September 28, 2012

Dear Parents,  

Lunch menu: Please note that we have added a tab at the top of this blog where you will find the lunch menu for students. We thank the parents for requesting this additional feature and welcome future suggestions to make this blog a great source of information for parents. 

Library times: middle school students may now access the middle school library starting from 8:00 am upon requesting a hall pass from the teacher on duty, ground floor at the main staircase. This will shift the library times to Monday-Thursday - 8:00 am - 4:30 pm and Friday   8:00 am - 4:15 pm.

Reaching Out  is a community service group that meets every Wednesday at 1:05 in Mrs. Nutter's room (3120). New student members are welcome.

We are excited to announce a new development in grade 6 student access to technology and information resources.  Our grade 6 core subjects team has been chosen to participate in a 1:1 limited laptop pilot using existing computers from our IT department.  To learn more about this exciting opportunity, grade 6 parents are encouraged to attend an informational meeting on Thursday, October 4th from 8:45 to 9:45 am in the Hall of Light.  If you cannot attend we will send home a pamphlet to grade 6 parents explaining how your child's learning and daily life at the school will evolve with the program.    

There is a lot happening for middle school athletics. Our ASIAC table tennis and badminton teams have been working hard all season and are getting ready for their upcoming tournament in Delhi. Our SAISA swimmers have been working equally hard for their swim meet which AISC will be hosting next weekend. We are also gearing up to start our new sports seasons of ASIAC soccer and SAISA tennis. Please see the ‘Athletics’ tab at the top of this page for more information on these sports.  

I have the pleasure of attending an information technology conference: 1-1 Learning Institute from September 26^th through 28^th. The following is some information on the topics of the keynote presentations.  “…the changing nature of the workforce, identifying the critical 21st-century skills…: the never ending process of technology infused continuous learning and what the world will require of people through their lifetimes…: A new learning landscape- A landscape of global education. What does this mean for our schools, our students, and communities? This presentation looks toward the future and what awaits today’s students…” (sentences are cut and pasted from the conference website)

 Have a joyous weekend.

Ms. Michele

September 21, 2012

Dear Parents,

Thank you to the parents that came out for our FCD Educational Services parent session on Wednesday.  The parent session offered guidance and information in helping children enjoy a drug-free adolescence. Clickhere to view the handout from this session.  Additional information and resources can also be found at www.fcd.org

French Lunch postponed from Thursday, September 20 to Monday September 24 for all MS French speakers and French natives! Bring your own food to the cafeteria. This will be a very informal gathering in the MS-HS cafeteria at 1:00 pm, to speak as much French as we can.  All levels of French speakers are welcome, beginners as well as native speakers. This includes all staff, parents, and students of any ages.  Look for signs to the left that say "Ici on parle francais." Merci, Madame Tucky and Madame Naomi

Today, Friday, Sept 21st is the International Day of Peace. 

“The International Day of Peace provides an opportunity for individuals, organizations and nations to create practical acts of peace on a shared date. It was established by a United Nations resolution in 1981 to coincide with the opening of the General Assembly. The first Peace Day was celebrated in September 1982.

In 2002 the General Assembly officially declared September 21 as the permanent date for the International Day of Peace. By creating the International Day of Peace, the UN devoted itself to worldwide peace and encouraged all of mankind to work in cooperation for this goal. During the discussion of the U.N. Resolution that established the International Day of Peace, it was suggested that:

Peace Day should be devoted to commemorating and strengthening the ideals of peace both within and among all nations and peoples…This day will serve as a reminder to all peoples that our organization, with all its limitations, is a living instrument in the service of peace and should serve all of us here within the organization as a constantly pealing bell reminding us that our permanent commitment, above all interests or differences of any kind, is to peace.

Since its inception, Peace Day has marked our personal and planetary progress toward peace. It has grown to include millions of people in all parts of the world, and each year events are organized to commemorate and celebrate this day.”

The above excerpt has been taken from (http://www.internationaldayofpeace.org/) 

In honor of Peace Day, the Roots and Shoots club asks us to contemplate what peace means to you. R&S are encouraging families, as well as student groups, classes, to design a peace flag. They will be starting to display flags on Peace Day (today) but will collect them through October 15^th, so they can all be displayed for UN Day.  They are also collecting student or staff writing or artwork about peace, which will also be displayed for UN Day near the PAC and published on the roots and shoots blog, soon to be attached to the school website.

