Friday, November 10, 2017

Happy Friday everyone!

Thank you to all the homeroom teachers for the outstanding family math mornings - never have we had such a great turnout from parents! Feedback from parents is overwhelmingly positive, and Calley will collect reflections from you all too so we can enhance this even further next year.

I will be out Monday in Dubai as we are recruiting this weekend - Lori will be around if you need anything.  

Next Friday is busy - hoping to see everyone in the FAC at 4pm to support our wonderful ES cast of Gulliver’s Travels - this will be the only show this year - so come out to support your students!  

We have a TGIF directly after that which will be a wonderful way to celebrate the end one of our busiest times of the year.

Thank you’s (Anyone to thank?  Let Lori or Keryn know)

• Amritha, Alex, Amy, Morgen and Megha for their reflective and thoughtful screening of ES AP candidates
• ALL grade level teams for facilitating the fabulous family math mornings - what a turn out!
• Calley for organizing and facilitating incredibly informative and much appreciated sessions for parents.
• Marcus - first finished with reports, and comments were outstanding!
• Ula - for thoughtful attention to the style guide and her succinct and explicit report card comments
• Jack - for providing thoughtful feedback and appreciation to report card readers
• All teachers for the time and thoughtfulness that has gone into this round of report card writing.

ES Associate Principal Search

We are excited to announce that Dave Allen has accepted the position of Elementary Associate Principal. Dave is coming to us from Portland, Oregon, where he is the current Elementary Principal of Richmond Elementary; a dual immersion Japanese and English school. Dave will come to AISC together with his wife, Deb, and son Sawyer.

Faculty Meeting Wednesday
We have an ES section meeting next Wednesday where we will be focusing on Inquiry. This will be in the ES Cafeteria.  

More Staffing Updates

In addition to last week’s welcome to Sai and Radha, Ms. Rajashree Sridhar will be joining us as an EY3 Teaching Assistant. As of Wednesday, this will allow Valar to return to her regular subbing duties.  

Design Studio Update - Amazing opportunity!

Starting on Nov. 17th Carl will be opening up his room for Genius sessions. You can send one, a couple or a small group of kids who you feel would benefit from some time in the Discovery Studios on Friday afternoons. They can come for about an hour. Just send Carl a message as to who you would like to send, anything specific things you would like them to work on or leave the challenge up to him. You can book this time on his calendar.

Also, if you haven’t taken advantage of the Gummy Bear Catapult challenge, you can still sign up for next week.

Edmodo reminder

A gentle reminder that before/as each new unit begins a grade or department level unit overview should be shared on Edmodo. This is for all areas, including specialists.

Missoula Children’s Theater

MCT will be here on Monday - Friday! Kids who have signed up to audition are listed here.  Auditions will be Monday morning; once you have taken registration, please send kids over to the FAC at 8:45am. Rachael will be the point person to welcome students and introduce MCT staff. Relatively large numbers of children will be involved in auditions (and therefore missing class) the morning of the 13th. We expect the casting list to be completed about noon that day, and practice schedules will be set for the rest of the week. Thanks for your flexibility as students attend their rehearsals.  

For students up to grade 2, please ask your TAs to accompany the children to and from the theatre. After that, they can take direction from MCT staff about whether their presence is required throughout the audition/rehearsal or whether they only need to return to pick the children up. Third through fifth graders can walk themselves (unless you feel otherwise).

The final performance will occur at 4pm in the FAC theatre on Friday, November 17th, and all are encouraged to attend.

TGIF

An all school TGIF will be hosted at the Sunset Grill on November 17th, 6pm! Transport will be provided after MCT play. Looking forward to seeing you all there!

Report Cards in Powerschool

Heads up - When you enter the math standard on fluency, you’ll see that it sits within Powerschool with the learning habits (and assessed as either “meets” or “working toward meeting”). When the report card is formatted, though, it will show up in the math section.  

From the Coaches Corner - Podcast with Workshop Expert Erin Kent

Get inspired and reflect on the basics of reading and writing workshop in this 17 minute podcast with literacy guru Erin Kent. Erin's passion and articulation of workshop will validate many of your daily practices and offer ways for you to reflect on your craft as a teacher.

Link:  http://limitlesslaowai.com/readingwritingworkshop/

PCA Giving Tree - FYI
The PCA Giving Tree is a chance for the AISC community to participate in giving gifts to local organizations in need.

This year the Elementary School Giving Tree is focused on supporting the Hope Foundation School. We will be collecting new books for the Hope Foundation School. The books will contribute to a library and support literacy. The books can be in English and in Tamil. The ES Giving Tree will be located in the Elementary CIC. Please stop by and take a tag.

We are excited to be supporting three different organizations this year through the ES, MS, and HS Giving Trees. Keep your eyes out for the trees on November 10th.  You are welcome to take a tag from any tree. Drop boxes for gifts will be located near the ATMs at both the Main Entrance and the Elementary Entrance. We will be collecting items until Friday, December 8, 2017.

**Grade 5 students will have a separate Giving Tree project connected to their CWW experience.

Meet AISC - Velin Prabu - Aquatics Teacher Assistant

Velin Prabhu is the Aquatics teacher's assistant at AISC and is commonly addressed as Coach Velin or Mr. Velin. He is from Mumbai, India and loves to teach students. Velin joined AISC in 2015, before his wife, Sheetal Prabhu, joining in 2016. Before AISC, Velin was working at the American School of Bombay (ASB) for 8 years. Since childhood, swimming has always been his passion and has been swimming since he was an elementary student. Velin doesn’t only like to swim but likes to participate in all kinds of sports too, specifically soccer. He enjoys working here at AISC because of the lovely environment and community that surrounds him. He believes the best thing about his job is being a part of student progress and growth with the aquatic skills he teaches. His most memorable moment being at AISC was training the swim team in May 2017 and placing 1st at the swim meet in Stonehill International School, Bangalore. Mr. Velin wishes that if he had any superpower, he would like to change the world by conserving earth's nature and restoring mother earth.

Happy weekend everyone!

Keryn & Lori