From the Principal

Grade 3

September 2013

ISB Lower School Specialists’ Newsletter

Inside this issue:

French/EAL 2

Art 3

PE 4

Music

5

SFL/EAL 6

Spanish 7

SMT 8

cation, and language study are essential elements to a comprehensive and holis-tic primary school education. 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, providing balance for all our learners. For this reason, we believe it is important that we keep our parents informed about the teaching and learning taking place in our specialists’ classrooms. You will receive our specialist newsletters seven times during the school year. As al-ways, if you have any questions about your child’s education, feel free to contact us directly with your concerns or questions. Teachers and administrators are available each and every school day before and after school to address any ques-tions or concerns you may have regarding any of our programs. Looking forward to another exciting school year filled with learning and fun, Mr. Lettinga Lower School Principal

Dear Lower School Families, Welcome to the first Specialist Newsletter of the 2013-14 School Year! Our specialists teachers, also referred as single-subject teach-ers, play an integral and im-portant role in the Primary Years Program. The arts, physical edu-

French

Page 2

Newsletter Title

Dubravka Kostanjsek

French Teacher

Kelly Campbel

EAL Teacher

EAL

Dear third grade parents,

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

the things we have been learning since the beginning of this school year.

After revisiting some of the vocabulary and structures covered in grades 1 and 2

(introductions, greetings, colors, numbers, body parts, singular/ plural, genders, al-

phabet), we started working on family members vocabulary, while learning to de-

scribe others, express their preferences and mark different family relationships

(family tree). We will also work on some usual family activities and will be getting

into our school community, the existing relationships and interactions typical for that

environment. Throughout all of these activities, the children are practicing under-

standing instructions given in French and are permanently encouraged to use that

language themselves and practice the structures we have been learning.

We are learning through illustrations, drawings, colorings, listening, reading and

writing activities, in order to develop all the competences necessary to quality com-

munication (reading and listening comprehension, speaking and writing). I would also

like to remind you that none of the activities include explicit grammar at this point,

but only sensitization in order to enable the students to use correctly some of the

basic structures.

Thank you for your time and please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Beginners Group

I would like to extend a warm welcome to new students to ISB who are also new to

English. We began the school year learning some basic school vocabulary and

setting up class routines. The first few weeks were also spent getting to know each

other and assessing their basic knowledge of the language. We have been working

on the present continuous tense through working with pictures, playing games and

developing sentences. We have also spent some time doing basic reading and

writing but most of the instruction has focused on oral language development. Keep

up the hard work!

Page 3

Art

Svetlana Spasic-

Glid

Art

In the previous weeks, students made drawings using a variety of drawing materials and

painted with paint. Students explored the art concepts of line, shape, color, pattern, and

have started learning about mixing colors intentionally in order to make monochromatic col-

ors.

Students were working on the single subject unit of inquiry How We Express Ourselves –

Symbols, while continuing to learn about the difference between representational and ab-

stract art. We started the school year with a pre-assessment for the use of line, shape,

space, warm and cool colors, and a pre-assessment for work in groups.

My aim for this unit is to create various opportunities for children to start gaining under-

standing that they can create abstract art while experimenting with making combinations of

elements of art such as line, shape, and color. I hope to help children grow into open-

minded adults who do not fear thinking about the art forms that they do not understand

immediately.

Students were learning about the art styles of Hunderwasser and Robert Motherwell.

Grade 3A students have classes on Tuesdays.

Grade 3B students have classes on Fridays.

Page 4

Newsletter Title

This school year P.E. will bring many new activities to third grade students. They

will be introduced to different individual and team sports such as Basketball, Soc-

cer, Volleyball, Gymnastics, Track and Field, and Aerobics.

During the first week of the introductory and team building activities, we moved

onto the Physical Fitness Test. This test evaluates the physical condition of our

body. We checked our muscular strength (arms and abdominal muscles), our flexi-

bility, speed and agility. Probably the hardest part of this test for the majority of

students was a half mile run, (indicating cardio-respiratory endurance), but all of

them completed it successfully.

Basketball is the first team sport introduced. We started practicing basic skills such

as dribbling with our dominant and non-dominant hand, changing the level of drib-

bling, as well as direction and speed of motion. The activities we will work on dur-

ing this unit are: passing from different positions and distances, stationary or in-

motion, as well as shooting into a basketball hoop. Practicing these basic elements

will help us to play a game 3 vs. 3 players. Our main focus is not the final score, but

playing fairly and finding a place for everyone on the team.

All third graders are on the right track for doing so!

Marija Dimitrov

PE Teacher

Physical Education

Page 5

Music

Ljudmila Janicijevic

Music Teacher

Third graders are already versed in many areas of music. Their knowledge allows them to explore a variety of musical styles and analyze various musical elements. With that said, it was easy to begin the year by integrating music into third grade’s homeroom PYP unit which explores relationships. Using this theme, students looked at interactions in music, practiced how to dance with a partner, take turns, sing call and respond and in two parts(second voice). In terms of instruments our main focus was on xylophones. Staying with the theme of the unit theme our songs of the month were Stevie Wonder’s "Free", "I can live with that'', "Get Up'', and "'Shortening Bread''. This year we are working in a newly renovated and expanded classroom. Our doors are always open and we love visitors.

