The beginning of 2020 is more “magic” than we expected. Affected by the epidemic situation, students, parents and teachers have experienced an unprecedented time, which has had a significant influence on our lives and output, career and families, study and work. However, wise men are able to change challenges into opportunities to learn and grow.

Our children are experiencing a period of rapid and unpredictable psychological challenge. In the face of this sudden outbreak, children are quite likely to feel stressed, anxious and may even panic. In the context of this universal epidemic and online learning at home, when exposed to reports or talk about the situation, children may receive information that exceeds their ability to understand and process which may increase the psychological burden on them. At the moment, children’s knowledge about the epidemic situation is often learnt from an adult perspective. Children need a peer’s voice to “communicate” and “discuss” the epidemic situation with them.

For this reason, we have designed a Project-based activity “Go Away, Coronavirus!” for Bilingual Grade 2 and 3 students. In this project, we integrate the activities into the daily learning of various subjects in order to allow students to gain strength through story creation. By gaining scientific knowledge, they can find the strength to “beat” the virus in the virtual world! We chose the Chinese and English picture book, “Virus, go away”, from Bessie Tao. This is a picture book about the new virus that is narrated from a child’s point of view. Both the artistry and the readability of the story are excellent. Also, it is worth mentioning that the author, Bessie, is an outstanding “big sister” in the Department of Mathematics at Oxford University and the Department of Illustrations at the University of the Arts in London!

[Activities]

Chinese: Picture book reading + teacher-lead creative writing (coming soon).

English: English picture book reading and vocabulary on medical topics. The second grade: extended reading of a story of a famous British nurse: Florence Nightingale (started).

Mathematics: Three-digit numbers and four-digit numbers in the outbreak data in Grade 2(started). The concept of area in Grade 3 (started).

Science: “Bread Experiment” (Grade 2 has begun, see the “Self-Learning-Science Class” folder; Grade 3, coming soon).

Art class: Student-made picture books (coming soon).

Music: Epidemic prevention songs (coming soon).

Drama: Epidemic prevention carton puppet show (coming soon).

Psychology: Lecture “I’m a Little Fighter in Epidemic Prevention” (see the first week folder).

Community Service: After returning to school, we will organise students from Grade 2 and Grade 3 to share their own creativity with younger students.