Elementary News Desk
Future Journalists in Training
5th Grade Students from the Apple Clips Club (CCA) made a video about the big basketball game against Repton. They came up with a plan for the video before interviewing players, the coach, and taking lots of candid shots of the event. Afterwards, they used their free time during the week to edit and finalize the video with virtually no assistance from a teacher. This was their first attempt at covering a sporting event!
Mr. James Elliott – Nov. 10, 2022
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Book Fair and TissueBox Decorating Contest
RAS is having the first Book Fair of the year on November 9-11th. We hope you had a chance to visit the fair and perhaps purchase some. We held a Tissue Box contest in the library to create book-themed tissue boxes for library use. So many students participated enthusiastically. We received 50 boxes!
The winners for the contest are: PreK: Josiah, KG: Amal, Grade 1: Raghad, Grade 2: Clark, Grade 3: Elly, Grade 4: Seolly, Grade 5A: Sarah, Grade 5B: Klarissa, EIP: Minnie, Teachers: Megan Wood
Rita Moltzan
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Spooktacular Booooks Week
We had a “spooktacular” week in the library. We enjoyed some “not-so-scary” Halloweeny stories and read books in our “Spooktacular Boooooks” cave. Students enjoyed reading books in the dark with a flashlight. They also rated books with 1-5 pumpkins as our rating scheme (1- not so good; 5- bootiful), chose “Trick or Treat” word explorations, and other spooktacular activities. Overall, we had a fun week in the library!
Rita Moltzan
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International Week: Mystery Country Project
Throughout International Week, ES classes have inquired into a ‘mystery country’ to learn more about it. Their task is to then take this information and share it with the rest of the ES by the end of the week.
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Elementary Music Recital
Over 30 Elementary students performed in the Black Box Theatre for our Elementary Recital. Students shared their musical talents with the school community by playing on their own and in small groups. We had performers in every grade; from Kindergarten to Grade 5! It was wonderful to see our beginners share the stage with our more experienced students. Grade 3 have only been learning recorder since the start of this year, but they still played two songs beautifully! Our choir CCA group made their debut performances with two songs, one of which was led by a student – well done Wenjie! A huge congratulations to all the students who performed – I am so proud of you! And a big ‘thank you’ to all the family and friends who came to watch!
Jennifer Lonn
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Exploring Food & Nutrition in Mandarin
Students in the elementary Mandarin class got to bring their favorite food items and enjoy a food party in class. They also got to categorize the food they brought using the food pyramid and learn the benefits food has in their daily diet. As it is frequently said in Mandarin, “To have a full life, we have to fill our stomach first!”.
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Zentangle
Things are heating up just before fall break here at Raffles, and the pressure of schoolwork is building. Fortunately, our diverse CCA selection allows students to destress, decompress, and decrease anxiety. Our CCA Zentagle allows students the opportunity to step away from school, to create beautiful, creative, and confidence-building images. What’s your favorite Zentangle artwork?
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A Collaborative Lesson on Community
Grade 1 has been learning about the many pieces and people that make a community function. For the technology aspect of this unit, they have been interviewing different people outside of their classroom and documenting what they learned on the iPads with text, speech, and photography. They had special guests visit on Tuesday when Computer Science students from Grade 11 and Grade 12 visited the classroom. The students interviewed ‘the big kids’ and got advice about how to be organized and also about life at RAS.
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5th Graders Tackle Reading Challenge
Selfies with our Shelfies!! To promote wide reading, 5th graders are challenged to read a Tower of 20 different kinds of books. Reading different genres promotes interest in a variety of topics and helps students learn. As students complete sections of their Shelfies”, they get to take a selfie at our selfie station. Students in grades 1-5 are all encouraged to complete different types of Shelfies based on reading goals. We hope to see more selfies soon! Congratulations to our first group of Shelfie Selfies!
International Peace Day
Wednesday, September 21st was International Peace Day! Established in 1981 by the UN, this day is globally observed as a day for all humanity to commit to peace above differences, ushering in a culture of peace. Our Raffles elementary students spent the day discussing the meaning of peace, and then creating depictions of doves, symbolizing peace, and then shared a class statement of what peace means to them.
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Malaysia Day Celebration
In the spirit of Malaysia Day, students came together to celebrate the unity of Malaysia by sampling Malaysian snacks, participating in traditional games, and dance, and trying on traditional clothing. What a fun way to celebrate Malaysia together!
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Egypt in the Planetarium
Fun Fact: Raffles American School is the ONLY K-12 school in Southeast Asia to feature an on-campus planetarium.
This week our Elementary EIP class kicked off their Ancient Egypt Unit in style by utilizing the 50-seat, surround sound, full-dome theater. Talk about a fun educational experience!
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International Dot Day
How can we make a mark in the world? In the library this week we learned how to “make a mark”. We celebrated International Dot Day by reading “The Dot” by Peter Reynold and creating collaborative dots with our friends. We are all creative and can do anything if we try! All it takes is encouragement and effort! Remarkable!
Rita Moltzan
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Sports Return to Raffles!
