Leopard's Tale |
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Leopard's Tale |
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As we head into the second month of the school year, here are some upcoming dates to note in September: 3: First full day for Kindergarten students. Dismissal will be 14:30 Monday-Thursday and 12:30 on Fridays. 3-21: MAP Growth assessments for students in Grades 2-10. Student progress reports will be available for parents via Managebac by early October. 5: Primary Open Day from 7:25-12:20 for G1-G5 families. Feel free to attend classes and grade-level information sessions. The schedule is available in a separate 'Open Day' post. 13: Primary Parent Group meets today with a focus on healthy transitions. Please join Ms. Noa Mor and Ms. Stephanie Sawchuk in the Protea Room at 7:30. 14: School Holiday. Enjoy the long weekend. 21: Primary Talent Show from 11:00-12:00 in the Performing Arts Center (PAC). 24: Swimming unit in PE starts today and continues twice a week until 14 December. Please remember to send a swimsuit, towel, a swim cap and goggles with your child on their PE days. 26-28: G5 Explore Zambia trip
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This year, AISL is pleased to announce the return of the Primary Parent Group. Monthly sessions will be facilitated by Noa Mor (AISL parent and Social Worker) and Stephanie Sawchuk (Educator and Primary Guidance Counselor). This is an opportunity to learn and discuss tips for parenting, as well as share resources and experiences. For the first semester, the group will take place from 7:30-9:00 in the Protea Room on the following dates: September 13- Healthy Transitions (Home, School, Life) October 4- Positive Communication November 1- Strategies for Parenting Complex Kids December 6 – Open Discussion (invitation for topics) We would love for you to join us! Past participants and new participants are welcome. Here at AISL, we find we come from different backgrounds, different countries, hold different beliefs, and speak different languages. In fact, for those of us who are British and from the Southern hemisphere, we sometimes feel that we speak a different language to our American counterparts and need to explain our expressions and choice of words. A few years back when I worked with an American Drama teacher - David Chapman - creating costumes for performances, we found we had to draw pictures for each other on occasion so as to be quite clear as to what we understood by certain costume pieces needed. For me, a ‘vest’ brings to mind an undergarment worn by men under a long sleeve cotton shirt! In David’s mind a vest was a ‘waistcoat!’ My point is this. In order for us to communicate effectively we need a common language and that is just what the IB provide through the Learner Profile attributes, Approaches to Learning skills, Global Contexts, and Command words. By agreeing to use this language at school, students and teachers are able to communicate far more clearly and easily. We have common understanding of meaning and expectation … and this makes learning easier!
What I am excited about this week…
PTA Pavilion Grand Opening Party! Tickets are going fast for the PTA Pavilion Grand Opening Party on September 8. I hope you will join us for great company, great food, and great music in our GREAT new space! There will be a complimentary welcome drink and a cash bar. You can buy tickets at any of the school offices or at Friday Market. You can also pre-book them online using this form and then pay Janke at the Primary Office. Please note that this is an adults-only event. I look forward to seeing you there. Explore Zambia! Across the next few weeks all students in Grades 5-8, 10, and half of Grade 9 will venture out on their Explore Zambia trips. These trips allow our students to experience an exciting part of Zambia, bond with their teachers and classmates, and pursue curricular objectives. As you can imagine, these trips bring a very taxing 24/7 supervisory responsibility to teachers. Please be sure to thank them for their commitment to providing these enriching experiences for your children.
The outdoor multi-courts are almost ready for action! We are anxiously looking forward to September 8th when we will host our first basketball fixture on the new courts against LICS!
We are very excited this year to have added an outstanding new educational resource to our suite of virtual library offerings. One of our new products is a current events-based learning platform called Newsela. There is a free version of Newsela, but our school has subscribed to Newsela Pro, which allows teachers to assign articles to students with the teacher's own embedded questions & activities and allows teachers to more readily track student progress and learning using this platform. Students can also check their own reading comprehension after they've read an article. Newsela is an incredible resource for a number of reasons. One of the factors that makes it a powerful differentiation tool is that a student can select from 5 different lexile levels (with one click!) to make the text easier or more challenging to read. This is a useful feature for all our students but can be especially helpful for additional language learners or students with specific learning support needs. Another attractive aspect is that the articles are chosen daily by Newsela staff from a wide range of reputable news outlets with an eye for student appeal. Newsela also has current events articles grouped around important issues, such as the migrant crisis, global warming, technology & innovation, climate change, and more. Many of the articles are also available in Spanish. In the secondary school Ms. Maguire (Secondary Teacher-Librarian) has been meeting with individual teachers and classes to help them get set up with this new resource. These sessions will continue across the next few weeks. We encourage our students to follow current events regularly as a way to stay engaged with the world around them. For additional current events resources, we also have a secondary current events libguide (with a middle school & high school page). The password is the same as for the parent portal & virtual library. If you need to know what it is, please ask your child as they know, too (or see any member of our staff). We also have our New York Times all-digital access package that is used more with upper secondary (grades 9-12) students. What is CAS? Creativity, Activity, and Service (CAS) is a part of the Diploma Programme's Core, which also includes the Extended Essay (EE) and the Theory of Knowledge (TOK) class. CAS is an experiential learning component whose purpose is to help students to develop a self-awareness and a sense of identity, find significance and enjoyment in a range of experiences, and explore opportunities to collaborate with classmates and the larger local community. CAS is comprised of three strands and series of experiences. Creativity experiences explore and extend ideas leading to an original idea or interpretive creative product or performance. This could be learning to paint, making posters to advertise the school dance, or singing at the HS Coffee House. Activity experiences include any physical exertion that contributes to a healthy lifestyle. This could be working out in bootcamp, learning yoga, or playing on the ISSEA volleyball team. Service experiences are collaborative and reciprocal engagements with the community. This could be helping to build a playground as a part of a Community and Service Day (CSD) or even teaching local kids to swim. AISL students are engaged in a very wide variety of CAS experiences and projects including learning to bake cookies, trying out for the musical, improving showjumping skills, and even writing rap songs. On September the 8th we will be revealing the new pavilion to the AISL community. Watch the video below to see the construction of this amazing new space. Please save the date and plan on joining us for a night of fun under the stars. There will be food, music, drinks - and great company. Tickets for the evening celebration can be pre-booked online using this form or can be purchased online from any of the school offices. We hope to see you there. |
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The Leopard's Tale is our main medium to keep our families informed on such things as the day to day happenings on campus, after school activities, summaries of any arts and sports events, helpful resources, and important dates and reminders.
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