What an amazing way to end the Time Tunnel unit. Thank you to all the parents and families who came out to participate in the amazing trivia quiz! The learners really had a chance to showcase all of the knowledge, skills, and understanding that they picked up over the past few months. A HUGE congratulations should go to the winning team One Boy who narrowly edged out the second and third place contenders MKD and Z Minus. Thank-you's should also be extended to the A-Team (parents) who, although they tried valiantly, could not keep up with the outstanding learners in MP3

Another iCANS's Got Talent has come and gone, with the winners this year being 6! 
​6R worked together to perform a modern dance mash up of some well known songs. The learners had lots of fun putting it altogether and are very proud to be this year's iCAN's Got Talent winners! Special mentions to the runners up Brandon, Nina, and Noya.

Y5 this week became the learning facilitators. The lessons that they spent last week preparing, were delivered this week with such professionalism it made me question my own worth! They learners displayed their knowledge of the subjects, created worksheets, explained the hows and whys and used cooperative strategies to boot! Well done Y5 - Your, slightly jealous, learning facilitators were very impressed with what you produced!

This week Year 6 , inspired by their visit to the Puzzle Chamber, have been designing their own maths themed board games. The learners have worked in groups to plan, design and make their games, ready for year 5 to play next week. ​

Last weeks talk topics about music was a nice one, I was pleasantly surprised with the lack of chat about Justin Bieber and Beyonce; but was also slightly disappointed and taken aback when the rock classics were referred to as the old peoples music... Anyway, next week is the last of the talk topics and its a cracker of a theme: Holiday plans. Are you going back to your home country for the summer? Are you going to a new country/ place? Will you be visiting family/ friends?

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International Mindedness is the final subject in our Time Tunnel unit. This week we have thought about what makes up the foundations of a future society. We created building blocks to show the key elements that would be needed to ensure that the future generations were more successful than some have been in the past.

On Sunday Mr Tom took several children from Year 6 to watch Svay Rieng play against  Beuong Ket. The game was scheduled to be played at Olympic Stadium but was changed last minute to the Old Stadium. Beuong Ket won the game 3-1 , much to Mr Tom's disappointment, but all the children had a good time. Some even managed to get on TV! ​

In Y5 we have started to review our maths learning. We are doing this by becoming the learning facilitator for a lesson! Our task is to take a specific learning goal and then teach it to the class. We need to create a power point to help us, use cooperative structures and differentiation, and then finally teach it to the class. This week we have been creating the lessons, next week we will deliver them. What a time to be alive!

Y6 are a week ahead and have already become the learning facilitators. Using their knowledge of a range of topics they were able to plan and deliver lessons. It was great to see the learners reflect on their understanding and consolidate their learning from across the year. 

​As we near the end of the unit time tunnel MP3 continue with geography. Creating a scale drawing of Angkor Wat proved more challenging than anyone expected. This task involved skills from a range of different subject areas; learners needed to convert between units of measurement (maths), use tools with accuracy (technology) use scale and maps (geography) and research the correct dimensions of the temples (information technology). The end results are sensational!

This week in literacy Y5 have been continuing to explore: personification, similes and metaphors within our poetry unit. We have crafted  poems about a range of animals using the simplistic Haiku frame structure. Our poems had to give clues about the animal but needed to follow the line pattern of 5, 7, 5 syllables. Can you guess which animals we were describing? 
 
Deadly carnivore
Skinny flexible body
Venom injector
 
 
Shadowy black fur
Magnificent coloured beak
Polished bead-like eyes
 
 
Chocolate brown fur
Ripped, muscular light brown legs
Do not mess with him
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​This week in Literacy Y6 have performed a version of Pandora's Box. We brought the various characters to life through expression and characterisation. We were able to use our knowledge of play scripts to then write our own. We used the story of Little Red Riding Hood and adapted it for the stage. We thought about accents, storylines and stage directions in order to create a modern version of the traditional tale. 