Monday, September 12th
On Monday we hosted a fantastic game of soccer between the RAS and Repton Under 11 teams. I believe this is the first Inter-School Sports fixture for quite some time here at RAS. It is so good to see our students back into the fray of competitive sports.
Both teams approached the game with outstanding sportsmanship and endeavor. It was a hot afternoon but our students gave their all in a generally even-sided game. Repton won the game 3-0 but our squad of players combined well and were very unlucky not to score.
Our goalies did a tremendous job with some particularly excellent saves by Eric, William, and Bertie.
Brian, Chloe, and Jiwon played very well during their time in the midfield, and Sam, Thomas, and King were solid in defense. Yuhwa, Soy, Ali, and Klarissa also made good contributions around the ground as we rotated players and positions throughout the game.
A massive thank you to Secondary students Alfie Taylor, for doing an excellent job of refereeing, and Aidan Kinchington, for his support on the sidelines.
The support from families and staff at RAS was great to see and thank you to the Senior Ex-Com students who were selling drinks and snacks at the game. We certainly appreciated the ice-cold drinks after the game.
It was an excellent afternoon all around and we are looking forward to our next games. (There is no game on Monday, September 19th)
On Monday, September 26th we travel to Marlborough, and then on Monday, October 3rd we play against Crescendo here at RAS.
We hope to see many members of the RAS community at these games to once again support our young players.
Go RAPTORS!
Mr Andy Manion and Mrs Cherie Norman
U11 Soccer Coaches
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Third Grade Reads to Kindergarten
Third Grade students had the chance to publish and read their Personal Narratives to kindergarten students. At this event, the young authors read stories aloud and shared pictures and ideas behind each one. They were super excited about their first writing event!
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Mid-Autumn Festival : Elementary Mandarin Class
Mid-Autumn Festival is around the corner! It is a day for friends and family to gather together, offer thanks to the fall harvest, and pray for longevity and good fortune! In order to let our students feel the atmosphere of the Mid-Autumn Festival, students tried to make their own lanterns and enjoyed the mooncake together.
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Celebrating International Dot Day
Raffles Students are celebrating Dot Day which is September 15th. Dot day is a day inspired by the book “The Dot’ by Peter H. Reynolds. The book is a lesson about confidence! A dot might be small, but it’s a powerful way to show your unique individuality and creativity. RAS 3rd grade students created dots inspired by the artist Jackson Pollock. Pollock was all about action when creating his “splatter” paintings.
Megan Wood
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Music Class Mastering Ukelele
Friday, September 2nd
Grade 4 only started learning ukulele 3 weeks ago! They have already learned four chords and are confidently playing along to songs together. We will spend a bit of time practicing moving between these ones before we start to learn some more complex chords. After that, we will begin preparing for our first ukulele performance! Excellent job Grade 4!
Jennifer Lonn
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Pre-K Food Faces with Feelings
As part of our Unit ‘Play help us learn about ourselves the PreK students are inquiring about different emotions and how they look and feel in our bodies. Today they have used different ingredients to create their own faces and represent them in an original way. Some of them decided to do smiley and happy faces but others created silly faces with big noses too.
Dolors Raurell Bellavista
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Special guest presentation- refugee from Yemen talking to 5th graders
RAS 5th graders learned firsthand about the life and hardships of a refugee when visited by guest speaker Marzoq, a Yemeni refugee living in JB. Students asked thoughtful questions and learned about his life in Yemen during the war, why and how he came to be in JB, and what his hopes for the future are.
Rita Moltzan
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5th Grade Social Studies
In Social Studies, the 5B students played a migration game as an immersive experience relating to the negative factors that push people to migrate. The “tribes” (groups) each had special adaptations for weather conditions, problem solving, food production, security, and resilience during natural disasters.
Each time a tribe had to migrate, they lost points. This represented the time and resource cost of the actual migration. However, if the tribe was able to stay put, they would gain a point, representing the ability of migrants to gain resources as they settle in.
At the end, ALL of the tribes needed to migrate due to conditions no one could overcome: racism, xenophobia, and other factors that force people to seek out a place that will accept them. The activity provoked some interesting discussions afterward and the students wrote some very interesting questions and ideas on the class Inquiry Board.
James Elliott
Understanding the Technology Agreement
Over the past week in Elementary we have been working with our teachers and our Technology Coach Mr. Morrison to develop our understanding of our technology agreement. This agreement is signed by students and parents and helps our students to become responsible and safe digital citizens. We use technology as a tool to help us access and engage in learning and express our understanding.
Migration Provocation
5th grade is learning about migration. As an Inquiry for Provocation experience, students were instructed to gather their Math materials in 10 seconds. They were quickly taken to an unannounced location (a hot and stuffy 2nd floor classroom, with no seating). The inconvenience of forgetting the password sheets, not knowing where they were, how long they might be there, and so on, created a glimpse of anxiety and unknown that immigrants and refugees might experience. After this powerful trial, students were given the opportunity to share their emotions and thoughts with the class.
Cherie Norman
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Welcome back Raptors!
It is the start of another great year and we’re thrilled to welcome back our returning RAS community. Please join us in welcoming our new students and parents! It is great to see children in classes are so settled and engaged in learning, what a fantastic, calm start to the school year!
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