From the Principal

Grade 4

December—January 2014

ISB Lower School Specialists’ Newsletter

Inside this issue:

French/EAL 2

Art 3

Spanish/ EAL 4

Serbian MT/EAL 5

SMT/Music 6

PE 7

The content of these subjects is transdisciplinary in nature, meaning that the skills and concepts developed by specialist teachers have relevance throughout the Lower School curriculum and our students’ lives beyond school. A great ex-ample of this is through the multiple field trips our students enjoy throughout the school year. This year we have seen all our classes on field trips inquiring in-to the Units of Inquiry throughout the city of Belgrade. Our specialists teachers do work alongside our classroom teachers to develop lessons and learning op-portunities that are both interesting and connected to the classroom Units of Inquiry. For this reason, we think it is important that we keep our parents informed about the teaching and learning taking place in our specialists’ classrooms. You will receive the specialist newsletter six times during the school year. As always, if you have any questions about your child’s education, feel free to contact us. Enjoy the February Holiday and travel safely. School resumes for all ISB students on Monday, February 24. Hope to see you all around campus soon, Mr. Lettinga Lower School Principal

Welcome to our fourth edition of our Specialist Newsletters! Our specialist teachers (also referred as single-subject teachers) play an integral and important role in the Primary Years Program. The arts, phys-ical education, and language study are essential elements to a comprehensive and holis-tic primary school education.

French

Page 2

Newsletter Title

Dubravka Kostanjsek

French Teacher

Dear fourth grade parents,

Here is the fourth newsletter for the French class in order to keep you informed

about the things we have been learning during the last period.

Since you have last heard from us, we have been working on our “Inventions” Unit,

and now, we are about to finish it. After this Unit, we will connect to the homeroom

Unit “How We Organize Ourselves - Response to Natural Disasters.” At the beginning,

we will focus on the vocabulary linked to this topic, as well as some of the structures

useful when giving general advice. We will practice listening and reading comprehen-

sion through various audio and visual documents and will learn how to give advice,

both written and spoken, in different types of situations. We will make posters with

safety advice in case of different natural disasters, as well as survival kits one should

have.

Thank you for your time and please feel free to contact me if you have any ques-

tions.

The New Year has started out well! Our class has been a mixture of vocabulary devel-

opment and developing literacy skills. We have read several books already since re-

turning and are focusing on figuring out new vocabulary in a text as well as paying

attention to smaller details of the text. We will continue to read and work on fluency

and understanding as the year progresses. Another focus has been on process writing

using simple present tense. We have found some great computer games that we use at

the end of class if time remains that practices grammar topics.

EAL

Kelly Campbel

EAL Teacher

Page 3

Art

Svetlana Spasic-

Glid

Art

In the previous weeks, students started working on a single subject Unit of Inquiry How the World Works, as a connection to their learning in the homeroom. Although they will finish with their unit in the homeroom earlier, we will continue to explore and learn about the function of line, color, form, and texture in art for creating art pieces. Students were shown a variety of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists’ works. The goal of this unit is to introduce children to the changes of concepts in the beginning of the 19th centu-ry such as creating strong contrast with complementary pairs (yellow and purple; orange and blue; red and green) and the exploration of presenting everyday themes that those artists brought to the Art world as a novelty at that time. Therefore, we are focusing on presenting everyday life themes through different media. Students worked on experi-menting with creating their collage projects while using complementary pairs and contin-ued deepening their knowledge about different forms; sculptures and reliefs. We started from the simplest forms and moved towards more complicated ones. The children were always given different options regarding forms, from the simple ones to the more difficult ones depending on the level of their skills and interests. After a couple of weeks of inquiry into form, students were given an opportunity to continue to inquire into form of the fa-mous artists’ works through drawing or painting. Grade 4A students have classes on Wednesdays. Grade 4B students have classes on Fridays.

Page 4

Newsletter Title

Sonja Jecmenica Spanish Language Teacher

Spanish

Dear fourth grade parents,

Welcome to our fourth Spanish newsletter! In this letter you will find out all the exciting

learning activities taking place in the Lower School Spanish class.

Among many things we learned in the Dance unit, the grade four students also learned

names of the body parts, so in the new unit we used that previous knowledge and mas-

tered vocabulary to continue to talk about the human body. We worked on the vocabulary

and expressions that can typically be heard at the doctor’s office. While we were writing a

dialogue at the clinic, we were talking about different illness´ symptoms and how we can be

cured. Students learned how to say in Spanish doctor/patient´s lines in one typical conver-

sation. They enjoyed this unit, especially in writing a dialogue in groups where they needed

to pretend that they are sick and that they need doctor´s help.

Currently, we are working on the connected unit of inquiry explored in their grade level

classrooms - “How We Organize Ourselves” – Natural Disasters. First, we reviewed calendar

and weather vocabulary, and then we started to talk about how to prevent some danger-

ous situations caused by nature. By the end of February, grade four students will finish

work on this unit.

EAL

We supported the PYP trans-disciplinary theme How the World Works – Innovations, with its central idea: Innovation and invention are changing our world. We continued our focus on further developing reading fluency, vocabulary and compre-hension, as we read different articles about Nikola Tesla. We practiced finding the main idea in a paragraph, and paraphrasing it orally and in writing. EAL students also watched various programs about Tesla, and practiced listening comprehension, and note-taking skills. They used their notes and drawings as they wrote articles about Nikola Tesla, and presented their posters in our class.

