Outside Play

School Vision

Udon Thani International School (UDIS) inspires internationally-minded, balanced learners who thrive and become active, global citizens.

Unit of Inquiry - How the World Words

Central Idea: Materials behave and interact in certain ways, which determine how people use them.

Current Line of Inquiry: Manipulation and application of materials to new purposes.

Outside Play

Outside play is so important to children as it gives them so much more freedom to explore ideas and concepts than inside a classroom where they are sometimes afraid to be messy and loud and busy. 
Outside play allows the children to build gross motor skills by running, jumping, crawling, digging, squatting and skipping. These activities help them to become courageous risk-takers. These activities also mostly involve other children who begin to join the play when they see how much fun others are having. This allows the children to begin to make friends by developing an understanding of who has similar interests to them. These activities help them to build their communication and social skills. 
Other activities help to build children's conceptual understanding of the world. Playing in the water, the children begin to ask questions about why some objects float and why some don't. Playing with the cars or train on the ramp, the children start to notice that they always roll down and begin to explore why that happens. These activities develop the children's research and communication skills. 
Playing in any of the areas, the children begin to develop an understanding of number. There are only so many toys. Are there enough for all their friends to play the same game? How many people can play at each station? What will we do if there are not enough cars for all the children to play? These questions not only build the children's understanding of the importance of number but also their social, communication, research and self-management skills. Children begin to find ways to solve these problems, to share and show cooperation and collaboration. 
Outside play, indeed play in general, is so much more than what it first appears on the surface. It takes an adult to really look and listen closely to what is happening to see the great amount of learning that is taking place and how many skills are really being developed and worked on in a single moment. 
Jean Piaget once said, "Play is the work of the child", and my goodness are they working hard!

Maths

This week we have focused on learning about the number 3 and the children have been using the very hungry caterpillar to help them. 

Phonics

This week our focus has been on the story 'Why'. We are encouraging the children to ask more questions. We have read The Most Magnificent Thing as part of our UOI. The children then designed their own Magnificent thing before building it in the construction area. We also read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and did some activities about the story as we will be performing it for the End Of Year Show and I want the children to be really familiar with it. 

Specialist Lessons

This week in music the children are practising for the End of Year Show.

Learner Profile

This week our focus has been on Principleadon. We were talking about recycling and how it is important for us to reuse or reduce the materials we use. The children went on a materials hunt in our outside area to see what materials they could find. 

International Mindedness/Student Choice (UOI)

Students enjoyed building their own Magnificent Things out of recycled materials after reading the story The Most Magnificent Thing. Their creations really were magnificent! 

Parent Notices

Mon 20 - Tue 21 - HALF TERM: SCHOOL CLOSED
Mon 27 - PTA #8
Fri 31 - Parent and Toddler morning/Stay and Play (8:20 - 10:00)
Mon 3 JUNE - SCHOOL CLOSED: Queen's Birthday
Thu 6 - Preschool Fieldtrip - more details to follow
Fri 7 - Parent and Toddler morning/Stay and Play (8:20 - 10:00)
Mon 10 - Parent Cafe #8
Mon 10 - distribute reports
Fri 14 - End of Unit Showcase/SLC'S - optional Parent Teacher Conferences
Wed 19 - End of Term