This week in maths Y5 continued to work with graphs and data. We finished our line graphs before looking at other types. It turns out that some data sets lend themselves better to a particular style of graph! We needed to look at the data and then decide which graph we would use to represent it visually.

This week in maths, Y6 learners have been the teachers! Working with a partner, learners have had to plan a lesson to revise our maths learning this year. Each pair was given a different learning goal alongside the Knowledge, Skills and Understanding break down for their set goal. The learners then used this to complete a blank lesson plan sheet. Next they designed their PowerPoint complete with questions and finally they made their own activity or worksheet. The learners will be delivering their lessons next week to the rest of their class.  

​Year 5 filled their thinkers pot with beads, and as a reward for displaying the thinkers personal goal they were set a marble run challenge. In this challenge Y5 needed to create a track where a marble would: travel 3m, run both up and down hill, cross a bridge, touch two tables, change directions at least three times, perform a vertical drop of 20cm, go down 7 steps made from Lego, cause a domino effect with 10 dominos, and then finally finish in a plastic cup!

​This weeks discussions around birthdays really raised some interesting points. I heard that turning 10 was a much bigger deal than turning 11 – who would have thought? Next week the discussion is all about Transitions. Who will your new Learning Facilitator be next year? Are you moving to a new milepost or school? What are you excited about? Are you feeling any other emotions? 

MP3 continued to focus on the geography part of Time Tunnel this week; again working with maps. For this task we were required to use a map and scale to find the actual distance from one place to another in Cambodia. We then decided to see if we could use that knowledge of scale to create an accurate representation of Angkor Wat. It is proving a remarkably challenging task creating a scaled drawing of this ancient building, even for this sensational bunch of learners. Stay tuned next week to find out how they got on...

Y5 have been continuing with poetry this week. We have edited, redrafted, and improved on our original poems through the use of personification and targeted descriptive words which provided the reader with a much richer image. Y5 then began to look at haiku, and are looking forward to writing their own haiku next week.

Y6 have been exploring themes and ideas behind the Greek myth Pandora's Box. We have used drama to bring characters to life. We needed to make sure that we could read play scripts and identify the various features. Next week we will be choosing a specific Greek myth and then write our own adapted version in the form of a play script.

Y5 have continued to explore line graphs this week. We have looked at which graphs work best for certain sets of data, and how to accurately choose the right graph for the right set. We created our own charts based on both given data and our own research. Come check out our display as it builds over the next week.

This week in Y6 learners have revised using the four operations with fractions. We have not looked at this since Learning Block 3, so Mr Tom was pleased to see most learners had remembered how to add subtract multiply and divide fractions. We had to spend a small time reviewing how to solve problems with mixed numbers. A very worthwhile week of reviewing.  

This weeks talk topic of plastic created a lot of good discussion about how we could be better recycling this material. A lot of learners were surprised to find out exactly how long it takes plastic to biodegrade.  Next weeks talk topic is Birthdays.  With the Kings Birthday next week it might be a good time to reflect on birthdays: How do we celebrate birthdays? Do all cultures celebrate the same? Is turning 10 more interesting than turning 9 or 11?

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This week saw the semi-finals for the MP3 section of iCAN's Got Talent. We were witness to a range of acts from this talented milepost. IDK produced a singing and dancing act to a medley of songs, Sebastian the Great showed off his mastery of the Rubik's cube (solving it in 1 min 10 sec) Pagna belted out a beautiful ballad Electricity, Nina tugged at our heart-strings with her own song about iCAN, and finally 6 put together an eclectic modern dance showpiece. Congratulations to all the acts and good luck to those moving into the final!

In learning journey we continued working on the geography section of out Time Tunnel unit. We looked at how the borders of different civilisations changed over time and tried to find out the reason for this changes. We then looked more closely at maps as a tool for finding our way around! It is important to pay attention to the scale on the map, some things were a lot further away then we thought. 

