Friday the 4th of March Lunch Arrangements - Change

Dear colleagues,

On Friday, Canadian Academy is hosting IB DP workshop. The Elementary School is asked to help the workshop organizers by slightly altering our lunch schedule. The lunch room should be empty by 12:30. Hence, we will be following the schedule below on Friday:
Grade 1: 12:00 start
Grades 2-5 12:05 start

Playtime supervision will start at 12:15.
Students are allowed to the playground at 12:15.
Playtime will end at 12:55 as usual.
This will provide the students a slightly longer break of 40 minutes.

Thank you for your collaboration and support!

Weekly Update, Monday 29 February 2016

Dear colleagues,

Happy Leap Day and welcome to March this week! So, we have tackled the coldest month of the year and heading towards warmer weather. Unfortunately, the warmer weather this weekend seemed to have had a negative impact on the air quality. Please, keep an eye on the air quality on the island as you plan your week and playtime outside. Today the level was pretty bad: 155 - unhealthy. Otherwise, we wish everyone a productive and enjoyable week.

Supervision:                                                                                           Link to Master schedule

Time	12:15-12:40	12:25-12:55	12:25-12:55	12:15-12:40
Week	Cafeteria Tables	Playground	Playground	Healthy lunch guide in the cafeteria line
	Jeff	Peta	Satsuki	Not applicable at the moment

Building Professional Capital:

New York Summer Reading and Writing Institutes (NOW open for registration)

https://drive.google.com/a/canacad.ac.jp/file/d/0B404rJALRaGwSVY3U0dsWUR1MUk/view

Articles, Chapters, Videos

This is the video of Tania Lattanzio presenting at the Inquiry Coffee Morning. It is password protected and please refrain from sharing it outside CA. Password: CAelementary
Link:           https://vimeo.com/156351122

Coordinator's Meetings

Link to ES Team Planning Meeting Schedule

• Literacy Meetings as scheduled
• UOI meetings as per the schedule - Focus on planning UOI#5 - Rubric of Understanding

Wednesday Professional Learning and Faculty meeting time 14:35-16:30       

Part 1: Teachers-teaching-teachers (select into short demo/ discussion groups)

Part 2: 探究 (Tankyuu)  Self-Directed Professional Learning Projects including 探究 (Tankyuu)

Link to Wednesday Professional Learning Schedule

This Week 29 February - 4 March 2016

Monday, Tech Talk, After school Club begins, Running Records Due in system

Tuesday,  Weekly Student Services Meeting

Wednesday, Professional Learning time

Thursday, Principal Parent Coffee - Exhibition

Friday, Weekly ES Leadership Team Meeting

Future Dates:

March 5th - CA Fund Raising Gala

March 7-11 Fielding Nair Visit - Master Facility Plan

March 8, MYP Personal Project Presentation Evening

Exhibition and Mentor Overview

Dear Colleagues,

Thank you your interest at yesterday's meeting about the Exhibition. Here is the Exhibition and Mentor Overview presentation. There is an Exhibition energy that is engaging the students, which is evident in their discussions about key issues and parts of the themes. We hope they will be able to choose their key issues in time for the Exhibition Parent Coffee next Thursday. The Exhibition will follow the same basic structure as last year both in terms of the process and the presentation on Exhibition Day, April 28. 

This year we have 44 students that will need a mentor. We will be drawing on a pool of volunteers from both ES and the Middle School. Here are some documents that will support the mentoring:

The Mentor Packet

The Mentor packet explains the roles and responsibilities of both students and mentors. It has a copy of the Student Timeline following the phases of the Exhibition. Here is a sample of their guidance from week two of the Research Phase. Mentors should view these points to see where they are at in the process and to guide discussion.

Student Key Issues and Mentor Sign-up Form

This document will be updated as students decide on their key issues.

CA and Local Key Issues list
If you have any ideas of key issues at CA or on Rokko Island, please add them to this doc.

Exhibition Update and Request

Good Morning Everyone,

The grade five students will be going on a walk-about around CA this afternoon from 13:00-14:15. They are looking for key issues around the school connected to theme 'Sharing the planet'. The four main concepts are sustainability, community relations, equal opportunities, and peace and conflict. The students will be split in four groups for the tour and there is a possibility that some of our students may drop into a class to ask some questions related to key issues. We hope you can accommodate this request should the need arise.

