Model Drawing

Solving a math word problem is quiet a hard task for most students. Thus, specific strategies are used to help students in this approach.

In my opinion, “Model Drawing” has the greatest impact in building children's
confidence and intelligence in dealing with math problems. Most students enjoy
visual effects. Seeing abstract relationships, represented by concrete and colorful
images, helps in understanding, leading to the solution of the problem. For
this reason, we are using small portable white boards in all math problem
solving sessions to help us translate the word problems into colorful images.

 

Differentiated Instruction

Differentiated Instruction requires that we know our students as human beings and understand how each student learns.
I would like to share with you the following presentation posted on "Creative Educators" online magazine.

An Introduction to Differentiated Instruction from CE_melinda

Polygons quiz

To check your understanding, take the Polygons quiz

Modeling the stages of Mitosis

Every student learns the subject matter in a variety of different ways, thus several hands-on activities were done in grade 5 to engage students to learn about the stages of Mitosis. Kinesthetic students became kitchen chiefs and prepared “vegetables spaghetti” where its ingredients were used as the cell’s organelles. Musical students composed a rap song about the process of cell division.



                      Some students modeled Mitosis using clay.

Some students drew the stages of Mitosis.

Some students modeled the stages of Mitosis using wool.

Autumn in our eyes!

 

The weather is slowly changing and the leaves are starting to fall. It's Autumn time! KSPS students are doing plenty of activities and they like to share some with their friends at Ling Moor Academy, UK. "Autumn in our eyes" is a collaborative joint activity with our partner school in UK, Ling Moor Academy. Students at both schools will explore how autumn looks like in Lebanon and UK. For this reason, KSPS students drew, designed postcards, and captured videos to best show how autumn looks like in Lebanon and how do we spend it. In return, we will receive postcards from our friends in UK to see how they are spending this season there.

 

 

Cell Structure & Function

Adha Feast Menu

Year after year we wait Adha feast to celebrate this holy feast with our friends and relatives. And usually on this special day we gather and enjoy the tasty and delicious food with our loved ones. Today during the science session, we prepared the “Adha Feast Menu” that we will be enjoying during this feast. We promised ourselves to eat variety of healthy food paying attention to sweets and junk food.
                                          Bon Appetite!

Adha Cards to our friends at Ling Moor Academy

Adha feast is near. For this reason, grade 4 KSPS students decided to send their friends at Ling Moor academy greeting cards to allow them to know about our traditions in Adha. In return, our young clovers are excited to receive letters from their friends at Ling Moor soon. Happy Adha Feast from grade 4 clovers!

Welcome Back "Selfie"

As the school’s gate opened early this morning, our young clovers rushed to start a new scholastic year that will be full of success and great achievements. Students hurried to greet and welcome their teachers and classmates. I was elated and excited to welcome back my old students and meet new ones. It was a great way to welcome back our young clovers by taking “Selfies” that filled the walls of our school with laughter and joy.

First Prize Winners!

It’s such an amazing feeling to get the results of your effort and the hard work of your students! On this special occasion, I’m elated to announce that KSPS students won 3 prizes at the Makassed Science Fair. KSPS Young Scientists were able to achieve this result by working cooperatively and experimenting in front of their classmates. Well done dear students! And thank you Makassed! First Prize: Ahmad Sherif- Color Changing Milk
Rena Haidar- Marwa Kahef- Salma Ahmad: Effect of smoking on Hamsters
Second Prize: Jana Abdullah- Rainbow in a jar
                      Way to go young scientists!

Celebrating The World Health Day

The World Health Day is celebrated each year on 7th April globally. KSPS young students launched a campaign to celebrate this important event. The aim of this campaign was to raise awareness among KSPS clovers of different threats to their health. Different activities were performed in all KSPS classes. Musical students created a song entitled “You don’t have to eat gummy”. Visual students created a Power Point presentation entitled “Healthy Kids”. They presented it in front of all KSPS students. Kinesthetic students drew “Book Marks” that contains healthy tips and distributed them to all the school’s students and staff. Finally, all students had the chance to eat delicious healthy snack of fruits (strawberries, pears, apples, and bananas).

                    Lyrics by: Riwa Bleik and Nivine Omran
                    Video Directed by: Ahmad Melhem

My first Learning Activity on PIL Network

I’m elate to announce that I uploaded KSPS first learning activity on Partners in Learning network in the GOld LEVEL!!!

Please don’t hesitate to check the activity and see the creativity of KSPS clovers!

Click Here to View the Activity

Towards the Big Dance

For the fifth year, KSPS young clovers are participating in the Big dance, organized by the British Council. For this reason, 40 KSPS students, 8 to 11 years, participated in the big dance training that was held on Tuesday April 1st in ABAT, Bshara Al Khoury campus. Elaine Macey & Dean Soden – Artistic Directors of 4Motion Dance Theatre Company in the UK trained around 100 students from KSPS and ABAT on the Big Dance. The fifth edition of the Big Dance Pledge is part of Culture 2014, a programme of events and projects inspired by the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. It is created by Scottish Ballet with the Special Educational Needs (SEN) focus. The British Ambassador to Lebanon Mr. Tom Fletcher has confirmed his attendance on the Big Dance event this year The Big Dance performance will take place on Saturday 10 May 2014 at 0930am in Nejmeh/Parliament Square, Beirut Down Town The whole dance is available on the following link: http://vimeopro.com/communitydance/bigdance2014/video/84039895 Book Yourself from now ;) Part of the training

Let us talk about Weather!

