Dear all,
Happy Weekend - looking forward to seeing all the newbie/twobies at our function on Saturday! Everyone else enjoy relaxing, recharging and re-energising!
I will be out of school next week from Wednesday, visiting ISB, and also attending Cognitive Coaching in Bangkok. Lori will be here for anything you may need.
A big thank you to everyone - teachers and teacher assistants - who are here before 8am every morning! We appreciate everyone being available in case we need to sort substitutes or alternate cover. If for some reason you can not be in and around your class by 8am, please make sure you let us know!
Change of Personnel
As a result of unforeseen circumstances, Marianne has been unable to have her work visa renewed. Next Thursday 14 September will be her last day with students at AISC. Vanessa will be taking over Marianne’s role as homeroom teacher and will be working together with Marianne next week to ensure a smooth transition.
Thank yous (have someone to thank - let Lori or Keryn know!)
- Deepa and the Grade 2 team for hosting a fabulous assembly
- Jack, Sobha, the Grade 1 & 2 teams for presenting great celebrations of learning
- Cheyenne for jumping in to cover for Fer/Samantha this week in Grade 2
- Curriculum Area Leads (CALs) for preparing for our upcoming ES meeting time
- Many thanks to Vanessa and Salome for creating a modified pre-assessment for Reader's Workshop that allowed Grade 5 to obtain an amazing amount of information despite student's low levels of English
Emergency Drill
We have an emergency drill next Thursday 14th at 1:45pm. New teachers, please check with colleagues about where your grade lines up on the field.
EMERGENCY EVACUATION DRILL GUIDELINES:
- 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.
- Once at the soccer field area, all classes/groups should form in straight lines under the respective Grade Signage and maintain the lines until further instruction.
- The responsible teacher should be at the front of the class/group so that they are accessible to principals.
- Groups should not sit unless instructed to do so.
- Silence should be maintained until the drill is over and students are released.
- Do not use elevators.
All Teachers: Please carry the emergency booklet and class roster with you when you leave the classroom. The RED and GREEN sign are inbuilt in the booklet.
#aiscelementary Twitter Challenge is here!
Twitter thoughts from tweetaholic….
“Lately, I've been an avid user of Twitter for professional development. Approximately every 5 seconds I get 2 or more tweets with some type of inspiration or PD!
This week alone has inspired an article on reading levels, #Booksnaps that we will implement in the CIC, @Flipgrid, and a quiz from @KQEDedspace on how good you are at detecting bias.
After seeing the power behind Twitter and mentioning it to all my colleagues I started to wonder how we could use it at #AISC to inspire more learning. Coaches were talking about it in the coaching room when who happened to pop in...our one and only principal, Keryn, also a very active user of Twitter. Next thing we were sucked into a "twitter hole" emerging only to discuss how to increase our Twitter traffic. We need to have a Twitter CHALLENGE! Now because Keryn has the personality trait of being an ‘activator’ an idea has become a reality - only 2 hours later she was emailing us with the LET'S DO IT! And, of course, I jumped right in.
So...here we go! Post anything that will increase capacity for growth.
- Add a picture with a short text, post it to Twitter, and use the hashtag #aiscelementary.
- Post a link to an article you found interesting with a reflection or question and use the hashtag #aiscelementary.
- Participate in a twitter chat and use the hashtag #aiscelementary.
- Share a list of experts to follow and use the hashtag #aiscelementary.
- Share a resource and use the hashtag #aiscelementary.
This twitter challenge on! Great prizes to be won for the most posts using #aiscelementary hashtag and other random prizes - the more you post, the more chances you have! The twitter challenge will run from now through until the October break. Happy tweeting everyone!
Meet Prethika Royappan- Elementary Teaching Assistant
Goal Setting Conferences - Monday 25 and Tuesday 26 September
- Monday, September 25th from 3:45 pm - 5:30 pm (after a school day)
- Tuesday, September 26th from 8:30 am - 3:30 pm (no school/classes on this day for students)
These will be 20 minutes in length, with one family in the room at a time. The main focus will be on goal setting, with baseline learning and assessments will be shared, to show the “starting point” for your child. Conferences are scheduled online.
Early Years to Grade 2: Parent/Teacher conference (no students present)
Teachers lead the conference
Sharing of learning samples and goals
Grade 3 - 5: Student/Parent/Teachers (all students attend)
Child will co-lead the conference together with the teacher
Sharing of learning samples and goals
Music, Art, PE, World Language and Indian Studies teachers need to be available to speak to on a drop in basis, or parents can schedule this in advance via email.
As per last year, we are requesting that all families make an appointment to attend on either one of the two days. Click on this link to sign in for your child’s conference.
Sharing of learning samples and goals
Grade 3 - 5: Student/Parent/Teachers (all students attend)
Child will co-lead the conference together with the teacher
Sharing of learning samples and goals
Music, Art, PE, World Language and Indian Studies teachers need to be available to speak to on a drop in basis, or parents can schedule this in advance via email.
As per last year, we are requesting that all families make an appointment to attend on either one of the two days. Click on this link to sign in for your child’s conference.
We are your elementary representatives for the Head’s Round Table.
From the fabulous ‘2 writing teachers’ blog….
Ideas for Differentiating in TCRWP
- Keep lessons short– One of the defining features of writing workshop is the belief that sustained writing time makes a huge difference. And yet, sometimes in our drive to teach kids more stuff about writing, we eat into their writing time by talking more, thereby extending our minilessons or inquiries. Kate encourages us to be aware of over-talking. Don’t try to pack it ‘all’ into the minilesson- that’s not differentiation! And besides, after about ten minutes many or most of the kids are not listening anyway. In our recent #TWTBlog chat, author Ralph Fletcher said, “If we talk too much, we deflate the natural urge to write.” It may come as a surprise, but in concurring with Kate, I recommend lowering our expectations about the work of the day. It just isn’t going to move the majority of our writers. By keeping our whole-class instruction short, we allow more time for conferring and small group work, which is where we can better differentiate our instruction.
From the CIC team
Did you know that we have a wonderful variety of online resources to support learning in your classroom? Please find a list here of our various online resources made available to you and our students. Should you or your students need any help in using these resources, please let us know! We are here to help you!
Did you know that we have a wonderful variety of online resources to support learning in your classroom? Please find a list here of our various online resources made available to you and our students. Should you or your students need any help in using these resources, please let us know! We are here to help you!
Powerschool page sometimes is unable to load? A solution from IT...
This happens because you may not have signed out properly or not closed the chrome window. We had registered this issue with Powerschool tech team and they are working on this issue fix it permanently. In the meantime we have to manually clean up cookies.
This happens because you may not have signed out properly or not closed the chrome window. We had registered this issue with Powerschool tech team and they are working on this issue fix it permanently. In the meantime we have to manually clean up cookies.
MAP Testing
MAP continues next week. When you give your math test, please remember to offer scrap paper and pencils, and remind students that some questions will have a pop up calculator.
A make up list will be published in next week’s blog. Make up tests will be on Monday 9/18 and Tuesday 9/19.
Happy Weekend everyone!
Warmly,
Keryn and Lori
No comments:
Post a Comment