Friday, December 21, 2017

Dear Faculty,

Happy Holidays! Today’s blog is to wish you all a fabulous break wherever you may be! Take time to read, walk, swim, ski, dance, reflect and laugh with friends and family. Thank you all for a wonderful half year together. Know that each and everyone of you has made a difference to our elementary students and their families. Enjoy a well-earned vacation break. The Sunday before school resumes is when we will send our information blog to kick start our first week back.

Until then…

You’ve worked so hard and now it’s here,

A totally festive time of year,

Some visit family, some drink beer,

Some go far and some stay near.

You may be surfing or perhaps you’re not clear,

But whatever it is, please do it with cheer.

The Grade 4 team would like to wish you all,

Be you fat or thin, short or tall,

A very Merry Christmas  - and that’s not all,

We’d like to say thanks as we’ve had a ball.

It’s been great working with everyone, you keep us enthralled,

Oh, AISC you are unequalled!

Thank yous…

• Thank you to Hilary, Priya and Adithya for working with 4JH and supporting us in the ES Kitchen. Our effort to make a difference by appreciating a few people in our community was fruitful.

• Thank you John for the inaugural garden club! It is a hit and is inspiring the love for planting and trying new things in students.

• Thank you to Alex - all of his documents and files that are uploaded related to Workshop make accessing resources super easy and convenient. This is getting more rubrics and checklists into student hands to self-assess and set goals.
• The Grade 4 Team would like to give a special thanks to Fer, Jyotsna and Hilary for organizing our Virtual Field Trip to Ecuador! Fer’s sister’s organization CAEMBA, has made a difference in our 4th graders’ lives, as well as the lives of hundreds of families in Ecuador who suffered from the devastating earthquake in 2016.
• Thank you to Dee and Nicole for all the work they do behind the scenes in student council
• Thank you to Sarah, Finny and Vasanth for spreading festive joy in the building through the music concerts
• Thank you all TAs who helped support rehearsals for the music concerts
• To Lakshmi for her work in the EY5 program and best wishes as a new mother.
• Thank you to all the busy and secretive Santa’s in the building, what a fun experience for all!
• Thank you to Alex, Jet, Rachael, and Hilary who were guest readers in many classes this week

Have a great Holiday!

Warmly,

Keryn and Lori

Friday, 15th December, 2017

Dear Faculty,

We have one last week of 2017 together. Let’s make it a great one. Here are some ways you (our ES faculty) brainstormed for how we can all show gratitude for one another; which ones can you apply next week?

We challenge everyone to create a gratitude goal for our final week of 2017.  Lori and I are in. Are you? 

-   -   Email a quick 1-2 lines with praise.

-  - Leave a post-it note with praise after seeing someone do something great (co-teacher or someone whose classroom you happen to be in).

-   - Liking a tweet to show support of a colleagues’ practices.

-   - Leave a card with a compliment in someone’s mailbox.

-   - Stop and say “hey. I enjoyed…”

-   - Remembering to say thank you.

-  - We can give praise to each and everyone - be it a colleague, student a co-worker or any staff. - Similarly it can come from anyone right from the top to the least.

-  - Keryn always welcomes thank yous to include in her weekly blog.  (Editor’s note...yes please!)

Speaking of...Thank yous… (don’t forget to let us know if there is someone you’d like to recognise…)

• ·         5th Grade - amazing visibility with the inquiry framework - kids are connecting with it too!
• ·         The coaches for their ‘treats’ for teachers this week
• ·         Everyone who is participating in Secret Santa - adding a little extra joy to these last weeks
• ·     Jenny and Samantha who attended the Grade team meeting this week to cover for Lily and Deepa
• ·   Finny, Vasanth and Sarah for all the attention and preparation for the upcoming winter performances
• ·       Nigel for being available to help with our ES treasures
• ·      Thank you to Hilary for all of the hard work she puts into helping the third grade team and for being so extremely dedicated that she was willing to help us from home while out sick with the stomach flu. Above and way beyond!!
• ·       Grade 2 teachers would like to thank Rachael & Carl, for helping our children plan and present their museum pieces for our Museum of Identity & Personal History. They would also like to thank Anu & Bindu for accompanying us on our field trips and working collaboratively to integrate our Social Studies unit into the Indian Studies Classroom.
• ·    And thanks, too, to the grade 2 team who guided their students in creating meaningful individual expressions of their identities and personal histories. If you haven’t seen the displays, they’re up in the FAC atrium until Tuesday.

Holiday Read Aloud Thank Yous!

