International Week at HDBJ

This week marks our 2nd international week here at HD Beijing and it has been another great success. Similar to last year, the classes chose a theme and designed a variety of lessons around it, incorporating English, Science, Art and Design Thinking into an end project. Throughout the week, the children enjoyed a full timetable of English lessons with many teachers throughout the school.

Prep chose the theme Transport, basing it around the book ‘Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!’ by Mo Willems. They examined how to move from one place to another by using anything from simply moving their bodies to different modes of transport such as bicycles, cars, airplanes, helicopters, boats and more. They wrote things the pigeon might say in speech bubbles and the planned out their own mode of transport. In Art, the children drew a comic scene with a speech balloon based around the book and in DT they created breath powered rockets.

In Grade 1, working around the theme of Under the Sea, the children worked together to investigate the different creatures that live under the water. They also started the week off by making a giant octopus as a group. In English class, they wrote fact files, designed under water scenes, created videos and even made a jellyfish! In Art, the children created their own ocean themed hats and in DT they designed and made floating boats.

It was dinosaur week once again in Grade 2. Monday morning started with a hunt around the school grounds where the children found dinosaur eggs nestled into different locations. They learned various facts about these prehistoric creatures, created a fact file on their favourite dinosaur, and later wrote and illustrated a story about their dinosaur. The children also had the opportunity to create a dinosaur fossil. In Design Thinking, they created a 3D model of a dinosaur examining how the muscles and skin covered the skeleton, and in Art they designed a prehistoric landscape. The children even had the chance to create a stop motion animation of their dinosaurs!

This year, Grade 3 planned their international week around the theme ‘Up,’ relating it to their Science topic of Forces. They started the week watching a clip from the film to gather a driving question for their unit – how can we protect someone if they needed to leave a floating house quickly? Using this, the children worked on a STEAM based project throughout the week. They collaborated with Art to observe and draw forces at work using food colouring, vegetable oil and water in order to create buoyant objects, while in DT, they designed deceleration/shock absorption devices to go along with their theme before building them and explaining how they worked.

Grade 4 worked around the theme of Vikings! They began the week by examining battle tactics and used this as a basis to create a Viking shield wall, as well as catapults. Using the book, ‘How to Train your Dragon’ by Cressida Cowell, the children wrote battle action scenes, and designed and described their own dragons. They also had a chance to create a stop motion animation featuring their dragons. In ICT the children designed a Viking longship and in Design Thinking they has the opportunity to create one. Finally, in Art, the children used the Viking rune alphabet to create carvings of their own names.

Grade 5 focused their week around the theme of the future. They began the week by making predictions about what the school year of 2100 would look like before comparing this to schooling in the past and present. They also interviewed parents to gather data. The class created classroom tools they believed children in 2100 would use and wrote a procedural text explaining how to use them. They designed a futuristic 3D school model supported by Art and DT where they explored circuitry and also had the opportunity to examine slides of electrical components of a computer in ICT.

Finally, in addition to their international week activities, Grade 2 also had the opportunity to present their STEAM project on ‘Feathers for Lunch’ on Friday. Parents were invited into the theatre where the children presented their final project before selling copies of their translated books.

We are all very proud of the effort the all children put in over the last week and we wish everyone a restful and enjoyable Spring Festival. We look forward to your return in February.