Dear Staff,
Thank you to...
- Grade one
teachers, TAs and students for hosting this morning’s learning
celebration. It provided a lovely insight into the learning and activities
of first grade.
- Grade One would
like to thank Deepa and Sarah for volunteering to participate in today's
Learning Celebration. Also, huge thank you's to Rachael for her hard work
on the play and the music department for their support!
- Velin Prabhu,
Kirsten Welbes and Kay Clarke for their efficient support in helping run
the Swim Meet last Saturday.
- Amritha, Alex and Rachael for working alongside the EY 3 and 4 team to present this week’s Parent Coffee on language development.
- From Hilary: Thank you to Elliot, Vanessa, and Becky for allowing me to be a guest teacher in their classrooms for the current science unit on Space.
- A super huge thank you to Sai, Carl, and Dilip for constructing a scale model of the sizes of the sun, earth, and moon for students to use in a lesson. I'm inspired! Do you know which is which?
Student Led Conferences
Hopefully your preparations are well underway
for next Friday’s SLCs. Next Wednesday’s sectional meeting is canceled so
that you have extra time to prepare. As a reminder, the TA schedule for supervision is linked
here. Lunch will be
provided in the FAC cafeteria from 11:30-1:30. (Menu)
Professional Growth and Evaluation
As you turn your attention to final reflections
and write ups, please submit your paperwork to Lori or Keryn no later than
April 27th; year end meetings will begin immediately after that. Note that the
April 18th All Faculty Meeting has been canceled to allow time for you to
complete your reflections.
Weather to Watch
In addition to the 40C temperature watch that
was mentioned last week, please be aware of the potential for sudden showers in
these closing weeks of school. These showers are particularly difficult when a
sudden deluge begins during the lunch recess times. If it rains during one of
your recess duties, we still need you help supervise students (either in the ES
cafeteria in the event of rain during snack recess or in classrooms in the
event of rain during lunch recess). While email is not an ideal method of last
minute communication, without a PA system it is the only way we have to get
messages out. If the weather looks sketchy, please check your email for an
update from Hazel.
Duties
The past week has seen a shift in student play
patterns and behaviors, in part due to the closure of the field. It is
imperative that teachers and TAs are on time for their duties and are actively
moving through the spaces so that an adult presence is evident to the children.
In particular, we’ve seen an increase in play and behavior challenges in the
plaza and sand box area. If you are on covered area/plaza duty (or if you are
normally on the field for morning recess and are now floating) please be active
in this area. Move intentionally from the covered area, through the plaza to
the sandbox and back again so that children know that you are present and see
who to go to in the event of an issue.
Another Note about Duties
We have had a particularly high number of
teacher/TA absences this week and arranging duty coverage has been challenging.
As always, please arrange duty coverage on your own for pre-arranged absences;
swapping with a colleague is often the easiest way to manage this. In the event
of illness, Cheryl will reach out to people for extra help.
For TAs who are subbing for teachers, we will
attempt to cover one of your two duties but covering both is difficult,
particularly on a day (like today) when a large number of people are out.
Cheryl will communicate with you about which of your duties will be covered.
Please Note...
Linda and Keryn are in Korea on PD today and
Monday/Tuesday of next week. Let Lori or Ron know if you need support with your
students.
Rethinking the Classroom Library
Is your classroom library reaching its full
potential? Are you looking for some simple ideas on making your classroom
library more inviting to your readers? In Stephanie Harvey and Annie Ward's new
book titled From Striving to Thriving, the authors provide several ideas
to help us rethink our classroom libraries and the messages that these spaces
send to our students. If you are interested, you can learn more about
this topic in Chapter 3: Rethinking Classroom
Libraries.
From the CIC
The library is hosting special guest read-alouds
every Monday during the second half of lunch! This is a great way to end the
year and also provides students an extra activity to do during lunch now that
the field is closed.
If you have a special book or two you have in
mind, please feel free to read those. If you would like the library to help
choose books for you, please let us know.
Please sign up here! Big thanks to Fer and Alex for
volunteering to be our guest read aloud people for this coming Monday! :)
Any questions, please see Jet or send him an
email.
Earth Day Spirit Week, April 16-20
To show our continuing commitment to
sustainability, we are happy to have our first Earth Day Spirit Week from April
16-20. During this week we will make an effort to positively affect our
environment along the five categories of LEED: energy, water, human experience,
transportation and waste.
We would like you, our faculty, to join us in
the Earth Day Spirit Week by participating in the daily challenges. You can
also wear Earth Day colors of green and blue for the week! Show us your Earth
Day spirit using #AISCearthday.
Meatless Monday
|
Nothing New Tuesday
|
Buy-A-Plant
Wednesday
|
Carpool Thursday
|
No Waste Lunch Friday
|
Beach Clean Up Weekend
|
Energy
|
Water
|
Human Experience
|
Transportation
|
Waste
|
Waste
|
Meatless Monday
We challenge our faculty to eat no meat on
Monday. Every link in the chain of events that brings meat to the table demands
electricity, from the production of the fertiliser put on the land to grow the
animal feed, to pumping the water they need from the rivers or deep
underground, to the fuel needed to transport the meat in giant refrigerated
ships and the supermarket shelves. According to some studies, as much as
one-third of all fossil fuels produced in the United States now go towards
animal agriculture.
All food on campus, including cafeterias, the
I-Hub and the Madras Café will be vegetarian, so that we can reduce AISC's
energy consumption for the day.
Buy Nothing Tuesday
We challenge our faculty to buy nothing on
Tuesday, specifically manufactured goods. In India, according to Centre for
Science and Environment, every liter of waste water discharged by manufacturers
further pollute about 8 liters of water. Manufacturers' water use is close to
50% of the water used in India.
Instead, borrow or reuse what you need, rather
than buying something new and conserve water!
Buy-A-Plant Wednesday
Today is a great day to buy something, a plant!
Human experience in LEED focuses on air quality. Extensive research by NASA has
revealed that houseplants can remove up to 87 percent of air toxins in 24
hours. Studies have also proven that indoor plants improve concentration and
productivity (by up to 15 percent!), reduce stress levels and boost your mood.
Plants will be on sale in the Unity Courtyard.
Please stop by, and buy one for your home or office and improve your human
experience.
Carpool Thursday
Three hundred fifty cars pass through the AISC
gates each day. We challenge our faculty to carpool on this day as it will
reduce congestion on the road, reduce the amount of fuel consumed, reduce
carbon monoxide released into the air, and, finally, carpool allows people to
get to know each other better!
No Waste Friday
The final LEED category is waste. We measure
all of our waste that we produce at AISC, and we want to produce less waste! We
will be measuring our lunch waste during the week of April 16-20, and we will
challenge ourselves to have less lunch waste on Friday. The less waste that we
create means less waste in our landfill and marshes!
Beach Clean Up Weekend
As our natural environment can also be affected
by waste, we challenge our AISC community to take time as a family and visit
their local beach (or one nearby) and pick up the trash. AISC will be providing
collection bags and reusable gloves after school Tuesday and Thursday.
Keryn and Lori
Have a wonderful
weekend everyone!
Warmly,
Keryn and Lori
