ISY Elementary Blog

HALLOWEEN FUN

Sandy Sheppard , Elementary School Principal

28th October, 2022

Dear all,

 

 

 

Here is the cashless system video link to share with your students as a reminder.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Di0ud2kYhc

It is Halloween week next week with lots of fun events starting with the Halloween parade on Monday, please have your students ready at your classroom door at 1:40; they will be picked up by members of the student council, starting on the top floor.

We would like as many of you as possible to attend the Friday night Halloween event. This will show our support for the Parent Association and the students. It starts at 5PM.

Sandy

You are encouraged to join in the fun and dress up for Halloween.

CALL TO EARTH DAY

On Friday, November 4th, the elementary school will celebrate Call to Earth Day.  The elementary student council has organized activities to demonstrate how ISY is working to support the environment and what students can do to support these programs.  More information will come but the event will take a rotation format, 4 stations about 10 minutes per station.  Your students will be engaged from 1:10-2:05 PM on that day. The schedule will be sent to you later next week, however, if you want to have a look you can find it here.
Patty

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for your participation in support meetings. It is so important that we continually talk about the students in our classrooms.

DATES TO REMEMBER

28th October – Quarter one ends

31st October – Halloween Parade at the end of the school day 1:40 start

1st November – Cashless system starts

4th November – Call to Earth Day – there will be a special rotation of activities during our usual assembly time. More info is above.

4th November – Halloween Evening Event 5PM/Progress Reports Go home

11th November – Next Assembly

16th November – Parent Conferences 9-5 PM

26th November – International Day

 

PROGRESS REPORTING DATES

31st October – Buddy reading progress reports

2nd November – Progress Reports in PowerSchool

4th November – Progress Reports go home

16th November – Parent Conferences

 

Quarter 1 Report Cards and ‘Subject Blurbs’

Report cards will be posted for parents on Powerschool on Friday, November 4.

Here is the organization and timeline for report writing:

3rd – 7th October – work on subject blogs
31st October – Buddy Reading
2nd November – Reports in PowerSchool
4th November – Reports go out
6th November – Parent Conferences

As we did last year, we will also use progress report card comments as unit summaries for our Quarter 1 curriculum maps. You will write one or two sentences as a ‘subject blurb’ to describe what was covered in your class. Every student’s progress report card comment will have this blurb in it. There is one general comment.

Please write your subject blurbs on these grade-level documents – you should find your courses on these documents, but if you don’t, please let Mike know. We are using these documents so Mike can copy and paste the blurbs into your Quarter 1 Curriculum Maps.

Subject Blurbs: PK
Subject Blurbs: KG
Subject Blurbs: Grade 1
Subject Blurbs: Grade 2
Subject Blurbs: Grade 3
Subject Blurbs: Grade 4
Subject Blurbs: Grade 5

Message re: Focus on Learning 2022-2023

After such a disrupted couple of years, this year is an important year to figure out exactly what our student’s needs are in every subject area and how we are going to address them next year and beyond.

We will do this with Focus on Learning Collaborations, which we introduced before Covid hit and also did in April last year. The idea is to identify our students’ Critical Learner Needs, which then become our Problems of Practice. This language comes from WASC and ties in with how we will review all curriculum areas this year.

A Problem of Practice isn’t a shortcoming on the part of us as teachers – it just recognizes the fact that we are the ones who cause learning, and meeting student learning needs is our problem to solve.

Below are links to Focus on Learning Collaboration documents which we will review on Monday, November 7 – once the reports cards are finished. We do it at this time as we have just reported on the needs of our students, and we also have MAP data that we can use to guide us.

For now, focus on finishing your Quarter 1 report cards. Once you have finished with them, take a moment to fill out the document to be reviewed on November 7. On the documents, you will also see what was recorded last year.

SDGs

We want to ensure that the SDGs become a focus in Social Studies and Science. There will be more discussion on this in the coming weeks. To help make them a priority when planning, always consider the SDG focus before anything else.

    REQUEST

    If you reply to an email that I have been included in, can you ensure that I am cc’d on the reply. By doing this, I know that the email has been followed up on. Thanks

    TEACHER NOTICES

    • Remember all progress report comments need to be buddy read. 
    • There is now a usable kitchen in the back of the cafeteria, which can be used by small groups of students supervised by a teacher. 
    • A parent has donated Halloween cupcakes for the 31st; these will be sent to your room on the day. 
    • FYI – sign-up for parent conferences will be 15-minute slots with 5 minutes in between. When the sign-up is ready, you will be able to go in and block out a lunch break along with two other shorter breaks. Specialist teachers will not have a sign-up. Specialist teachers will be in the Gym with the Senior School teachers (especially since a lot of you are cross-over teachers), and parents will be able to visit you there if required. Your school day starts at 9am and finishes at 5PM on this day. Lunch will be provided in the staffroom.
    • Please promote composting in your classrooms. 
    • I will share the video on cashless payments; please review it with your classes before it starts on the 1st of November.
    • The playground will still be closed on Monday but should reopen on Tuesday.
    • No Monday meeting – buddy reading of Progress Reports
    • We have field trip procedures. The first step is to discuss this with your Principal.

    STUDENT NEWS

    • The playground will continue to be closed. This will be reassessed on Monday.
    • 3rd Grade Performance at Snack/Recess
      At recess on Monday, the third-grade students will perform one quick song/dance.  They will perform on the green grass next to the deck.  If you would like to watch, please sit on the deck or on the brown/wood part that goes around it.  They will perform the song/dance once.  After that, if you would like to try and join us, we will ask if anyone wants to join.  It should only take about 5 minutes.  Bekka
    • There are games that can be borrowed at break times outside the office. Please make sure you read the guidelines for the game’s use before borrowing.

    MONDAY MATH ANSWERS

    Grade 2 – How much is 9 x 8? 72

    Grade 3 – Ms. Sheppard is 21 years old. How old will she be in 12 years’ time? 33

    Grade 4 – Imagine a world with strange mathematics; if 3 equals 5 and 7 equals 9, what does 12 equal? 14

    Grade 5 – From the center of what shape can you reach the edge at the same time? circle

     

    DUTIES BEFORE AND AFTER SCHOOL after the break

    Monday – Ian/Snow White, Tuesday – Bekka, May Zin, Wednesday – Jono, Zarchi,  Thursday – Charlie, Swe Zin, Friday – Isabel, Ei EI

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