Engaging in Exploratio Campus Communicator · addition, we are adding our first Mandarin song,...
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PRINCIPAL REFLECTIONS Life at the Campus International School continues to be exciting. Jonathan Graham, from Young Audiences provided each class with a workshop experience three afternoon this week. Kindergarten and First grade entered the Alphacity and through dramatization exercises, they learned each of the letter sounds. They presented a skit at the end. Ask your child to show you the motions that accompany each letter sound. Ms. O’Rourke and Ms. Jeffery’s classes learned songs about nouns, verbs and adjectives. The students acted out the words and had great fun performing skits! This coming week is ADM week. This means that it is extremely important that every child comes to school EACH DAY and is ON TIME! The state funding is dependent upon ADM week’s attendance. Lots of exciting events will occur at the school this coming week- we have Vision First coming here on Tuesday and Wednesday morning and the Explorers are off to the Rock Hall on Wednesday! Please remind your child about ap- propriate behavior while on field trips. INTERNATIONAL INQUIRY Encouraging Wonder Ron Abate One of the goals of the Campus Interna- tional School is for our students to become inquirers. What is an inquirer and what attitudes do inquirers possess? An inquirer is someone who wonders about the world around him or her. This wonder is displayed asking questions and seeking answers to questions. Young children ask lots of questions. “Where does the sun go at night?” “How do birds fly?” “Why is the sky blue?” Children also like to offer guesses to their questions. “The sun needs to sleep too.” Unfortunately, in school, we sometimes focus so much attention on the “correct” answer that students lose some of the wonder they possessed as children and become less willing to offer answers. At CIS we hope to cultivate the skills of inquiry so students realize that it is okay to hypothesize answers, and that it is necessary to test hypotheses to see if they are valid. To ensure that students continue to inquire throughout their academic careers, we will teach them attitudes critical to generating and testing hypotheses. In the months and years to come we will provide the students with practice in six attitudes essential to successful inquiry: 1) objectivity, 2) curiosity, 3) skepticism, 4) tolerance for ambiguity, 5) respect evidence, and 6) suspend judgment. Practicing inquiry at home will be a great way to reinforce the attitudes taught at school and provide you with an opportunity to engage in your child’s educational experience. Here is a simple activity you can conduct at home: Open vs. Closed Cola 1. Show your child two bottles of the same type of cola. 2. Ask him or her to tell you what he or she likes best about it. If the “fizz” is not mentioned talk about how you like the “fizz”. VOL : I No. 3 October 1, 2010 Engaging in Exploration 1 Campus Communicator
Transcript of Engaging in Exploratio Campus Communicator · addition, we are adding our first Mandarin song,...
PRINCIPAL REFLECTIONS
Life at the Campus International School continues to be exciting. Jonathan Graham, from Young Audiences provided each class with a workshop experience three afternoon this week. Kindergarten and First grade entered the Alphacity and through dramatization exercises, they learned each of the letter sounds. They presented a skit at the end. Ask your child to show you the motions that accompany each letter sound. Ms. O’Rourke and Ms. Jeffery’s classes learned songs about nouns, verbs and adjectives. The students acted out the words and had great fun performing skits!
This coming week is ADM week. This means that it is extremely important that every child comes to school EACH DAY and is ON TIME! The state funding is dependent upon ADM week’s attendance.
Lots of exciting events will occur at the school this coming week- we have Vision First coming here on Tuesday and Wednesday morning and the Explorers are off to the Rock Hall on Wednesday! Please remind your child about ap-propriate behavior while on field trips.
