By Donita Bell
Our first Unit of Inquiry in Grade One at Northbridge International School Cambodia has been a time of connecting and feeling belonging as we get to know ourselves and each other.
In Grade One, our children started the year by giving their groups a name that was chosen by the students themselves.
Introducing the Grade 1 'Yellow Bees' & Grade 1 'Green Dinosaurs'!
We started with understanding that our mind can be fixed or a growth mindset that allows us to make mistakes and identify that we can’t do everything ‘yet’ but that with some brain talk we thought about how we can continue to grow as a learner.
“Believe in yourself” suggested Zach, “Don’t give up”, Socheata reminds us; “Try your best”, says Sue Anne and we learnt about the “Power of Yet”.
Then we thought about our strengths as people in our classes. We even wrote about the strengths of each other:
“Monyreach is careful,” wrote Lucas; Sombo was described by Seungbihn as “Caring and friendly, he makes me feel good.” “Mafiya – you make me happy. You are so kind,” says Socheata. We could find so many things that are special about each other.
So... as we finish our first seven weeks together, we have thought about what our hopes and dreams are. We also asked our families what their hopes and dreams for us are.
For the rest of this year, we have goals to achieve and are thinking of ways to achieve our hopes. We will work together as a community of learners that have agreements and responsibilities towards our classroom, each other and ourselves.
If we follow our agreements, we can have a happy, safe, fun learning environment
We used to think that we cannot do something but now we know that when we keep trying and never give up, we might not be able to do it yet, but we will be able to do it in the future.
We are powerful learners!
When people think about leadership, what often comes to mind are the concepts of power, decision making, delegating and innovation. Seldom does one think about care, empathy, kindness, and generosity – however these traits that highlight the emotional skills for successful and effective leadership, including by students at Northbridge International School Cambodia, are just as important.
What are the Primary Arts all about? Is it just a load of fun and messing around? It is fun, which is why we love it but there is so much more to the programme than some people might think.
Take a visit to our early learning spaces at Northbridge International School Cambodia, both inside and out, and you will observe a wealth of play activities happening. Students are interacting in playing on their own (solo play), playing with the same thing or in the same space (mirrored play) or sharing together (collaborative play).
