Kanchanaburi trip - Train rides and talent shows

After our great lunch of som tam, gai yang, sticky rice and (of course) chicken nuggets, we caught the train from Sai Yok station to ride the tracks close to the original ones built in WW2. There was beautiful scenery along the way and parts where we could see the effort put in to shear through the rock.

On our return we played in the pool, spent some time readying the rooms for inspection and practiced for the talent show this evening. We've now had our steak dinner and the children are getting ready for the show.

Tomorrow morning we have our team building games and then, after a visit to Wai Chung War Cemetery, our return to school. Here are some photos from today:

Kanchanaburi trip - Hell Fire Pass

The children slept really well last night. Not a sound from them all night and many needed to be woken up for showers and breakfast at 7:00!

After a great breakfast we headed to Hell Fire Pass (only 15 minutes away) and the museum inspired a lot of discussion about the stories of the prisoners of war and locals forced to cut through the enormous amount of rock. The walk back up to the museum from the bottom of Hell Fire Pass to the museum was not easy but gave them a good appreciation of what the labourers, suffering from disease and malnutrition, must have gone through each day. 

We're back at the resort now about to have an Issarn lunch before taking the train into Kanchanaburi along the railroad built during World War 2.

Here are some photos from today so far:

Kanchanaburi trip - arrived!

What a busy day! The children are currently playing games with the very capable staff at River Kwai Village Resort while I watch and type this blog post.

The students are beginning to get a much better understanding of the human cost of World War 2 with our visit to the War Cemetery and the Thailand-Burma railway museum. The learning is always so much more valuable and pertinent when in context. 

After the visit to the Cemetery and museum we went to have lunch at a restaurant on the river next to the bridge. It was a fantastic lunch and afterwards we took a walk along the bridge itself. After some souvenir shopping we headed to the resort.

The children are really impressed with the resort. They love their rooms and we even got a chance to have a swim (and a slide!) in the pool. Dinner was amazing (BBQ) and I'm sure, after these games and a room inspection they'll sleep soundly tonight. 

I'll post again tomorrow but until then here are some photos from today:

Kanchanaburi trip - ...and we're off!

We left in good time this morning and are already on our way to Kanchanaburi. We should be at the War Cemetery by 11am (according to my GPS). At the War Cemetery we will spend some time thinking about the stories of some of the soldiers who died making the railway and then explore those stories deeper at the Thai-Burma railway museum. From there we'll go for lunch next to the bridge over the River Kwai and then head to the resort. You can keep up to date with all our adventures via this blog. I will try to update twice a day.

All set to leave.

5 minutes into the trip and already at the snacks!

Year 6 trip to Kanchanaburi

It's tomorrow! Year 6 and myself are really excited about our trip.

You can keep up to date with where we are and what we are doing by following this blog.

Term 1.1 for Year 6

We have had a great first half term in Year 6. We learnt about how the brain works through our Brainwaves topic and are applying that learning to our classwork to ensure we get the most out of our lessons and homework.
In the second half of the half term we studied New Materials. We revised the different states of matter and what matter is made up of. We tested the properties of materials (scientifically) and can say what properties make them suitable for specific tasks. We also mixed materials to create new ones.
Here are some photos of what we did:

Making observations of melting and freezing rates of different materials

Making new materials (muffins!)

Dissolving experiment

Story writing

Describing materials

We will be going on our school residential trip to Kanchanaburi later in November and will update this blog daily with pictures and our news.

Thank you for all your support,
Mr Collett & Year 6

Welcome to 2016-17's Year 6!

Welcome to the start of an exciting year for the new Year 6. We have a brand new classroom, new interactive whiteboard, new computer lab and new specialist teachers! We've already started to make the space our own and have got to work already. Here are some photographs of what we have been doing already...

Year 6 in front of their first display of work 'All About Me'.

Quiet reading time before the lessons start.

Some tricky opinions being formed about the text we are studying in English.

Working hard in groups on our maths investigations.

Our topics for this year are:
Term 1.1 - Brainwaves (learning how to learn effectively) and New Materials (properties of materials and how combining them change those properties).
Term 1.2 - World War 2 (how the war affected every country, what caused it and what happened as a result). (We will also have our trip to Kanchanaburi in this half term - details coming soon.)
Term 2.1 - Moving People (studying migration from today's current issues to how homo-sapiens colonised the Earth through migration).
Term 2.2 - Shakespeare and Picasso (a study of two creative but different people in very different historical times).
Term 3 - Changes, Personal and Global (a study of climate change and ways in which we can help minimise and, hopeful, reverse the negative effects human behaviour has on the planet and puberty education).
All homework and a lot of other learning discussions will take place on our virtual learning environment, Google Classroom. You can ask your child for access to their account to see what homework they have due and what they are learning in class on any given day. If you would like to contact me you can do via my email acollett@charter.ac.th
Kind regards,
Mr Collett