Sunday, November 26, 2017

Week 16. Nov 26 - 29

Welcome back to school, we hope you all had a good and relaxing Thanksgiving break! Kids Day was a huge success and we would like to thank you all for your continuous support!

This will be a short week as we’ll have Parent Teacher conferences tomorrow and the Prophet’s birthday on Thursday. There will be no school for students on these days.
We are looking forward to meeting all parents and talk about students’ progress in Trimester 1 and goals for Trimester 2. If you haven’t booked a conference yet, please do so through your dashboard.
After School Activities - Session 2
After school activities start again this week, we ask that you please let your child know the activities they have every day as this supports independence.


Learning This Week!


Reading Workshop
This week, Kindergarten Super Readers will be doing the important work of learning how to talk about books. Adults talk about books all the time. We even have clubs just for getting together to talk about books! Students will learn how to introduce a book to their reading partner by giving a brief introduction without giving away the ending. This is a great way for these young readers to practice their comprehension, while honing their “book talk power” at the same time. While reading, students will practice marking a page that they want to highlight when they talk to their partner. We are Super Readers!



Writing Workshop


Writers are busy writing to teach others! This week they will learn about diagrams and how these support readers as they get even more information. Students will learn how to create a diagram out of their sketches by adding more detailed labels that give clear directions in each step.
Later this week we will introduce a new checklist that includes different elements informational pieces should include. We will help young writers understand what the checklist includes and how to use it to make their writing better. Some writers may need more time to use a checklist as a tool, and teachers use their one-on-one time during conferences to make each checklist specific for the needs of each writer.
A wonderful moment that happens in the writing workshop is called Mid-Workshop interruption, in which we interrupt writers to give them a compliment and remind them of certain teaching points. In many cases, we use this brief time to remind them of the writing strategies they have learned and that can be used in every book they write:
  • Stretch the sounds when writing words
  • Write the sounds you hear
  • Use the alphabet on your nametag
  • Find sight words you know and use them in your writing
  • Use finger spaces between words


Math


In this short week, students will continue  comparing attributes of objects, as they have done in past weeks. This week they will be comparing objects in order to make decisions on whether there are “enough”, using the terms “ more than” or “fewer than” in order to make statements about situations when there isn’t enough of something.


Circles
Students will continue to work on the core value of compassion this month, exploring the ways they can be kind and supportive friends and discussing what it is they expect from a good friend. Continuing on the previous theme of “filling a friend’s bucket” with kind words and actions, the students will brainstorm and role play ways that can kids and adults alike can show kindness in the classroom and in the school.


Social Studies
This is the final week of Mystery Guests visiting our classroom and teaching us about what they do at CAC. We have enjoyed presentations from teachers from every division, as well as administrators and support staff (and even some students!). Very soon, we will select some CAC workers to interview to learn even more about!


Thank you all for taking the time to read our newsletters!

Ms. Ana, Ms. Paola, and Mr. Balazs

Saturday, November 25, 2017

Sunday schedule - Reminder

Dear Parents,

This post is just to remind you that tomorrow Sunday, November 26 we will follow a Thursday schedule. Please make sure your children bring their library bags to school as tomorrow will be their only library class for this week.

After School Activities begin this week. The change in the schedule only applies to school hours. After School activities remain the same. If your child has a Sunday ASA please remind them in the morning so they know what their plans are after dismissal.

Thank you!

Sunday, November 19, 2017

Week 15. Nov 19 - 22


We are so happy to have parents as guest readers! Don’t forget to sign up in our class tabs to come and read to your child’s class!

----------------------------------------------------------

Welcome to a fun week in Kindergarten! Wednesday is a half day, students will be dismissed at 11:30 and there will be no school on Thursday. Information about special events and activities are found in our KG google calendar!

We’re all looking forward to Kid’s Day this Wednesday. Students will have tons of fun playing different activities all day long! We kindly ask all parents to make sure your child has a change of clothes in their classroom as they will most likely get wet that day. This change of clothes should include: pants, shirt, underwear and socks. You may want to send an extra pair of shoes just for that day!

Given that Wednesday will be Kid’s Day and dismissal will be at 11:30, students are only asked to bring a light snack in a disposable bag, a water bottle with their names on and change of clothes if they haven’t done so. The water bottle is extremely important as we will carry them with us from station to station. The water stations are only to refill water bottles, not to give plastic water bottles to students.

There will be a snack station for our students to eat, please make sure they’ve had breakfast at home before coming to school as this snack may be a bit later than usual. We strongly suggest to send a light snack in a disposable bag as we will carry these around as well. If you have any questions, please email us!