KSPS young clovers started an international collaborative activity with their friends in Ling Moore Academy in UK. The aim of this activity is to teach UK students about the Lebanese weather, and on the other hand our friends in UK we will teach us more about the weather in UK. To fulfill our aim, KSPS students did plenty of interesting activities in their classes. Grade 3 and 5 students drew the weather of the day on “Paint” and on cardboards. Grade 4 students used “Wordle” and described the Lebanese weather using different words. While Grade 6 students composed a song about the Lebanese weather “Let us talk about Weather” using Microsoft Songsmith program. We sent our work to our friends in Ling Moore Academy to learn about the Lebanese weather, and we are excited to receive their work too!

Candle to mom

Grade 4 students are learning about physical changes. For this reason, they decided to make their own hand made candles. They melted, poured, and molded wax to design their own candles that they decided to give to their moms as a Mother's day gift. Finally, students concluded that melting, pouring, and molding wax are physical changes because the identity of wax didn’t change. During the upcoming week Grade 4 students are going to learn about chemical changes. Stay tuned to show you more interesting experiments!

Technology in our Math and Science classes

Technology has advanced my Math and Science classes in a positive way. With access to a computer and internet, different activities can be performed online in the classroom.

Since last month and on weekly basis, cycle 2 students are performing online formative assignments and tests using different web 2.0 tools; Zoomerang, survey monkey, hot potatoes…

After an entire month of implementing the online assignments in the Math and Science classes, it was clearly observed that they had a positive impact on students’ results and on children who have difficulty performing in traditional classroom environments. 

Ask Grade 6, The scientists!

Grade 6 students have a dream to become real scientists when they grow up. For this reason, they started practicing from now and make amazing experiments.
                                     

 Enjoy!

Math Outdoor Learning Sessions

 During the last week, Grade 6 students took part in Math Outdoor Learning sessions where they were studying about polygons, lines and angles relationship, circles… Students took part in a “Team Challenge” during the outdoor sessions. They were divided into groups; each group had to draw different kinds of polygons, and to represent lines and angles relationship using different geometric tools. Outdoor learning sessions had a positive impact on children’s learning and concentration, while enhancing cognitive skills, social skills, self-esteem, and creativity.

Happy, Healthy and successful young people need to be outside!

Multiple Intelligences in Grade 4

Each student learns the subject matter in a variety of different ways, thus several activities were done to engage grade 4 students in a lesson about 'The Water Cycle ’’ to multiply the chances of successfully understanding and retaining the information. Students were classified into 5 categories: Linguistic, Spatial, Musical, Logical-Mathematical, and Kinesthetic. Every group did a different activity: - Linguistic students enjoyed transforming the lesson to a story. Spatial students enjoyed drawing posters of the water cycle. Musical students enjoyed listening to songs about the water cycle. Logical- Mathematical students calculated the duration of the water cycle. Kinesthetic students enjoyed making simple experiments to check the stages of the water.

We are Young Scientists!

Science allows students to explore their world and discover new things. It is also an active subject, containing hands-on activities and experiments. Learning by doing allows children to become personally invested in their own learning process. Once a new concept has been taught, the time came for students to demonstrate it through hands-on activities and experiment. Here are some science activities that were done with my young clovers: Grade 3 students acted as scientists where they discovered all tools used in the science lab. They also learned strategies they must follow in the lab to keep themselves safe. Grade 4 students modeled the food chain using clay and wool. They also detected the suitable conditions to save food from decay. Moreover, grade 5 students planted different types of seeds. They took care of them on daily basis in order to sprout. They also used Bromothymol blue to check the suitable conditions for plants to make photosynthesis. Furthermore, grade 6 students modeled atoms, molecules, and compounds using playing dough.

Grade 6 first Online Home Assignment

Grade 6 Students were thrilled to know that they will do their first online home Math assignment. I used a web 2.0 tool “Zoomerang and Survey Monkey” to create the online assignment. The benefit of such online assignments is that I can quickly analyze in what areas students are successful and in what areas they have demonstrated learning gaps by using the online graphing analysis. Performing such assignments will help me save around 15 minutes per class. Therefore, I will have more time in class to help students improve and to work on higher level skills. Both my students and I can see the students’ progress over time as they see the online scores. Dear Parents, To compete what your child and help him solve his home assignment
Click here

Math and Science Stars

At the end of the first semester we are elated to announce KSPS Math and Science stars. These stars are the first two top achievers that took an excellent grade in both Math and Science. They proved to be so intelligent and determined to achieve their goal as being young scientists and mathematicians.
Grade2: Rana Abo Al Fotoh, Tia Orfali
Grade3: Abed Alrahim Alhani, Moataz Maarouf
Grade 4: Mohammad Itani, Ahmad Imad
Grade 5: Samar Lawand, Hiba Rammal
Grade 6: Salma Ahmad, Ruba Ani

                                                                  
                                                                      

Celebrating our Prophet’s Life Mathematically

Grade 6 students were surprised when they knew that they’ll learn about our prophet’s Mohammad PBUH life in the Math sessions.

The aim of this activity was to trace all the events that happened in our prophet’s life in a mathematical way. They used all Math lessons they learned so far; exponents, algebraic expressions, divisibility, and decimal operations, and prime factorization to change his life in to numbers.

Students were excited to know Prophet Mohammad’s life in another perspective.