April is BIBA Wellbeing Month

What is Wellbeing?

The BIBA family is taking April to celebrate Wellbeing and Kindness. Wellbeing is the act of showing care for yourself, and for those around you. Wellbeing is many things that include, but are not limited to:

Physical health and exercise.
relaxing
doing fun puzzles or brain work.
helping others
sharing
giving compliments
giving thanks and showing politeness.

Upcoming Events!

April 15th: Our Reading Month Opens. (Reading is a major part of Wellbeing!) Reading Month events will be updated in another post later.

April 16th: Pajama Day. Students (and teachers) dress up in their Pajamas to show understanding of the need for proper sleep patterns, and the tie to health, and wellbeing.

April 17~18th: Parent Teacher Conferences. Students will come with parents, and spend 5~10 minutes recounting their work and progress to the parents. They will look over examples of their work while doing this. After that , Parents and Teachers will spend 5~10 minutes. They will discuss what they have observed in class and at home, and ways to help the child progress. Sing up information may have been sent out, if not please be patient while we get that sent out.

April 29th: Pink Shirt Day. Students and teachers will show support for the anti-bullying campaign by wearing Pink. The Pink Shirt is a very near and dear campaign to me and I want to use it to help children show support for everyone. We will show everyone that bullying is not ok!

April 30th: Sports Day A day for outside fun and sports. to end our Wellbeing month off with some well deserved fun and exercise. Just before our Labor Day Long Weekend. (May 1~4th).

Writing Celebration Update

On Friday we had an amazing event. I hope the parents had a great time. We had a scoring system that included everyone, because I knew that I would be distracted between hosting and keeping some of the children engaged.

The score sheet gave everyone present (Students, Parents, and myself) the chance to score everyone on 3 categories:

Was this a good topic for the child?
Did they present well (Can be heard, eye contact, didn’t read from their speech)
Did they convince the listener to agree with them.
Audience Skills (Only I did this one)

Our class parents brought a large amount of snacks for the children. The children would have a lot to eat while they listened.

We would have 5 presenters, then a snack break, and then repeat until we had gone through all of the speeches. This gave the children a brain break, and some time to see their parents between segments.

At the end of the day, I collected the score sheets and copied the scores into the computer. my vote only counted as 1 of the 47 votes. The scores below are a combine all the categories, and are presented by the speaking groups.

Emily Zou – 86%
Oscar Lv – 85%
Audrey Jiya – 86%
Joy Chen – 86%
Chris Wen 73%

Laurence You – 81%
Daniel Cui – Had Stage Fright.
Dido Wu – 74%
Lucas Wang – 79%
Ethan Wu – 62%

Meimei Li – 88%
Vivien Liao – 92%
Michelle Wang – 96%
Adam Wang – 84%
Stephenson Sun – 72%

Steve Zhang – 75%
Della Yang – 89%
Victor Xue – 92%
Rita Sun – 76%
Fang Zhang – 86%

Candice Zhang – 82%
Abigail Tang – 84%
Jason Wang – 76%

Now clearly, these are not the photos from the event. You can find those on our Class WeCom Social Group. I am still wary of posting photos of the children due to our school’s Social Media policy. Please understand.

Almost everyone did amazingly, and even those who did not meet the expectations made me proud. They had been working on these speeches for a couple of months, and some students where meticulous in their research and note taking, and others had more difficulty with their organization.

On Tuesday is a Competition pitting Our Michelle and Victor against the other Grade 3 Class winners, to earn the trophy!

The top four students from our class will earn Medals even if they do not win the Grade level contest. On top of this, our “Most Improved” student will win a medal, but I would like to keep that student a surprise until Tuesday. They deserve it and have had a lot of personal struggles to overcome.

International Day

Friday March 29th 2024 was International Day at BIBA, and the school was dressed up for a great time. For this International Day the children of 3B were learning about Ireland.

Guests

Mr. Quinn Explaining Irish Facts to the children.

To prepare for this day the children and I did quite a few things; we learned about Irish culture through our Guest Speaker Mr. Patrick Quinn. Mr. Quinn, BIBA’s Early Years International Curriculum Coordinator, is from Ireland, and he delighted the children with information about the country, and introduced them to the story of the Giant’s Causeway.

Finn McCool Making the Giant’s Causeway.

Myths & History

The children read myths and fables about Ireland, learning about the Giant, Finn McCool, his wife Oonagh, Saint Patrick, leprechauns and other myths and monsters. The children discovered that Ireland is the origin of one of their favorite foreign celebrations, Halloween.

Multimedia & Interactivity

The students made a video where they explained some interesting things they learned. We had a class on Irish Dancing. Some volunteers: Joy, Emily, Audrey, Michelle, Vivien, helped me make a video of their dancing, which we put together into a class video.

Interviews with the beautiful scenery of Ireland.

The Student who volunteered to be interviewed: Emily, Chris, Oscar, Victor, Michelle and Steve, got to explain their favorite facts about Ireland. They were really excited about sharing, even though they were nervous to be on camera.

The Day Arrives

Trying to put Penguins on the melting ice… **-_-!**

On The Actual International Day, students and I dressed up in our best Leprechaun costumes, and walked about the school. Our first stop after the performances and parade in the morning, included Antarctica! (Really just the Science Lab) The children learned about what animals are living in Antarctica, and how global warming is causing their habitat to disappear. Some student, who answered questions fast enough earned prizes, and everyone walked out of Antarctica with Ice-cream, Yum!

Our Next Destination was the international Food booths. The children got to try food from all over the world arranged by our Parent Volunteers. We all really enjoyed this. Some of us, myself included, wanted to just skip the next activity and continue to eat. (he, he, he…)

Our next activity was a Tug of War Contest amongst the Grade 3 Nations. I am proud to say, Ireland (3B) came 2nd place in this contest, only losing out to the Netherlands (3F). Excellent work Everyone!

