). If you have TOO MANY, choose a reasonable amount such as 6 – 10 of your favourites and work with those.

But more importantly than that: if the weather clears up, go outside and play. We’ve been inside at school all week and I can imagine you have been at home as well. As soon as it’s nice enough to go to the park, do it! This necessary physical play time is in my mind the most important homework you can do this week!

As part of our new unit, My Toy Shop, I am asking the children to bring their favourite toy to school tomorrow, Wednesday February 21st. This can be a soft toy like a teddy or a hard toy like an action figure. We will have a show and tell and spend some time sharing with each other.

The toys will not be allowed outside (assuming the rain lets up) and will go home at the end of the day.

Let’s have a great time getting to know each other through our favourite toys!

Hello Parents!

Please use the form linked to sign up for PTCs. I’m excited to meet with you to discuss your child’s learning.

https://forms.gle/mmK2LnfNNX5sw9X86

I look forward to seeing you!

Wow! What an exciting week we had culminating in today’s 100-Day celebration!

Report cards went home in your child’s library book bag or their backpack if they didn’t bring their book bag today. A form for Parent Teacher Conference sign-ups will be forthcoming.

We got up to a lot of great learning this week. We tightened our rotation-style learning and the children are responding positively to this learning style. There’s till lots of free choice and exploration and plenty of play but students are getting the chance to work 1:1 with myself and Ms. Mary or Ms. Jasmine every day.

On Wednesday we had our monthly exchage with the Happy Boat kindergarten. They had a bouncy castle and our class very much enjoyed visiting.

In phonics we continued working at everyone’s appropriate level using our Read Write Inc. program and it’s so wonderful watching everyone’s literacy develop.

Maths is being guided by our new White Rose curriculum and this week we focussed on measurement with weight/mass and capacity. Next week we start looking at numbers 6-9. We compared the weight of different items in the classroom using our balance scales and we used non-standard measures to balance the scale – did you know that a glue stick has a mass of 7 counting bricks? We also used non-standard measures such as counting bricks, stones, and small plastic bears to look at capacity.

We finished our IEYC storyteller unit with some goal-setting and some tortoise shell art. We also used many small world figures to play and tell stories again. We’ll be starting up our next unit on Monday!

And of course, today was our 100-Day party. We had lots of great activities. We made 100-Day crowns, built structures with 100 counting bricks, made a chain of 100 links, made a 100 gumball machine with dabbing markers, and made an excellent necklace of 100 Froot Loops. That was the most delicious part of the day, definitely! I can’t wait for Day 101 next week!

Homework:

As always, there is a phonics-related sheet that went home. And in keeping with our 100 theme, have a look for 100 in your daily life. Maybe you have a 100 won coin in your piggy bank. Maybe you see something in the store that costs 100K won (no, you don’t need to buy it!) Maybe you want to count out 100 strawberries and make some jam! The possibilities are endless. Maybe you just notice 100 on some signs. This can be as simple or as complicated as you’d like.

That’s it for this week! Rest well and enjoy the sun this weekend. It’s set to be a wet one next week. See you Monday!

Let’s begin this week’s update by giving a warm welcome to Brendon who has just joined our class. We’re so happy to have you with us!

On Monday, our partner school, Happy Boat, came to visit us. We had an excellent time showing them our new facilities.

Throughout the week we had a variety of activities going on relating to the Three Billy Goats Gruff. We spent a lot of time exploring music and sound related to the characters in the story. We also encorporated the storytelling into our PE where we trip trapped across a bean bag bridge while the troll (Ms. M) rolled soft balls at us. We had lots of other fun activities in PE as well. Additionally, we made masks and role played the story on the stage in the hall.

In Maths we began subitizing 0-5. We used dot plates to practice and then had a go at making our own dot plates. We played a memory match game. And we worked on some worksheets with Ms. Mary and Ms. M reinforcing our skills and working on number formation.

The Storyteller brought us some new things as we are moving onto the story of The Tortoise and the Hare. We polled the school to see who they would cheer for in the race and we began our preparations for making our Race Day activity.

Homework

For those friends who have a photocopied reading sheet, you will notice you have a “red word” these are also known as “sight words” they are words that do not follow phonics rules. This week’s word is “the”. Please practice this word as it needs to be memorized and can’t be sounded out. The saying in our phonics program is “You can’t Fred a Red” (Fred is the frog who sounds out words for us).

As so much of our week was spent on sounds and making music, our homework activity this week is to listen to some music and try to play along with it. You could use a pot or a pan as a drum. You could make a shaker like the one shown here: https://www.thecrafttrain.com/10-minute-toilet-roll-shakers/ Have fun and get into the beat!

That’s all for this week!

Wow! What an exciting week we had. We’re starting to get the hang of having stations and rotations while still having lots of fun and play time.

The Storyteller brought us a new book to theme our learning around this week: The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Our activities included: finding like objects in groups of 3, and explaining why we put those 3 objects together; making a play mat to retell the story; and a lot of work around bridges and structures. We creatively built our own bridges out of craft supplies and we also worked together to make a bridge that would support a ball rolling between two tables.

We started some Maths activities this week such as going for a walk around the school looking for 0; sorting picture cards into 0 and not zero; and we played a great “race to 0” game with bear counters and a 5-frame.

We even had some Maths integrated into our PE. We shot 5 baskets and wrote our scores on the whiteboard. Then we added our scores together to make sums to 10!

