Hello and Happy Friday.

I hope this finds you all well on this gloomy, rainy Friday afternoon. Let’s have a look at what we have been learning this week.

Maths
This week in Maths, Year 1 focused on:

• Aut.2.1 – Introducing parts and wholes
• Aut.2.2 – Part-whole model
• Aut.2.3 – Writing number sentences and reviewing them
• Aut.2.4 – Fact families (addition facts)

Year 2 focused on:

• Reviewing fact families
• Aut.2.3 – Related facts
• Reviewing related facts (subtraction)
• Aut.2.4 – Bonds to 100 (tens)
• Aut.2.5 – Adding and subtracting 1s

The children are building strong number knowledge and beginning to see how facts link together across operations.

Literacy
We completed our final assessments this week – planning, practising, and writing! The children showed fantastic resilience throughout, and I’ll be sending their work home after marking.

Our next unit, beginning after the Chuseok break, will be based on the book The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark by Jill Tomlinson. The learning outcome will be non-fiction report writing.

• Year 1 objectives:
  • Use plural noun suffixes -s and -es
  • Punctuate sentences using capital letters and full stops
  • Join words using and
• Year 2 objectives:
  • Use co-ordination (but, or)
  • Add -ly to turn adjectives into adverbs
  • Use commas to separate items in a list

We’re looking forward to diving into this beautiful story together.

IPC
In IPC, we moved into our Art lessons and learned about Mark Rothko, exploring how he used colour and paint to express emotions. The children created their own masterpieces, worked collaboratively on a group painting, and discovered that not everyone feels the same emotions when looking at Rothko’s work. It was a busy, creative week, and I hope these lessons are helping the children learn more about identifying their emotions and trying strategies to manage them.

Chuseok
A reminder that school will be closed Monday–Thursday next week for the Korean Thanksgiving holiday. I wish you and your family a wonderful Chuseok, and I look forward to seeing everyone back in class on Friday, October 10th.

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Dear Parents,

Happy Friday to you all! I hope you have all had as much fun as we have had this week! 🙂 Let’s take a look at our learning and events from this week.

 English

This week, we planned our stories for the upcoming writing assessment. Each story has a clear objective, and this unit’s is to write a version of Troll Swap by changing the main character. The children have carefully planned their stories and drafted detailed beginnings. Next week, we’ll continue with the middle and ending, then practise before the final assessment.

 Maths

• Year 1 reviewed their first unit on Place Value. We will start our next unit Addition and Subtraction within 10 next week.
  
• Year 2 completed their assessment and started the next unit:
  
  • Aut.2.1 – Bonds to 10
    
  • Aut.2.2 – Fact families (addition & subtraction bonds within 20)
    
  • Aut.2.3 – Related facts
    

 IPC

We read the beautiful book The Colour Monster and explored how different lines in drawings can express emotions. Using oil pastels, the children created their very own colourful monsters representing different feelings. The results were fantastic and tied in perfectly with our field trip. Due to the Chuseok Event, we didn’t have IPC on Wednesday.

Field Trip

What a day we had! The centre was fantastic and the children really enjoyed exploring emotions through messy painting, creating clothes for characters, and designing outfits to show different feelings. The painting turned out to be much messier than I expected, so I was very glad we had worn clothes that could get dirty. After the workshop, we went on to Ochigol Park where the sun was shining and the children had such a wonderful time. They loved the zip line, climbing the giant spider web, chasing mantises, and even finding “chocolate treasure” in the sand. I had also prepared a small toy for them to play with at the park, which was a big hit, though perhaps a little noisy! It was such a joyful day and a perfect fit with our IPC learning.

We took lots of pictures for you all, so I have collated them in this folder. Enjoy! 

🌸 Community

It was wonderful to see some of you at the Chuseok Festival—thank you for coming! After such an exciting week, I’m sure the children will sleep very well tonight.

Have a lovely weekend and see you all next week!

