If your child enters, please be sure to let me know and of course if they win! Good luck to everyone!
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Dear Parents,
We have a full week of learning that overall with some special festivals and celebrations this week. As today is Diwali, the festival of lights celebrated by Indians all over the world, we learnt about the fable of Ram and Ravan, a fable about royalty, romance, duty, fighting evil, and valuing family. As with all mythological stories, there were fantastical elements and magic involved. We also capitalized on the opportunity to create some candle art in the classroom. Language: In language this week we will do a book study on Wombat Stew by Marcia Vaughan. It's an interesting story that lends itself to rhyme, alliteration, and procedural writing. We are going to be creating our own poems using alliteration. We will also answer comprehension questions as a book response and explore our creativity by creating a recipe for our own kind of "unusual" stew - an opportunity for students to link their creativity to Halloween and creepy crawlies! At this point in the year, we have had many writing opportunities to focus on expressing ourselves and our experiences using the past tense. While we learn different strategies and rules as well continue to build ourselves as writers, students can now take more ownership of their self-editing skills. If you are writing at home with your child, please be aware that I am now holding students accountable for using 'ed' correctly with most verbs. Unfortunately only about 60% of words in the English language follow 'rules.' However, if you encounter your child using 'd' or 'id' instead of 'ed' to express something in the past, please ask them to revisit the word and provide them with the opportunity to self-correct. We have also started looking at how words beginning with vowels are preceded by 'an' while words beginning with consonants are preceded by 'a'. For example, an elephant vs. a elephant or a house vs. an house. Maths: In maths this week we are going to be finishing off our work basic vertical and horizontal subtraction and will focus on subtraction with regrouping for 2 and 3-digit numbers. We will also look at reflective patterns and how their applications in real life. We will be incorporating this through our Unit of Inquiry and looking at how patterning is used in number and in art. Unit of Inquiry: This is our making session week where the children are getting involved in looking and discussing different artists. We have a number of art projects started and will continue those well into next week - our Picasso canvases, our abstract/surreal illustrations to support poems we have written, etc. We will be discussing the different forms that that artist has used and we will begin to discuss what they think the artist was trying express, finding supporting evidence through the elements of art. We have also just finished doing an author/illustration/character study based on David Shannon. The children have created wonderful write-ups which are on display on our walls and will also be shared through seesaw. Seesaw, our online e-portfolio for student work, is due to start this week. You will be receiving a letter which will give you instructions as to how to access your child’s digital portfolio. Each child by the 3rd November will have 2-3 pieces pieces of work to share with you. Announcements/Reminders:
Once again, thank you for your continued support at home. Have a wonderful week! Warm regards, Bhavna Dear parent,
The PE department would like to know your thoughts about sport in GWA and are very interested in the sports that your son or daughter takes part in outside of school. Please take 5 minutes with your son or daughter to fill in the questionnaire (See link below). Each complete questionnaire will earn a house point for their team. https://docs.google.com/a/gwa.gemsedu.com/forms/d/1CHBi11NqhGacnbbSwSkWkbjnhSD7Comfm7hB5QuYzvY/edit Thursday, November 10th is Career Dress Up Day in the Elementary School. Students are encouraged to dress up in the career of their choice. What do you aspire to be when you grow up? The process of thinking of this is helpful to develop and solidify self-concept and goal setting in students. Please use the following questions to help brainstorm your decision making: What inspires you? Who inspires you? Who is your role model? Why? What special attributes or talents do you have? What do you enjoy doing the most? What do you want to be when you grow up? Sports attire is welcome.
