MODERN ENGLISH SCHOOL
CAIRO
3
Primary Weekly Newsletter
1st October 2014
Foundation Stage One
We have reached the end of our first half term and it has been lovely to walk around the Pod and hear the pupils
attempting to speak more English, after such a short period of time in school. After the Eid break, our topic will be ‘All
About Me’, where we will be encouraging your child to talk about their family, learn about their five senses, name parts
of their body and think about their feelings. During the holiday, perhaps you could look through family albums and
reflect with your child on special events for your family. If you are at the beach, encourage your child to collect some
souvenirs that they can count and bring to school and show, such as small stones, shells etc.
Please ensure that there is always a spare set of clothes in school, returning clothes the following day also. The FS1
team wish every family a very happy holiday.
Foundation Stage Two
FS2 have participated in a range of activities including junk modelling a ‘Gruffalo’, making magic spells like ‘Winnie the
Witch’ and mixing potions in class. The Pod and Outdoor Learning are popular places for the pupils to select their own
activities to help them explore their imagination. If your child is playing with their toys at home, encourage talking by
helping them to introduce characters or a storyline. Perhaps their car is falling off a cliff and they need to save the
people … perhaps the car can fly…who is in it and where is it going? Our next exciting topic after half term will be
‘Pirates’ and so we would appreciate cardboard rolls and tubes for our junk modelling.
Have a restful half term and we look forward to welcoming you all back into a new topic.
Year One
We had another busy week in Year One. We know that many pupils have been reading at home because we had many
‘Bookworms’ last week, which was great to see!
We began reading a new book called ‘The Day the Crayons Quit’ as part of our book project. It is a great book and we
really enjoyed reading about how the crayons felt after working so hard to colour in pictures! We talked about our
favourite colours and learned how to spell colour words. Try the following website to read the story again at home:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQZhCogxVDs
In Maths, we asked classes about their favourite colours and put this information into a bar chart. We also did some
tricky adding and subtracting. In Art we are continuing to draw our self-portraits and thinking carefully about how to
blend colours.
Year Two
It was wonderful to see so many of our parents attending our 'Meet and Greet' last Wednesday. A big thank you for
taking the time and effort to come and meet us. Year Two have been very creative this week as part of our book
projects. The Pod has had an invasion of “Roly Poly” birds from the 'Enormous Crocodile.' The pupils have been
creating their own alien as part of the story ‘Beegu’ and during our art activity the pupils have been creating selfportraits.
The pupils are beginning to write their own version of the story they have been reading, ensuring they use WOW words
to make their story interesting.
In Maths, the pupils are learning to sort 2D shapes according to their properties. Please visit the following website
http://www.ictgames.com/Y1shape.html where children can revise shape names and properties.
Anubis
1458
Horus
1658
Ra
Thoth
1134
1548
Year Three
The final week of activities, based on the stories written by Anthony Browne, continues to stir the imagination and natural
curiosity of our pupils. Over the last three weeks the pupils have not only been encouraged to write stories with creativity and
originality, but have also been revising the format for both information writing and biography genres as non-fiction texts.
Last week in Maths we revised number bonds to 20 and multiplication facts (times tables). Furthermore, the pupils spent time
developing their skills to partition numbers into hundreds, tens and ones; for example, when we partition the number 247, we
have 200 + 40 + 7.
In Science we have been classifying organisms according to their feeding habits. As a result, the pupils are now able to sort, or
classify, animals as herbivores, carnivores or omnivores. If you wish to explore this Science topic further, please visit
www.brainpop.com/games/foodchaingame and share the online activities with your child. Your involvement in your child’s
learning is very much appreciated.
Year Four
It has been a very busy and exciting week in Year Four. The pupils have enjoyed cooking and tasting semolina, a traditional
dessert, which children in our book ‘The Butterfly Lion’ were served at the boarding school. Following cookery lessons in the
kitchen, the pupils took on the role of being food critics as they wrote a review of their culinary experience. On the whole, the
reviews were very positive and many pupils thought it tasted so delicious, they would try to recreate the dish at home.
The Year Four teachers are really impressed with the beautiful kites and butterflies created by the pupils as part of their
Curriculum Diversity Homework. The next step will be to evaluate the designs and discuss ways in which they could have been
improved.
In Maths, the pupils are revising the properties of 2D shapes, line symmetry and reflection. We hope you have a wonderful half
term break and if you would like to meet a lion cub like the one in ‘The Butterfly Lion’ then you could visit Africa Safari Park on the
Cairo – Alexandria Highway as a treat during the holidays!
Year Five
Year Five have been busy beavering away furiously on their Book Project work. They have also been producing some fantastic
homework in the form of book review presentations, alternative covers and blurbs for their favourite books. Many of these can be
seen in the Pod and have to be seen to be believed! All of the Year Five teachers are very much looking forward to hearing pupils
create their very own audiobooks from original short stories that they are writing.
Within the classroom, pupils have been busy with animation making, using green screen technology and even cooking! Our
attention turns now towards our next topic – 'What a Load of Rubbish!' If you have any rubbish materials (plastic bottles,
cardboard, newspaper etc) that pupils can use for sculpture and collaging, please send it in with your child.
And last, but certainly not least, it is with great pleasure that I can announce the Year Five Pod Reps are Malak Atef & Bakry
Abdullah. The Year Five teachers are very confident that these two pupils will do a great job. The following pupils have been
elected as class representatives: Yellow-Leilah &Fahad; Red-Jana & Amr; Orange-Bakry & Alya; Blue-Diya’a & Zaynah; Green-Seif &
Malak; Violet-Malik & Marwan. “Well Done” to all of these pupils and good luck to all of them for the upcoming year. In order to
'ignite' your child's writing, you may find the following website useful: http://www.piecorbett.com/free-resources.html
Year Six
Year Six have had a good week working on their book projects. They are immersing themselves in a text and producing a high
volume of work covering a range of Literacy genres. The pupils have many opportunities to display their creative talents in Art and
their knowledge of Geography and Science too. We hope that we are inspiring them to read a range of books from different
genres.
In Maths, Year Six have been consolidating their knowledge of mental strategies to add and subtract, as well as looking at
properties of 3D shapes. The Year Six team have been impressed with the pupils’ relationship skills demonstrated through a range
of cooperative strategies. They have been very reflective about their talents in preparation for the upcoming auditions for our
production.
To support your child’s learning during half term please look at this website: http://www.topmarks.co.uk/english-games/7-11years/spelling-and-grammar
New Cairo, South of Police Academy
Mailing address: P.O.Box 5, New Cairo, Tagamoa Khamis, 11835 Cairo, Egypt
Tel.: +2 02 26189600 Fax: 2617 0020
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.mescairo.com