As a end of calendar year read aloud, please sign up here to have Keryn, Lori, Rachael, Jet, Hilary, Carl or Alex come and read to your class for 15-20 minutes!  Consider this a gift of time - you can go and sit in the wellness oasis and have a massage, have a coffee, visit a colleagues class, read or simply relax.  Or you can stay for the read aloud fun.  We will come in to specialist or homeroom classes. Sign up for your block here.

#AdoptaGarden project

Calling all gardening/eating enthusiasts!  We have several unclaimed garden beds out the back of the FAC just   waiting for children to experiment with and grow stuff in!  Combined with the optimal weather and growing season in January/February we are excited to present the Adopt a Garden opportunity.  

Any faculty member who would like to adopt a garden bed can.  Expectations are minimal.  We will take care of all the weeding, maintenance, watering etc, and all you need to do is visit the garden once per week to watch it grow.  You could take your whole class or a group, whatever is easiest and if you need help making this ‘fit’ - together we will make a plan for how this can happen.  You may drop a lesson once per week in a traditional subject area - learning will still happen in the garden!  Maybe this connects with an upcoming unit, measuring in math, experimenting or just hands on experiential learning. We can help you make this happen because we believe in it.

What are the options?

-   - Grow a Pizza Garden

-   - Salad Days Garden

-   - Farmers Market Garden

- Butterfly Garden

We have an outside consultant, Priya, who will give teachers all the PD and support they need for the above options as well as come in once per week to assist with any growing pains.  (pun intended)

Interested? Send Keryn a direct email with which project you are interested in and we will get this started after January break.

Secret Santa ends on Thursday

Reveal who you are...or not...and don’t forget a final gift to be delivered on Thursday!  Thank you to everyone who participated!

Winter performance clothing FYI - this was sent to parents today:

For the upcoming winter performances, children should wear holiday inspired clothing; nice clothes in holiday colors-red, green, blue, gold, white.

In addition, as there is already a lot of instruction lost next week with rehearsals and performances, please do not ask to take your classes to watch the other grade levels performances. All grade levels will get to perform and watch their own grade(s) performances.

Music classes - week of 18th - 21st Dec (repeat announcement)

No regular music classes next week; all music teachers are involved in rehearsals each day and so your class will receive their music time through rehearsals and also the actual winter concert.  TAs should support children at these rehearsals in the FAC - schedule found here
If this affects your planning or meeting blocks, please work with your TA to keep the class going!

WIDA testing

We have several new children joining after the break, many of whom will need to be WIDA tested.  Please know that EAL teachers will need to make themselves available to do this during the first few days of the new academic year.

Meet AISC - Bindu Krishnamurthy - Indian Studies Teacher

Born and raised in Chennai, Bindu teaches Indian Studies in the Elementary School.  Dancing and music are her primary interests, and she learnt Bharatnatyam for eight years. Interest in music kindled her love for languages, and she speaks English, Tamil and Hindi fluently as well as a little bit of French. Bindu is also very passionate about inner transformation. She been practising Heartfulness meditation for over 12 years and is a certified trainer. She volunteers at universities, corporates, villages, government offices and in several other communities to teach Heartfulness.

Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow night at our holiday party.  Hope many of you can make it!

Warmly,

Keryn & Lori

Friday, December 08, 2017

Dear Faculty,

Thank you for your honest and valuable input from Q12 Data meeting; those of you who provided helpful suggestions for areas that would benefit from extra clarity. The presentation can be found here.

We have collated all comments, and will be working through addressing some of these in either team meetings or with individuals, groups or departments as needed. A few relatively straightforward expectations, we have responded to here.

We also encourage you all to continue to help each other out as well as ask one of us if there is an expectation you would like to understand better or need greater clarity on. Remember, we are all in this together and it really does take a village.

There were also many positive comments from you - yay! Thank YOU!

• The team meetings we are having every day helps me to understand which roles I have and what is expected from me. Thank you.
• Working with the coaches is a great system to support our teaching. They do so much thinking for us.
• The weekly notes are very helpful.
• All positive here. Grade 4 Team rocks….now.
• We have a great team and we always help each other. So I really do not have much to contribute here. I am pretty much clear.
• We are teachers working with human beings in and out of class. We all need to be positive and happy in this space we share!
• The things I need clarity on are things I need to learn on my own. When I’m not clear, I ask my colleagues or Principal or lots of other people to help.
• I am very happy in my classroom with my teaching assistant. I know what is expected of me and what I need her to do. I think she is clear and comfortable with these expectations too.
• I hear the conversations that some teachers don’t want to plan with Coaches, but how can we move to inquiry without this? I love it! - and think you could make this clear for those who don’t understand.
• More time to work with the coaches please! It is so great having them available!
• Flexible Co-teachers have helped me focus on students who need help in specific areas. I think it is very important to be able to communicate freely with co-teachers.
• I love being in this school. There are so many support systems and I know exactly what is expected of me. Thank you.
• Thank you for finally getting serious about inquiry and planning for it.
• Thank you. Everything is very clear! I understand all that is expected of me!