Other important things to keep in mind for all children to be prepared:

  • Arrival at 7:30 - Students will walk straight to their classrooms as soon as they come in to change into their house shirt and leave their bags. Please make sure your child comes to school before 7:55 so we can all walk to the gym together.
  • Dismissal at 11:30 will be from each classroom just like we did for Halloween.
  • Running/Athletic Shoes - please no loosely "tied" shoes (loose shoelaces are dangerous), sandals, flip-flops or heelies.
  • Appropriate and comfortable pants. We highly discourage jeans on this day.

A message from Ms. Purpura:

In guidance we are continuing with our lessons on empathy.  Empathy helps students perceive and understand what others are feeling and is the key ingredient in the development of prosocial behaviors and interpersonal problem solving skills..  The lessons focus on the critical next step of putting empathy into action by showing compassion. We read books like How Full Is Your Bicket and Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley and are using the characters in the book to try to better understand how someone else might feel in certain situations through literature.  The second step lessons, written work and discussions also support this month’s core value.

Our Core Value for November is compassion.  Just as we are responsible at work and home, so are our kids.  You can help support their understanding of compassion by having discussions such as:
  1. The Core Value definition for compassion is, “Be Kind, Caring and Considerate”. Share with your child what you would you add to this definition?
  2. Share how you show compassion in your daily life?
  3. Do you have to know someone to feel compassion?

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
Dana Purpura
CAC School Counselor
dpurpura@g-cacegypt.org

Math Workshop for Parents

Interested in learning more about the math models used at school? On November 20, 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm we will offer a K-5 Workshop for parents where we will explore number bonds and the area model; math models we use to teach for understanding. We will all meet in the first floor common room, then K-2 parents will move next door.
We hope you can join us!

General Services Staff Appreciation Lunch Announcement

Student Council students will be  be released from classes at 11:50 next Monday, Nov 20 for the general Services Lunch. The meeting point will be under the big tree on the ES lawn. Remind kids to wear their red shirts.  Click here for list of students



Learning in KG!

Reading Workshop



Our Super Readers are continuing their hard work this week with careful attention to comprehension. Students will learn to change their reading voices to match the character feelings, punctuation, or dialogue in their Just-Right Books. It takes a lot of attention and focus to make these adjustments while reading, so we’ll have lots of practice with this skill. Reading partners will get together to read to each other, teachers will read aloud, and students will get independent practice bringing these books to life!



Writing Workshop



Writers are eager to write teaching books! The How-to unit was launched last week with the idea of writing to teach others. Students are generating ideas by thinking of what they’re experts on and a potential audience for their books. “My little sister doesn’t know how to get dressed by herself, I will write a book to teach her how!”

In this unit students are learning the differences between narratives and nonfiction, by thinking of the vocabulary used in each one. Writers are not writing about themselves, they are writing to others!



The lessons we’ll teach this week will give writers tools to write books step by step, putting themselves as readers and thinking “Can I follow these steps?”. In this unit, students will learn the importance in writing specific instructions to make their “How To” books a success.




Math

During the coming short week, students will be doing mid-module assessments, reviewing their understandings of the concepts comparisons of length, weight, and capacity. While the one on one assessments will be taking place between teacher and student, the rest of the class will be participating in math centers, where they will be able to practice skills acquired during previous modules.





Social Studies



Our social scientists continue to be visited by amazing and interesting CAC employees! We are learning all about the special people who make CAC great. Students are learning to ask a mix of work questions (Do you have meetings? What do you do at CAC?) and personal ones (What is your favorite food? What do you like to do in Egypt?). Each time we are visited by a Mystery Guest, we reflect in writing on what we learned and what we did with them.

Who will visit us this week?
Shhh! It’s a secret!





As always, we highly appreciate your dedication to your children and the time to take to read our newsletter and stay tuned with what’s happening in KG.

Please email us if you have any feedback, suggestions or questions!

Ms. Ana, Ms. Paola, and Mr. Balazs

Sunday, November 12, 2017

Week 14 November 12 - 16

KG students listen to a presentation with Kenn Nesbitt



Dear Kindergarten parents,

This month we are focusing on the value of compassion as a whole school. Students will be having conversations about what being compassionate is by reflecting on these statements:

I am compassionate when…

  • I invite someone to play
  • I help people
  • I am gentle
  • I try to make people happy
  • I use kind words


Kids’ Day! - Parent Volunteers Needed

This year's Kids' Day will be held on Wednesday, November 22nd, 2017 from 8:00am to 11:30am. Students will then be dismissed at 11:30am for a long Thanksgiving weekend. This is a half day for CAC and Pre K-5 will be participating at the same time. For new parents to the school Kids’ Day is a fun-filled day in which they can show off their house spirit, participate in a wide variety of physical activities, and enjoy each other! The Elementary PE Department needs parent volunteers to help with the games and activities. You will be partnered up with an Elementary Teacher and teacher aide to help run an activity.  If you could volunteer on that day, please fill in the (google form) by Thursday, November 16th at the latest. Mr. Greene will contact you via e-mail with your assignment by Monday, November 20th. Please mark your calendars for the date and time NOW!

