Dear Faculty,
It’s been nice to get back into the groove of a full week back. Grade 2 welcomed Seva Savajam, so you probably noticed lots of visitors to campus this Wednesday. It’s heartwarming how our whole community makes our visitors feel welcome!
Thank you’s and shout outs…
- Grade 5BT wants to thank Ms. Priya Gopalen and her team at the garden for all the help with our bountiful harvest of basil and radish.
- Thank you so much to the following who helped support us on Wednesday with our Seva Samajam visitors! We greatly appreciate your time and efforts Jen, Clinton, Dave, Valar, Balajee and the Food Service Team! From the Grade 2 Team
- Thank you to Sobha, John, Balaji, & Jack for the thought and effort put into planning Field Days - including a helpful video so that we can improve our faculty relay this year! ;)
ES Section Priorities Faculty Meeting
Seesaw Reflections & Student Led Conferences Prep
Thank you to everyone who contributed ideas to our session on Seesaw reflections and agreements. As a reminder, we have a section agreement to send a weekly “newsletter” communication addressed to parents. Please send this home weekly, by 4 p.m. Friday; if you send it on a different day, please be consistent among your team.
Secondly, each team has its grade-level agreements about posting to student portfolios. We appreciated the meaningful dialogue on Wednesday about how our grade-level agreements may be evolving after reflection and a semester’s worth of implementation. Remember again that some level of consistency is key within grade levels for student portfolio agreements.
This slideshow shows the brainstorming posters that each team and specialist group made to share about their student led conferences thinking. And the ideas are summarized in this Google Doc. If your team generates any great ideas about a protocol to lead students through their portfolio sharing to parents, please send it to us, and we will pass on your good ideas.
Some good questions came up about iPad use for Specialists during the SLCs. After being in consultation with IT, we will confirm expectations with Specialists (PE, Dance, WL, Indian Studies, Art and Music) early next week, about the requirement and role of Seesaw in Specialist conferences.
Field Day Information
Field Day is just around the corner and here is some information to help you all prepare for a day of fun and activity! On these days, the field will not be open for use during recess until all of the equipment is cleaned up and removed. No regular PE classes will run on these days. Please fill out the Role Sign-Up Form before 5:00 on January 31st to ensure that your response is accounted for. We will get back to you all individually with more clarity and instructions once we have an idea of where everyone will be on these days. All students and teachers should wear their ES T-Shirts and bring a change of clothes on Field Day!
2nd Grade & 3rd Grade Teachers: You may be missing a PE class in the afternoon on these days because regular PE classes will not run on these days. If you would like to look into using a Physical Education space for your class, please feel free to reach out to Jack for availability.
5th Grade and 1st Grade Teachers: You are invited to come to all Field Day events if you are not teaching! You all are scheduled to have planning time during Field Day. We will make sure you have the option of planning during this time, but would greatly appreciate your attendance at Field Day. Whether you are taking on a role, or coming to enjoy the fun with your students!
Specialist Teachers: You are invited to come to all Field Day events if you are not teaching! You may be scheduled to teach or have a planning block during these times. If you are scheduled with a 1st grade class on Friday, Feb. 7th, Sobha will reach out to you about how you can help on that day. If you are scheduled for a 5th grade class on Thursday, Feb. 6th, please fill out the Role Sign-Up Form and Jack will reach out to you about how you might help for that day.
Grade 3-5 HRT/EAL/TA, Coaches, and Counselors: Please be ready to participate in the Teacher Relay at 12:00 on Thursday, Feb. 6! There should be 6 team-members for each relay team. Here is a video for you to check out what this relay might look like. Please watch this before Field Day!
Anyone else who is not listed above and who is interested in helping out on Field Day, please reach out to one of us! There are plenty of ways to help on these days.
Thank you all so much for your support and efforts in making Field Day so enjoyable for everyone!
Sincerely,
ESPE Team:
Sobha, John, Balaji, & Jack
From the EAL Department
Based on the EAL Strategy Surveys completed last December, the first of 8 EAL Strategy Talks take place this Tuesday, 28 January, 7:30-8:15am in the SHED. HURRAY! The first session will explore how to intertwine language instruction with content. We'll dive deep into identifying where language development can happen in any given lesson. As a reminder, these EAL Strategy Talks are optional to attend, but to make it a bit enticing... we'll be offering coffee, tea, juice, yoghurt, granola, fresh fruit, and nuts for those who attend, and child care for those who need it. More information can be found on this week's EAL Shout-out! I hope to see you there!
From the HS Design Team
This semester the HS Engineering Design students are doing a client-based PBL project. We would like to offer our product design services to approximately 30 HS teachers as clients for the students to work with. We are looking for those teachers who have a specific project-need, to "employ" (pro gratis) one of the Design students to design and create a product that solves your need. We are opening this up for any ES teacher that would like to avail of this opportunity.
This semester the HS Engineering Design students are doing a client-based PBL project. We would like to offer our product design services to approximately 30 HS teachers as clients for the students to work with. We are looking for those teachers who have a specific project-need, to "employ" (pro gratis) one of the Design students to design and create a product that solves your need. We are opening this up for any ES teacher that would like to avail of this opportunity.
The size and complexity of the project will determine whether it is school-related or personal. If school-related and relatively small to medium then we will be able to absorb the cost of materials. Large personal projects will require you to fund the extra material that will be purchased outside.
Please email me with your need and I will respond back to you if we are able to do it or not. If your project is selected, you will then be contacted by one of our students within the next two weeks. They will meet with you personally to get the details of your project needs and begin the design process. All projects will be completed no later than the second week of May.
Yearbook Photos - Schedule and Student List
Individual Yearbook photos of New Students and students who were absent during the earlier photoshoot in August will be taken from Monday to Wednesday. Please click the Schedule and Student List to view the students who need photos to be taken. The venue is the BBT.
AISC Libraries Book Swap
The AISC Libraries want to celebrate Earth Week with the community by organizing a way to reuse your previously loved books! If you have any gently used books at home (in any language and/or genre) that you'd like to donate, please bring them to the ES/MS or HS Library. We will accept books for babies, toddlers, children, teens, or adults, as long as they are in good condition. For every two books that are donated, you will receive a ticket for one free book at the Book Swap!
Please contact Barbara Bowman at bbarbara@aischennai.org if you have any questions.
Twitter Award
After a brief holiday hiatus, we are proud to announce our most recent Twitter Award recipient: Mr Scott, for “nurturing historians”! Be sure to follow @aiscelementary to share ideas and celebrate with your awesome colleagues!
Have a wonderful weekend!
Keryn, Dave, and Calley
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