Serbian as a Foreign Language

Page 6

Newsletter Title

Ivana Jovanovic

Serbian language Teacher

During September, returning students worked on texts that describe journeys. They

learned and practiced past tense and phrases I was/went to/travelled to. They

practiced reading and understanding through answering questions about the text

and true/false sentences. Students developed a set of true/false sentences for their

peers. Currently, we are designing a booklet about unusual journeys of a character

from our imagination. The goal of this project is to practice writing and apply new

words and phrases we have learned during this unit.

New students learned basic colors and numbers up to 20. They created booklets

about each color we have learned. The booklets contain repetitive simple sentenc-

es, such as Ovo je plava lopta (this is a blue ball). Then, we wrote all letters of Serbi-

an Latin alphabet – Abeceda. We learned that each letter represents one sound. It

was a nice surprise to learn that there are some words in Serbian that are very sim-

ilar to English, such as zebra, banana, panda, žirafa. Currently, we are practicing

introductions and writing.

For additional information, a copy of this newsletter and photos of our class pro-

jects please refer to Serbian as a Foreign Language (SEFL) Moodle page.

EAL

Low Intermediate Group In September we supported the PYP trans-disciplinary theme Who We Are - “Relations in Our Communities”, as we inquired into how “interactions in our communities shape and reshape our identity”. We enforced vocabulary and con-cepts covered in 3A and 3B class. We defined the word “community”, talked about different communities we belong to, and inquired into how different com-munities and events in life shape our identities. All EAL students were engaged in selecting questions and preparing our EAL Essential Agreements. The students used modal verbs and imperative as they wrote the agreements for the class. We also talked about the meaning of “agreement” vs. “rule”. We read a number of leveled EAL texts, focusing on new vocabulary, synonyms/antonyms, and basic homophones. Students lead discussions about friendship, and conflict res-olution. Fantastic work, Grade 3!

Divna Stakic

EAL Teacher

Page 7

Spanish

Sonja Spasojevic Spanish Language Teacher

Dear third grade parents,

Welcome to our first Spanish newsletter! In this letter you will found out all the ex-citing learning activities taking place in Lower School Spanish class.

Grade three Spanish students started this school year off by reviewing greetings (los

saludos: ¡Hola/Buenos días/Adiós/Hasta mañana, etc.), introductions, numbers, per-

sonal information and vocabulary which was covered in grade two through various in-

teractive activities. Then we focused on being able to express feelings and sensations.

We learned how to ask someone how he/she feels today (¿Cómo te sientes hoy?) and

how on different ways we can describe our current sensations (Hoy me siento/Hoy yo

estoy feliz/triste/deprimido/emocionado/sorprendido/celoso…). Then we moved to

reviewing the names of family members. We were observing people in the family pho-

tos, and we discussed what they looked like in the photo (if they were happy/sad in the

moment when the photo was taken). All this was an introduction for the students´ pro-

ject named “Te presento a mi familia”, where they were asked to present the family

tree of their real family or invented family, as well as to describe in detail their family

members. Through this Unit we worked on family members vocabulary, different fami-

ly relationships, physical description vocabulary and on some grammatical items that

are related to this topic. For example: masculine/feminine and singular/plural forms of

nouns – el hijo, la hija / el tío, la tía). However, I need to clarify that none of the activi-

ties done in class, include explicit grammar at this point, but only sensitization in order

to enable the students to correctly use some of the basic structures.

All grade three students have demonstrated a great enthusiasm for Spanish language

learning and acquisition.

Thank you for your time and please, feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Page 8

Newsletter Title

Treći razred je školsku godinu započeo upoznavajući se sa basnama. Nakon čitanja

prve basne „Lav i miš“ učenici su naučili osnovne karakteristike ove vrste, tj. da su to

kratke priče u kojima su glavni likovi životinje koje imaju osobine ljudi kao i da svaka

basna ima svoju pouku. Pouka ove basne je, kako su učenici zaključili, da treba pom-

agati drugima i da ih ne treba potcenjivati. Pored ove, čitali smo i basne Pas i nje-

gova senka, Gradski i poljski miš, Zvali magarca na svadbu, Bik i zec, Gavran i lisica,

kao i Lisica i gavran (varijantu prethodne basne sa izmenjenim krajem). Svaku priču

analiziramo tako što razgovaramo o osobinama likova i njenoj pouci, kao i na koji

način nju možemo primeniti na neke situacije s kojima se srećemo. Iz gramatike i

pravopisa smo naučili da veliko slovo pišemo na početku rečenice, kada pišemo ime-

na i prezimena, imena naselja, reka i planina.

Serbian Mother Tongue

Milena Jovanovic

Serbian Language

Teacher