Homework

Since we’ve done so much work around bridges, it would be great to go out into town and look at some. See what might be the same and what might be different about them. There’s a great pedestrian bridge which lights up beautifully in Daewangam Park and a very different style one in Taehwa Garden. There’s the big Ulsan bridge and many others in the town.

Don’t forget to work on your phonics paper or book which went home today and if you got a book, please remember to send it back next Friday!

That’s all for this week! The weather should be a bit warmer so enjoy the outdoors!

Wow! It feels like we’ve been at this school forever, the children are settling in so well.

Let’s begin this week’s update with homework.

In keeping with our vegetable theme and going on the work we did today of making a vegetable soup, I would like to suggest your child try one vegetable that is new to them. If you wanted to visit a market again to buy a vegetable that would be exciting!

Also, you may notice there is either a Read Write Inc booklet or a sheet in your child’s bookbag. This reflects what they worked on in phonics this week. Have your child read to you and ask them questions about the story or the sound the letter makes. If it’s a letter sheet, have them practice their handwriting. If it’s a short reading sheet, they could try sounding out and writing one of the sentences from the little story. If it’s a book, talk with them about it and practice those speed words!

Going forward there will usually be this type of phonics homework in their bookbag every Friday. If it’s a printed/photocopied sheet, it does not need to be returned. The Read Write Inc books do need to be returned next the following Friday.

And now to learn about our week!

Our days are much more free-flowing now with the children participating in different activity stations as well as playing throughout the day. We had stations like a seed sorting station as well as a very popular soup making station. That activity continued for many days and took on a few different forms. Throughout the day there is also a phonics station which is where our homework came from. This format is working well and will continue. We also have whole-group activities such as today’s soup-making activity (the opinion of the soup was mixed) as well as a basket weaving craft we began the day with. Our new, indoor PE space has been working wonderfully and the children are enjoying having space to be more active.

That’s all for this week. Have a restful weekend. Stay dry. And we’ll see you on Monday!

We will be making a vegetable soup on Friday as part of our IEYC unit (we’ll be looking at the story, Stone Soup). There will be no: meat, nuts, or soy in the soup. Aside from those items are there any food restrictions or other allergies that need to be taken into account (including spice/seasoning)? Likes/dislikes will be handled by the children when we make our recipe and grocery list.

Kindly reply to mariemcclellan@hyundaiforeignschool.com by 3:30 on Thursday if there is something I need to keep out of the soup as I will be going to the market after school that day to pick up necessary supplies.

We will offer the soup for lunch on Friday, however, please pack lunch as normal as the students may not enjoy their creation. Conversely, do not be surprised if they don’t eat a lot of their packed lunch as they may love the soup.

Wow! What an exciting first week we had back to school and it was a wonderful week in our new school. The students are really enjoying our new space and we’re making great use of it.

Thank you so much for sending indoor shoes. Currently the plan is to take them home every week to be washed. I am soliciting feedback on this. If you feel weekly is too often, please let me know.

Don’t forget! We have library every Friday. Please send your child’s books and book folder every Friday to get new books to read for the week.

Let us begin by saying Hello! to our newest classmate, Lukas. It’s great to have you with us! And let’s also say hello to Ms. Dalia who will be working with him.

We have been enjoying playing and learning in our new classroom. The space allows us to have a more free-flowing environment where students work on centres related to our theme, play freely, draw and paint, and work in small groups for Maths and Phonics with Ms. M.

For Maths and Phonics we did some level testing so that everyone can be in their just-right small group. This led to the students roleplaying a level test!

In IEYC we began our new unit, Once Upon a Time, which is a storytelling unit. The Storyteller brought us a magic bag which is full of books and other items we can use at our themed stations. We began by making our own story about a monkey who visited a farm. This was put in our Book of Stories.

The Storyteller also brought us a book called The Enormous Turnip which our stations are currently themed around. We’re learning about vegetables and markets. We’ve roleplayed the story as well as roleplaying a farmer’s market. We’ve explored different weights of vegetables to see which are the heaviest (which might mean they’re enormous).

We also have a permanent storytelling station set up where the students can write their own stories.

Homework

Since we’ve been playing markets and farmer’s markets, I suggest you go visit a traditional Korean market. I will send the pins of 4 markets in Ulsan in a separate email. The first 3 are in Dong-gu and the other one is outside of downtown not far from City Hall. If you know of another market, feel free to visit it!

That’s all for this week. Thanks for your patience in getting this update out this week!

Hello parents,

I sent an email but I am learning on this open day that it was not received. Below is the relevant text of the email (and I hope it sends via this update!)

INDOOR SHOES

After some thought, we have decided to wear indoor shoes in the lower school. I ask that students bring indoor shoes for school starting back on January 8th. We have a beautiful new space which includes a cozy reading corner and a new calming corner. We would like to keep these spaces, as well as the whole classroom, nice and clean.

If you could order something similar to these along with a small shoe bag that would be great. Each Friday I will send them home with the children to wash. 

HOLIDAY PHOTOS

If you wish to send some photos of what you and your children did on vacation so we can look at them together on Monday when school starts, feel free to do so. Please send them by Sunday evening so I have an opportunity to put them into a slide show for the students to view on Monday. Thanks!

I hope the students had a lovely Winter Break and I am excited to see them all again soon!

Hello Parents,

Everything from the childrens baskets and lockers must go home on Thursday. Kindly send a large shopping bag with your child on Thursday so we can pack up and get everything sent home on the last day of school.

Your cooperation is appreciated. Thanks!