In thinking about key issues/problems in both CA and the local community, we were wondering if you had any ideas. Here are some examples from what our students brainstormed this year and teachers brainstormed last year. If you are aware of any other issues in the CA or local community, please add them to this doc.

See you this afternoon in the MPR at 14:35 for the Exhibition and Mentoring Explanation.

Thanks,
The Grade Five Team

STP: Concepts Key issues	Sustainability An inquiry into rights and responsibilities in the struggle to share finite resources with other people and with other living things;	Community relations An inquiry into communities and the relationships within and between them	Equal opportunities An inquiry into access to equal opportunities;	Peace & Conflict An inquiry into peace and conflict resolution.
CA / Home	food waste in the cafeteria litter on Rokko Island - waste: materials - growing vegetables/ vertical farming (farming in small spaces)	Disrespect for cleaners CA's poor reputation in the Rokko Island community The transition process for new students to CA Disaster preparedness: students could look at our plan in place and create something “kid-friendly” or something that they could do at home as well. Parents and teachers using the school website	Sharing the playground Mixed age groups at  recess as we segregate students by age	Bullying on the playground Bullying by exclusion Cyber bullying Recess conflicts resolutions Playing for the joy vs winning The role of preparatory schools (juku) and stress students have of studying hard outside of school
Local	- waste: polluted rivers and beaches - endangered butterflies and creating an environment for them (Butterfly farm - Minoh Park; connection) -a struggle for space; feral cats on Rokko Island: how to live in harmony w/ humans and cats - disappearance of bees	Being a bilingual/returnee child in a closed society. Wild bores entering residential areas - people are feeding them	Women in the workforce Government funded daycare Physically challenged people’s participation and workplace in Japan	Bullying-cyber bullying Overworking in Japan and the effects on family.

Assembly Program, Tuesday 23

Assembly Program

Start at 11:00
1. Welcome from MCs, 5 mins
2. Dance, Gr 4, 5 mins mins
3. Art video, Gr 3, 5 mins
4. Principal's Message, 5 mins
5. Middle School SBC - Pink t-shirt, 5 mins
6. Leadership Club and Pink t-shirt, 5 mins
7. Birthday video, Ms Brown, 8 mins

MC: Yuchon & Hakim, Gr 5

Final practice: Tue 23 Feb, at 10:00

Weekly Update, Monday 22 February

Dear colleagues,

The last week of February is here. This week brings us the first assembly of the year including few performances and the Pink T-Shirt Day launch focusing on raising awareness against bullying. The Core Planning Team had the opportunity to hear about the IB PYP evaluation visit and the rest of the faculty will hear about it on Wednesday. Additionally, the CA Leadership Team will meet to discuss the status of CA content standards to ensure that we can effectively design teaching and learning from the standards as well as  communicate the standards to parents. Enjoy the week!

Supervision:                                                                                           Link to Master schedule

Time	12:15-12:40	12:25-12:55	12:25-12:55	12:15-12:40
Week	Cafeteria Tables	Playground	Playground	Healthy lunch guide in the cafeteria line
	Shunsuke	Kaho	Emi	Not applicable at the moment

Gearing up for Exhibition

Grade five students have been tuning-in for the Exhibition since the beginning of January. They have been developing an understanding of the theme - Sharing the Planet, and investigating key issues that connect with it. This Wednesday we will review the purpose and process of the Exhibition, as well as outline how mentoring students will work this year. In brief, teachers who wish to mentor will be able to visit a Google Doc with the student's name and their key issues. Mentors will be paired with students based on their specific knowledge or expertise of the topic, or based on mentor's ability to meet the learning needs of particular students.

In addition to mentors, we will continue to build on our Staff Inventory of experiences, expertise and talents. To this end, please update the Staff Inventory document. During the Exhibition, students might call upon you to share your knowledge. This is separate from the mentoring process and is meant to be more on a one-off basis.