This week in maths Y6 learners had great fun finishing off their algebra work by writing their own sequences for their partner to find the nth term. They then had to mark each others work and discuss and explain any answers they thought to be wrong and agree on the correct answer using reasoning skills. The children showed great co operation skills and enjoyed learning from each other. 

In maths this week Y5 started looking at graphs and data. First we read and interpreted graphs given to us. We solved equations relating to comparison, sum, and difference by interpreting the graphs. After this we moved on to drawing our own graphs based on data given. We needed to choose an appropriate scale, label the axes, and give the graph a title all before plotting the data. 

In literacy Y6 learners went back in time to read myths and legend tales from the Ancient Greeks. We enjoyed reading about Theseus and the Minotaur and had fun hot seating characters, acting out scenes and discussing the difference between a myth and legend tale and a fairy tale. Children then rewrote the story of Theseus and the Minotaur as a comic strip. 

​This week in literacy we have been looking at poetry. Using similes, metaphors and imagery we have created poems that personify things in the world around is. We used existing frames to help us with the structure and form of these. Take a look at some examples from Year 5. ​

I really enjoyed talking about travel last week with all the learners. There are so many well travelled people here at iCAN, some visiting places I had never even heard of! Next weeks topic is ​​Plastic. What happens to all the plastic that gets thrown away? Do you follow the 3 Rs? (Reduce, reuse, recycle) How can we help protect the environment?

This week in Time Tunnel MP3 have begun the geography portion of this unit. In Geography Task 1 we first needed to look at scale and understand how the scale of a map can make the map have very different purposes. The three maps below are of exactly the same place; they just use different scales, and as such, have different purposes.

In literacy this week Y5 have done nothing but talk! However, it has been for the benefit of our learning; we have been using closed and open questions in conversation. Using follow up questions has helped us to hold more interesting conversations and show an active interest to the listener.  We used a chat show structure to practise this skill, trying to be good active listeners and respond in an interesting way to the person talking. 

This week in Literacy Y6 have begun to look at traditional Greek myths and legends. We identified the key features of both and explained the differences. We compared different versions of the stories of Medusa and Icarus. It was interesting to see the similarities between different Greek myths, especially how harshly people were punished for their sins! We took this to mean that perhaps myths and legends have been used over time as cautionary tales.

This week in maths Y5 have continued with the geometry of position and shape. More specifically we looked at translation. We found out that translation is a term used in geometry to describe a function that moves an object a certain distance. The object is not altered in any other way. It is not rotated, reflected or re-sized. In a translation, every point of the object must be moved in the same direction and for the same distance.

​Y6 have continued looking at algebra this week with the learners showing superb resilience and thinking skills to demonstrate their improved understanding. The learners have often worked collaboratively to solve problems such as the one below. Each shape is a number from 0-12. Can you solve it?  Towards the end of the week we looked at finding the nth term of a sequence of numbers. .

It was great talking to all the learners about the auditions for iCAN's Got Talent! I had no idea about the number of talented individuals running about the place. Next weeks talk topic is Travel. Where is the most interesting country/ place that you have visited? Where would you love to travel to if you could? Who would you take with you on your trip?

History Task 4
Our learning journey lead us to start looking at significant events in different civilisations and the effect that they had on society both then and now. Some significant events we looked at in Cambodia’s history were The Construction of Angkor Wat, The Fall of Angkor, French Colonialism, and the Khmer Rouge. After looking at these events we then needed to try to see how they impacted society at the time, and if there were any lasting impacts.
 
After doing this together as a class, we then split into our working groups to look at significant events in the Egyptian, Aztec, Mongol, and Roman civilisations and what lasting effects that they had. The results surprised us all!

In maths this week Y5 have continued learning about geometry. This time though, they are grappling with the tricky concept of the reflection, rotation, and translation of objects across an axis! The learners used mirror lines to reflect shapes across both the x and y axes, and then practised following a set of instructions to translate a shape across multiple axes.

