News from Primary school
Dear parents and friends of Open Gate,
we find ourselves with another full week in the rearview mirror filled with experiences, discovery, new information, creativity, and fun.
As a new teacher of the smallest children, I have, along with the children, just started discovering the various possibilities and beauties of our school when we were interrupted by distance learning. So, I am very excited that we will be able to at least see the 1st and 2nd graders in person again from next week.
We will get started with the project: 10 years of Open Gate school. Children can look forward to fun assignments which will be linked by the magical number 10, and there's a celebration in the making!
And what's new this week?
First graders really got into counting. They are handling addition up to the number 9 and creating cubic math diagrams. They found out which birds fly south for winter, and what other animals do in the autumn. For Saint Martins, they didn't have wine or goose, but they were introduced to the legend of his cape. They also know what it means when Martin comes on a white horse. Owing to the split lessons, students had plenty of opportunity to read books like Maxipes Fik. The letter F poses no obstacle to us.
Class 1 made some beautiful pictures of poppies in their Art lesson. We talked about Remembrance Day and the meaning behind the flowers. Everyone used a different technique, and the results are beautiful! They have also been learning to ask and answer questions about what they can/can’t do and they’ve been having fun coming up with questions to ask the teachers and each other.
Our globetrotters from second class are ending with distance learning. Now that we know that we can return on Wednesday to school, we are sprinting towards the finish line. We are taking a bit of a detour through our neighboring countries, and on our way, practicing counting to 100. Along the way, we are learning plenty of interesting things. For example, we found out about antonyms. We still found time to review the ABC's and to overcome the obstacle of the white horse with Martin in its saddle right before the finish line of this week. Do you know when we celebrate the world day of science? and who was Johannes Gutenberg? We do!!!! we are in a hurry because, we have a fascinating book to finish. Have a great November. Your second graders.
This week we finished Unit 3 in Incredible English, and we did a big review of all three units. On Monday, we read a book called “Need It or Want It?” where we learned and talked about the difference between something we need and something we want. We tackled words with -OI in phonics with great success!!! We did “show and tell” with our favorite toys and practiced asking and answering questions too. On Friday 13th, we took our spelling test and talked about luck. We looked at pictures and decided if they represent good luck or bad luck. We finished the week with reading and discussing the book “Lucky Ducky”.
In 3rd grade, we were again accompanied by interesting topics all week. On Monday, we immediately got submerged into the depths of math. We managed to get untangled from math webs, built foundations, and reviewed addition. We took on math again on Tuesday. Along with practicing addition, we added subtraction. We became illustrators and created our own gardens based on our fantasy. In morning Oasis, we are reading the book Zahrada by Jiri Trnka. In Czech class, we are working on the parts of speech-mainly verbs. We even know what an infinitive is… On Wednesday, we celebrated with Martin and his steed. The children made cards resulting in a beautiful collage, which we sent to our Martin. Our group project with second graders also continued. We were introduced to the invention of the printing press and created our very own books from scratch. Even with all this, we still managed to get some jumping done with the kangaroo – with the mathematical one, that is. Did you know Badik is writing a book? Do you want to see it?
Class 3 have been handing in their writing homework – interviews in English. It’s been a lot of fun reading their interviews, which were very creative and interesting. Many children decided to interview their parents, siblings or friends, but we’ve even had one interview with a pair of cats! They are all very well written and I am impressed with the variety of questions the children came up with.
In class 3 this week, we did our usual phonics and had the phonics quiz, which was won by Emily! We also had a very interesting speaking class where we discussed our dream jobs that we would like to do and were interviewed about why we would like those jobs, what you needed to do in those jobs and what would be the most fun part or most difficult part of those jobs.
In 4th grade, our students had a very full online program this week. The children managed to celebrate the holiday of Saint Martin, and they tried to come up with an ending to the legend. The stories were wonderful, and you can find some of the stories on the school website. All 4th graders also wrote the mathematical logical kangaroo… It was a hopping sensation!
Class 4 started the week about the different things we do that are healthy or unhealthy. We followed our discussion by reading an outrageously silly book called “Dr. Bugspit”. We also talked about common English idioms and proverbs relating to health and even translated some Czech ones for Jerry. In Incredible English, we are continuing learning about health problems with a focus on the modal verb should. We pretended to be doctors and patients in our role-play exercise. We finished the week on Friday 13th by talking and reading about common superstitions and why some people are superstitious.
Attention, attention,
This week in fifth grade, we took on the theme of freedom in morning Oasis. On Monday, Andrea took lead in class, and together we read the wise words of Jan Werich about freedom and discussed children rights. On Friday's morning Oasis, we talked about the 17th of November and the velvet revolution. We also learned about the holiday of Saint Martin and the traditions and prognostics that are associated with it. Additionally, 5th graders discovered which war conflict ended 11.11 at 11 o’clock, and why Friday the 13th is considered unlucky. If you're not sure, you can ask one of our fifth graders. I'm sure they will be happy to tell you. On Thursday, the mathematical kangaroo finally hopped on in and for 60 minutes challenged our student’s minds with various logical problems. Next week, we will announce the three most successful problem solvers. End of announcement.
In class 5 this week, we talked about different inventions and discussed which inventions we thought were the most important in our lives and why they made such a big difference. We also learnt about the human digestive system and the parts of the body involved in the digestion process.
I wish you all a beautiful November,
For ZŠ OG Team,