Mrs Sim 🙂

Dear Parents,

I hope you are all well. We’ve had a fantastic week of learning in Year 1/2! The children have worked so hard and shown great enthusiasm in every subject. Here’s what we’ve been up to:

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🔢 Maths

• Year 1:
  
  • Aut.1.13 – Compare numbers
    
  • Aut.1.14 – Order objects and numbers
    
  • Aut.1.15 – The number line
    
  • Review for their first maths test ✏️
    👏 Well done to Year 1 for completing their very first maths test so confidently!
    
• Year 2:
  
  • Aut.1.12 – Compare objects
    
  • Aut.1.13 – Compare numbers
    
  • Aut.1.14 – Order objects and numbers
    
  • Aut.1.15 – Count in 2s, 5s, and 10s
    
  • Aut.1.16 – Count in 3s
    ✅ Year 2 have now completed their first maths unit and will sit their unit test next Monday. Well done for all your hard work!
    

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📖 Literacy
This week we finished our class story Troll Swap. The children enjoyed:

• Writing letters ✉️
  
• Predicting the ending 🔮
  
• Planning their own characters 🖊️
  

Next week, we will begin planning our own stories in preparation for the end-of-unit writing test.

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😊 IPC – If You Are Happy and You Know It
Our new unit on emotions has been lots of fun! This week we:

• Took part in a scavenger hunt to find items belonging to different “emotion boxes” 🕵️
  
• Had a relaxing class spa session with calm music, facemasks, and even a little foot massage 🧖 – the children experienced what “calm” feels like and how it helps our brains learn
  
• Created a collaborative mind map of emotions 🧠
  
• Read a story about anger and explored how it feels in our bodies, as well as strategies we can use to move back to calm ❤️
  

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The children have been amazing, and I’m so proud of the way they are engaging with their learning and supporting each other.

Field Trip – Friday 26th September 2025

Next Friday, 26th September, our class will be going on a field trip to Lamfore Children’s Centre, followed by some playtime at Hanmaeum Park in Samsandong area, Ulsan.

This trip has been planned to support our current IPC unit, “If You Are Happy and You Know It”, which focuses on emotions and well-being. The activities at the centre and the park will give the children valuable opportunities to explore and reflect on these themes in a fun and meaningful way.

Please ensure your child wears clothes that they don’t mind getting messy in the morning, as one of the activities will involve painting and stamping with different foods.

🚌 Schedule

• We will depart school at 9:10am and return in time for the school bus at 3:30pm.
  
• If your child does not take the bus, please make sure they arrive at school no later than 8:50am.
  

🥪 Food

• Please pack an easy-to-eat snack and a lunch that does not require microwaving.
  
• A water bottle should also be included.
  

💰 Cost

• The total cost of the trip is 22,000 won.
  
• The school is contributing 10,000 won per child, leaving 22,000 won to be paid by parents.
  
• Please send the 22,000 won in a labelled envelope to school by Wednesday, 24th September.
  

✅ What to bring:

• Packed lunch (no microwaving required) and an easy-to-eat snack
  
• Water bottle
  
• Change of clothes (t-shirt and trousers)
  
• Comfortable walking shoes
  
• Small backpack to carry belongings
  

📌 Permission
Please confirm your child’s attendance by Tuesday, 23rd September 2025 by filling out the permission form. Thanking you all in advance 🙂

Below is a picture from the Activity Centre. It sure will be a lot of fun!

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend 🙂

Take care,

Mrs Sim

Happy Friiiday!

Dear Parents,

We’ve had another fantastic week in Year 1/2, full of learning, creativity, and fun! Here’s a look at what we’ve been working on together:

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➕ Maths

We’ve been busy exploring numbers and using manipulatives on our tuff trays to make learning hands-on and engaging.