In Y6, children had great fun randomly selecting differentiated ratio questions out from a hat, and working together to solve the problems. If you picked this question  out could you solve it?

"A fruit drink is made by mixing 60ml of orange juice with 180ml of pineapple juice. What is the ratio of orange juice to pineapple juice in its simplest form?"

Towards the end of the week learners began their introduction to algebra by solving fun problems where numbers were replaced by images. Can you solve this grid below?

In literacy this week our Y6 learners have demonstrated their understanding of discussion texts. They practised a range of skills including: using semi-colons and colons, embedded clauses, connectives and imperative verbs. Learners produced a discussion text based around a topic of their choice. Topics ranges from School uniform should be mandatory and Solar cars should replace petrol cars by 2020. Our learners were able to present balanced arguments that explored different opinions and evidence. 

This week in literacy Y5 have been developing our sentences using adverbs, adjectives and additional clauses to make our writing more interesting.  We looked at existing texts and used ideas from these to improve our work from our Big Write. We found that choosing an appropriate adverb or adjective can be a tricky task as it can change the entire meaning of the sentence! ​

Wow! I really enjoyed hearing all about Khmer New Year this week. So many people have great ways to celebrate this holiday! Have a great break, and when we return the talk topic will be ​iCAN’s Got Talent. Are you entering IGT? What talents do you think will win?  What is the scariest part of performing on stage?

​In literacy this week Y6 learners have been developing their debating skills across a whole host of controversial issues. Children have been using their speaking and listening skills by performing debates, but importantly practising their research skills, finding only relevant information from a variety of sources. They then began to plan the write up of their debates using the P.E.E. method, Point, Evidence and Evaluate. The week culminated with a fantastic debate in the new learning space, hosted by our debate club attended by MP3 and MY learners. Well done to everybody involved.

​This week in Literacy Y5 have been reflecting on our stories and looking at how we can improve them to make them more interesting to the reader. We explored how developing a character through descriptions can build a clearer picture and create suspense or intrigue in the story. 

Some of our stories from Grandma's perspective might make you reconsider how innocent she really is. Read them and see what you think for yourself. 

Milepost 3 continued with history this week in learning journey. After looking at the rise and fall of the Khmer Empire last week it was time to look at our Home Base Team civilisations. That meant researching aspects from the ancient Romans, Aztecs, Egyptians, and Mongols. We looked at such things as the styles of clothes, housing, food, inventions, wars, and trade. In groups we researched two of these, took notes, and finally created reports in our own words.

Year 5 continued with geometry this week; we looked at angles and the properties of different triangles and quadrilaterals to work out the missing angles. We then looked at different types of triangles and how to classify them. Whats the difference between an isosceles triangle and a scalene? How can you tell whether that 3 sided shape is a right angle triangle or an equilateral?? Ask a Y5 learner. While you have their attention, also ask them about regular and irregular polygons - a lot of learning took place this week!

This week in maths we finished our data handling unit. At the beginning of the week, Year 6 invited Year 5 learners in to solve a differentiated question sheet they designed alongside their line graphs. Learners had great fun and the Year 5 children were able to answer most of the questions and gave good feedback to the Year 6 learners. Year 6 then had a terrific lesson on our family learning day, investigating the mean mode and median number of smarties in a packet then analysed the results looking for trends. Finally, Year 6 finished the week solving difficult problems to do with pie charts. A great week of learning.

It was great hearing all about peoples families this week around the lunch tables. Next week's topic is ​Khmer New Year. New year in April - how strange?! How are you celebrating? Where are you going?

Y5 spent time becoming familiar with protractors this week. We learned how to use them, read them, and how to draw exact angles using them! It is not as easy as first thought, drawing a reflex angle measuring 327º is a tricky process to go through. We also leaned about the properties of different shapes and used this to discover the missing angles.

A triangle has two angles measuring 60º and 70º, what is the size of the missing angle?