Another week in the books and just one more week to go. We had a very small class this week with many students off sick due to Influenza and other viruses. However, our little group did lots of learning.

As a note: we will be going to visit Happy Boat Kindergarten on Monday since the last 2 exchanges with them they have come to us. There is nothing special you need to prepare for that.

We moved on to learning about transportation from the sky such as planes, helicopters, and hot air balloons. We sang songs about the different ways air transportation moves and played with those movements in PE. We did a sorting activity where we classified our transportation toys by where they belonged such as water, train tracks, road, or sky. We tried to make some cloud art with coloured water and dish soap that we blew bubbles in, but the paint didn’t stick properly to the paper. So, we learned that sometimes we try to do something and it doesn’t always work. The students had fun blowing bubbles nonetheless. We made paper helicopters which the students were fascinated by. We also played with regular balloons after reading a storybook about a balloon that never popped. And then we made hot air balloon art. The students had a great time with that. We finished off by making a huge, collaborative mural of different types of transportation and doing our best to write either the first letter of the word, or as much of the word as we could above the images. We also practiced sounding out CVC words with a transportation-themed reading game.

We’re still learning about our feelings and love listening to The Feelings Song by Danny GO on his Mooseclumps YouTube channel. It has really given us the ability to talk about different feelings we’re having. We did our best to negotiate the smaller class dynamic and have everyone be able to play together. We’re still practicing having “kind hands, kind feet, and kind words”. This simply means we keep our hands and feet to ourselves and give everyone personal space as well as not hitting or kicking if we feel angry or frustrated. We also try to speak kindly to everyone. If we don’t want to participate in an activity we can say “no, thank you. Maybe another time.” instead of “GO AWAY!” This always takes work and is even more difficult when we’re not feeling 100% but I know we can do it!

There is no library next week so our bookbags are going home empty. There is no need to bring them until we get to the new school.

I have added all parents in this class to Tapestry so you should be able to check out your child’s learning journey that they have been on so far this term and follow along for the rest of the year. Using Tapestry is a journey for me as well as I get to know the technical ins and outs of the website and app. If you have any questions about using Tapestry to follow your child, please let me know. I know there is the option to comment on observations and please feel free to do so as we take this journey together!

Homework:

The weather is meant to be unseasonably warm on Saturday so your homework is to get outside and enjoy the nice weather before the winter rain starts next week! Since we’re looking at sky transportation, you could try flying a kite or blowing bubbles while you’re outside. Keep your eyes on the sky and you might see an airplane or helicopter!

Have a great weekend. Stay healthy! And hopefully we’ll see lots of you on Monday!

I can’t believe we’re into the final stretch. Only two weeks to go! Then it’s Winter Holiday and the move to the new school!

We had a busy week this week without too many photos. We continued looking at beaches and boats. We Dug for buried treasure and counted our coins. I’m impressed by how far above 10 most of the students can count! We also drew treasure maps to find our treasure. We painted pictures of boats after looking at a wonderful collection of pantings by masters like Monet and Manet. We had some great play time with blocks and the children built some wonderful cities and farms. We also spent some time with our phonics books learning to write letters and words! The students are very excited to be writing and even engage in writing during their free time. It’s wonderful to watch their development.

This term I have been building an online portfolio for each student on a program called Tapestry. It is available both on the computer and I believe as an app. Early next week you will receive a sign-up link/invitation so you can begin watching your child’s learning journey as it has progressed this year and as it progresses throughout the rest of the yeare.

In serious news, we have a couple students out sick with Influenza this week. If your child is not feeling well or has a fever, please do not hesitate to keep them home and send them to the doctor. I want everyone as healthy as possible.

Homework:

Go out and look at some boats! There’s lots of boats in Dong-gu that you can look at. If you live near Bangeojin there are lots of boats at the fish market or also down the street near the bus stop for Hub Feliz. If you’re driving into town you might see the big ships bringing cars all around the world! Where can you find boats? I can even see them from my window!
If you get any photos, please send them to me for our sharing time on Friday!

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you on Monday!

What another exciting week we had!

Let’s begin by welcoming our newest classmate, Kali!

On Monday, Happy Boat visisted us and we learned about American Thanksgiving! We talked about what we’re thankful for, made turkey headbands with our names, and played some games.

We’ve moved onto transportation with wheels to boats! We began our exploraion by exploring the beach! We couldn’t go to the beach ourselves so we made one in the Hall!

And we read a story about Max who sailed across the ocean to meet the Wild Things (Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are) so we made our own Wild Things masks and had a Wild Rumpus just like Max!

We started exploring boats and made some great art with 2D shapes that the students figured out how to glue and make 3D sails.

We’re learning a lot about feelings in our Morning Meetings right now. This week we focussed on Anger and how it’s OK to be Angry but that doesn’t excuse our actions. We continued to learn about sharing, kind words, gentle hands, and Flipping the Switch to change our bad mood around. Please continue talking about being kind at school and keeping our hands to ourselves as well as speaking respectfully at home to reinforce these lessons.

Homework:
We can’t go to the beach as a class but with the last of the nice weather, perhaps you could go look at the ocean. Our stories were about the beach at night so it’s appropriate if you visit in the evening.

If you do go, please feel free to send photos to me for our sharing time. Also if you find a cool rock or neat shell, bring it in to show us!

That’s all for now!