Thank you,
Phil Greene pgreene@cacegypt.org & Mark Mayfield mmayfield@cacegypt.org




Learning In KG!

Reading Workshop:

IMG_0130.JPG


Super Readers continue to activate their powers on a daily basis. Superheroes never give up!

This week we will revisit the “Snap word power” to remind students about those words and how they can help with fluency. Just like they use snap words in their writing, they’re encouraged to find them and read them in a snap! Readers use those too, they find snap words in their books and read them quickly. As we coach young readers, we use the following prompts:

  • Use your picture powers
  • Remember what’s happening in the story
  • That’s a snap word! Read it!
  • Could that word be in other pages of your book, let’s find out!

Another way to improve fluency is to reread books that we feel comfortable with and use punctuation to read it with expression. Punctuation is like a secret code readers use to read like a storyteller or a teacher, and they use their “Partner Power” to practice. Kindergarteners will learn that…

? makes your voice go up and pause
! makes your voice go to sound like a feeling
. makes your voice go down and stop


Writing Workshop:

IMG_0079.JPG

Another exciting week for writers in Kindergarten as they publish their true stories! We will have a lesson on how to make their pieces ready for publication. We will remind students of all the work they’ve done, and how writers take time to celebrate by ending it and sharing it with the world. They’re learning that publishing is about being done and being proud of their piece instead of making it perfect.

To make this experience even more meaningful, we will talk about stories as gifts… “Imagine the person you want to give this story too and make it the best it can be!”. Our Grade 3 buddies will come and celebrate our publications with us.

As one unit ends another begins because writers are never done! Our next unit is called “Writing How-To Books, Step by Step!”. We will start with a lesson on the kind of writing “how-to” is and how different it is from true stories. Looking forward to another awesome writing unit in Kindergarten!



Phonics and differentiated sort:

IMG_2683.jpg

We dedicated time in Trimester 1 to teach/review consonants as beginning sounds. All students, even those who already knew all letter sounds, also learned about sorts and different activities we do with phonics sorts.

In Trimester 2, students will be grouped according to the spelling stage in which they are in to enhance their practice. Each sort will be especially made for the spelling needs of each group of students. As usual, students will bring their sorts home at the end of each week. Parents can use this opportunity to review the sounds covered that week, here are some suggested activities:

  • Remake the sort at home and ask your child to show you how they read and sort his/her words.
  • Ask your child to read each word aloud as they sort them. “Say it as you lay it!”
  • Ask your child to explain to you why the words are sorted in a particular way.
  • Ask your child to sort the words a second time as fast as possible. You may want to time him/her.
  • Play memory with the sort.




Math:

We continue to learn about attributes for comparison in our Module 3. Last week students compared objects using the terms “longer than / shorter than” as well as “taller than / shorter than”. This week our math students will compare the weights of objects in the classroom by using the words “heavier than”, “lighter than”, or” the same as”. They will be using a balance scale as a tool to compare weights of objects.







Social Studies:


This week social scientists had the pleasure of being visited by Mystery Guests! These are people work at CAC who gave of their time to join our class and tell about what they do to make CAC great. A big part of our Little Me in a Big School unit is getting to know more about the workers at CAC and what they do!

Our classes were visited by a high school and middle school teacher, CAC’s International Baccalaureate Coordinator, our Speech Pathologist, and a popular Drama teacher! After these visits, students wrote reflections on what they learned about these important workers at CAC.

We can’t wait to meet more Mystery Guests next week! Who will come to KG? You’ll have to wait and see!







Thank you all for your continuous support!

Ms. Ana, Ms. Paola, and Mr. Balazs

Sunday, November 5, 2017

Week 13. November 5 - 9

IMG_1300.JPG

Welcome to a fun new week!

We want to thank all parents for taking the time to read our weekly newsletters. If you have any feedback or comments, please let us know. We’d love to hear from you!

Here are a few announcements for this week:

Kenn Nesbitt Author Visit - November 7 to 9

Poet and performer Kenn Nesbitt will be visiting CAC from November 7 to 9. He will be presenting sessions with all the ES grade levels and with the MS language arts classes. He will present to the whole ES on Thursday, 7:55 am to 8:25 am, in the ES Hall. Parents are welcome! If you are interested in exploring his poems at home, his website is www.poetry4kids.com.

