Friday, March 02, 2018

Dear all,

Happy weekend! Busy week finished and another busy week coming up! Enjoy the wonderful sunshine and take a moment or two to relax….we only have two weeks until Spring Break! This Sunday is the Raptorthon - hopefully see many of you there! 7am start, bright and early to run and swim before the heat of the day kicks in.

Thank yous…

• To Fer, Ula and Deepa, Barbara, Cheyenne and Sam for hosting today’s learning celebration
• For Sobha and Jane for the rockin robin EY5 dance; Sarah, Finny and Vasanth for our school song
• Grade 1 team for the sweet poetry
• To all teachers for their careful and thorough work on report cards
• To Jet, Kay and Carl for the information and hands on sessions at our faculty meeting
• Rachael and Hilary for all the work gone into Inquiry consultant schedule
• Barbara and Leontheen for their first Roots and Shoots Field trip last weekend!
• Grade 5 for the passion projects and for the advocacy talks!  Inspiring!

Meet AISC - Lily Clarke, EY5 Teacher

 

Lily Clarke teaches EY5, comes from Honolulu, Hawaii and is an award-winning, competitive Hawaiian Hula dancer!  She has been dancing Hula for 19 years.. Lily loves collecting learning artifacts from her students.  She thinks it is amazing to see the growth that takes place from the beginning of the school year, to the end. She loves the excitement and fast pace of teaching that happens on a daily basis and that every day is different from the last. Lily grew up in a Navy family and moved around a lot.  Lily loves moving around as it has made her into an adaptable and flexible teacher and community member.

Inquiry Consultant next week

Next week Tania Lattanzio from Innovative Global Education is with us in the Elementary for the week. You will see calendar invites to work with her.  Her full schedule can be found here.

All TAs have all been scheduled to attend a 1 ½ hour session with Tania on Friday, March 9th. Each TA should have received a calendar invite from Dan’s office. We still do need for TAs to cover their regular Friday duty slots. Hopefully, the assigned time does not clash but, if it does, let Lori and/or Hazel know. This might mean that a TA goes directly to or from Tania’s session to or from a duty. In that case, please work together to ensure that everyone gets a lunch break, even if it is at an unusual time.

Lockdown Drill

Next week our lockdown drill is at 10:45 (til about 10:55) on Thursday (8th). It is vital before this drill, that all homeroom teachers talk to their students about the importance of this drill; the purpose (protection from intruder) and what the plans are.  

• We will need to adjust the G4/5 recess for this day.
• Whoever is teaching  classes at 10:45, please keep the class you have right through the drill and practice lockdown in your areas, then the children should either continue class, or (G4/5 - go to recess)
• Recess for Grade 4/5 will begin as soon as the drill is over, and the bell will be rung about 11:05.
• Duty schedule will remain the same for this new recess time.
• Teachers:  your job is to check outside your classroom door and grab any children in the corridor, lock the door, pull the blinds if you are able to, and ensure you and your class are hidden from sight
• Please remain silent and hidden until you receive an all clear

KIDS out of class during a drill

All homeroom teachers please have the conversation with your class about what they should do if there is an emergency drill when they are out of class.  

• If in the bathroom, they should remain in a stall and stay there until they here an all clear
• If on the playground or in corridors, they should head to nearest indoor space and hide in there.

Optional Summer Book Club

Are you starting to think about all of the books you will read during the summer break? For those interested in reading about literacy, consider joining our summer book club. We will read Who's Doing the Work? by Jan Burkins and Kim Yaris. The authors reexamine the components of balanced literacy and our role as educators in supporting students to become independent readers and thinkers. The book club will read the book over the summer and begin meeting during the 2018-2019 school year to explore the ideas presented in the book.  If you would like to join and have a book ordered for you, please email Alex by Thursday March 15th.  

Review: Good Reads    

Staffing Update

Today marks Nichelle’s last day at AISC. Nichelle has been working at AISC for almost 5 years and has taken on a number of roles including teaching assistant, Learning Support maternity leave, and World Language English instructor in 3rd grade. Nichelle moving to Canada and we wish her the best of luck!

Joining the 3rd grade team is Ms. Sruthi Krishnan, who comes to us as a former Teach for India fellow and some work as an educational consultant. Please welcome her aboard.

Student-Teacher Feedback Survey

In case you still need to complete this for one or more teachers; this will remain open until 3:30pm on Monday.  After that is will be closed and data compiled and shared with you.

From the Discovery Studios

Here is a copy of the Block Challenge Schedule. The screenshot is for this week, but the same times are open for the next two weeks.

Just email me (Carl) with the Challenge Block(s) ​you would like to book and let me know how many students I can expect. Anything from individuals to a whole class may sent. Please remember that other classes may book into the DS when Challenge Block times are taken.  

EY5 to Gr 2 Challenge

Build different models of paper airplanes to see which is the best flyer and which type of airplane will fly the furthest.

Gr 3 to Gr 5

Build a marble roller coaster only using straws. The rollercoaster must incorporate  jumps, drops, spirals, tunnels etc. The key to making the coaster work is learning how to manipulate the straws.

These 2 challenges will be in effect from March 5 until spring break.

Have a nice weekend!

Keryn and Lori