Wow! What a whirwind of a week we had! Let me begin with another reminder that we have a new girl joining our class from next week who has severe allergies. Please ensure that all snacks and lunch going forward are nut-free. Also, we speak a lot in class about how it is kind to share however we will not be allowing the sharing of any food at snack or lunch time. Please have a talk with your children about this to help me reinforce this seemingly contradictory rule. We want a safe and secure environment for all our friends. Lastly, if you do have nuts (i.e. peanut butter) for breakfast, please make sure your children wash their hands thoroughly before coming to school. Thank you so much for your help and cooperation in this matter.

The children are loving our transportation unit. We spent a lot of time looking at cars and their parts and even built our own cardboard cars to play with!

After cars, we moved onto busses! We played a fun game in the Hall where we pretended to drive a bus and when I called out a colour, all the children ran to the corner with that colour cone and lined up as if they were waiting for a bus. Later, we pretended to drive a bus around the corridors at school picking up stuffed animals as passengers.

We also made some great bus art from 2D shapes!

Even our Maths this week used transportation. We’ve been learning about different kinds of patterns all year long during calendar time and we put that knowledge to use on a couple worksheets. One worksheet we had to complete a pattern by cutting and pasting the next vehicle in the sequence. On another sheet we worked on, we were given the type of pattern (such as AB, AAB, ABC) and had to colour in the vehicles to match the pattern type.

Homework

Since we spent time on patterns this week, let’s see if you can find any patterns out and about in your life! Keep your eyes peeled. Maybe you see a fence that’s painted RED WHITE RED WHITE. Maybe you look in the car park and you notice a row of cars that are BLACK BLACK GREY BLACK BLACK GREY. Maybe you could even create a pattern with things you have at home such as shoes or fruit like apples and oranges. Do take a picture of any patterns you notice this week and send them to mariemcclellan@hyundaiforeignschool.com so we can look at them together on Friday morning!

And don’t forget to keep practicing the Vehicles Phonics Song because we’ll be singing it for the whole school this coming Friday!

That’s it for this week! Let’s have an awesome weekend and a great week with new friends next week!

Hello parents! Our class will be singing a song in next week’s assembly and I’d love for them to practice it at home. Below is the YouTube video!

Let me begin with a very important announcement. We will have a new friend joining our class who has a severe nut allergy. From this point forward, our class should go nut-free. This means there should be no nuts sent as snacks for any of the children in their snacks or lunch. Nuts include peanuts, walnuts, cashews, almonds, etc. Additionally, this includes food which contain nuts and not just nuts themselves. Please be mindful of any chocolate or crackers you may send for your child as well as breads. Thank you for your understanding and commitment to student safety. It is also doubly-important to reiterate that we must not share our snacks as generous as that may be.

And now! The Update!

As we are back from break, we have begun a new IEYC unit called Going Places. It is all about transportation. We began with our entry-point where we found some magic carpets in our class and flew on an amazing adventure. We saw the school getting smaller and smaller, we flew over rivers and lakes, and eventually landed in a haunted forest. We then went and played in the haunted forest before flying back to class and drawing pictures of our carpets.

We spent the rest of the week much more grounded in reality. We practiced road safety and even went down to the street to practice crossing the road safely. This was after a lot of practice in the Hall so we understood the rules.

We talked about how we get to school and the different things we see on our drive to school. The students were very suprised to hear that I bike to school and were very eager to see my bike so we went and had a look. I think their favourite part was ringing the bell.

Finally, we spent a couple days talking about wheels and things that roll. We made art by dipping some cars in paint and rolling them on paper and made some beautiful cars with spinning wheels of our own.

In our morning meetings we’ve been talking about our feelings and this week we talked about shades of being scared and how to conquor our fears. We drew something we were afraid of on a small paper and threw that unnecessary fear in the trash! GO AWAY FEAR!

Homework:

This week for homework is to go look at some vehicles that have wheels. This can be as simple as safely going to your carpark and having a look at the different cars and trucks and motorbikes in there. Or you can travel further afield and go look at some big trucks perhaps doing construction. As always, if you take some pictures, please share them to mariemcclellan@hyundaiforeignschool.com so we can look at them together in our Friday Homework Sharing Time. It would be great if you let your child take the photo themselves!

That’s all for this week. We’ll see you Monday!

Wow! What a busy week we had leading into the holiday! Don’t forget: next week is our mid-term break so there’s no school.

Also a quick note about the library books which go home on Fridays. I know we have some new class members who may not be familiar with our system. Every Friday, the students have Library Class with Ms. Yuli. They get to choose some books to bring home. They are for you to read with them during the week. Research has shown being read to is just as important as independent reading when developing early literacy so please make the time. Return the books in the provided bookbag the following Friday and they can bring home more books the next week! Simple as that!

Now onto our weekly update!

Let’s begin by welcoming Sofija to our class! We’re so excited to have you and are glad you can join us.

As we welcomed Sofija into our class on Monday we spent the day getting to know each other and just spending time together playing and building the foundations of strong friendships.

On Tuesday we were back into the thick of Weather Wonders continuing to learn about shadows and light. We went outside and traced the shadow of some of our favourite toys and came back inside and decorated our images.

On Wednesday, we held class outside on the pitch. We talked about the sun and how it felt shining down on us. We ran around from the sun to the shade feeling the differences in temperature. We learned about how to stay safe in the sun by wearing appropriate clothing, drinking water, and wearing sunblock. We also learned some cultures cover up instead of using sunblock.

Afterwards, we came inside and made our own sun hats which the students were able to take home!

