Foundation Stage & Key Stage 1: A frightfully batty time

Foundation Stage & Key Stage 1: A frightfully batty time There was lots of fun to be had at the end of last week to celebrate Halloween...This week sees a very interesting parent workshop for KS3 parents...Our Eco Warriors Club is looking for help to create a roof-top garden...Don’t forget to sign up for your flu vaccination.

There was lots of fun to be had at the end of last week to celebrate Halloween at St Andrews International School Bangkok...This week sees a very interesting parent workshop for KS3 parents...Our Eco Warriors Club is looking for help to create a roof-top garden...Don’t forget to sign up for your flu vaccination.

Frightful Friday

We hope you weren’t too nervous if you ventured into school on Friday, to be met by vampires, witches, monsters, bats, ghosts and ghouls and other creatures of the night…..

As part of their festivals topic, the children in Y1 have been learning all about celebrations around the world and this week have been preparing celebration food and decorations for the Friday event.

There were lots of things organised at break and lunch times for all of the Primary children to take part in such as eyeball and spoon races, giant Halloween jigsaws, witch pitch, and of course the Thriller Dance with Ms Cherry.

It was a fantastic morning and a massive thank you to the students and teachers in the House Team and to parents for providing the costumes.

Upcoming Workshops

An email was sent last week regarding two upcoming workshops - both are aimed at FS3 (Reception), Y1 and Y2 families:

Talking Time

Friday 6 November from 08.00 - 09.30 a.m.
Drama Studio, Primary Campus

 

This meeting, run by the Speech and Language Therapy Team (Ms Abby and Ms Anna) aims to give parents an overview of expected language development in a child’s native language and what parents can do to support language development and facilitate learning.

How to support your child reading at home

Friday 16 November from 08.00 - 09.00 a.m.
Drama Studio, Primary Campus

This meeting, run by the teachers and Year leaders, will give an overview of reading development and how reading is supported in school for those able readers and those new to reading.  The teachers will demonstrate Guided Reading and there will be opportunities to ask questions. If you are new to KS1, it may be a good meeting to sign up for.

Did you know….?

As we continue our efforts towards being a sustainable school, our partners, such as STEPS are doing the same.  They are offering a 5 baht discount on a drink if you bring along your own cup. It would be nice to see more people bringing their own cups along as so many of us have them these days. It’s not about the discount, but about setting a good example to the children and other members of the school community.

Eco Warriors Club

The Eco Warriors club in Primary School is looking for help from parents.  They need willing volunteers to help develop and maintain a vegetable garden on the top of the R block building. This is a huge job but with your help they know they can do it.

Why do we want to grow our own vegetables?

A school garden is a powerful educational tool. Through gardening, students become more responsible and learn important science skills of trial and error, predicting and problem solving. They have the opportunity to learn real agricultural life skills on a small scale as well as understand the interconnections among all living and nonliving things. The children also gain a deep understanding of where their food comes from and how to harvest and prepare healthy and delicious food. In addition, working with nature is very relaxing and allows children to really focus and unwind whilst building important teamwork skills.

What we need to succeed

We need help! We know that many of our parents are skilled and knowledgeable gardeners, understanding well what will grow specifically in Thailand. We need help sourcing high quality local seeds and soil. We need people to help us develop and maintain the space. All expertise is welcome!

If you are interested please contact Miss Helen on helen.mu@standrews.ac.th.

Word Mania

Round one of Word Mania has now begun, and it will end on 9 November. For those of you who haven’t heard of Word Mania, it is a competition for schools all over the world, which gets children to make as many words as possible in three minutes. Word Mania has been shown to improve the variety of skills involved - including phonics, spelling, vocabulary and word knowledge - on average by 36%.

Last year, we did very well in the Word Mania competition. Year 4 did particularly well, as they came 3rd in the world!! Let’s see if we can even better this year. The children will be joining in the fun at school, and we would like you to encourage your child to play this at home too. Your child’s teacher should have given the login details to their class already.

For more information about Word Mania, please have a look at the website by following this link.