Newsletter no. 5 Wed. 12 Sept. 2018

NEWSLETTER NO. 5

WED. 12 SEPT. 2018

REMINDERS FOR THIS WEEK & EARLY NEXT WEEK:

Wed. 12 Sept. - day 3:

Thurs. 13 Sept. - day 4:

Fri. 14 Sept. - day 5: Hari Raya Cultural Day & Merdeka Celebration. Students are encouraged to dress in traditional Malay dress. Look for reused outfits on Want Ads and clothing for sale locally.

Mon. 17 Sept: Malaysia Day holiday - no school

HARI RAYA CULTURAL DAY THIS FRIDAY

One of our art teachers - Nalini Krishnan and her team - have organized this year’s Hari Raya Cultural Day, which is this Fri. 14 Sept. Typically, it’s a day of activities focusing on the Malay cultural theme of Hari Raya. During the day, G5 students will be involved in various Malay cultural experiences when they attend their specialist lessons. There will be an ES-wide Hari Raya Assembly held in the ES Theater from 11:00 – 11:40 am, featuring a dance troupe performing various Malay dances. Students will also experience various cultural demonstrations and traditional food samples - venues TBA - to be announced.                                                 

5DH HOME LEARNING EXPECTATIONS                                                                                        Since this school year started, G5 students have been expected to read each day for at least 30 min, including weekends and holidays, and also record their reading on a hard copy reading log, which should always be located in the student’s home learning zippered pocket. Since last week, students have also been expected to practice their typing skills at home on typing.com and practice their math facts and multiplication and division concepts on studyladder.com or hoodamath.com. Remember, students and parents can access current Home Learning instructions by clicking on the ‘Home Learning’ tab on the 5DH Class Blog. 

BIRTHDAY PARTY INVITATIONS

When you and your child are discussing their birthday party invitations, please be aware of our school policy on handing out party invitations at school. Your child can only hand out party invitations in class if all students in the class are invited to the party. It’s ok for you to decide who comes to the party. However, if you and your child are not planning to invite all students in the class, then invitations need to be sent out privately. This policy ensures that students who are not invited to a party do not have their feelings hurt unnecessarily.

COMMUNICATING WITH ME OR YOUR CHILD DURING THE SCHOOL DAY

As a reminder, students are not permitted to use their cell phones at school. If a student brings a cell phone to school, it must remain in his/her backpack all day. If you need to contact your child during the school day, please call the ES Office and they will take a message or put you through to our G5 Team Assistant - Shima - and she will relay your message to me and I will pass it on to your child. Equally, students are not permitted to use the school phone to call parents. If I think it’s necessary, Shima may call you on your child’s behalf if it’s an urgent matter. Otherwise, all play dates, sleepovers and pick up/drop off arrangement changes should be organized in advance.

STUDENT PREPARATION FOR THE OVERNIGHT MELAKA TRIP

Speaking of playdates and sleepovers in the previous item, please think about arranging an overnight playdate for your child before our overnight Melaka field trip in late Oct, especially if your child has not spent a night away from home before. Experience tells us that students will handle the overnight experience much better if they have had at least one previous sleepover.

SKYTREX MELAKA

One of our new student experiences on the Melaka overnight trip this year will be the elevated ropes course at Skytrex Melaka - https://www.skytrex-adventure.org/melaka

Students and adults will move through a number of stations comprising various rope challenges for approx. 2 hours. Our G5 students will participate in the ‘Pahlawan Thrill’ course, which is an intermediate course. While the students will be 5-10 meters off the ground, depending on the station, they will be securely harnessed to a safety cable at all times, so even if your child slips, there is zero chance of them falling to the ground. Given the height off the ground, some students may feel uncomfortable, so please let me know if your child experiences anxiety about heights. There is also a beginner’s course - ‘Little Dino’, so that could be an option for some students. Also, there is another Skytrex complex in Shah Alam on the other side of KL so it would be a good idea if you gave your child a prior experience there before we go to Melaka in late Oct. 

CLASS WORK LAST WEEK

Language Arts: Reading, writing, speaking & listening:

Last week, the students continued working in their book club groups. The idea is similar to adult book clubs. Each book club is composed of 5 students on similar reading levels and they all read and discuss the same book over a number of weeks, depending on the book. The students use ‘think marks’ which are symbols to record their thinking about characters, plot, setting, themes etc. in their reading/writing notebooks and they share their thinkmarks at regular intervals when their book club group meets to chat about characters, events, setting etc. For writing, I read a sophisticated picture story books to the students, titled, ‘Ryan & Jimmy’ by Herb Shoveller, which is the story of Ryan Hreljac, a Canadian boy who started a foundation to fund and build wells in villages in Uganda. The students wrote about the themes of the book, made a claim and provided evidence. I also showed the students a youtube video featuring a young slam poet from Australia - Solli Raphael. The students watched Solli perform a poem titled, ‘We Can Be More’. Again, the students were asked to think of a theme, make a claim and write evidence from the poem to back up their claim. All of this practice - identifying themes, making a claim and providing evidence will help the students write a literary essay later in our first writing unit. The students also continued their year-long ‘Free Choice Writing Project’ where they continued the process of writing and publishing their own realistic or fantasy story on their laptops using a Google doc. Students were also involved in daily read-to-self sessions, where they worked on building their reading stamina. I also continued reading our read-aloud titled, ‘Home of the Brave’ by Katherine Applegate.

Math:

Last Mon. the students continued their first math unit titled, ‘Place Value and Whole Number Operations’. Lessons covered last week:

The students completed Lesson 5: Using the standard algorithm

Lesson 6: Using estimation as a check (intro to ‘ballpark estimate’)

Checkpoint (mini formative assessment)

Lesson 7: Patterns in Division 

Social Studies:

Last week, the students continued their first social studies unit, titled ‘Red Hats: Leadership’, which is an 4 week unit for G5. The students continued to discuss what it means to be a ‘socially responsible global citizen’. They prepared for Melati Wijsen’s (Wy-son) Presentation last Fri. by watching the ‘Bye Bye Plastic Bags’ TED Talk on youtube and they started a reflective piece of writing on Melati’s message and what it means to be a socially responsible global citizen, using evidence from Melati’s presentation.   

COUNSELLING LESSONS

Counseling lessons with Stephanie Stone, our G3-5 Student Counselor, have started in G5. Stephanie will teach 5DH students from 8:30-9:00am each day 7. Stephanie’s first lesson in 5DH will be on Wed. 19 Sept. 

UPCOMING AUG. SEPT. & OCT. CLASS & SCHOOL EVENTS

Fri. 21 Sept: Next Red Hats Free Dress Day. Students can bring a donation of RM5

Mon. 24 Sept: School photos week

Mon. 1 & Tues. 2  Oct: ISA testing days. Wed. 3 Oct. is the ISA makeup testing day. 

Thurs. 4 & Fri. 5 Oct: ES Parent Conferences

Tues. 9 Oct: Dr. Teh Kok Hoi presentation from 2:00-2:45pm in the G5 common area. Dr. Teh is the head paediatrician at KL Children’s Hospital Cancer Ward. He was not able to attend the SCMC on Thurs. so we were able to book him earlier. 

Thurs. 11 Oct: First 6 presenters will present at our Social Change Maker’s Conference - SCMC. Final 6 presenters will present on Thurs. 4 April 2019

Fri. 19 Oct: Next Red Hats Free Dress Day. Students can bring a RM5 donation.

Mon. 22 Oct: Faculty Inservice Day - no school for students

Tues. 23, Wed. 24 & Thurs. 25 Oct: G5 Melaka overnight trip - details TBA

Until next week,

Best regards,         

David