INTERNATIONAL INQUIRY Encouraging Wonder
Ron Abate
One of the goals of the Campus Interna-tional School is for our students to become inquirers. What is an inquirer and what attitudes do inquirers possess? An inquirer is someone who wonders about the world around him or her. This
wonder is displayed asking questions and seeking answers to questions. Young children ask lots of questions. “Where does the sun go at night?” “How do birds fly?” “Why is the sky blue?” Children also like to offer guesses to their questions. “The sun needs to sleep too.” Unfortunately, in school, we sometimes focus so much attention on the “correct” answer that students lose some of the wonder they possessed as children and become less willing to offer answers. At CIS we hope to cultivate the skills of inquiry so students realize that it is okay to hypothesize answers, and that it is necessary to test hypotheses to see if they are valid. To ensure that students continue to inquire throughout their academic careers, we will teach them attitudes critical to generating and testing hypotheses. In the months and years to come we will provide the students with practice in six attitudes essential to successful inquiry:1) objectivity, 2) curiosity, 3) skepticism, 4) tolerance for ambiguity, 5) respect evidence, and 6) suspend judgment. Practicing inquiry at home will be a great way to reinforce the attitudes taught at school and provide you with an opportunity to engage in your child’s educational experience. Here is a simple activity you can conduct at home:
Open vs. Closed Cola1. Show your child two bottles of the same type of
cola. 2. Ask him or her to tell you what he or she likes
best about it. If the “fizz” is not mentioned talk about how you like the “fizz”.
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Campus Communicator
3. Write down a few things about what you both like, including the “fizz.” (You will use this writing as a reminder to follow up the next day)
4. Next, take the cap off one bottle and then place both bottles in the refrigerator. Be sure the child sees the cap is off.
5. The following evening pull out the two bottles and pour the contents into glasses. Inquire as to how your child believes the colas will be differ-ent and why.
6. Once he or she has developed a hypothesis (attempt to use this word about his or her description), try the colas together.
7. Discuss what your child’s hypothesis was and whether it was accurate or not. Emphasize how proud you are that they came up with a theory, even though it may not be correct!
8. If you feel comfortable enough, explain how the carbonation left the open bottle because it is a gas, and that is why the cola became flat.
BALANCED LITERACY A Note from the New K Teacher
Dear Parents,My name is Grace Karas. I am so excited
to be one of the kindergarten teachers at the Cam-pus International School. I received my Bachelor’s degree in psychology from Ohio Wesleyan Univer-sity and my Master’s in early childhood education from Cleveland State University.
I am looking forward to getting to know the Campus International family. Kindergarten stu-dents will achieve much this year in terms of aca-demic growth, greater self-confidence, and im-proved social skills. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to come in or send me a note with your child in the morning.
Sincerely,Mrs. Karas
A Little Something for EveryoneBy the Teachers
Visual Art
Kindergarten: We will work to complete our Risk-Taker pumpkins.1st & 2nd: We will begin our ideas for multi-cultural masks. Music:
K: We continue to warm-up by singing our creed. We are learning a new song about fall and winter weather called, “Snow is Falling Today.” In addition to singing, we take time to reflect on where rain and snow come from (the water cycle) and why it is so important to our lives (crops, our health, natural resources, etc.).1: We are continuing to practice (“rehearse”) our Native American tune, “Song of Snowflakes.” In addition, we are adding our first Mandarin song, “Two Tigers.” We are pleased to welcome our new “Lua Chu” (Teacher), Ms. Zhao Rui (Shou Rae.) She will be teaching all of our Explorers Mandarin, and helping me a lot, since I don’t happen to speak Mandarin (yet)!1/2: Our mixed classroom is learning a Puerto Ri-can song called “El Coqui.” In Puerto Rico, every-one loves these little tree frogs. They “sing” at night, and their voices make a sound like co-qui. We are learning this in Spanish and English! We are also working with “Two Tigers.”2: Our continuing song in 2nd grade is “John Tanaka.” Our focus will be on instruments now to complete this song from the islands of Polynesia. We will also be learning “Two Tigers.” Our “World Tour” has already begun. Our first stop is Asia, and all of the Explorers will be getting their “Passports” to start traveling.