ES Choir Performance tonight

Thank you to everyone who is coming to our first Community Carols singalong in the courtyard; huge thank you to Sarah, Finny, Vasanth and Fiona who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to work with our choir singers and prepare everything for this event. A lovely finish to our week.

Music classes - week of 18th - 21st Dec

No regular music classes; all teachers are involved in rehearsals, and so we will be suspending the regular music schedule. Your class will receive their music time through rehearsals and also the actual winter concert. If this affects your planning or meeting blocks, please work with your TA to keep the class going!

Thank yous… (don’t forget to let us know if there is someone you’d like to recognise…)

• From Megha - To Calley - for always being available and willing to have thoughtful data-based conversations, and support me with interventions for students with needs.
• From Scott - thank you to Ron for delivering an excellent lesson on personal emergencies
• Bindu, Linda, Nicole and Rachael for giving up part of your weekend for futures thinking as part of our futures summit last weekend
• Kay and Fer for providing Captain Thomas feedback after our emergency drill on Thursday
• To Hilary, Rachael and Alex who helped lead our Faculty meeting and gave greater clarity on our expectations.

Responsive Classroom Training - February 5 - 9 2018 - Alternate schedule

As you are aware we are hosting this PD here at AISC in February. Given that there will be 30 Elementary faculty participating in this training at the same time, we will be running an alternate schedule for these days, with teacher assistants covering as many classes as we are able. We will do our best!

Tutoring at AISC

As per the handbook, tutoring happening in our school grounds needs to be recommended by teachers, and should support a pedagogical/academic need. A reminder that teachers or TAs should not be tutoring the same children they teach.

Message from HRT

We will have a Head's Round Table meeting on Tuesday, December 12. If you have any topics that you would like us to discuss, please contact Carl, Fer or Morgen through email or talk to them directly. Thank you.

Warmly,

Keryn & Lori

Friday, December 01, 2017

Dear Faculty,

Happy Friday. Great learning celebration this morning - thanks Grade 3 for hosting and for Andrew and Bindu for sharing recent learning within the AISC system!

Secret Santas have begun - a lot of secret love being delivered around the ES!! A wonderful chance to drop little gifts, notes or surprises for a colleague to enjoy.  Shhh…..it’s secret!

Winter Performance Rehearsals - schedule found here More specific information to follow.

Faculty Meeting next Wednesday;  ES Section Meeting - Helping each other gain further clarity around our expectations. Venue:  Madras Hall. 3:45pm prompt start - please do not be late!

Futures Summit & Leadership Retreat

Tomorrow (Saturday) many faculty, parents and students will be on campus for our futures summit.  Lori and Keryn will also be out in a Leadership retreat on Monday 4th December - Ron and Linda will be around to support anyone who needs it.

ASIAC Season 2 - Badminton/Table Tennis (hosted here)

Next Friday 8th Dec, from 8:30 - 8:40am the ASIAC teams we are hosting for badminton/table tennis will parade through parts of the school as part of their opening ceremony. This is right as our students are heading up to the classes; so if you want to pause on your way to class to support these athletes, a good place to gather is near the stairwell by the CIC on either the ground or 3rd floor.  More information on route can be found here.

Thank yous

• From 3rd grade: To Carl and Dilip who help provide and run a flexible space for kids to design, create and thrive.
• From 3rd grade: To Hilary for researching lessons and assessments so that we can provide our students with a variety of learning opportunities that are engaging and aligned with standards.
• Tiffany, Megha, John, Scott, Leontheen, Widi and Bindu for preparing children for the learning celebration.
• Widi, Tiffany, Morgen, Ken, Ula and Bindu for running wellness sessions for our faculty.
• Priya for running an amazing hour of code week.
• From John - to Scott and Leontheen for all the wonderful support and collaboration as a triad!

Maker Week @ American International School  - Dec 11th to 15th

What: Maker Week during Lunch Time

Where: FAC Cafeteria (all days) and FAC Atrium (Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday)

For Whom: Elementary (4th and 5th graders) and Middle School

Details:

Maker week will be an opportunity for MS and ES students to take design challenges head on, and make solutions using a wide range of digital and non digital materials.