United Nations Day is Wednesday, October 24^th. AISC marks this day with a number of celebrations of Peace and Diversity – a Flag Procession, assemblies, and a parent organized International Pavilion. There will be more communication regarding these celebrations in the weeks to come.

This year for the first time, the flag procession will include all students with flags from the nations represented by AISC’s student body.  We are in the process of making sure that we have all the flags we need for our procession. We have records of the nationalities of all AISC families. Sometimes students see their cultural background as more significant than their nationality. For example, in the past we had a parent who was Lithuanian, but her children held U.S. passports.  Thus we added the flag of Lithuania to the procession.  If your child wants to march with a flag other than their national group, or if you are unsure about whether we have accurate information on your middle school child’s nationality (for dual passport holders, for example), please contact the middle school Assistant Ms. Aziz at sAzizunnisa@aisch.org. Please clarify this no later than Friday, October 5. Thank you so much for your cooperation.

Library times: middle school students may access the middle school library starting from 8:00 am upon requesting a hall pass from the teacher on duty, ground floor at the main staircase. This will shift the library times to Monday-Thursday - 8:00 am - 4:30 pm and Friday   8:00 am - 4:15 pm.

September 14, 2012

Dear Parents,   

Thank you to the parents that came out and participated in the Middle School Parent Coffee on September 12th. I enjoyed spending this time with you and hearing the topics that are on your minds. The top 5 possible topic areas for future middle school parent coffees were in descending order: Discussion on solutions to heavy backpacks (21), how to build and support adolescent leadership (18), session on community service for all students (16), internet safety/boundaries-learning from other parents (14), health talks for parents regarding adolescent changes and nutrition (14). I will be meeting with our grade level PTA parent representatives on September 19^th to plan out our next steps. The full list of prioritized topics discussed during the meeting is given below.

Discussion on solutions to heavy backpacks (21), how to build and support adolescent leadership (18), session on community service for all students (16), internet safety/boundaries-learning from other parents (14), health talks for parents regarding adolescent changes and nutrition (14) discuss lunch tables/microwaves/queues (11), grade level reading recommendations (11), time management and nutrition suggestions for parents (10), math curriculum/testing/comparison information meeting (10), global citizens and awareness of world religions/cultures/histories suggestions (7), career guest speakers/information/process (7), advisory content awareness/how parents can support the program at home (5), helping children recognize  strengths and setting goals (4), information session for parents on MAP and EAL students (4), course content summary and how parents can support at home (4), child abuse awareness/sexual abuse awareness (4), EAL progression session (3), peer pressure (2), anger management (2).

As part of our health education program and ongoing commitment to prevention and wellness, we have invited prevention specialists from FCD Educational Services to join our community from September 18-21. FCD provides substance abuse prevention education for schools. The FCD prevention specialist will present a parent workshop on September 19th from 8:45-10:00 am to offer support and guidance in helping your children enjoy a drug-free adolescence. For our students, the focus for FCD will be mainly with our grade 7 and 8 students. For more FCD information see the counselor blog.

There will be a special parent curriculum coffee on September 18th.  Dr. Richard Villa will be joining us to discuss how parents can help support and create an inclusive school setting at AISC focusing on English as an Alternate Language context.  Dr. Villa has worked with thousands of teachers and administrators throughout North America and the world, to develop and implement organizational and instructional support systems for educating all students within general education settings. Rich has been a middle and high school classroom teacher, special educator, special education coordinator, pupil personnel services director, and director of instructional services. Rich works with schools, governmental and non-governmental agencies, and advocacy organizations. He has presented at numerous national and international conferences, and is known for his enthusiastic, knowledgeable, and humorous style of presenting.  We hope you can join us in the Hall of Lights on Tuesday, September 18th from 8:45 - 9:45 or from 2:15 to 3:15. 

Our grade 7 students will have the pleasure of having a presentation and discussion with a local paleontologist. The talk will be focused on early history of earth and the study of fossils and identifying them specifically. The talk will cover working as a paleontologist and what it takes to be a paleontologist. There will be a slide-show and will be an interactive lecture format.