Yesterday we practiced our design and planning skills to make a t-shirt appropriate to be worn in the sun. I chose t-shirt size 150 to ensure it would fit everyone in the class. They may be large on some friends but they will be able to be work for a while before your child outgrows their creation.

The students first designed their t-shirts on paper and then used those designs to inform the painting that they did. These paints are permanant fabric paint and have been set with a hot iron so they should be able to be laundered as normal with no special instructions.

We also spent time answering some of the children’s questions about the sun such as “where does the sun go when it goes to sleep?” and “how does the sun go to other countries?” We learned the sun is always in the sky and it appears to wake up with us but that is because the Earth is always spinning. In fact, that spinning is how the sun goes to the other countries! We demonstrated this with a globe and a flashlight. We also had a good discussion of our morning and evening routines.

Building relationships in an Early Years classroom is fundamental and can be tricky at times. Students are just learning how to be themselves and interact with others. It’s good to remember that we come from all different walks of life and all different backgrounds but we’re all a part of our classroom community. These are values I try to help everyone learn every day. While you’re home this week, please keep having conversations about sharing and being kind. We all need reminders to take turns and extend grace to our classmates.

Have a Happy Halloween and a great break!

What a wonderful week for learning about weather! It was completely cooperative (except for this morning!)

On Monday we prepared to continue our exploration of wind by making our own paper bag kites which we went outside on Tuesday and flew on a wonderfully windy day. We also took the opportunity to blow some bubbles in the wind. On Wednesday we finalised exploring wind by making blow paintings.

Thursday we began studying about the sun. We asked a lot of questions to show our curiosity such as where does the sun go at night? Some students knew it went to another country but they’re eager to learn how the sun gets to those other countries. Then, we made some beautiful sun-catcher art.

Unfortunately, this morning the weather didn’t cooperate and give us a bright, sunny day to go out an explore shadows so we had to make our own in the classroom. It was great fun and hopefully the weather cooperates on this Monday coming for us to make some shadow art!

Homework

Since we’ve begun looking at the sun, it would be great if you could go out and view the sunset or sunrise. I know sunrise comes very early so I expect a sunset would be easier to work into your schedule. If you do wish to view the sunrise Seoldo Island in Dong-gu is a great place to view it! As always, do please send a photo if you have one to mariemcclellan@hyundaiforeignschool.com

Well we must begin this week’s update by offering a warm welcome to our newest classmate, Alexander.

We jumped head on into our Weather Wonders unit looking at the different kinds of weather we have here in Korea. We made weather spinners that you can use at home to chart the weather.

We took advantage of the nice weather this week to have our PE outside!

We had a go at giving our own weather reports and then we made our own microphones after. I videoed these weather reports with the intentions of sharing them but thusfar I’ve encountered some technical difficulties. I will keep doing my best to post them because the students are very excited to share the videos with you all! Not all students felt comfortable being on video, however.

The students have been very eager to learn some Korean so with Ms. Amy’s help we learned some Korean weather words. On Thursady it was a “malgum” day (sunny) but our lesson in IEYC was about “bi” (rain). We did some art and experiments to simulate rain.

The students really wanted to take their rain bottle experiments home but they don’t last and aren’t something to take home. I did promise to explain how to make one at home, however:

Take an empty jar and fill it almost all the way with water. This water simulates the air.
Then put shaving foam on top. This is the clouds.
Use a dropper to drip thin paint or water with food colouring onto the shaving foam.
As the weight of the paint pulls through the shaving foam, it will drip into the water (air) below.
This helps students learn that as the clouds get too heavy to hold the water in them, it comes out as rain.

One of our literacy centres this week was working in our workbooks while another was not just learning to write our own names, but the names of our classmates.

Finally we started learning about windy days. We watched Three Little Pigs and built structures to see if they could stand up to wind. We roleplayed the 3 little pigs and those are videos I also hope to have available when I sort out the technical difficulties I’m sharing. Then, we played “blow football” – we used straws to blow a pingpong ball into a goal at the opposite end of the table. This was met with varying success.

I’m excited to report that Happy Boat will be visiting with us on Monday the 16th. It will be exciting hosting our friends!

Homework

Your homework this week is to go out and see the changing fall weather. This article on Ulsan Online gives some suggestions for places to go around town to see different foliage. Please do take some photos and send them to me at mariemcclellan@hyundaiforeignschool.com for our Friday Homework Sharing Time. It would be great if the students could take some pictures themselves!

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you Monday!

Last week and this week were short weeks but they were full of learning. Let’s start with a better look at last week’s field trip to the Ulsan Early Childhood Development Center. 

This week we began our new unit Weather Wonders when the Weather Fairy brought us a Weather Waver (rain stick) that we could use to control the weather. We started creating some excellent weather decorations for our classroom since the reality is, we can’t really control the weather.

Speaking of controlling the weather, it is definitely autumn. It’s time to start packing a cardigan or light sweater in the morning because it can be chilly at morning break even if it’s very warm by lunchtime play. Also, as you know our classroom gets very hot so dressing in layers will help keep everyone comfortable as we do our best to keep the temperature reasonable for everyone in the classroom. 

We had a great time in Music class this week banging on drums with Mr. Green. 

In Maths rotations we continued looking at numbers 1-5 and in Phonics we continued working on whole-group routines so we can begin working independently while Ms. M works with small groups. The students have really enjoyed working mostly in their workbooks that I created for independent learning.

Homework

With our new unit on Weather, I have sent home a Weather Diary in your child’s bookbag. You can fill it out together by drawing a picture of that day’s weather and bringing it back to share with the class on Friday!