Building Professional Capital:

25th and 26th -Aimee and Rose attending and presenting at SENIA conference in KL

26th- Teacher visiting CA from NIST to see our reading and writing workshops in action

Articles, Chapters, Videos

Morning Math Fun, try this:


Watch this 5:47

- Number Talks and Jo Boaler

Coordinator's Meetings

Link to ES Team Planning Meeting Schedule

• Literacy Meetings as scheduled (Kim not attending Thurs meetings)
• UOI meetings as per the schedule

Wednesday Professional Learning and Faculty meeting time 14:35-16:30                 

14:35-15:10 Exhibition Presentation and call for mentors in the MPR

Please be prompt as meeting will begin on schedule

15:15-15:40 Feedback from the Evaluation in the BBT - all staff

15:40-16:30 Collaborative Planning

Link to Wednesday Professional Learning Schedule

This Week 15 - 19 February, 2016

Monday, Tech Talk

Tuesday,  Assembly at 11:00

Grade 5 parent workshop (languages in secondary)

Wednesday, Exhibition presentation, IB evaluation visit results

Thursday, Leadership Team meets to discuss the status of CA Content Standards

Friday, Weekly ES Leadership Team Meeting

Future Dates:

Feb 29th- Running Records due in system, After school Club begins

March 3rd- Exhibition Parent Coffee Morning

March 5th - CA Fund Raising Gala

Weekly Update, Monday, 15 February 2016

Dear colleagues,

I hope you all had the opportunity to take a break during the long weekend. As we learned in the past week, inquiry is an effective, rewarding and sometimes challenging approach to teaching and learning. In order to facilitate inquiry like a pro, we need to consider so many complex aspects and the ongoing evolvement of this important PYP pedagogy. Once again, thank you all for the inspiring and hard work on keeping us all on top of our game. Wishing you all an enjoyable and productive week!

Supervision:                                                                                           Link to Master schedule

Time	12:15-12:40	12:25-12:55	12:25-12:55	12:15-12:40
Week	Cafeteria Tables	Playground	Playground	Healthy lunch guide in the cafeteria line
2/8/2016	Kasumi	Karen	Aimee	Not applicable at the moment

Inquiry Workshop & PD Day Follow-up
We would like to thank everyone for a great Thursday PD session of sharing and follow-up on the Inquiry workshop with Tania. Here is the link to all your: unit planners, rubrics, and pictures of posters from the whole school brainstorm. This session was particularly valuable on a number of levels. ie. In looking across grades at what other units, seeing other sample 'rubrics of understanding', and brainstorming age appropriate connections to the related concept as provocations to help learners grasp those concepts fundamental to understanding the inquiry. 

Working with Tania's process, has changed the way we/I view provocations. First, creating age appropriate connections to the related concepts first, is a new key step in the process. Second, provocations should activate students' schema, provoke student thinking, and invite them to learn about the new inquiry. As part of this step, we should also be pre-assessing their interests and prior-knowledge of the inquiry to meet their needs. Here are two interesting blog posts by WhatEdSaid (provocation similar to G3) and one from the PYP blog (unpacking related concepts). Thanks Kim for sharing these posts. If you have more thoughts on provocations, let's discuss them in collab planning.



Assembly

The next assembly will be on February 23 at 11:00.

This assembly is connected to the Pink Shirt Day originated in the Secondary School and coordinated between the counselors in both sections. ES Leadership Club will join their forces with the Middle School SBC to visit classrooms before the assembly. Check the assembly blog post here.

Building Professional Capital:

PD in your Pajamas!

Webinar  on conferring with student readers and writers  (Dan Feigelson and Carl Anderson)!

Articles, Chapters, Videos
Here are two interesting blog posts about provocations by WhatEdSaid (provocation similar to G3) and one from the PYP blog (unpacking related concepts).

Coordinator's Meetings

Link to ES Team Planning Meeting Schedule

• Literacy Meetings as scheduled
• UOI meetings as per the schedule

Wednesday Professional Learning and Faculty Meeting Time: 14:35-16:30       

G5 Teachers' Exhibition Meeting

Collaborative Planning

Link to Wednesday Professional Learning Schedule

This Week 15 - 19 February, 2016

Monday, Tech Talk

Tuesday, ES Student Services Meeting

Wednesday, Exhibition Meeting, Collaborative Planning

Thursday, Community Book Club Launch 18:30 - Re-designed model.

Friday, ES Leadership Team Meeting, CA Core Planning Team Meeting, Junior Talent Show

Future Dates:

Feb 23 ES Assembly

Feb 29th- Running Records due in system