Imagina8ors,  a Global Ed Tech Company, will facilitate this event that requires participants to thoughtfully and fully engage in design thinking and creative problem finding and experience hands-on activities.

It is a small group project challenge, involving as many groups as can attend, every day at lunch between 11-15 December.

Please encourage your kids to find out more from Ms Priya, Ms Geetha, the Tech office or their Art and Design teachers.  We look forward to seeing their creations, and the learning behind them.

Possible List of workshops/Activities

1. Art Lights: Advanced paper circuits inspired by Chibitronics

2. Real­Time Music Programming: Sonic Pi

3. Makey Game Controller: Build a Makey Makey Game Controller from Scratch

4. Techno Rube Goldberg: Infusing Tech into Marble Runs

Meet AISC - Hazel Bangera - Elementary Administrative Assistant

Hazel loves working at AISC as she enjoys the global atmosphere in the school and also loves interacting with the students. Hazel was born in Chennai and went to school and college here. Apart from Chennai, she  has also lived and worked in Dubai for 12 years. This is her 9th year at AISC and she can be found in the Elementary Principal’s office. If she could have any superpowers, she would love to teleport and time travel to any place like Hiro Nakamura in the TV show 'Heroes'!

Emergency Drill - Thursday 7 December, 9am

As per the schedule our second emergency exercise for this year will be conducted on December 07th (Thursday) at 09:00 hrs.  

Situation: Evacuation to Safe Haven

EMERGENCY EVACUATION DRILL GUIDELINES:

1. Once we have an indication/alarm of an emergency situation, all students and staff should maintain silence at all times to ensure that directions can he heard.  The indicator is a wailing alarm.

2. Safe Haven is located at the gym. The Safe Haven will be used as the school’s “Lockdown” option according to the type of emergency and specific instructions. The Safe Haven is equipped with food and water supply for 72 hours for all students and staff.

3. All classes/groups should form in straight alphabetical lines and maintain the lines until further instruction.
4. The responsible teacher should be at the front of the class/group so that they are accessible to principals.
5. Groups should not sit unless instructed to do so.
6. Silence is maintained until the drill is over and students are released.
7. Do not use elevators.

All Teachers: Please carry the emergency booklet and class roster with you when you leave the class room.  The RED and GREEN sign are inbuilt in the booklet.

Note: During an emergency situation the security staff - (QRT - Section Marshal) - on duty will pay his first attention to ensure safe evacuation process of students/staff using wheel chair through the available safe channel - it is an additional support to lead.

Warmly,

Keryn & Lori

Thursday, November 23, 2017

Dear Faculty,

Happy long weekend and Happy Thanksgiving to all of you celebrating this weekend. These notes are short and sweet - like so many of you (sweet, that is - not necessarily short!).

Secret Santa begins Monday - remember to drop little gifts, notes or surprises two or three times a week with a final gift delivered on Thursday 21st December. Enjoy spoiling your secret friend for the next couple of weeks.  Shhh…..it’s secret!

Thank you’s

• From Bindu - Thank you to Carl for helping Grade 4 make their own flags representing an experience in India.
• Megha for being courageous in her Adaptive schools ‘at home’ presentation
• All teachers and TAs who pitched in to help with sub cover and duties this week
• Vigna, Lily, Morgen, Deepa, Tiffany, Dee, Becky, Carl, Nicole, Bindu and Amritha for getting in their team’s orders!
• From Ula - Thank You to my triad (Fer, Samantha, Padma and Evelyn) covering my classes and duties while I have been away at the Adaptive Schools training.
• I’d like to thank Cheyenne and Anitha for stepping in to cover me while I was away at Adaptive Schools and for Preethi and Barbara who supported them!

Faculty Meeting next Wednesday

Wellness - sign up via the form here for your wellness session!

Booking flights for summer

Saturday 2nd June is our final day at school for this academic year. We will all be expected to be in at work, so flights out for summer can be booked from late Saturday evening or into Sunday.

Meet AISC - Jyotsna Nanda - Grade 4 Homeroom teacher

Ms Jyotsna Nanda is from the state of Himachal Pradesh. She has grown up in different states across India. Jyotsna has lived in the Middle East and in West Africa. During her time in the Middle East, she started her career as an educator at the American International School of Lome. She has been at AISC for 17 years where she has grown personally and professionally. One thing that the AISC community might not know about her is her love for desserts!  

Happy long weekend everyone!

Keryn & Lori