December Specials Calendar is UP! And Star of the Week...

Our December calendar is updated. To view and print, please go to the left side-bar and click "click here", which will bring you straight to Google Doc.

This week was extremely short and busy. Therefore we have 2 Stars of the Week next week - Soultan and Pelle! Hooray!

Publishing Party

Thank you so much for sparing your time today and came to our first publishing party of the year (and many more to come!) The students were thrilled and proud of their hard work and that you were here to support and celebrate with them. A big thank you to the room moms, Rania, Rasmia, Sara and Lesley for organizing the snacks and refreshments. Today in your child's green folder you will find a collection of the compliment strips written by the parents today. Enjoy reading them to your child this weekend.

Job well-done, everyone!

Slideshow of the Week

Happy Holidays!

Happy Islamic New Year, Oman's National Day, and American Thanksgiving to those who celebrate. Enjoy the time off and we will see you back Tuesday, November 29th.

Don't forget our Publishing Party is Wednesday, November 30th. Please save the date!

Say No to Plastic!

Today our scientists decorated their canvas bag to help promote saving the environment by saying "NO" to plastic. We learned from Mr. Montoya and Ms. Tania's presentation that people, inevitably and unknowingly are doing many things that are harming our environment. For example, wasting paper, not turning off lights and TV, littering, leaving the water tab running while brushing teeth, and using too much plastic. You will find your child bringing home a beautiful canvas bag with a environmental message that he/she came up with. Ask them what they learned from our guest speakers this week, and you will be amazed! Don't be surprised if they forbid you using plastic bags and cutlery! = ) These kids are getting more and more environmental friendly now!

Inside their bag, you will also find a Living Things research booklet. If you and your family are traveling out and about in Oman or other countries, encourage your child to jot down and draw the living things they see around them. We brainstormed a whole list of living things - from things as small as ants, spiders, butterflies, lizards, to bigger creatures like birds, turtles, and even bigger like camels and whales.We look forward to sharing our journal after the holidays.

Book Week

The Elementary School Book Week was a great success! Thank you all those parents who volunteered to be our "mystery reader". The children had a swell time- guessing who our mystery reader was everyday. Thank you Zohra, Rania, Rasmia, Aditi, Lesley, Kelly, Fatima and Sara for taking your time to come in and read with us. It was surely a big treat! We enjoyed your company.

This year our Book Week's theme was "Reading in the Wildest Places". Our 1st graders had a chance to create bookmarks with our 4th grade reading buddies this week. They were very creative in working together coming up with slogans/messages to promote reading. It was a job well-done!

For more pictures, please browse through the slideshow of the week.

Mahmoud - Our Star of the Week

Thank you Mahmoud for sharing your beautiful poster with us this past week. We've learned so much more about you. We all loved your baby photo and your family photo. Now we know you are a Tae-Kwan-Do martial artist, as well as a Star Wars enthusiast. Thank you for all your hard work on the poster.

Next week, our Star of the Week is.... SOULTAN!!! Yay! We look forward to learning more about you.

Living Things of Oman

This week our Living Things guest speaker was Ms. Tania Al-Said, the president of Environment Society of Oman, also a TAISM parent. Ms. Tania presented to first-graders about the diverse living things of Oman. She focused on how humans can impact these living things both positively and negatively. We learned how the Arabian oryx is now protected in a reserve in Oman because they have been hunted for many years and started to become endangered. We learned that the Arabian leopard has sometimes been killed by people who are trying to protect their own animals such as goats. We learned that there is a rescue team to help dolphins and whales when they get stuck in fishing nets. We learned that baby turtles often get confused by electric lights at night as they try to follow the moonlight to the sea. Adult turtles often mistake plastic bags in the ocean for jellyfish and can choke and die as a result. Finally we learned that there is a five-year study happening to figure out how many times a frankincense tree can be cut to collect its sap before it dies. Students are buzzing with new knowledge and probing questions, such as "How many frankincense trees are there in Oman?" and "Is it okay to help baby turtles make it to the sea?", so be sure and seize this opportunity to chat with your child about the very special living things of Oman!

Upates on Trimester 1

Our ES principal, Dan Hovland, together with the other administrators and Mr. Schafer have discussed and decided to extend trimester 1 due to the number of unforeseen holidays that we have been getting the past few weeks. The extended trimester is going to allow teachers to administer various assessments and gather other information that would be helpful to complete the report cards, continue their units of study, lessons and activities that were missed and impacted because of the holidays.

Here are the new dates for end of trimester 1:
Nov 30 - Last day of ASAs
Dec 7 - End of Trimester 1
Dec 21 - Report cards go home

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this extension, please do not hesitate to address it to Mr. Hovland or myself.

We were in a great big sperm whale!

Today our scientists learned about whales, dolphins and sea life of Oman. Our first guest speaker, Mr.  Montoya, is an art teacher, and also a great sea life adventurer. He loves kayaking, boating and swimming in the ocean. Earlier last week, he shared two video clips with us that documented his encounters with sperm whales and false killer whales while he was out kayaking in the ocean. The children were fascinated by what he did. Mr. Montoya talked more about his encounters with the whales in his presentation today. He answered questions about whales and his adventures, as well as shared a whale skull that he found on a beach one time. Later, Mr. Montoya also drew a whale (approximately in real life size) using chalk on the playground outside to show the kids how big real sperm whale is. The kids all jumped inside the whale's body and realized that a sperm whale is enormous-  just its tail can fit 60 kids!
Thank you Mr. Montoya for sharing your expertise with us today. We learned a lot from you. 