Divna Stakic

EAL Teacher

Serbian as a Foreign Language

Page 5

Newsletter Title

Ivana Jovanovic

Serbian language Teacher

During our previous unit about the city, we learned new words and phrases to use

when constructing instructional speech. There is a number of various uses of these

phrases, and we focused on recipes. The students learned how to prepare proja

(corn bread) and palačinke (crepes). Then they had an opportunity to share one sim-

ple recipe, and now we have a collection of step-by-step guides for preparing vari-

ous drinks and sandwiches. Then, we started learning about natural disasters. This

unit is an opportunity for students to learn to what extent Serbian non-fiction

writing is different from common, every-day language. So far we learned about

zemljotres (an earthquake) and cunami (tsunami). Students practiced understanding

through answering text-related questions and true/false exercises.

EAL

In this period students engaged in a number of writing activities. After reading The

Bremen Town musicians the students identified the theme of the story and we

talked about how the elderly are treated in society. Note-taking skills were rein-

forced as they identified the most important characters, the setting and plot devel-

opments of the story. The children worked on developing reading skills such as

skimming and scanning as they looked for relevant information in their books. Par-

ticular attention was paid to vocabulary development. The students then wrote a

recount of the story based on their notes. We are currently working on editing their

stories. In addition, we made connections to their current Unit of Inquiry through

focused discussions, reading short texts about natural disasters and identifying new

vocabulary.

Visnja Plecas

EAL Teacher

Page 6

Serbian Mother Tongue

Milena Jovanovic

Serbian Language

Teacher

Budući da se 28. januara u našoj školi obeležavao dan Svetog Save nakon povratka sa

zimskog raspusta na časovima Srpskog jezika smo se posvetili liku Rastka Nemanjića i

običajima proslavljanja slave. Da bismo se pripremili za obeležavanje ovog dana u

nedeljama koje su prethodile proslavi čitali smo priče o svetom Savi i učili o običaji-

ma i tradiciji proslave slave. Naučili smo da slavu slavimo kako bismo se zahvalili

svecu koji je naš zaštitnik, kao i da na taj dan zovemo goste da nam se pridruže u pro-

slavi. Na trpezi treba servirati slavski kolač, slavsko žito i vino. Razgovarali smo i o

životu Rastka Nemanjića i o tome da se on kao osnivač prvih škola i kao jedan od

prvih učitelja, smatra zaštitnikom svih škola u Srbiji, te se tako proslavlja kao školska

slava. Na dan proslave učenici četvrtog razreda su održali prezentaciju svojim

vršnjacima o liku i delu Rastka Nemanjića. Prezentacija se sastojala od pevanja

Svetosavske himne i prikazivanja prethodno snimljene predstave o Rastkovom životu

na kojoj smo vredno radili u nedeljama nakon zimskog raspusta. Dobili smo mnoge

pohvale na račun predstave, a ukoliko ste propustili da je pogleate to možete učiniti

na sledećoj adresi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOVzTnQXKPE

January was an action-packed month in Music class. Students returned from the win-ter break recharged and ready to learn. During this month we recognized Mozart’s birthday. We watched a new documentary that revealed many new interesting things about this master composer. Students were especially interested in BBC’s ani-mated version of the Magic Flute, which also led us to discussion and learning about opera. Students showed keen interest and appreciation for Mozart’s work. Taking a closer look at Mozart’s last work, Requiem, we analyzed different elements of music as well as the roles of choir and orchestra. We also used the opportunity to read music scores and review symbols for dynamics, tempo, length, and rests. Grade 4 students analyzed portrayal of weather and seasons in music. We analyzed a number of “weather inspired” fairy tales such as Nutcracker and Frozen as well as musicians such as Tchaikovsky and Vivaldi. Our songs of the month came from Disney’s movie “Frozen.” Songs were inspired by the Scandinavian folk tradition and they were “Do you want to build a Snowman”, “Let it Go” in 30 different languages, and “Frozen Heart.”

Music

Ljudmila Janicijevic

Music Teacher

Page 7

Physical Education

Dear Parents,

Fourth and fifth graders started their Gymnastics unit by watching videos of gymnas-

tics routines to familiarize them with the particular features of sports gymnastics.

Students were introduced to the disciplines (events) in men’s and women’s gymnas-

tics, as well as to the basic scoring system; part A and B. The A score covers the ele-

ments (difficulty and connection value) while the B score covers aesthetic part of the

sequence (execution, composition and artistry). With this in mind, students were

encouraged during our classes not only to perform the elements, but to work on fi-

nesse through increased control of the body and its movements.

We began by reviewing basic skills and elements we learned in previous years in

gymnastics, such as simple rolls, balances and stances. Then, according to individual

abilities, we continued with more advanced elements such as; handstand, cartwheel,

round-off, front scale, straddle and dive rolls.

In addition to that, fifth grade students began to explore possibilities for combining

the elements and linking them with different steps, jumps and turns in order to

make their own gymnastics floor-sequence.

I was very glad to see students practicing with great effort and enthusiasm through-

out the unit, showing very good skills and body control. Although a few students dis-

played a little anxiety in trying some of the elements, they overcame it and became

more confident with each attempt.

Gymnastics is a great unit for students to challenge themselves and be risk-takers in

practicing new elements. Additionally, gymnastics teaches students about commit-

ment to serious and sustained effort as the only way to learn the movement and im-

prove performance.

Marija Dimitrov

PE Teacher