December 2015

December was a busy month at SEM, with the holidays, studying a new theme and preparing for our end of the year program. This month we studied the earth and learned about the oceans and continents. We also learned about some countries on each continent. It was really interesting to learn about the language, food and culture of different places!

On December , we had an International Food Day. For lunch, our teachers prepared some delicious food from other parts of the world. We ate cazuela, a kind of chicken and vegetable soup from Chile, onigiri, which are rice balls with tuna and mayonnaise inside from Japan, and quesadillas from Mexico, a kind of cheese sandwich made with tortilla bread. We loved trying all the new food!

We had four birthdays this month: first was Irene's 5th birthday, on December . Irene showed us some cute pictures of herself as a baby with her mom and dad. We had a party for her with some presents and cake, it was lots of fun!

    

Next was Kevin's 7th birthday on December . We had fun, but it was a little bit sad, since he will graduate soon and this will be his last birthday party here at SEM - but we wish all the best for him as he grows up and continues his studies. We loved seeing his photos and eating delicious birthday cake with him.

    

    

It was also Ms. Stephanie and Ms. Maura's birthdays this month. We even had some cake to celebrate!

At the beginning of the month, we all helped decorate the Christmas tree. Everyone hung an ornament where they liked.

    

We made some special crafts this month to get ready for Christmas. With our art teacher, Ms. Sunny, we made music boxes that we decorated with colorful Christmas trees on top. 

   

   

And with Ms. Maura, we made some paper wreaths to decorate our classroom.

In Dream class, we learned the song Jingle Bells, and even went on a pretend "ride" on a one horse open sleigh!

The week of Christmas, our old friends Jin and Jun came to visit us from Seoul! It was great to see them again and play together. We missed them a lot! They helped us choose some dishes from a stocking to bring to our Christmas Potluck Party.

   

   

On December 24th, we had our big Christmas party. Everyone dressed up in suits and dresses and Santa Claus came to visit! He brought us some wonderful presents and wished us a Merry Christmas. 

We ate a big potluck lunch, with so many delicious things provided by our families. We had sandwiches, chicken, cookies, juice and much more. 

After lunch, we had a fun surprise - a magician came to our school! He performed an incredible magic show for us. We loved seeing all of his amazing tricks!

From December 25th until Monday, January 4th, was our winter vacation. We enjoyed the time at home with our families and hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday.

Best wishes in 2016 from everyone at SEM! 

Happy New Year!

November 2015

In November, it started getting cold - so we spent a little more time inside practicing our handwriting, phonics and Montessori Jobs.

 

 

This month, we studied dinosaurs. It was really fun to learn the names of our favorites and to discover which ones were meat-eating or plant-eating. We found out that fossils deeper in the ground are older, and dinosaurs lived during different times: Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous. But they don't live in 2015 with us!

We visited Herb Land in Gyeongju to see the dinosaur park there. We saw many different dinosaurs that we studied and shared what we leaned about them.

  

   

There was a sandbox where we had fun pretending to be paleontologists uncovering some fossils.

On the 6th we had our Garage Sale, where everyone brought toys they wanted to exchange for something new. It was really fun to trade toys with our friends!

November 11th was a special day for two reasons: it was Peppero Day and Austin's birthday! He turned six years old this year. We had a party for him and ate some birthday cake and peppero sticks.

   

   

The 26th was an American holiday, Thanksgiving. We learned about the history of pilgrims coming to North America and about Native American culture. Then we celebrated by eating a big, delicious lunch! We had lots of good food, like chicken, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, corn, beans and sweet potatoes. We also made turkey pictures with Miss Maura.

  

We hope that everyone has a happy and healthy holiday season!