-Students Council and ES Counseling Team Dear Parents,
It was great to meet everyone last week for PTC and to touch base about your child's well-being and progress. We started this week with our Cartoon Art Gallery field trip this morning which was a lot of fun with hands-on painting and sketching activities. Your children will be bringing home their creations this week. I have lots of photos on the iPad... please be patient with me, I promise to get them up on the weekly soon! I have other learning photos and videos to upload within the week as well. In literacy we will continue focusing on poetry and how this is a form of expressing themselves. We will be discussing the concepts of onomatopoeia, alliteration and different forms of poetry. We will also be practicing some typing skills as we begin publishing our poems and creating illustrations to support them. We will introduce character descriptions as we explore different writing techniques to create complex characters. In math this week we will introduce double and triple-digit subtraction with regrouping. We will also look at some simple strategies to help up halve double-digit numbers. Unit of Inquiry: Thank you so much to those parents and children who have identified their favorite piece of art and they have sent it in. This homework is optional but it is a great way to discuss culture and preferences! This week we will be exploring different artists and considering what makes a good piece of art. We will be looking at different expressions and how we can communicate this with our audience. Announcements/Reminders:
Calling All Actors! Auditions for the Elementary School Drama Club will take place on Tuesday, December 6th and Wednesday, December 7th from 3:00 to 4:00 in the black box. If you are in grades 2, 3, 4, or 5 and would like to audition, you must sign up by Thursday, Nov 24th on this google form. We will contact students after this date with audition materials as well as a specific audition time. Please note that rehearsals will be held on Sundays and Wednesdays between January 4th and March 21st and the performance will be on the evening of March 21st. If you already have other commitments on these days, please do not sign up to audition. Students who are in Student Council or Eco-Council may audition. Information about Drama Club can be found on the Weebly Page under the “drama club” tab. Good luck! We look forward to seeing you at auditions! Ms. Courtney, Ms. Laura [email protected] DEAR STUDENTS AND FAMILIES:
This Thursday is the 20th of October. It’s also WEAR YOUR HOUSE COLOR DAY! We are looking forward to everyone showing their school spirit by dressing/accessorizing in their house color. If you aren’t sure which house you are in, please speak to your classroom teacher. Thanks for your support!! Swimming is a compulsory component of the PYP here at GWA; we have our own unique curriculum which builds on the key competencies. We ensure that our pools are heated and maintained at a temperature which is appropriate for the students. We check the temperature of our pool every hour. If a student is unable to swim for any reason then parents must provide a doctor’s note to Miss Lottie Lucas ([email protected]) in advance of the lesson. An exception will be if they have not been at school the previous days leading up to the lesson then we understand that their immune system may still be low. In this case, a parents note/email to Miss Lucas is acceptable. It should be noted that the common cold is a virus and cannot be caught from a chill or wet hair. Interestingly enough, a low immune system can be susceptible to the virus and swimming in its very nature builds a strong immune system. We look forward to our next swimming lesson with your child. Kind Regards, Lottie Lucas, Mr Rocky and Mr Rey Dear Parents, Another busy week at GWA ahead! As we dig further into our Unit of Inquiry, we will have the opportunity to have a guided tour and engage in live cartoon sketching and watercolor work by a professional at The Cartoon Art Gallery next Sunday. 2BS will be the first grade 2 class to go on the field trip on the 23rd of this month. You can find the field trip form attached. In the interest of being eco-friendly, I would prefer to receive an email from confirming that your child has permission to attend the field trip and your preferred contact number in case of an emergency. If you are interested in volunteering as a chaperone on the field trip, please also mention that in your email confirmation. Please keep in mind that we only need an extra adult or two, but we will have many other field trips throughout the year. The children are very excited! This is the first time GWA will be visiting The Cartoon Art Gallery in Al Quoz. As is outlined in the field trip information letter, please ensure your child has a packed snack, packed lunch and a water bottle. Since we will be working with nontoxic colors at the venue, I highly recommend wearing PE uniforms - likely easier to wash in case of any staining. After a school subsidy, the cost to each parent will be AED80 per child. All resources will be provided by professionals at the gallery.
Below you will find details of our learning focus: Maths - We continue with addition and subtraction, doubles and halving, and place value. Students are adding and subtracting with non-regrouping and re-grouping. We use lots of manipulatives to solve problems, as well as write the equations down. This week we will especially focus on solving word problems using the operations. We are learning to use different strategies to solve operations, to help us make connections with place values, and to use as tools to build mental math agility. Here you see a breakdown of one way of adding numbers that shows the process: https://padlet.com/wall/mnwynr622o8e Literacy - Reading groups continue this week focusing on strategies to help with comprehension. A focus is also on looking at how to read words that are unknown or make sense of unknown words through context clues. In writing we continue to look at adding description to our writing by using author techniques like adjectives, similes and metaphors. We are building on our similes from last week to create poems by looking at rhyme as one technique used by poets. Unit of Inquiry - Last week, we went to the ICT lab to use Padlet to share our initial thinking about what art is as part of our unit pre-assessment snapshot. Here you can see what we think or know at the start of the unit before commencing our inquiry cycle: https://padlet.com/wall/mnwynr622o8e . Last week we also started looking at dance, music, and performance as an expression of art. This week our focus will shift to the 7 basic elements of art - texture, value, form, color, shape, space, and line- and how they can be used to create emotion and messages through art. We will also begin to create some of our own peaces which will likely continue next week. As our unit develops, we will continue to introduce new vocabulary specific to certain types and styles of art. Announcements/Reminders:
I will upload a few more pictures and videos next week. Stay tuned! As always, your support at home is much appreciated. Warm regards, Bhavna |
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June 2017
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