News from the School

The Primary Intro class in SIS Rotkreuz-Zug is a great place for the children to learn how to adapt what they have learned in their early school years to what they will need to know in their primary school years. They get to explore the new environment and set new goals that will help them reach new milestones every day. A great example of this is the start of the school day. It is one of the busiest and most crucial learning experiences at this point in the school year. From the moment the children step onto school grounds, they are actively developing important life skills that will serve them not only during their school years but also throughout their lives.

Upon arrival at school, they engage in practicing major social skills. This includes forming lines, understanding the concept of letting others go ahead in line if they are first, and, most importantly, being patient. The children are required to arrange their bags in the order of their arrival and maintain that order until they reach the classroom.

Once they head upstairs, they kick off step one of their daily morning routines, which involves entering the classroom with all necessary items. It is vital that they remember it is their responsibility to prepare for the morning by organizing their items neatly and ensuring they bring their water bottles and communication books inside. This daily routine helps them understand that their belongings are their own responsibilities. If they happen to forget something, they will learn the importance of working together with their parents to remember what they need for each day. By the end of the year, their goal is for them to independently check their bags for all the necessary items before leaving for school.

In step two, they take care of practical matters like washing their hands, using the restroom if necessary, and checking in with their feelings by placing their picture in a designated feeling zone. These zones (green, yellow, blue, and red) help the children gauge how they are feeling about their morning. This also allows the teacher to quickly identify if someone might need some extra support with processing how they are feeling.

Once the children have checked in, then they know to grab their daily calendar sheets that enables them to actively engage in learning about the date. This daily calendar page challenges them to gather information from their environment to practice writing the date in the European Date Format, refine their handwriting skills, and construct complete sentences while also tracking the weather. They have been working diligently to master the first level in this activity and are almost ready to tackle the next. It is something I am incredibly proud of!

After completing their daily calendar page, they check in with me to ensure they have remembered the handwriting rules being practiced, including neat letters, numbers, and proper punctuation like capital letters at the beginning of a sentence and a full stop at the end. Upon getting the green light, they grab their calendar packets and join me on the floor. During this time, they can start charting the weather and filling in the monthly calendar sheet independently, while waiting for their peers to join them. Within fifteen minutes of the class starting, all the children are usually settled on their mats and ready to proceed.

In the next step, they practice how to read a calendar and work on using their vocabulary skills for describing the day with appropriate sentence patterns. Learning to read a calendar also hones their graph-reading skills. Every Wednesday, we assign new chores for the following week. If it is a Friday morning, the students keep track of how many days they have been in school since the start using tally marks and counting by tens. We will reach the milestone of one hundred days in school sometime in January, which we will celebrate with a 100 Days party!

By this time, it is around 8:55 a.m. in the morning, and the children are eager to get moving. They tidy up, and we have a "Wiggle-Bottom Moment" that allows them to stretch, wiggle, and dance. Once they have shaken out their wiggles and gotten their blood flowing, the children are ready to kick off the day with focused lessons in the Unit of Inquiry, math, or writing.

Danielle Lopez, Teacher Primary Intro 

Liebe Familien
 

herzlich willkommen in unserem aufregenden Monat des Schuljahres 2023/2024.
Die Kinder der Primar 2 starteten voller Motivation und Begeisterung in das erste Viertel des Schuljahres und konnten bereits eine Fülle von inspirierenden Erfahrungen machen.

Eine davon war im Fach Natur Mensch und Gesellschaft (NMG), wo sie sich intensiv mit dem Thema Religion beschäftigt haben. Die Kinder haben die Gelegenheit gehabt, drei ausgewählte religiöse Rituale kennenzulernen. Diese waren Salah, Puja und die Kommunion.  Dabei haben die Kinder nicht nur Einblicke in die verschiedenen Kulturen und Religionen erhalten, sondern auch Toleranz und Verständnis für die Vielfalt unserer Welt entwickelt. 

Ich persönlich habe in diesem Zusammenhang auch eine neue Erkenntnis gewonnen. Denn einige Kinder haben bisher in der Klasse ihr Pausenbrot oder Mittagessen oft geteilt. Dies wird auch im Ritual Puja praktiziert, wo das Teilen des Essens gemeinsam zelebriert wird. Wir alle mussten herzlich darüber lachen, als ich das in der Klasse ansprach.
 

Mit der Orientierung im Raum haben wir unser Thema in Mathematik begonnen. Die Kinder haben sich gefragt: “Wo ist eigentlich ´vorne` in diesem Bild”, welches sie gezeigt bekamen. Wir haben Begriffe wie “links”, “rechts”, “oben”, “unten”usw. gelernt und spielerisch das zentrale Thema der Orientierung vertieft. Ausserdem haben wir uns mit den Zahlen im 100er Raum auseinandergesetzt und die Konzepte von Zehnern und Einern eingeführt. Die Schüler und Schülerinnen hatten viel Spass dabei, Mathematische Konzepte in der Praxis anzuwenden.