After this we enjoyed our Lunch, and then began our World Tour! We traveled to different countries in the world (Really just other classes), and did activities to learn about those countries. We visited India, Mexico, Papa New Guinea, South Africa, Argentina, and Norway.

At the end of the day we were all very tired, but happy.

News: March 25th

This morning, Day B, I had the opportunity to talk briefly with the student who had been on time. I was able to discuss some of the news from this week with them, and feel it is a busy enough week for us to write about here.

Monday:

Today four volunteer students and I practice some Irish dancing in the basketball court. I truly appreciate the help in this from them. I know they enjoyed it, but also Irish Dancing is not easy and requires a very high level of energy that I was having a hard time keeping up with. I am so glad they were able to.

Tuesday:

The Leopard store opens up tomorrow, and so I will probably be giving out the last of my leopard cards in the morning. This store opens only once a month, the children can spend their Leopard cards that they earned through the month on things they wish to own.

Children earn these leopard cards by following the 4 Rs of BIBA, (Rigor, Respect, Responsibility, and Relationships)

Tuesday will also be the day that my volunteers and I video about Ireland. Some will video the dancing, some will be asked to video what they learned in the classes or through their individual research.

Tuesday we will also be using a class to begin our Research into Natural Disasters. as that is what we will be showcasing during the Biba Science Fair in April.

Wednesday:

This is the last day student can use to finish their Ireland Brochures. They have been writing and sending me pictures to put on their brochures. Thursday I will be printing them, but I will also post them here for you to see.

We also have a Maths Practice test on Wednesday. Of course a practice will be sent home.

Thursday:

I will be printing up the students work and final Brochures, we will be putting final posters on the walls for International Day and finishing up all student work that needs to be put up to showcase Ireland. I will also be letting the children view their video that they recorded on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Thursday is also a Maths Test. Our final test for geometry.

Thursday we will have our second class on Natural Disasters. We will be learning about Hurricanes and how they are dangerous. We will also learn about how to help people who are victims of hurricanes, and other wind storms.

We will finally get to meet our new student in 3B and welcome him to the class. Lucas will finally be able to join us. We are all looking forward to meeting you.

Friday: International Day

There are so many things happening on this day it is hard to explain.
first there will be presentations, performances and parades.
Then we will learn about the international community living on Antarctica, and how they survive and meld together.
Then we will have the chance to try food from around the world
We will have our International Day Tug of War contest, to see which country comes out the strongest.
In the afternoon we will be traveling to different classrooms representing different countries from every continent on the world.

Spring Break:

Immediately after the International Day festival, we will have 11 days of no school for Easter, Qing Ming, and Spring break all rolled into one. Classes will begin again on Wednesday April 10th.

The APS Manages the Flag Ceremony Early in the School Year

By Elsa Ling & Alex Sun

On September 7th George Wang and Peter Liu from grade 5 APS Proudly raised the national flag at the school weekly Monday Morning Ceremony. And on September 14th, Daniel Du and Jack Yu also from Grade 5 APS were given the opportunity to raise the flag, Our School reporters interviewed the four of them to see how they felt about raising the flag.

Interviewer: Why do you think you were chosen to raise the flag?

George: I raised the flag last year.

Daniel: I raised the flag last year, too.

Interviewer: What about you, Peter?

Peter: I don’t know.

George: I know why, Peter was chosen because he learned things very fast.

Interviewer: What about Jack?

Jack: I don’t know.

Daniel: I think because Jack likes to help people.

Interviewer: Who taught you to raise the flag?

Daniel: George taught me and Jack.

Interviewer: Who taught Peter?

Daniel: Ms. Zhao taught Peter.

Interviewer: How did you raise the flag?

Daniel: I pulled a rope to raise the flag.

Interviewer: What did they tell you not to do when you raise the flag?

Jack: They told us not to raise the flag half way up the pole.

George: Because that means someone famous died.

Interviewer: Is there anything they told you must do?

George: They told us to keep pulling the rope until it is all the way up.

Interviewer: Why?

George: Because it will fall off and hit someone’s head.

Interviewer: How did you feel when they asked you to raise the flag?

Jack: I felt bored and a little nervous.

George: Excited and happy.

Peter: Me too.

Daniel: Excited.

Jack: I felt excited too and interesting.

Interviewer: Did you like to raise the flag?

Daniel: Yes, I did.

Interviewer: Why did you like to raise the flag?

Daniel: Because it was my honor.

Interviewer: Did you feel scared when you raise the flag?

Daniel: No, I didn’t.

Interviewer: Would you like to do it again?

Daniel, Jack, George, Peter: Yes.

Interviewer: Jack, why do you want to do it again if you’re bored?

Jack: It is bored but also excited and a little bit fun.

On September 21st The APS raised the national flag again. This time Debby Jiang from APS grade 4-2 and Chandler Lu from APS 4-1, raised the flag. APS Reporter Elsa Ling had a moment to interview Debby, unfortunately we were unable to find time to interview Chandler.

Elsa: Were you nervous when you raised the flag?

Debby: No I was not.

Elsa: How many times did you practice?

Debby: About 10 times.

Elsa: Why do you think they choose you to raise the flag?

Debby: I think the class thinks I studied well.

On September 14th and 21st Elsa Ling and Alex Sun, the two APS Reporters, presided over the Monday morning flag-raising ceremonies. Elsa Ling took a moment to tell us how she felt regarding the ceremony.

“I felt nervous at first, but when I almost finished, I made a little mistake. Then I felt it was all over, it was a really silly feeling, and when I felt I had “game over” (died), but then I calmed down and finished the work. I felt proud at last.”