Year 1 objectives:

✅ Aut.1.9 – 1 less
✅ Aut.1.10 – Compare groups by matching
✅ Aut.1.11 – Fewer, more, same
✅ Aut.1.12 – Less than, greater than, equal to

Year 2 objectives:

✅ Aut.1.8 – Write numbers to 100 in expanded form
✅ Aut.1.9 – 10s on the number line to 100
✅ Aut.1.10 – 10s and 1s on the number line to 100
✅ Aut.1.11 – Estimate numbers on a number line
✅ Aut.1.12 – Compare objects

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📖 English

We continued with our class story “Troll Swap.” The children really enjoyed diving deeper into the characters and practicing new writing skills.

• ✍️ Year 1 focused on using the connective “and” to write instructions on how to be a good troll.
• ✍️ Year 2 worked on including noun phrases to make their writing more descriptive.
• 💌 We wrote a letter to Tabitha’s grandma asking for help in teaching Tabitha how to be good.
• 💬 Today, we predicted what Troll and Tabitha might say to each other by using speech and thought bubbles.

🌟 Year 1 are becoming more confident in writing short sentences and improving their letter formation.
🌟 Year 2 impressed me with their independence and focus — well done!

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🧠 IPC – The Brain

We have been finishing our unit on The Brain, and the children loved learning more about how it helps us every day.

• 🎵 In assembly, we sang a song about the amygdala, prefrontal cortex, and hippocampus.
• 🌈 We explored our calm space and sensory tools to learn how to calm the amygdala and get back to a happy, calm state.
• 📸 For our research activity, we took close-up photos of objects and guessed what they were. This helped us see how the brain works hard to make sense of information.
• 📝 We also learned about giving clear instructions. Just like the brain, instructions need to be clear so others can understand and “see” what we mean!
• This showed how important clarity is when we communicate – just like how our brain needs clear signals to understand and respond.

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🏡 Homework

🌟 Thank you to all parents for supporting homework and bringing folders in on time, it makes such a difference!

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🍱 Lunchtime/Snack Reminders
To help make lunchtimes run smoothly:

• If your child’s lunch needs to be heated, please send it in a microwave-safe container. Some students currently have metal lunch boxes which unfortunately cannot go in the microwave.
• It’s also really helpful if your child has both a snack pouch and a lunch bag/box. In the mornings we separate snacks and lunches, and at snack time/lunchtime, the children need to carry their food to the cafeteria or outdoors. Having a proper bag or box makes this much easier (and helps avoid little accidents!).

Thank you so much for your understanding 🌟

🚌 Bus Reminder

If your child is not taking the bus in the morning, please contact the bus teacher or the office to let us know in advance.
✔️ This helps staff know where children are and avoids waiting unnecessarily.
Thank you for your support!

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Wishing you all a restful weekend!
Warm regards,
Mrs Sim 🌸

🌟 Year 1/2 Weekly Newsletter – Week 2 🌟

Dear Parents,

It was wonderful to see so many of you at school yesterday. Thank you for joining the curriculum meeting -I hope you found it both informative and helpful.

We’ve had a very busy and exciting Week 2 in Year 1/2! Here’s a little peek into our learning:

🔢 Maths

The children have been working hard and are getting used to our maths rotations. There’s been lots of hands-on learning using manipulatives, and today we even tried out Sumdog, our online maths programme. The children had great fun reviewing the week’s objectives.

Year 1 have been working on:

Representing objects

Recognising numbers as words

Counting on from any number

Finding 1 more

Counting backwards within 10

Year 2 have been working on:

Recognising tens and ones

Using a place value chart

Partitioning numbers to 100

Writing numbers to 100 in words

Flexibly partitioning numbers to 100

✍️ Literacy

In Literacy, we’ve been busy designing our own trolls ready for next week’s writing activity.

Year 1 have been practising capital letters, full stops, finger spaces, and using the connective ‘and’.

Year 2 have been improving their sentences by adding expanded noun phrases to describe Timothy the Troll from our story Troll Swap.

We’re looking forward to reading more of the book next week!