In Kunst haben unsere kleinen Picassos sich austoben können und gelernt, wie man mit Wasserfarben schöne Kunstwerke erschaffen kann. Wir haben ein paar Maltechniken erkundet, um Farben zu mischen und kreative Bilder zu machen.

Im Sportunterricht sind wir dann richtig in Schwung gekommen und haben an unseren motorischen Fähigkeiten und der Koordination motiviert gearbeitet. Die Kinder haben gezeigt, wie sicher sie mit dem Hula-Hoop-Reifen umgehen können und lernten dabei neue Spiele. 

Es ist grossartig zu sehen, wieviel Spass, die Kinder bei all den Aktivitäten haben und wie sie gleichzeitig ihre Fähigkeiten entwickeln. In den verbleibenden Wochen und auch nach den Herbstferien werden wir noch viele weitere Erkenntnisse zusammen erfahren und darauf freuen wir uns!

Admira Nenaj, Lehrperson Primar 2

Brain breaks in the classroom are short, structures pauses for students to engage in fun activities. In the Primary 3 classroom, it is often used to transition from one subject to another or within the lesson to give the students the opportunities to re-energise, refocus and give their brains and bodies a much-needed boost. And let’s face it: short games like these are simply just fun! Here are some of the most-requested brain breaks so far:
 

1. Corners
Each corner of the room is numbered 1-4. One child is chosen to be the ”it” and they stand in the middle of the room. They count to 10 with their eyes covered while the other children find a corner of the room to be in. After the countdown, the “it” says a number of a corner and all the children who are there are out of the game. This continues until only one remains and is declared the winner.

2. Rock, Paper, Scissors battle
A quirky twist to the classic game! The whole class stands up and plays against the teacher. It begins with the usual “Rock, Paper, Scissors” chant and everyone shows their hand. Those who have the same hand as the teacher sits down and is out of the game. This continues until there is only one student standing – a winner!

3. Brain Break Chase
Technology can be a great tool to promote physical activity in the classroom. YouTube has a lot of resources on different videos where the children watch a short 2-minute video and pretend they are being chased. The children run in place, duck, take cover and do all sorts of movements. Little breaks within the video are even made to ask questions about the theme of the chase, like types of animals in the jungle. These videos are definitely interactive, educational and of course, fun!

4. Boom, Clap, Snatch
The children find a partner and they sit or stand facing each other. An object is placed in between them and they follow the commands of the teacher, which is either “Boom” (a pat on the legs) or “Clap”. When the teacher says “Snatch”, they should quickly try to grab the object in between them. The one who grabs it first gets a point. Other commands that are added are “Snap” or a body part (“Head”, “Shoulder”). This is a fun way to reinforce good listening skills and quick reflexes.

With these brain breaks, the Primary 3 students get a quick energy boost and at the same time foster a positive classroom atmosphere.
 

Ann Müller, Teacher Primary 3
 

Students in Primary 5 and 6 have been having a blast working on hand-eye coordination skills during our Friday Sport lessons. From tossing bolas, rings, and beanbags to catching frisbee’s and stacking cups, the focus has been on fun!

We are learning cool new games that require good concentration and are quickly realizing that the more we practice the better we get. Ms. Rooney says that as we fine-tune our muscle control, we are also helping to enhance our accuracy and precision abilities for many other types of tasks in life. Here are some snapshots from our most recent lesson together.  

Meredith Rooney, Sport Teacher 

Während die Schülerinnen und Schüler in den Ferien sind, gibt es in einer Schule immer sehr viel für den Hausmeister zu tun.

In den Sommerferien ist für den Hauswart in einer Schule immer der Grosseinsatz geplant. Diesen Sommer war es an der SIS in Rotkreuz nicht anders. 

Zuerst wurde erst mal gemistet und aufgeräumt. Und dabei wurde eine ganze Mulde Schrott aus der Schule geschafft. Wo gehobelt wird, fallen eben auch Späne. Danach folgte ein Grossputz, wo die Mensa, der Kindergarten und alle Klassenräume auf den Kopf gestellt und bis in den letzten Winkel geputzt wurden. Nachdem auch die Fenster geputzt waren, wurden neue SIS-«Männchen» an die Seite Richtung Fussballfeld und Hochschule angebracht. Ebenso lädt unsere Mensa nun noch mehr zu einem noch besseren Mittagessen ein.

Zum Schluss kam noch das Einrichten eines zusätzlichen kleinen Kunstraums, das Aufstellen von neuen Möbeln und neue Teppiche für die Klassenzimmer hinzu.

An einer Schule wird es einem Hauswart wirklich nie langweilig! Der nächste «Ferien»-Einsatz stehen schon wieder vor der Türe.

Das Interview mit dem Hauswart Beat Badertscher führte Stefanie George.