Tesla Talk Week January 9th 2021

Newsletter 9th January 2021

Dear Parents / Guardians,

Earlier in 2020 when Vietnam went into controlling the spread of Covid19 two parents had asked how they can help their children during the lockdown. They were talking about how parents had taken on a bigger role in their children’s learning, The answers I gave them are still important now, even though students are able to attend and much of school is back to normal.

Here is my advice to help parents understand their child’s education from a home PYP perspective.

1. Take an inquiry stance

Meet a question with a question. Often our first instinct when a child asks us a question is to provide an answer. But this approach can prevent a golden opportunity to have learners not only learn that thing but also learn something about how to learn. So next time your child asks you a question (“How do you spell ….?” “How do you multiply fractions?” “What are the types of energy?”), no matter what the question is, instead of supplying the answer, try responding like this:

Great question! How could you find that out? What resource could you use to discover that? How could you figure that out?

Be prepared to inquire together. Sometimes, when you meet a question with a question, you get an “I don’t know”. That is an invitation to a great teachable moment! If your child doesn’t know how to find out on their own or what resource to use, you can step in as their partner and respond like this: No problem! Let’s figure it out together. Maybe we can try this…. Have you ever used this… Let’s see if this resource has the answer….

This way you are still supporting them to figure out what they are trying to figure out, but along the way you’ve also helped develop their skill as an independent learner – so the next time, instead of needing to ask you, they might have some ways to figure it out on their own.

Ask the magic question – “What do you notice?” No matter what subject, what area of learning, or what age – the secret ingredient to inquiry-based learning is asking learners to think about what they notice. Whether your child is learning their letters and looking at the letter “B”, or building their multiplication fluency by looking at a multiplication table, or developing their scientific knowledge by studying a model of a cell…. that one question works every time, and can always be followed up with “what else do you notice?” to probe for further thinking.

Don’t feel you have to be an expert, just be a learner. It is okay to not know something. In fact, that presents an amazing opportunity to model your own approaches to learning. Feel confident to say, “I don’t know” or, “I have no idea”. Just make sure to follow it up with, “But now I want to know, so here is how I am going to find out!” or, “Let’s figure this out together!”

2. Support conceptual understanding

Value process. As often as possible get your child thinking beyond what they did and what they learned, and more about how they learned. Some great questions include:

How did you do that? Why did you do that? What strategy did you use? How did you learn that strategy? What steps did you take?

Harness the power of the key concepts. In the PYP we have 7 Key Concepts, that are secret ingredients to help learners think more deeply and understand… ANYTHING. The beauty of these key concepts, is they work for everything! You can apply these questions to any subject or area of learning. Whether your child is trying to learn about shapes… commas…. a historic figure…. a sports skill… sentence structure…. an art technique…. a water bottle! Anything. Here are the key concept questions you can ask your child at any time about anything they are learning:

• – What is it like? (Form)
• – How does it work? (Function)
• – How is it connected to other things? (Connection)
• – How does it change? (Change)
• – Why is it like that? Why is it the way it is? (Causation)
• – What are the different points of view? (Perspective)
• – What are our responsibilities? (Responsibility)

Many thanks,

Robin Klymow
Director of Studies

Ms. Nguyen Thi Quynh Dien

MYP Coordinator

Grade 2 Art Project: Grade 2 students are beginning Semester 2 with the topic of ‘Transportation’, based on the Unit of Inquiry ‘How We Organize Ourselves’. Students have watched videos about transportation in the UK, America and Vietnam. They have studied public transportation and how it reduces pollution. They have sketched different types of transportation and described them as a first step towards painting them.  Grade 2 students have enjoyed learning how to draw from the models given.

Ms. Nguyen Ha Huyen Kim

PYP Coordinator

In Grade 4 EAL class (English as an Additional Language) this week, we started our inquiry into forms of energy and their impacts on our lives. We looked into light as the most popular form of energy. We worked in groups sorting pictures into different categories and explained to other groups of our choice. We proudly created our own version of flashcards with words and illustration for the whole class to share. In pairs, we orally practiced putting these vocabularies into contexts to describe the physical properties of objects, using the scientific terms we just learned of opaque, transparent and translucent. Then we read a story about how light creates shadows and made connections to real life situations.

Mr. Nguyen Truong Ton

Head of MOET

Tesla Primary students always have lots of fun after lunch!

Students who like a quiet time for themselves go to the library to read books. This activity not only helps them to relax but also provides them with useful knowledge.

Active students look for activities on the large school playground.

Other students create groups for discussion in their chosen area on the playground.

Ms. Nguyen Hoang An Khanh

English Teacher

Students worked in groups of three or four. They created their own pictures about a place, wrote down full sentences to describe where the objects in the picture are and finally presented it in front of their friends. They not only had fun being creative but also practiced their writing and speaking as well. There are 3 criteria for the group work: collaboration, problem solving and tidiness, these criteria kept students on track and helped students understand how to work in group effectively. These are some photos on the presentation day. Can you tell they are only Grade 2 students?

Ms. Bui Huu Duc Linh

Science Teacher

Group students build the car model that they think it will be more convenient for their class when they go for a Tet vacation together.

Students’ feelings after the Winter Holiday

Grade 1 students:

What do you miss most when you are not going to school during winter break?
Minh Nghia: When I wasn’t going to school, I missed the school, the teachers and my friends.
Minh Luan: I miss the nurse.

What do you expect when you return to school after the holiday?
Minh Triet: I want to learn Vietnamese, to write more, and want to study Math.
Minh Nghia: I want to practice my handwriting.
Minh Luan: I want to play with my friends.
Minh Anh: I want to learn how to swim, learn Math, and learn Vietnamese.

Grade 2 students:

During the time away from school, both Ha Trinh and Dabin missed the teachers, the swimming and dancing lessons, the playing time, and of course their best friends very much.

After the holiday, Ha Trinh hopes to learn dancing, and especially to learn more with Ms. Khanh. Dabin hopes to have more hours in learning swimming, and she still finds Vietnamese quite difficult.

Grade 3 students:

Tran Minh Khoi: During the winter break, I really missed my friends and my teachers. I also missed my school supplies. I wondered if they were lost or not.
After coming back to Tesla, I feel everything is still familiar with me, but I hope I can always wear P.E uniform because it’s very comfortable.
Lee Han Nghi: During the winter break, I missed the school and Ms. Oanh. I also missed my friends.
Dao Khanh Linh: I want Tesla to open Chinese and Japanese class. I also don’t want to wear uniform as a requirement.
Phan Hoang Quan: I feel that after the winter break, my classmates are more excited to learn because now we have playtime in the afternoon.

Grade 3 students want Tesla to open Cooking and Martial Arts class.

Grade 4 students:

Watson Pham An Maya: During the winter break, I missed the ICT period because I really love learning ICT. For this term, I want to learn Board game, Origami, and ICT for ASA.
Do Huy Khang: During the winter break, I really missed and wanted to learn ICT because I love learning about computers. I want to have buffet and learn ICT for ASA the whole week.

Early Years

PERIODIC HEALTH EXAMINATION

To make sure that students have the best health for learning, exploring, and playing comfortably is the most concern of Tesla school. The Tesla annual health check is one of the factors to build the faith for parents about the friendly and safe learning environment.

Early Years at Tan Binh campus will have a Parent-Teacher Conference on Thursday, 14 January 2021.