🧠 IPC – Learning About the Brain

This week our IPC focus has been the brain. The children loved creating posters of the different parts and exploring how memory works by playing fun memory games.

We also investigated the cerebellum by doing an experiment: children threw sponges at the glass door while their partners stood behind it, checking if they blinked or flinched! We then tried out some balance and coordination exercises to test if our cerebellums were working well.

We also learned about the amygdala (our “shark alarm”) and how it keeps us safe. Together we drew a large body outline and marked the different stress responses on it.

👉 Next week, we’ll explore the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex in more detail to see how they help us with learning and memory.

🧥 A Little Reminder

Please send in a sweater or cardigan for your child to keep in the classroom if you haven’t already. Even though the air conditioning is set to 26°C, a few children still feel chilly at times. Thank you for helping keep everyone comfortable.

It’s been a fantastic week of learning, and I’m so proud of how hard the children are working.
Wishing you all a restful weekend!

Warm regards,

Mrs Sim

Dear Parents,

It has been such a lovely week welcoming all the students back to school after the summer break. We have had lots of fun settling into our new class, and I have really enjoyed getting to know the children. This week, I have focused on building connections with the students and introducing our classroom routines. I have been so impressed with the kindness they have shown each other. They are already working together beautifully as a team – it has been wonderful to see.

Our Class Agreement

One of our first activities was creating our Class Agreement. Together, we thought about the kind of classroom we want to have and how we should speak and treat one another.

We read the story “Our Class is a Family” and talked about how our class is like a little school family, one where we show respect and care for everyone. To celebrate this idea, we made special bracelets so that we all have our very own “class family” bracelets.

In our classroom, I want every child to know “We all belong here.” This is very important to me, and I will work hard to make sure all the children feel loved, safe, and happy at school.

Each day this week, we burst a balloon with a child’s name inside. The class then shared kind words and wrote positive messages on a poster for that child. This has been a wonderful way to celebrate each student and remind them how special they are.

Learning This Week

The Year 2 students completed two assessments this week-one for Literacy and one for Maths. These will help us as we prepare to start phonics and Maths groups next week.

We also jumped into our learning:

In Maths, we began work on Wednesday. Year 1 students learned the following objectives:

Aut.1.1 – Sort objects
Aut.1.2 – Count objects
Aut.1.3 – Count objects from a larger group

Year 2 objectives:

Aut.1.1 – Numbers to 20
Aut.1.2 – Count objects to 100 by making 10s (Friday we had the assessment so only 2 objectives were taught)

In Literacy, we started reading our new book, “Troll Swap,” which the children are already enjoying. I dressed up as a troll and we received a letter from the Troll himself. It was a nice introduction to the unit.

Homework

Homework was sent home today along with library books in a yellow file. The students have one week to complete it and should return it along with the library books next Friday.

Reminders
P.E.

Children have P.E. on Mondays and Fridays. Please make sure they wear comfortable clothes and suitable shoes on those days.

Water Bottles

Please ensure your child brings a water bottle to school each day so they can stay hydrated.

Air Conditioning

Some students have mentioned feeling a little cold in class. If your child would like to, please send a light jacket or sweater to keep in their bag. It’s difficult to find a temperature that works for everyone, especially while the hot weather continues, so this will help them feel comfortable.

Upcoming Event

I am looking forward to seeing you all at our Information Session on Thursday 4th September at 2:45pm. It will be a lovely chance to meet properly and share more about the year ahead.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend. Thank you for your support, and I look forward to another great week together on Monday!

Take care,
Mrs Sim 🌸

Dear Parents,

Welcome to Year 1/2! I hope you’ve all had a wonderful summer, filled with the things you love. 😊

I’m so excited to welcome your child to my class this year. For those who are new, here’s a little bit about me below. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

I’ll be in touch again soon to invite you to our Curriculum Meeting – it’s always a great way to start the year and a lovely opportunity to get to know each other.

Kind regards,

Mrs Sim