Dear Parents,
India Week was fantastic with presenters, spirit week fun, classroom and specialist integration activities, read alouds, two melas, and a virtual art and design gallery. As I am sure you can imagine, a tremendous amount of work went into the planning, organizing, and executing of the week’s events. Thank you to everyone who volunteered their time to help make this virtual India week a success. And a special thank you goes to Bindu Krishnamurthy, our Indian Studies Teacher, for dreaming all of this up and making it a reality for our students.
Important Dates
Early Years Parent Coffee - November 10th
Please join us for an Early Years Parent Coffee on Tuesday, November 10th at 3:30 p.m. We will be talking about creating independence in play and learning in the Early Years.
Literacy Morning Slides and Zoom Recordings
India Week Follow-Up
Virtual Art and Design Gallery showcasing student work
Mr. Shekar, a wildlife conservationist, presented to the Elementary School students on Tuesday. Here are the videos he sent along to supplement his presentation.
Point Calimere - Little Kingdom by the Coast: https://vimeo.com/21047252
Chilika - Jewel of Odisha: https://vimeo.com/86972725
From the Counselors
Author and psychologist, Michael Thompson, spoke at last week’s NESA Parents as Partners meeting about the social lives of children.
A question on our minds now is how this pandemic might affect children socially. They, and we, are missing the thousands of acts of generosity and kindness that go on in a classroom each day. Fortunately, Michael, who knows both children and international schools well, said that kids are not regressing socially during these times and will recover from whatever social deprivation they have experienced once we are back together at school. When we as adults worry about kids being deprived of social contact we can check in with them …. Can you tell me what you are doing to stay in touch with friends? Do you feel connected? What do you miss? Giving children a chance to talk about how they feel right now will help.
Michael explained that friendship making is the unseen curriculum in schools. Friends and peers teach things that parents cannot teach such as communicating with other children and how to win or lose a game. Friends give a sense of self worth that children can’t get from adults. There is no special/critical age to learn friendship skills. Some children will make best friends and others may not and instead might have a group of friends. Teachers may also serve as important friends for children during times, for whatever reason, a child is without friends. Popularity shouldn’t be emphasized. We, as adults, should place emphasis on children’s positive friendships.
Further resources:
Why does no one want to play with me?
Ask your child’s teacher and counselor how they are doing with friendship making
School counselors can help connect kids for friendship and can help when children need a little friendship making coaching.
Library Logo Contest Winners
Thank you to the 116 Elementary, Middle, and High school students who created a design for the library logo contest. Our 15 judges (teachers, librarians, students, administrators, and parents) had a difficult time choosing between so many creative options, but in the end, the following logo was chosen as AISC's new library logo. Congratulations to fourth grader, Rizlene Velasco, for creating the winning design!
The other two finalists from Middle and High school can be seen below. Congratulations to Jiyun Yang in grade seven and Hera Kwak in grade eleven!
Have a great weekend.
Regards,
Lynn Schneider, Dave Allen, and Elliot FijmanElementary School Leadership Team