Before leaving our classroom we thought of some questions for K2 students and completed a Harvard Project Zero Visible Thinking Routine called Compass Points. This thinking routine helped us to think about our needs, excitements, worries, and suggestions. 

Through the discussion, we realized that we had a lot of similar excitements and worries to each other. Mostly we were curious about what would be the same and different between Kindergarten 1 and Kindergarten 2. 

For the last few weeks we've invited lots of mummies and daddies into our classroom to tell or read stories that relate to their worlds. We've heard stories that relate to home countries, history and culture. We've also heard stories read in different languages like Swedish, Japanese, Mongolian, Swiss German and Scottish dialect. Many of us now understand how stories relate to our cultures and experiences. We also know that our favourite stories and the storybooks we own are usually told in our native languages. 

Two weeks ago we went to see The Three Billy Goats Gruff musical play put on by the Singapore Repertory Theatre. Since then we have been reading different versions of the story and working on retelling the story in different ways. 

Before we went to the theatre, we read one version of the story and worked on retelling it using puppets and our voices. Through this activity we also practiced being audience members and discussed some of the important ways we can be part of a respectful audience.

We loved The Three Billy Goats Gruff musical play and many of us noticed that it ended a bit differently than the one we read in class. Instead of getting knocked off the bridge, the troll in the play turned to stone! We used the ideas from both versions of the story for our retells. 

Some of us worked on transforming the sand tray into a Billy Goats Gruff story. We made sure to include all the characters and scenery and used these items as artefacts for group retells. 

Our free play times also became times where we demonstrated our knowledge of the story, using different materials for our retells. Isaiah and Adrian used building blocks to re-enact the bridge parts of the story and some children retold the story through their play outside. 

Aarna and Elliot retold the story through painting. They continued to add many new pages to their paintings which ended up as a series of paintings that retold the story. 

This year in K1.2 our Earth Day celebrations focused around our emotional connection to the environment. All year long we have been fascinated with and committed to spending time in the natural spaces around our school and collecting pieces of it to bring inside our classroom. Last week we got the idea for a class project during our outside playtime. When we were talking to the tree and asking him to give us more leaves, a whole heap of leaves fell. This gave Maanya an idea that everyone else loved: "We need to paint leaves for the tree. It's our gift for it because he gave us so many leaves and now we'll give him something!"

We also made an Earth Day poster to share with the school. We were inspired by our own projects and play with natural materials as well as some of the books we read. In the Friday assembly some of us presented and explained our work to the school. 

Today we Skyped again with our friends in Saudi Arabia. We asked them the questions that we had after our last Skype Play. We learned that it almost never rains in Saudi Arabia and it definitely doesn't snow! Their country is a desert! They also asked us some questions like if we have any books in our classroom. We wanted to show them our whole classroom library, but decided to share some of our favourite books over Twitter instead. We are looking forward to seeing their favourite books too!