That’s all for this week! Enjoy the cooler weather and we’ll see you Monday!

Wow! What an exciting, short week it was. There was Happy Boat, Chuseok, and a Class Trip!

Keep your eye on your mailbox for a postcard sent from Planet Moonbeam! They were put in the mail yesterday. I’m not sure how much the holiday will delay mail but hopefully it will reach you soon!

Have a very Happy Holiday. I hope you connect with your family and have a great time together whether you celebrate or not.

Have a great rest and we’ll see you after the break!

Week 4

Wow! It seems like this week just flew right past! We’re coming to the end of our Blast Off! Space unit and the children have blasted off into learning!

We began the week by learning about the phases of the moon. We played a memory game to help us learn. Terms like waxing gibbous and waning crescent may be a little hard to remember but the main thing the students were able to understand was that how we observe the moon changes throughout the month. 

We then thought about how we would get to the moon. Everyone knew a rocket was the best way to get there, however we thought of alternative ways such as building a huge ladder to climb up. This prepared us for the story we would read later. 

The story we read was Eric Carle’s Papa Please Get the Moon for Me. We painted a backdrop in the style of the illustrations in the book and then later used 2D shapes to create a night scene. 

We spent some time studying what the moon was like. We learned that the moon circles the 

Earth and that there are craters in the moon. We used dough and items to press into it to create craters. We dropped objects into sand to simulate asteroids hitting the moon. We made a craft that showed us how the moon goes around the Earth. And we painted our own moon craters out of egg cartons which Ms. M used to make a Maths activity later in the week. 

Now that we learned about the moon, we went to visit the Moonbeams. They don’t live on the moon but we decided to meet there. They were hiding from us leaving trails of moon rocks all around the classroom which we had to follow to find them. We met with the Moonbeams and they suggested we do some Maths and Science with the rocks. So, we collected them and analysed them. We grouped them, counted them, ordered them by size, compared their weights on a balance scale, and weighed them on a digital scale. After we weighed them on the digital scale we made scientific labels for them with an identification number and their weight. We used our tablets to photograph and preserve our observations. 

Since we were on the moon we decided to play some games with the moon rocks. We tossed them into rings. We tried to make a tower with rocks and then again with foil balls. We discovered that the foil balls were easier to stack because you could squash them! Then we did a team building exercise carrying the foil moon rocks around the Hall on a blanket. Our record time was 34 seconds before we dropped the rocks. We’re going to try it again in PE next week so see if we can break our record.

Today we finally landed on Planet Moonbeam and wouldn’t you know? It was made of slime!

Speaking of that Maths activity made of moon craters, in Maths rotations we practiced numbers 0-5. We looked at different ways to make 5. We could put up to 5 pompoms in the moon craters, put counters on a 5-frame, and also write the number. We were working with different number cards that helped us read the numerals and also subitize with dots and pictures of fingers.

We’re still getting into our phonics routines and we spent time this week learning our centres that we can do when we’re not in our small groups. We practised writing our names as well as working in our independent books. 

There is no homework this week as we will not have a sharing time next week due to the Chuseok holiday. Don’t forget you are welcome to join us on Tuesday 26 September at 1:30 for our celebration!

Other dates to remember this week:

• Monday 25 September – trip to Happy Boat (no preparations needed)
• Tuesday 26 September – Chuseok (wear a Hanbok or National Dress if you wish)
• Wednesday 27 September – Trip to Ulsan Childhood Development Centre (please wear HFS blue polo shirt. Pack water, snack and lunch. Also make sure to be wearing socks). If you haven’t signed the permission slip yet please do so here: https://forms.gle/HBLsAUP4CdL37VBS9

That’s all for this week! Have a wonderful weekend and we’ll see you next week!

I can’t believe we’re off on a trip so early in the year but this promises to be a fun and enriching experience for the students. 

We will go to the Ulsan Early Childhood Development Centre where we will get to experience, through play, different jobs we can do when we grow up including some of the industry we have here in Ulsan. 

Our trip will be on Wednesday, September 27th. We will depart school at 9:15am and arrive back at 2:40. 

Please pack water, snack, and lunch as normal. For those students who receive lunch delivery, please be aware you must pack lunch on this day as the delivery will reach us at the centre. There will be a microwave available for our use. 

Kindly ensure that your children are wearing socks as this indoor environment is shoes-off. 

There is no cost for this trip.

Please submit this form by Monday, September 25th.

Here is the link: https://forms.gle/RoNHJb4epUwS5oyM7

Hello parents,

This is just a gentle reminder that things like snacks, candy, stickers, toys, cards (like Pokemon, etc) should not be brought to school unless it is a special occasion.

The sharing of little items like snacks and candy is not permitted at snack time. Stickers and cards should also not be brought. Sharing these items causes small fights to erupt and a lot of hurt feelings.

If you wish to send something to share with the class (i.e. a birthday goodie bag or treats on a special occasion), please let Ms. M know in advance.

Thank you so much for your cooperation. I appreciate all your effort in making our class and school an equitable and kind learning environment.

Wow, this week was a lot of fun. We miss the Moonbeams but we are preparing to go visit them on their planet next week!

Speaking of planets, we did a lot of exploring planets and planet art this week. We began by exploring space using AR on our tablets to view different planets, sattelites, etc.