Calling all AISC French speakers, for lunch on Thursday September 20! There will be a very informal gathering in the new MS-HS cafeteria at 1:00 pm, to speak as much French as we can. Look for signs to the left that say "Ici on parle francais." All levels of French speakers are welcome, beginners as well as native speakers. This includes all staff, parents, and students of any ages. Merci, Madame Tucky and Madame Naomi

Our Big Bad Blue swim meet last weekend was a wonderful opportunity for our raptors. Thank you to Ms. Elizabeth, Mr. Scott, Ms. Ashley, and Mr. Tommy for all of their time and efforts to provide this swim meet for our raptors. Thank you to all of the parents that came out and supported the event. Congratulations to our athletes on their strong performance. For more information see the Athletics page of this blog.

Have a joyous weekend.

Ms. Michele

September 7, 2012

Dear Parents,

We would like to thank the middle school student activity club members and Ms. Jaya and Ms. Victoria for organizing the pool party last Friday for our students. Thank you to the following teachers for volunteering their time to supervise the event: Mr. Ryan, Ms. Trish, Ms. Kanthi, Ms. Surekha, and Ms. Diane. Thank you to Mr. Scott for taking some great underwater photos!

Stay tuned for the student activity club’s next event: the Halloween Party on October 25 from 6:00-8:00 pm; it is sure to be a spooky night! 

As part of our health education program and ongoing commitment to prevention and wellness, we have invited prevention specialists from FCD Educational Services to join our community from September 18-21. FCD is a non-profit organization that provides substance abuse prevention education for schools. Since 1976, they have taught over a million students of all ages. 

The FCD prevention specialist will present a parent workshop on September 19th from 8:45-10:00 am to offer support and guidance in helping your children enjoy a drug-free adolescence. For our students, the focus for FCD will be mainly with our grade 7 and 8 students. For more FCD information see the middle school counselor's blog found through the tab at the top of this page. 

The FCD initiative presents a perfect opportunity for discussing alcohol and other drug-related issues with your children. Parental involvement is crucial to our efforts to reduce the risks adolescents face. We want our students to hear from both school and home that we are concerned about alcohol, tobacco and other drugs.

Grade 8 science students and Ms. Ashley, Mr. Ryan, and Ms. Sue made great use of our PAC atrium space for a hands-on activity which had students exploring the relationship between distance and time using toy cars. Students were introduced to filming the motion of the cars using the Video Physics application on iPads.  This iPad application allows students to make graphs of distance vs time and speed vs time from their video. The 8th grade science program is conducting a one-semester iPad pilot to assess the integration of iPads and the affect on enhancing teaching and learning. 

American Education Reaches Out (AERO) Math Consultant, Erma Anderson, has been meeting with our math teachers this week focusing on a more conceptual model of teaching math and reviewing the depth of knowledge and rigor in our program. Below is some more information from Ms. Anderson’s parent presentation last year:

Ways that you can support your child through homework challenges:

* by listening and asking questions

* by allowing your child to struggle through the process of problem solving

* by discussing mistakes as learning opportunities

Questions to ask to help your child through homework challenges: 

- What do you need to find out?

- Tell me what you know?

- Show me what you started

- What can you try first?

- Can you make a drawing or picture?

- Will a list or table help?

Some recommended Internet sites www.nctm.org/families, www.amathdictionaryforkids.com, and PTA.org/parentsguides

Our grade 7 students will have the pleasure of a presentation and discussion with Dr. Chithra Madovan, Doctor of Anthropology on September 21^st. This guest speaker brings into our community a local expert and ties in nicely with the humanities topic of anthropology and relevant and current information on Indian temples.

We have our first Middle School Parent Coffee on September 12th from 8:45-9:45 am in the Hall of Light (room 3211). This will be a planning meeting to set up the topics for the MS coffees throughout the year. We will be working in groups to generate a list of possible topic ideas. For example, in the past we have had sessions on study skills, anger management, MAP assessments, etc. We will take the ideas we generate and prioritize them and decide which topics will be developed into subsequent discussions for future coffees. Please come with some topics ideas that are of importance to you. I look forward to spending this time with you.

Our Big Bad Blue swim meet is happening on September 7^th and 8^th. We wish our Raptors a great swim tournament. Go Raptors! For more information see the Athletics page of this blog.

Have a joyous weekend.

Ms. Michele