Last week for After School Activities Session 1

Session​ ​​1 ends on the week of November 5 - 9. All parents are most welcome to watch/join their
children’s last day/s of the activities during this last week. This does not apply to Production. If your child is in production, please review this link for the Production Timeline

Tuesday Assemblies and House Events

Every Tuesday, before going to assembly, kindergarteners leave their backpacks outside their classrooms and make their way to the ES Hall or to the place where the house event will take place. For those students that come a bit later, we are reminding them that they must walk to their classroom, drop their bags and meet us where we are. If we’re having an assembly in the hall, our aides will stay by the classroom until 7:55 to walk students who come then. If your child arrives after 7:55 we ask that you please help us by leaving their bags by the classroom, and walk them to the ES Hall. Thank you for your support!

Calling on guest readers!

Are you interested in coming to your child’s class to read a book? Then let us know! This week we’ll start having guest readers come in once a week. Each KG class will have a link for parents to sign up, we just ask that you please send us a quick email when you do. We will make sure every parent has a chance to come in!

Here is where you find our signup links:

Screen Shot 2017-11-02 at 3.55.25 PM.png

Report Cards and Parent Teacher Conferences

Please click here to see a letter from the ES office regarding report cards and parent teacher conferences.


Learning This Week!

Reading Workshop


IMG_0134.JPG

Readers are becoming true superheroes activating as many powers as they can to solve problems in their reading, it’s been such a fun unit! This week we will start a new part in the unit called “Bringing books to life”. Readers will be paying close attention to teachers voices during read aloud and how we make books sound like movies!

They will be studying the books they have in their book bags to think of different voices they could use to read them with excitement and other feelings. Using reader voices is a strategy that further develops fluency as a skill, and one thing readers will learn is that to read with fluency is to read books like we’ve always known them. This is why it is important for readers to reread books! Going back and rereading books is one more thing all readers do to become Super Readers!

Patterns are also important! As most of our kindergarteners are reading patterned books, they will learn that these patterns help them read with fluency as well. “Knowing the pattern helps you read words on every page, then you just have to activate powers to read the tricky ones!”

Writing Workshop

IMG_0090.JPG

Our young writers have learned so much about crafting True Stories! Now armed with an array of writing tools that they can use independently, they are poised to publish a finished piece. This week, students will be taking a close look at the beginnings and endings of their stories with an eye for revision. They will look at the beginnings and endings in books by mentor authors like George McClements and will ask, “How can I make an amazing beginning?” and “How can I end my story with feelings?”

Kindergarten writers will review the revision process and how to use our blue revision pens to make changes and add more. There is so much that these students can do independently!

You can support this important work at home by continuing to talk about things that you have done together as a family, or by simply encouraging writing at home!

Math


The students will continue to learn about attributes for comparing length, weight, capacity, and numbers to 10 in  Module 3. Last week students compared objects using the terms “longer than / shorter than” as well as “taller than / shorter than”. They will be using a linking cube stick this week as a unit of measurement to compare the length of different objects  The mathematicians are learning about endpoints of an object as an important concept to measure. Something may look higher but is not necessarily taller!
Social Studies


Our “Little Me In a Big School” unit really gets going this week! After brainstorming about who we know at CAC and who we want to learn more about, kindergarten students will start to be visited by Mystery Guests from different divisions around the school. These CAC workers will share a bit about what they do to give students a sense of how much goes on at our amazing school. This week, we will be visited by teachers from the Elementary, Middle, and High School divisions of CAC.

As students begin to wonder more about our big school, we will guide them in forming interview questions to ask of CAC workers. What makes a good interview question? What do we want to know about them? What is the difference between a personal question and a question about work? We will be discussing all of these questions this week!

Circles

Students continue to learn about friendship in our circles. To reinforce the Core Value of compassion, we have planned circle activities to learn about friendship and empathy. Students will have opportunities to share about their ideas of having a friend by making these statements:

  • With your partner, think of two places they would like to go with a friend they have.
  • Stand and change seats if you have a friend in this classroom.
  • Stand and change seats if you have a friend outside of this classroom.

Students have also an opportunity to complete the sentence:

“When people smile at us we feel…”
“We can tell someone is feeling sad by noticing…”

Some families may want to take this opportunity to share ways in which they show empathy as well.




Thanks again for all your help and support, and please don’t hesitate to email us with any questions or feedback.

Ms. Ana
Mr. Balazs

Ms. Paola