We made 3D planets from clay which we will make a mobile with. Then we used different textured paint (some had rice, sand, and flour mixed in) to create our own planets. We also used collage materials to make planets. This 2D exploration led us to create a map to Planet Moonbeam which is now on display in the corridor. 

In PE we continued our astronaut training by flying to different coloured planets and also using a shapes and colours control panel on the wall to operate our space shuttle. Then we used scooters as spaceships to roll around the Hall as if we were flying from planet to planet! We’re nearly ready to take off for Planet Moonbeam!

All this work has made us very hungry so today we made Planet Pizzas. It was great fun and definitely delicious. 

We began phonics rotations this week. It’s great to see everyone working so hard on their letter sounds and reading. Some of us put good work into practising our names during rotations. I’m so pleased at everyone’s willingness to put in hard work!

We also had lots of fun exploring space in our unstructured play time and a great time singing and dancing with Mr. Green in Music!

Homework

Your quest this week is to plan a menu to bring on a space adventure. You don’t have to make the food but tell me what you would bring with you to space? Would you bring chocolate pudding like we ate last week in our astronaut training? Pizza like we made this week? What would be the best thing to eat in space? 

You can make a menu like a restaurant menu. If possible, you can write some of the food words. If you can’t write the word, maybe you can just write the first letter and draw a picture! You can bring your menu in as a hard-copy or email me photos at mariemcclellan@hyundaiforeignschool.com

Additionally, Mr. Green sent home a Creativity Butterfly. It is in your child’s bookbag with instructions. 

That’s all for this week! Have a great weekend and we’ll see you refreshed on Monday!

I think the children really liked the pudding we made and ate because more than one of them asked me to send the recipe to their parents. So, here you go:

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/44699/chocolate-cornstarch-pudding/

This has been my tried and true pudding recipe since about 2013! I hope you enjoy it at home.

Speaking of having a delicious time in class, we will be making “planet pizzas” on Friday. I polled the students regarding the toppings they would like and it was a unanimous “cheese” so all that is going on these pizzas is crust, tomato sauce, and cheese. If there are any dietary restrictions preventing your child from participating please let me know ASAP so we can make alternate arrangements.

We will have these pizzas for lunch on Friday so you may wish to pack a lighter lunch as they will probably be full from pizza.

Have a great week! It’s getting exciting here!

Well here we are, back in the thick of things. It’s been such a wonderful week with everyone participating in our classroom activities and learning a lot through play. Before I forget, let me thank everyone for coming to Meet the Teacher on Tuesday. 

As promised you can find a little bit more information on our planned trip for September 27th at this link (it’s in Korean). The place is called the Early Childhood Development Center and it’s a great, hands-on learning environment for all kinds of technology, industry, and different jobs. There is no cost for this trip. It is a whole-day trip so please pack snack, lunch, and water. There is a microwave we can use at lunch to heat the food on this trip which is a nice touch! A permission slip will be forthcoming. 

Another important date I forgot to mention at our meeting, on Monday September 25th we will be visiting our Happy Boat friends at their kindergarten.

Now on with the update!

The Moonbeams went back to their planet this week. We had to repair their spaceship by way of a series of stations in the Hall where we explored number puzzles, pattern reproduction, weighing different items of play food, and making rocket fuel out of coloured water where we began to learn capacity. Our rocket fuel was made by mixing different, measured proportions of coloured water and being poured into a large bucket. 

Later, we went out to the pitch with the Moonbeams, their rockets, and some secret fuel provided by Ms. M. We put the Moonbeams in the rocket and sent them off into space using that fuel – it was bubbles!

The Moonbeams let us know that we were welcome to visit them any time so we began creating our astronaut costumes. We made helmets from papier mache. And we made suits with buttons of 2D shapes. These took a few days to make between drying, painting, and drying again. 

In the meantime we prepared our astronaut food (chocolate pudding). We used measures again with everyone getting a chance to weigh out the ingredients before Ms. M cooked the pudding.

With everything prepared, we set off on our astronaut training today. We put on our costumes and “floated” through the corridor and in the Hall, imagining we were on a Space Walk. When we got back to the classroom we ate our astronaut food like they do on the space station: out of a bag with a straw!

What an exciting experience.

We also did our phonics and maths testing this week and I’m happy to report that we are ready to start phonics and maths rotations next week. It’ll take us some time to get into our routines but we’re on the right track!

Homework

As part of our send-off to the Moonbeams, we made “About Me” pages so the Moonbeams could remember us. It would be great if we could practise greeting the Moonbeams in our home languages! 

So, kindly send Ms. M how to say “hello” or another greeting in your home language and practice it with your child so they can let us know how to say it next week during sharing time.

Some phrases you could use could be:

• Hello, nice to meet you.  
• Hello, my name is ____
• Hello, it’s good to see you again.
• Hello, how are you
  
  If you could send the phrase in your language and also in English to mariemcclellan@hyundaiforeignschool.com I would also appreciate it if your child is going to need some help sounding out the phrase during our sharing time, if you could send a phonetic guide for me to refer to to help them. (For example in a language I speak: Bonjour, je m’appelle Marie could be written bon-joor juh ma-pell Marie).
  
  That’s it for this week! Have a great weekend and we’ll see you on Monday!

Hello parents!

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week we have particularly messy activities planned. Please send your children in appropriate clothes that you do not mind getting dirty/stained.

I will remind them of this in circle time as well so they are not surprised.

Thanks for helping facilitate some great, active learning. And I can’t wait to see you all tomorrow at 2:30!

