We celebrated the end of the Year of the Dog at IST with a lion dance parade. Here are some of our students feeding the lion red envelopes with money, to thank the lion for a good year. The envelopes are filled with money, and this time around, the money will be used for the building of our new playground.

Have a happy New Year celebration, and be very careful around fireworks. Classes resume on 5 March.

We have been reading many books about space and the solar system, and we have learned a great deal in the process.

Below are just some of the facts we’ve been able to find:

• It doesn’t feel like Earth is moving, but actually Earth is moving 67,000 miles an hour – Kee Moon
• Pluto is the farthest planet from the Sun. Some people think it was once a moon of Neptune – Sei In
• Saturn could float in water because it has lots of gas in it. Scientist think that Saturn has a small rocky core – Sabrina
• Charon is the moon of Pluto – Ki Tae
• The Sun is 4,600,000,000 years old – Se Jun
• Stars are very small when you look at them from Earth, but when you visit the stars they are bigger than a planet – Matheus
• Earth has land and water. There are people, animals, and plants on Earth. We can breathe on Earth – Do Ah 
• Before they found Uranus, people confused Uranus with a star – Ricky
• The Sun has sunspots. The sunspots are a little colder than the Sun but they are still very hot – Annelie
• Jupiter has a hurricane twice as big as Earth. Four of Jupiter’s moon are bigger than Mercury – Michael
• Earth is a huge big rock. The Sun came from a big cloud of dust and gas in space – Yutaro
• Some people have seen strange things in space, which they think are UFOs – Catherine
• Venus and Earth are the same size but Venus has no water – Jong Min
• Saturn has rings that rotate around Saturn. Saturn’s rings are made of small bits of ice – Max

It looks like the internet is finally returning to normal, so before Murphy’s Law of Internet Disconnection goes into effect, here’s what we’ve been doing these last two weeks.

Photo of a far away galaxy taken by the Hubble Telescope. More images at http://hubblesite.org/gallery/

We have been exploring our solar sytem with our new unit. The central idea is “The Earth is part of the solar system” and we are inquiring into the planets of the solar system and the relationships between the sun, moon, and earth.

The kids are really into this unit and they know a lot! Come visit our classroom and see not just once but two bulletin boards filled with facts they already know and much more they are learning.

Next week, we will devote some time to the second inquiry point. This means we will be studying the sun and the moon, and how they influence life here on Earth. I hope to be able to carry out simulations of things like eclipses, and the lunar phases.

The light pollution of Tianjin means that we are only able to see the brightest of stars and the moon when the sky is not overcast. However, try to go out and see what you can see. Make a map or take a picture, then do it again at the same time the next clear night. What do you think? Will it change?