Newsletter no. 16 Mon. 26 Nov. 2018

NEWSLETTER NO. 16
MON. 26 NOV. 2018

REMINDERS FOR THIS WEEK & EARLY NEXT WEEK:
Mon. 26 Nov. - day 4:

Tues. 27 Nov. - day 5:

Wed. 30 Nov. - day 6:

Thurs. 29 Nov. - day 7:

Fri. 30 Nov. - day 8: Red Hats Free Dress Day. Suggested donation - RM5.
G5 Christmas Ornaments Assembly Line in the common area from 1:30-2:30pm.
ES Semester 1 ASAs end

Sun. 2 Dec: KL Children’s Hospital Visit from 9:30am-12:00pm lead by Andrea Bongazone and Clarrissa Chavez

SCHOLASTIC BOOK CLUB ORDERS
Parents, this is just a reminder that orders will close at midnight on 29th November. You can keep adding your orders online up until that date by clicking HERE

TRASH HEROES
On Saturday 1 Dec. Trash Heroes will have a big clean up right outside our campus! Trash Heroes is a local organization that picks up trash in areas around the community and educates others about the environment. Grade 5 had a chance to hear them speak at our Social Change Makers’ Conference and this would be a great way for students to take some action! If you and your child are interested, please come to the ISKL Ampang Hilir entrance at 8:30am on Sat. Dec. 1st. Please also let me know so I can contact Amy Popovich and make sure there are enough gloves from Trash Heroes. If you aren't sure yet if you will make it or not, just show up on the day!

G5 CHRISTMAS TREE ORNAMENTS
Each school year in late Nov. our G5 Room Parents help our students create their own Christmas tree ornaments, which are then placed on the grade level Christmas tree in the ES Foyer. In recent years, the Room Parents have tried to make this fun activity more sustainable by having the students make ornaments from recycled materials. If you have any magazines and/or other suitable materials to recycle, please have your child bring them to school before Fri. 30 Nov. On that date, our G5 Room Parents will set up an ‘assembly line’ in the G5 common area from 1:30-2:30pm, so the students can create their ornaments.

STUDENTS LEAVING ISKL AT THE END OF FIRST SEMESTER
If you know that you are leaving KL and moving elsewhere at the end of this semester, please let me know and also contact Uma Esvaran in the Admissions/Student Services Office. (Her Panther Apps email address is uesvaran@iskl.edu.my) The ES Administration is trying to get a handle on who will be leaving in December to help plan for second semester. Thanks for your attention to this.  As you know, the first semester ends on Friday 21 Dec. If you are planning to leave early on your end of semester break, please also let me know, so I know how many students will be at school for planning purposes.

CLASS WORK LAST WEEK
Language Arts: Reading, writing, speaking & listening:
Last week, the students continued our second reading unit titled: ‘Tackling Complexity: Summarizing & Synthesizing Nonfiction’, which focuses on text structures and how these structures help support the main ideas in nonfiction books. In their book club groups, students have been reading and discussing a variety of informational texts.  This unit is integrated with our second writing unit titled, ‘Informational Writing’ and our first science unit, titled ‘Sustainable Energy’, so students are also using texts on this topic to improve their nonfiction reading and writing. This week the students will focus on choosing and researching one form of sustainable energy, the pros and cons etc. They will begin to synthesize their research in an information essay. Later, they will use their essays to create a script for a PSA (Public Service Announcement) or a podcast, which will feature their chosen form of sustainable energy. 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. I also continued reading our current read aloud titled, ‘Refugee’ by Alan Gratz. The students also continued daily typing practice from 7:50 - 8:10am using the www.typing.com program.

Math:
Last week, the students continued Unit 3: The Coordinate Plane. Lessons completed were:
Lesson 3: Naming and Plotting Points on the Coordinate Plane
Lesson 4: Patterns on the Coordinate Plane
Lesson 5: What’s the Rule? (Using ordered pairs to interpret rules involving the x and y axes)

Science:
Last week, the students continued our science unit titled, ‘Sustainable Energy’. They continued watching various Brainpop energy videos and taking notes using the two-column method. They also had to complete the video review quiz and also write a topic sentence on the content of the video. Our Info. Lit. teacher - Steve Katz - took the students for a lesson last Thurs. titled, ‘Effective Google Online Searches’. This lesson will help the students to conduct their research into a chosen source of sustainable energy - mentioned above in the language arts section.   

COUNSELING LESSONS
There was no counseling lesson last week since there was no day 7. Stephanie’s next counseling lesson will be on the next day 7 - Thurs. 29 Nov. at the usual time: 8:30-9:00am.

UPCOMING NOV. DEC. 2018 & JAN. & FEB. 2019 CLASS & SCHOOL EVENTS
Tues. 4 Dec: Music Concert Rehearsal for participants only from 8:15-9:00am

Wed. 5 Dec: Music Concert Dress Rehearsal for the ES in the Melawati Theatre from 8:30-9:00am

Thurs. 6 Dec: Music Concert for parents in the Melawati Theatre. This year the program will be split into two sections:
6:00-6:30pm for gamelan, strings and choir
7:30-8:00pm for gamelan, recorder and band

Sun. 9 Dec: KL Children’s Hospital Visit from 9:30am-12:00pm conducted by David Herbert

Mon. 10 Dec: Grade 5 will begin a Science Design Thinking project focusing on sustainable energy in the Maker Space and science labs starting Dec. 10-21st. Students can bring in cardboard, recyclable materials or other odds and ends (buttons, toilet roll tubes, take out containers, egg cartons, old fabric - anything really) to use for their sustainable energy projects. 

Thurs. 13 Dec: Christmas Around the World from 8:00am-2:00pm in the ES Theater. It’s also ‘Red and Green’ dress up day.

Fri. 14 Dec: Red Hats Free Dress Day. Suggested charitable donation - RM5.

Fri 21 Dec: Last day of semester 1. Students’ semester 1 report cards will be available online in PowerSchool from 2:45pm

Mon. 14 Jan. 2019 - day 1: First day of semester 2

Mon. 21 Jan: Thaipusam holiday - no school

Wed. 23 Jan: ES Parent Workshop: Learning in the ES, 8:15-9:45am in the ES Community Room.

Fri. 25 Jan: Red Hats Free Dress Day - suggested donation RM5

Sat. 26 Jan: Community Recycling Program in the Cell Phone Car Park from 9:30-11:30am

Mon. 4, Tues. 5, and Wed. 6 Feb: Chinese New Year holiday - no school.

Until next week,

Best regards,         

David