Wow! Our week started off with a bang – literally! We found that a spaceship had crashed into the Hall leaving debris all over the corridor. We grabbed our magnifying glasses and left the classroom to investigate. 

A little while later we found our classroom was a mess and there were aliens hiding all over the place! We learned they were the Moonbeam Family and they were trying to visit Earth on vacation but crashed into our school. We put up a nice tent they could live in (and we could play in). In exchange, they’ve been teaching us all about space in our Blast Off! IEYC unit. Some of us found these strange visitors very scary so Ms. M let us know we’re playing pretend because that’s the best way to learn when you’re a kid!

We weren’t the only ones scared, however. Our new friends were nervous in the school so we made them a photographic map of the school!

We learned all about the aliens and their friends while talking about different physical characteristics. We are different from the aliens because we only have 2 eyes, 2 arms, etc. but that sure does make us similar to each other! We practised describing physical features with a memory game!

But our friends are starting to get homesick. Today they taught us all about the stars since the Moonbeam aliens live far away from here in the stars. 

When we weren’t hanging out with the Moonbeams we had lots of great activities like PE. We will be doing Phonics and Maths assessments next week so we can dive into our rotations as soon as possible. 

Homework

Since we’ve been visited by Moonbeams from outer space, it would be great if you could go observe the night sky! Dong-gu has an observatory and some English information about it can be found here. What did you see? You can use this link to check what might be visible in the sky in Ulsan on any given night. 
If you take any pictures, do send them to me at mariemcclellan@hyundaiforeignschoo.com for our sharing time next Friday morning. And as always, if you do something great with your family that isn’t the assigned homework, do please send photos of that!

That’s all for this week. Have a good weekend! Stay dry! And we’ll see you Monday!

Hello parents,

As we have a small class and not many people can make it to today’s meeting, we will POSTPONE our Meet the Teacher to a more convenient time for everyone.

I will send an email soon with options for when we can meet that will hopefully suit everyone’s schedule and I’ll do my best to accomodate the whole class.

Thank you for your understanding.

Hello Parents,

Morning are not my forte! This is the last correction.

This Thursday, August 31 at 2:30 pm we will have a meet the teacher in my classroom.

Hope to see you there!

Hello Parents,

I mistyped in Friday’s update regarding the Meet the Teacher afternoon.

It will be this week. Thursday September 31, 2023 at 2:30pm in my Classroom.

Thank you for your understanding.

Welcome back! It’s so wonderful to see all your childrens’ smiling faces. We’ve had lovely introduction back to school and all our routines.

Thank you so much to everyone for remembring: snack boxes, lunch boxes, water bottles, and the ever-important change of clothes!

A few reminders about class routines that involve you at home:

• PE is on Tuesday. Please make sure your child is wearing clothes appropriate to play games and activities in. This includes sneakers or other appropriate sports shoes. We do not have time to change clothes for PE, however there is time to change shoes if your child wishes to wear fancier shoes to school that day. Please make sure to send sneakers or sports shoes if this is the case.
• Library is on Friday. Your child will bring home a book or two which you can read together at home. Don’t forget: reading to your child is as imporant a part of literacy development as independent reading. Library books will begin going home this week and should always be returned the following Friday.
• Homework will be assigned on Fridays. Homework usually takes the form of a home-learning link where I ask you and your child to do an activity together which relates to our theme in IEYC. I may also send a worksheet related to our phonics or maths activities that we’re working on. The following Friday we have a Homework Sharing Time where I make a slideshow of any photos you or your child took of your activity and give them the opportunity to share their home learning with the class. If you did an activity with your child that was not the assigned activity but your child would like to share it in Sharing Time, please do send the photos. All home learning is good learning. Please send any photos or videos to mariemcclellan@hyundaiforeignschool.com There is no homework this week.

I am aware that we all know each other at this stage, however there is a Meet the Teacher afternoon on Thursday October 31 at 2:30pm in my classroom. I would love to see you there and we can talk about what’s on tap for this year. I’d love to hear how we can collaborate in your child’s learning. I look forward to seeing you!

Have a great weekend and let’s get ready for Week 1 on Monday!

Hello and welcome back to a brand new year here at HFS and in Ms. M’s class. Let me take a moment to introduce myself and give you a brief overview of what to expect this year.

In 2006 I said, “I’ll come teach English in Korea for a year. I can do anything for a year!” Little did I know I would fall in love with working with children, shaping young minds and hearts, and watching the future grow and blossom before my eyes. After 5 years, I returned to Canada to get my B.Ed and make teaching my career. I taught in Indonesia and China before returning to Korea in 2018 to work at HFS.

My teaching philosophy can simply be summed up by saying “Those who can, do.” and I believe it is my job as a teacher to remove barriers and motivate children so that they can learn. In FS 1/2 learning looks a lot like playing and that’s exactly how it should be. What you can expect in my class are rich educational possibilities that are FUN!

In my spare time I love to cook, do yoga, knit and do other crafts, colour, and travel. This summer I had a whirlwind trip to Canada and the US visiting friends and family. No sooner was that finished than did my husband and I jet off to Vietnam for some R&R. My heart is full from meaningful connections made over the summer and my mind is relaxed and ready to create wonderful experiences with your children this year!

I hope you refreshed and ready to go on Thursday and for old and new friends alike: You Are Welcome Here.

I can always be contacted at mariemcclellan@hyundaiforeignschool.com with any questions, concerns, or just for a chat. If face-to-face communication is more your style, don’t hesitate to make an appointment to come see me