Wow! Quite a different start to the school year, but a positive one nonetheless. I hope you were able to meet all of your students and start building connections.
Although there were a few technical difficulties, we had over 200 students join our welcome back assemblies. Apologies for not getting the upper grade morning meeting screenshots shown during the 3-5 assembly (that was one aspect of the technical difficulties:) We’re all learning the ins and outs of Zoom.
Upcoming Week at a Glance:
Lynn’s and Dave’s Office Hours
Drop in for any reason.
Lynn: 9:45 - 10:15 a.m. (Link) Password: aisc
Dave: 2:30-3:00 p.m. (Link)
Morning Meeting/RC Corner
Great start to the virtual year in Morning Meeting! The foundations for our community of safe, supportive learning spaces is being laid daily. Some highlights include - interactive songs, sign language, dance parties, clear morning messages and lots of smiling children!
Quick tips
Use your power to mute or unmute students when necessary. Especially with the youngins, unmuting or muting all will help keep the flow of the meeting going.
Big MO - Keeping momentum is critical in virtual MM. Since you can expect some disruptions from slow connections and muted speakers, keep side conversations with individual students that don’t connect to the morning meeting at a minimum to keep the whole class engaged.
Feel free to accelerate introducing the share and activities earlier than you would normally in our classrooms. Fun games and activities do help build community, and we are missing all the other parts of the day where we would normally build these in.
Next week possible focus - Hopes and Dreams!
Weekly Plan
Please make sure to share the weekly plan with families and students so everyone can access the links for the MM and the live specialist sessions.
Specialists Will Be Part of the MM
Specialists will be a part of class morning meetings. The schedule will come out in next week’s Faculty Notes and specialists will start attending meetings the week of Aug. 17th.
Specialist Office Hours
Specialists, please let students and parents know how they can access you during office hours in your first Seesaw post the week of August 17th. You can choose how you would like to hold office hours. For example, you can have an open drop-in time or ask students/parents to make an appointment with you.
Specialist Assignments
There have been a few changes in specialist teacher assignments. We got a bit creative with the art and design rotation as well as the Indian Studies and Spanish rotation for grade 3. Below are the specialist grade level assignments.
**Keeley will be teaching French to only the 5th grade students who took French class last year. French will not be offered in 3rd or 4th grade this year.
Counselors
Both Linda and Michele are available to help support students, parents, and all of you. Please reach out for any reason.
Linda will be working with EY - grade 3
Michele will be working with grades 4 & 5
iPad Check Out
If you’d like to check out an ipad, please email itsupport@aischennai.org.
Student Learning Facilitators
Teachers with students in Europe and North/South America, please be in touch with Cassidy and Keeley often to help them support students in their region.
Yearbook - Back to School Photo Scavenger Hunt
The yearbook coordinators are looking for back to school photos from ES students! As you can imagine, collecting photos while we are in the virtual world is a difficult task.The coordinators had the idea of students doing a quick 5-10 minute at-home photo scavenger hunt the first week of school. This could be assigned as a Seesaw activity the first week. Parents, teachers, and students can upload their pictures here. Please provide this link to parents so they can upload photos from the at-home scavenger hunt.
Photo scavenger hunt ideas:
1. A picture of themselves in their front doorway, clearly showing their first-week-of-school outfit
2. A picture of their planned workspace
3. A picture of the place they spent the most time over break, with them in it
4. A picture of something that has made them happy over break
5. A picture of the best view in their house
Attendance
Homeroom Teachers, please mark student attendance on Powerschool before 4 p.m. everyday. Your TAs and co-teachers are also able to enter attendance for the class. Please decide who will mark this on a regular basis.
Padma & Hazel are expected to send the report to HoS by the end of each day. Remember to send them an email if you are unable to enter the details into Powerschool. If students submit work later, the attendance can be amended the next day.
As per the Distance Learning Expectations Document:
EY - 2: engagement equals attendance. G3-5: engagement and submission of work.
Faculty Attendance
If you are unable to commit to a school day due to sickness or any other situation, please do inform us by email copying Lynn or Dave, your team, and Hazel & Padma. You can also text / Whatsapp Hazel on her cell 9940635826.
Requests for personal or professional leave should be made well in advance to Lynn and ensure that you have lesson plans prepared and your team is ready to take over.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Lynn, Dave, and Elliot
