**Please check the Meeting Schedules (in the sidebar) and the calendar at the bottom for information regarding this week's meetings and events. Laptops are not required unless requested. Thank you for leaving them in your classrooms.
***Please bookmark the Mindset link so you can access it easily.
~from the ES BBE
February
7- EC Big Sing
10- ES ASA Session 3: Teacher sign-ups open
14- EC Big Sing
14- Make-up photos for new and absent students/faculty
14- EC Discovery Day- Love
14- Farsang Celebration 14:30-15:30
14- ES ASA Session 3: Teacher sign-ups close
17-21 Ski Break (holiday)
~from the Farsang Committee
Our ES Farsang celebration is on Friday, 14th February, from 2:30-3:30 pm. The celebration is going to start with an all ES parade. At 2:30 pm the music will start from the loudspeakers. Please bring your students outside of your room and into the pod area to wait for the parade to go by. The parade starts at the 4th-5th grade hallway (they will have to be ready to leave at 2:30), picks up 3rd grade, 2nd grade, 1st grade, goes down to the ground floor to pick up Early Childhood, goes to the GYM and starts going back to the classrooms together. Please look at the attachments to see the exact route of the parade. The parade will end at about 2:45 pm.
After the parade, all classes will go back to their rooms or pod area and, with the help of the grade level Assistant Teachers, students will play different Farsang games. Encore teachers can spread out and join the fun with the grade level of their choice. Farsang Games will last 30-40 minutes depending on the grade level.
At the end of the day, all students and teachers will get to try the traditional Farsang sweet called Fánk. The sweets will be delivered to your rooms at around 3:00 pm. There will be a tray of Fánks for encore teachers in the Teacher's Lounge. Core teachers and Assistant Teachers will eat with their students.
These are the maps of the parade route:
~from the DTL
We now have a school membership to Generation Genius - a fantastic new collection of lessons, texts, and videos aligned to our NGSS science units. Please use the information below to log-in.
USERNAME AISB
PASSWORD Genius01
PIN 1479
~from the DTL
This Tuesday we will be meeting for our third core/encore integration meeting of the year. Please check the integration schedule to review who will be meeting with whom. One of our Learning for the Future pillars is authentic, transdisciplinary learning, so please use this time to pursue these important connections. Encore teachers have also been meeting with one another to elevate the level of connectivity between encore learning using the following structure to frame their thinking:
What are you learning about? What is your team learning about? How are your students growing as a result? Each week one of our teams will share their story or learning with the rest of us. Learning experience may be about a book you/your team read, a TedTalk, a conference attended, an online course, PIC progress, or reflections on a recent learning experience students engaged in. As part of our Culture of Learning, it is important we share our stories of growth and learning with one another. Reflections can take any form you choose (i.e., video, written, image, Sketchnote, etc). Talk to your team lead to find out more and learn when your team will be sharing their story of learning with others.
Grade 3 Reflections on Narrative Writing and Reading
In third grade, the narrative writing unit gives students numerous opportunities to explore the structure of stories and enjoy the creative process of writing. Students are developing writing pieces by identifying the main events and plot sequence and using graphic organizers to help visualize their planning. They are becoming more aware of the way descriptive language helps to create images for the reader and makes writing more interesting and precise. We encourage students to use a range of punctuation and become more aware of how to use paragraphs during mini-lessons, writing conferences and student proofreading their final draft.
In reading, the third grade students are being guided to make independent choices of reading materials in print and digital form that is a ‘good fit’, and to increase stamina for when reading for longer periods of time. Third grade students are developing strategies to help improve their accuracy, fluency, and comprehension. Students are becoming more skilled in identifying and retelling the main events of texts they read. Students are investigating various ways to gather and record information from texts using note-taking strategies
~from the Innovation Team (Nate, Paul, and Vlad)
Seesaw Draft Feature
With "draft" students can save work in progress and finish it later. Drafts make it easier for teachers to check in on student progress and send students feedback. To save work as a Draft, have students choose the Draft option instead of choosing the green check:
Create powerful feedback loops between teacher and student with "send back". Turn any piece of student work into a draft, so students can review and improve their work prior to posting to their journal. In the approval queue, tap 'Send Back' to send student work back to the student.
~from the ES Librarian
Well, my predictions were off this year, friends, but I guess that goes to show the quality of children’s literature that is being published every year. The winners of both the Caldecott (illustrations) and Newbery (story/words) awards feature students and heroes of color:
Caldecott winner: The Undefeated written by Kwame Alexander and illustrated by Kadir Nelson. Fun fact, The Undefeated also won a Newbery Honor Award.
“A powerful tribute to the African-American experience, replete with joy and pride in the accomplishments of individual artists and athletes, leaders, and thinkers.... Poetry knows when to lean forward and when to pull back, and in 'The Undefeated,' Alexander has walked that line perfectly. This book will fill readers with a sense of the wealth and the cost of history." New York Times Book Review
“With every page turn, Kadir Nelson's art in The Undefeated challenges emotional capacity with its masterful use of color and composition—what a great privilege it has been for us to be able to consider it this year and to honor it in this way” American Library Association Caldecott Committee
Newbery winner: New Kid written and illustrated by Jerry Craft. This is the first time the Newbery award has been awarded to a graphic novel.
“Seventh grader Jordan Banks loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life. But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enroll him in a prestigious private school known for its academics, where Jordan is one of the few kids of color in his entire grade. As he makes the daily trip from his Washington Heights apartment to the upscale Riverdale Academy Day School, Jordan soon finds himself torn between two worlds--and not really fitting into either one. Can Jordan learn to navigate his new school culture while keeping his friends and staying true to himself?” From the Publisher
Looking forward to following and predicting the awards for 2021! Hooray for all things books!