Dear Parents,
Thank you to each and every one of you who came and attended
our Student Led Conferences today. The smiles on Elementary children’s faces
reflected the pride they felt in showing you, their parents, their learning and
growth over this year.
Next week we have three Elementary athletes heading off to
Amman, Jordan for SAISA Track and Field. We wish them all well and look forward
to hearing about their personal bests!
Meet AISC - Samantha Paiva - Elementary EAL Teacher
tha Samantha Paiva has a Master’s degree in English Literature
and a diploma in English Language teaching. She taught at a school in Pune for
a year before joining AISC. Something that always makes her feel happy is when
a student’s face lights up as they begin to understand a concept. Samantha was
most proud about representing AISC recently at a language development
conference in Vietnam. She felt honored to present about all the
wonderful work we are doing here to enhance language development. Samantha would love to be omnilingual as it
would help her to communicate with people who speak different languages.
Class Placements for 2018-19
Every year, together with counsellors, we review class
groupings and re-create new class lists as elementary children move from one
grade level to the next. As outlined in our handbook, we prioritise the
following criteria when creating new homeroom groups;
- Social groups
- Gender
- Learning needs
- Nationality
- English Language Proficiency
For the past few years we have also sought parental input.
While we do not consider direct requests to have a particular teacher, we do
welcome input for anything you feel would be important for us to consider when
placing your child.
Our form will remain open for the next two weeks as we begin
drafting class lists. Please do not approach a teacher or counsellor directly; complete this form for any special
considerations you may have.
Message from Elementary School Student Council
The ES Student Council will hold our 6th annual Toy Drive
from Monday, April 16 to
Wednesday, April 25. We are collecting clean
and gently used unwanted games, toys, or books for children in a
local orphanage.
Students are asked to place the donated items into the box
brought to their homeroom.
Thank you in advance for your support. Please do not hesitate
to ask us if you have any questions or concerns.
Ms. Dee and Ms. Nicole / ES Student Council Advisors
Items needed for the Mud Kitchen
Leaving Chennai? Have old pots and pans, wooden utensils,
metal bowls or utensils you want to get rid of? Please drop them off in the
Elementary reception as we will gladly use them in our Outdoor Learning Centre
Mud Kitchen!
English Language Development through Learning Support
Learning support works to accommodate students in the AISC
community who have learning differences. While students must have a minimum
level of proficiency in English in order to receive support, we work with
numerous students who are still developing their language skills. Our team
focuses on teaching skills at a developmentally appropriate level and uses a
variety of methods to support students language growth.
·
Vocabulary
development through stories, pictures, graphic organizers and modeling.
·
Pre-teaching
vocabulary before students encounter it in their classroom.
·
Understanding
and answering WH questions (Who, What, When, Where, Why).
·
Teaching
a student to determine relationships between objects/concepts.
·
Helping
a student develop his/her language skills to help build their communication.
·
Using
graphic organizers to aid in reading comprehension and to organize thoughts
before beginning to write.
·
Sentence
starters to increase students writing fluency.
·
Phonics
and word study.
·
Shared
reading and writing.
·
Social
skills groups to help children to develop important skills such as making
friends, problem-solving skills, perspective taking and emotional regulation.
·
Use
manipulatives or hands-on materials and visuals to build content area schema
and to support oral academic language development.
·
Provide
visuals to support academic work.
·
Encourage
re-reading of tasks/instructions. Or, using multiple texts and other resources
on the same topic to give access and to deepen comprehension and build
vocabulary.
·
Due
to the individualized nature of our work all of our instruction is delivered in
English.
Elementary
School Afternoon Coffee, Tuesday, May 1, 2:15-3:15 pm (FAC Cafeteria)
Join
us for a special coffee to share and discuss parent feedback on the climate
survey regarding how AISC prioritizes learning and challenges our students.
This coffee is focused on program and practices in grades EY5-Grade 5. There
will be time for questions and input of parent perspective.
Message from ES Roots & Shoots
The Roots & Shoots Group wants to thank everyone for
their support with our fundraiser for the elephants. It was a huge success!
We collected 12 kilos of green gram, 24 1/2 Kilos of Ragi and 30,380
rupees! Our group was thrilled to meet
Dr. Supraja Dharini, the founder of this Elephant Care Facility last Wednesday,
April 11th and give her our donations. We were able to ask her lots of
questions about the elephants. She presented us with a beautiful signed Thank
You poster of the elephants.
Earth Day Spirit Week, April 16-20 (next week)
To show our continuing commitment to sustainability, we are
happy to have our first Earth Day Spirit Week from April 16-20. During this
week we will make an effort to positively affect our environment along the five
categories of LEED: energy, water, human experience, transportation and waste.
We would like our community to join us in the Earth Day
Spirit Week by participating in the daily challenges and wear Earth Day colors
of green and blue for the week! Please see the Head's Notes for more details.
|
Meatless
Monday
April 16
|
Nothing New
Tuesday
April 17
|
Buy-A-Plant
Wednesday
April 18
|
Carpool
Thursday
April 19
|
No Waste Lunch
Friday
April 20
|
Beach Clean Up Weekend
April 21-22
|
|
Energy
|
Water
|
Human Experience
|
Transportation
|
Waste
|
Waste
|
Have a wonderful weekend,
Keryn Dowling and Lori Newman