Literacy Week on the Paterson campus this week has been full of educational and fun events, culminating on Friday with book character dress up day. Lots of superheroes, characters from “Frozen”, “Harry Potter”, “Where’s Wally”, Eric Carle favourites and “Peter Pan” to mention just a few.
Throughout the week students took part in competitions in the library such as: “Guess the Teachers Favourite Book”. Teachers had previously uploaded the titles and reasons for their choice of book, and “Guess the Title, Character and Author”. Elementary classes decorated their classroom doors to represent books and literary themes. Literacy Connections were made through partnerships between Middle School and Elementary School students and teachers. Literacy and music with Middle School music classes partnering with Grade 4 and literacy and art where Middle School worked closely with Grade 5. This message from Ms. Hima Venkateswaran offers an interesting and informative literacy interdisciplinary aspect of the week: The Literacy week Art display board of favourite storybook characters is up on the 3rd floor staircase (Art Room end). Not only can you see some superb drawing skills, you may also notice : - the development of drawing skills from K-5 - the interest levels and reading profiles of different classes - a rise in the popularity of Greg Heffler from Diary of a wimpy kid. Close on his heels is Dog Man - The Avengers and Marvel characters have sneaked in..as well as Disney... and oh, Where's Wally? Looking forward to our first virtual three way conferences next week on 3rd and 6th March. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you experience any problems with the Google hangout meetings. Teachers and students have had a chance to practice so we’re hoping for smooth running conversations. It may be helpful if you refresh your memory of the end of Semester 1 report and ISA results if appropriate as these may be referred to in the “meetings”. Have a lovely weekend, Susan Tilney. With the start of ECAs this week students were involved in a variety of activities: having lots of fun getting messy in “Messy Kids”, carefully learning gentler traditional crafts such as crochet, origami, sewing and knitting. Coding is very popular as are the more active ECAs such as volleyball, netball, yoga and mindfulness. Aladdin ECA rehearsals have been adjusted to once a week as the postponed production is now scheduled for June.
Note that there will be no ECAs the week beginning 2nd March as virtual 3 way conferences will take place that week. On Tuesday 3rd March Middle School students will go home at the end of period 4, i.e. 11:50am. 3rd March will be a regular school day for Elementary School students. On Friday 6th March there will be no regular classes, all Paterson students should not come to school while teachers will be at school on that day. The links for signing up for conferences will be available on Managebac later today. I thank you most sincerely for your tremendous and ongoing support for the school, our dedicated teachers, teaching assistants, guards, secretaries, nurse and drivers in these uncertain times. Together we are continuing to keep the whole community safe and well. The truly special nature of ISS shines through every day. Have a lovely weekend, Susan Tilney. Today I share some insights into learning at Paterson from 2 of our wonderful teachers:
Mrs. Janienne Vaughan - “I had a lovely, happy lesson with my Grade 1 ESL children today. The children looked at the words soap, boat, road and float to learn more about the ‘long o ‘sound. Then they read a story about a soap boat before making their own little soap boats. We pretended to float them on blue paper water at the end.” Dr. Dharshini Jeremiah - “G6 students continue to enjoy their practical experiments in the science laboratory. This week they investigated the effect of gravity on a spring. A simple experiment which allowed students to contextualise the difference between weight and mass. Students became more aware of their skill level as they applied their skills in social collaboration, communication, creative and critical thinking. A wonderful week of learning, grounded in the IB Approaches to Learning (ATL).” Have a lovely weekend, Susan Tilney. “Show and tell” is an important part of a lower Elementary day. This gives students opportunities to prepare a small speech or presentation about something they want to “show” and to “tell” others. It can be a favourite toy, a collection, a passion - anything that interests them or that follows a particular theme perhaps. This helps to build confidence for the speaker and to improve listening skills for the audience. Often students will ask and answer questions which helps them to appreciate that they need to have some background knowledge about their chosen subject. Grade 1 students have recently been showcasing their “show and tell” skills.
Grade 3 students have continued thinking about how technology and tools are created, using the Design Thinking Process to guide their thoughts. Students reflected on life in school and shared problems or issues they had noticed or could EMPATHISE with.Then they worked to clearly DEFINE what caused these problems. Students began to discuss and sketch possible solutions during the IDEATE stage. After collecting their materials, students made their chosen PROTOTYPE design. To see if it solved the problem, they had to TEST and if necessary go back to the Ideate stage and change their prototype. At this stage of the design process, many students began getting feedback from other students in class. Children shared their designs and gave and received feedback and when Ms. Hima visited class, she also gave the designers feedback using the Ladder of Feedback routine. Middle School students made the most of our two campuses this week! On Thursday afternoon, Ms Dayal took her Grade 8 MYP Science class to visit the High School Physics laboratory to investigate electromagnets with our G6-12 Scientific Literacies Coordinator, Mr Vaughan. Students had a wonderful time, and really appreciated the hands-on experience to learn Science at the Preston campus. In what was an enjoyable and creative way to overcome field trip restrictions, the students were the final winners - as they received the best learning by far from our resident expert! Thank you to Ms Dayal and Mr Vaughan for facilitating this visit. Have a lovely weekend, Susan Tilney. |
Susan Tilney
Paterson Principal Archives
April 2020
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