Grade 1 ~ Last Day of School

This was Belle’s first full year as a first grader, having joined the international school halfway as a kindergartener back in February 2013.  She had a fun year in first grade, and has formed very good friendships with 5 other girls.  She received an award for “Best Listener”, and a “Reading Certificate” for progressing from Level L at the beginning of year to Level N at the end of the year.

Belle's year-end portrait

Belle's last day of school special snack

Belle's portfolio from school

How cute is this end of year gift that Belle's class gave to their teacher?  

Preschool 2 ~ Last Day of School

This was Keefe’s first year at the international school since our move last year, and he had a wonderful year!  His class celebrated the end of the year with a disco dance party (yep!).

The song Keefe’s class sang during their last week in school

Keefe's year-end portrait

Keefe's last day of school special snack

Keefe’s teacher compiled photos and selected work that he has done for the whole year into a portfolio/scrapbook.  It was a wonderful way to look back at something he has done/learnt and the different festivals they celebrated in class.

The alphabet crafts that Keefe did in school to go along with their Jolly Phonics programme.

And finally, Keefe with his lovely teachers who have nurtured him throughout the year!

Font-astic Favorites

I love, love, love fonts so I couldn’t resist joining The Polished Teacher’s Font-astic Favorites party! 

Mommy School ~ Ii is for Inchworm

Kai enjoyed finding the inchworm as we read the book.

We brought our learning out in the garden where Kai counted holes eaten from each leaf and matched them to the correct inchworm, sorted uppercase and lowercase Ii's, and made an inchworm craft.

Mommy School ~ Ii is for Ice Cream

~Kai is 38 months, 1 week old~

Day 1

I made some chocolate playdough and vanilla playdough, and set up a small ice cream shop for Kai to play with.  

He enjoyed scooping the "ice cream" into individual cups (from Italy!), and topping them with whipped cream (cotton) and a cherry (red pom-pom).  Of course, he couldn't resist having a bite of the ice cream cone!  He continued playing with his ice cream shop the next day.

Day 2

We read The Ice Cream King and after reading the book, Kai said he wants to share chocolate ice cream with me.  (Later during the day, Kai made a sundae from his shop, got two spoons and pretended to eat the chocolate ice cream with me.) J

We made our ice cream craft.  Kai kept commenting why the letter I is an ice cream cup!

Kai traced his lines and counted ice cream cones.

He also did an alphabet maze.  He saw his big brother's ice cream worksheet on my desk and insisted he wanted to do it.  I was surprised he did extremely well with this letter matching activity!

Of course, Kai had ice cream before calling it a day.  Aren't those Disney Cars ice cream adorable? (And they're only available during summer!)

Strawberry Picking Fun in Basel

June means strawberry picking in many parts of Switzerland, including Basel.  The kids have never picked their own berries (gasp!) so we decided to head over to Wiesner's Beeriland today after lunch for some strawberry picking fun!

Red and plump strawberries!

Lots of happy smiles while picking strawberries under the 36-degree Celsius weather!

We paid CHF8.95 for 2kg of fresh strawberries and the kids can't wait to go back for another round of berry picking!    

   

Grade 1 & Preschool 2 ~ Annual Sports Day

Belle had her Sports Day last Friday morning.  This is the view of the school field.

She did a lot of jumping and running...

...pulling (tug-of-war!), balancing and crawling (obstacle courses!) with her best buddies.

Keefe had his Sports Day on the same day but in the afternoon.  He was grumpy for about an hour due to the hot weather so he did only two stations (soccer and jumping).  He felt better after an hour and participated in an obstacle course.  His favourite part was dancing to the "Hokey Pokey" song!

Kai had a lot more fun than Keefe, and did more stations than his big brother.  He loved riding the tricycle the most, not to mention dancing to "Hokey Pokey"!

Every student was treated to an ice cream at the end of the Sports Day.  Even Kai got one, thanks to Keefe's preschool teacher!

Mommy School ~ Hh is for House {A House for Hermit Crab}

~Kai is 38 months old~

I pulled out the crab craft Kai made in playgroup two weeks ago to go along with A House for Hermit Crab.  I read the story and surprisingly, Kai sat through the entire reading, considering the long text!  We worked on vocabulary words from the story – I shout out a word and Kai covers the matching picture with a cube.  We continued working on recognising numbers & ordering numbers from 1 to 10.

We worked on one-to-one correspondence.

 We also worked on visual discrimination skills.  Kai could easily spot the differences in colour, but not differences in directional orientation (left/right) or finer details - which I think is still advance for him at this point.  Kai also traced lines to improve his pre-writing skills.

Kai didn’t want to make his letter craft today but his big brother wanted to after seeing me pre-cut the shapes.  Keefe glued down everything and when Kai saw the completed craft, he said: “Kai is in the house!” J

Mommy School ~ Hh is for Horse

We kept things simple for our horse theme, mainly because I was too busy!

We made a horse craft.

We did a letter find activity and practiced our counting.

We were in France last week and Kai got to ride a horse in a merry-go-round, and also fed a horse some berries!

Mommy School ~ Gg is for Goat

~Kai is 37 months, 3 weeks old~

We did the goat theme for a couple of days with hands-on activities and no worksheets!  

We read The Three Billy Goats Gruff last Monday and I created a scene for Kai to retell the story.  Kai's favourite part was when the biggest Billy Goat Gruff bravely charged at the Troll with his horns and tossed him into the river.

We made a goat craft and a grass craft after we read the story.

We went to visit a local farm near the international school last Tuesday.  Kai saw three billy goats Gruff and wanted to feed them grass!

We went to Lyon in France to spend the long weekend.  On our way, we stopped by a farm in Sagy where we saw lots of farm animals.  Kai loved feeding grass to the many goats that live on the farm.

We went to a huge French park yesterday and Kai saw a bridge.  Here he was checking out if the Troll was under the bridge!