This week in Y6 learners began their data handling unit by creating their own line graphs based on their interests. Learners had to first of all use different sources to collect their data. Examples the learners chose to research included: revenue of 4 different Premiership clubs over a ten-year period, number of YouTube subscribers over a month and comparing the profits of four fast food chains over a ten-year period. 

Once they had their data they could then plot their line graphs thinking carefully about the scales used. Finally, once they had plotted their data, they had to come up with 6 differentiated questions for Y5 learners to answer.

​Children had great fun researching and plotting from real life contexts and thought carefully about designing questions that would need deeper understanding for the year 5 learners to answer such as “Why do you think the highest YouTube viewers are on Sundays?”

This week in learning Journey MP3 looked at the reasons behind the fall of the Ancient Khmer Empire. We learned a great deal about the Khmer Empire from the 800s through to the 1300s and how the borders of the Empire were constantly changing due to war, invasions, and trade. We learned that the Khmer Empire changed from Hindu to Theravada Buddhism in the 12th century and this was largely responsible for the collapse of the Empire about 200 years later!

Y5 have spent this week in literacy editing and improving our version of the classic tale Little Red Riding Hood. We typed up the stories, responding to feedback as we went. Our version of this story is told from the perspective of Grandma, what was she doing? Thinking? How did she contribute to this story? Were her and the wolf secretly friends? Did she really like Little Red that much? You will have to read a story or two to find out.

In literacy this week Y6 have begun practising debates to support us writing discussion texts. We watched debate club present a live argument that became quite heated! We then spent time planning and researching the motion: meat is unethical and should be banned. This then provided us with evidence to write a balanced argument that would look in detail at both sides of the argument. ​

Last weeks talk topic, theatre, was a show stopper! I loved hearing about everyone's favourite part of the iCAN version of Grease. This week we will be talking about Family.  Who is part of your family? Who do you live with in your house? What are your favourite things about your mum, dad, grandpa, aunty…?

For our history task we focused on gathering information from different sources. It was lucky then that we had two special visitors come to class: Lady Penh, for whom the city in which we live is named, and the famous singer Sin Sisamouth came back from the past to answer our questions. We had to think carefully about what to ask to gather useful information, and then spent some time interviewing them. We moved from the hot-seat interview onto using a variety sources to gather information on historical figures from our own civilisations before creating a fact file on them.

In literacy this week Y5 have been getting into role and exploring a story through the eyes of a different character. We tried to think about how it would feel to be Grandma; we took on her personality, dialogue and thought processes to really understand her character. Using story maps, character profiling and grammar strategies we were able to plan our own version of the story, Little Red Riding Hood. Let's just say, Little Red Riding Hood may not be as innocent as she may seem...

In Literacy this week Y6 have been thinking about grammar, spelling and punctuation. We spent some time reviewing sentence types and tenses. We also thought about what an antonym is and came up with specific examples. With Mr Shannon’s help we also worked out the difference between active and passive voice. We then wrote down examples and asked our classmates to figure out which sentence was which.
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This week Y5 started looking at geometry. In particular we focused on shapes and angles. First we looked at  2D shapes and 3D objects, do you know what faces, edges, and vertices are? Y5 do - and the definitions surprised us! We made Quiz Quiz Trade cards based on the properties of 3D objects: Who am I? I have 2 faces, 0 edges, 0 vertices? Finally we started looking at the different types on angles and how to measure them using a protractor. What a week!

In maths this week Y6 have begun learning about mean, mode, median and range. We practised these skills in order to apply them to a set of data. Initially, we needed to review our knowledge of each one. Then using a set of numbers, we figured out how to find the mean, mode, median and range. It wasn’t as tricky as we thought – the tricky part was remembering what each word meant!

Happiness and what makes us happy was a delightful topic this week. I spent so much time hearing about what makes people happy that I couldn't help but to start to feel happy myself! Next week the talk topic is Theatre.  What is a play? What is your favourite play or performance? What personal goals must people involved display? Did you see iCAN's Grease? What was your favourite part?