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We are also pleased to have two interns from CSU’s Music Therapy program with us!They will be pulling out individual Explorers over the next few weeks to work one onone with some of our more “energetic” Explorers. They are Ms. Janie Lindsay and Mr. Jee Jung (“JJ”) Tham. J.J. is from Malaysia and speaks Mandarin, so that’s an added bonus! He can help the Explorers during his time with Mandarin!
P.E.
Kindergarten: Parents we are postponing our field trips over to the recreation center until October 15th where we will be in the CSU gymnasium. Your kindergartners have started their unit jump roping. We are learning different ways and styles of hopping over a stationary rope. We are also concentrating on our spatial awareness and recognizing others personal spaces.First grade: We have our first field trip coming up in the next couple of weeks. Please look for a small reminder about the field trip the week that they are going. Students have started their unit in jump rop-ing working on gripping a jump rope, swinging the jump rope over our heads and hopping or skipping over the rope. Second grade: We had our first round of swim-ming lessons and they did AWESOME. We worked on different floating techniques as well as two dif-ferent types of swimming strokes. Our behaviors were outstanding both on the walk and at the rec-reation center. I was so proud of them. We are starting our unit in jump roping working on our rope swing and the timing of our hop. Students are also recognizing personal space and others around them. Parents: This is a perfect time to remind your children about expectations at school. The weather is changing, and the Explorers will become restless as they will not be able to go outside as much. Let
them know that you expect them to be great learners and Explorers, and only their best behavior will make that possible!
STAY KNOWLEDGEABLE Notes from the PCO
Are you ready for the Fall Festival on October the 16th? The PCO volunteers are busy planning for this event. We want to remind everyone about the pumpkin sale at the Fall Festival. Please help support the school by purchasing your pumpkins here! Our pumpkin patch will be filled with large pumpkins straight from the farms of northeast Ohio. All proceeds will benefit your children. There is still time to be involved. Please contact Robin Fraser or Janice Pohl if you can help. Also, CIS is now enrolled in the Giant Eagle Ap-ples for the Students program. For every dollar spent at Giant Eagle with a registered Advantage card, our school will earn points toward educa-tional equipment. All you need to do is enroll your Giant Eagle Advantage card in the program using our school's id number #5505. Support Our Stu-dents! Enroll your Giant Eagle Advantage Card® and earn points for FREE educational awards with every shopping trip. www.gianteagle.com/about/apples-for-students or call 1-800-474-4777 Our School ID is #5505. Please encourage friends and family members to sign up for the program. There is no cost to anyone and the school earns points!!! A big thanks to Nikki Luna for finding such beautiful mums and to Kimberly Hill for organizing our first successful bake sale. The PCO nest egg is growing because of everyone's efforts. This will enable PCO to host upcoming events such as the Fall Festival.
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We will be sharing important parent information on the wiki and posting sign up sheets for various committees. Please continue to reflect on the PCO officer descriptions. Is there one that you would like to do? Please contact Janice Pohl [email protected] to get your name on the nomination list. Any other questions or con-cerns, please do not hesitate to contact Robin at [email protected] or Janice at the email address mentioned above. Thank you for your continued support.
Please consider joining the CIS Parent Forum Wikispace! If you would like to become a mem-ber please email Lindsey Glass at [email protected] and put wiki in the subject line.
Around the World Kick-Off
On Thursday, October 14th, CIS will happily welcome Sogbety Diomande, who will present a West African Drumming show. We gladly welcome parents and students to participate in this high-energy performance of rhythms, dances and songs of West Africa. He will share the invigorating sounds of his native Ivory Coast as students glimpse a new world as they learn about songs and village life! The show begins at 630pm and we look forward to seeing you.
PRINCIPLED PROFESSIONALS
Left: Kindergartner Alonzo Tovanche using the interac-tive board in our College of Business and Law.
Right: Second grader Kiara Ware works with Young Audiences member Jonathan Graham on part of speech. He is also working with the Kindergartners on Phonics and their ABC’s
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