Personal Narrative Publishing Party

TAISM has just announced the holidays for the National Day and Islamic New Years. There will be no school on Saturday, Nov 26 to Monday Nov 28. Classes resume on Tuesday, Nov 29.
Due to the long weekend holiday, I already have a couple families informing me that they will leave town early starting Wednesday, Nov 23. In light of this, the publishing party has been postponed to the following Wednesday, November 30th at 8:45am (it will take about 30 minutes).

Please save the date to attend our first publishing party. The children are very excited about sharing their stories with you. We hope to see you there!

Math assessments and new unit

Yesterday your child's math packet was sent home for unit 1 - Routines and Data, as well as a introduction letter for unit 2- Understanding Operation. I hope you will look at the skills that were assessed and your child's work. Some of their math work is kept for their grade one portfolio (which they will get at the end of the year). Some parents have asked if they can keep the material. Yes .....it is yours to keep.

National Day and Islamic New Years

The Holidays have been announced yesterday. There is no school on Saturday November 26, Sunday November 27, and Monday November 28. Classes will resume on Tuesday November 29.

For the most up-to-date November Specials calendar, please go to the right menu bar titled "Monthly Specials Calendar" and click to view.

Slideshow of the Week

Thank you Mahmoud and Rasmia!

As you know, Oman's National Day is coming up... TOMORROW! Today, Rasmia (Mahmoud's mom) brought in some delicious Omani snacks for the students during snack time and they just...enjoyed it so much! Rasmia was also kind enough to give each kid an Omani flag, a pin, a map, and a blank flag for them to take home and celebrate the 41st birthday of Oman and His Majesty in leading this beautiful country. Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness, Rasmia. Happy National Day, Oman!

Publishing Party - Tentatively set for next Wednesday, November 23

This week in writing, our writers worked hard on choosing one story to have it published. They went through their writing folder, read through every single story they wrote and made two piles - a "yes" pile and a "no" pile. They asked themselves as they read each story again, "is this what I want to publish?", "does this story sound interesting?" "What could I add more or revise to make this story even better?"
These are some ideas our writers have come up with:

"I can add more details." - Gabriela
"I want to add more to the picture." - Magda
"I want to add more action in my story." - Adessa
"I can fix some words I spelled wrong." - Salem
"I can add punctuation." - Pelle

Right now, I have tentatively scheduled our publishing party for next Wednesday morning, November 23rd. However, with Book Week ahead of us and Living Things guests speakers' presentations (as mentioned in previous post), things might change. However, I do wish you could spare that Wednesday for now and reserve the morning for our first publishing party. I will definitely keep you all posted and confirm the date early next week.

Swimming

Tomorrow will be the last swimming class in P.E. Next week, students will be back to the gym for a new unit. Please send your child to school with P.E. uniform and running shoes on days 1, 3 and 6.

Book Week

Next we will be celebrating Book Week in the elementary school. This year's theme is Read in the Wildest Places. A detailed letter has just sent home with your child today, explaining the different activities and events happening on each day. We will also be having "mystery readers" in our classroom everyday next week. Thank you those parents who volunteered to be our mystery readers. It is going to be WILD-TASTIC!

Saturday 11/19 - Wild Hat Day
Sunday 11/20 - Book Scavenger Hunt
Monday 11/21 - Brilliant Book Marks
Tuesday 11/22 - The Big Share
Wednesday 11/23 - Celebrating Young Authors

Patterns, Patterns, Patterns...

Patterns are everywhere! This week, our mathematicians learned that patterns repeat and in every pattern, there is a pattern core (which is the part that repeats). As a class, we came up with different types of patterns: movement/sound pattern, color pattern, and shape pattern. Some of these patterns have a short pattern core (for example: black, white, black, white...). And some of these patterns have a longer pattern core (for example: triangle, pentagon, square, heart, triangle, pentagon, square, heart...). We learned that we can label these patterns by using letters to represent each element in the pattern. For instance, in the pattern mentioned above, black, white, black, white... we can label it as AB,AB. The latter one we can label it as ABCD,ABCD. Our mathematicians have been busy making their own pattern books featuring different patterns they created using buttons, pasta, pattern blocks, snap cubes and stamps. This weekend, do a pattern hunt with your child. Look around your house, check out the grocery stores, and billboards and posters on the streets... you will be amazed of what these mathematician will find.

Wrapping up our unit on Community and moving on to the next... Living Things

Have you come by the ES foyer lately and noticed the beautiful TAISM Community mural that our 1st Graders from all three classes have created? If not, please drop by one day. Our first Social Studies unit on Community has come to an end. After gathering information from the members of the TAISM community through interviews, we finished the unit by creating an enormous mural that features many of our community members about their jobs and some fun facts. Thank you for all the parent volunteers who helped us in creating this giant eye-catching mural. We couldn't have done it without you!

Moving on, our next Science unit is "Living Things". What is a living thing? What do living things need? How can we group living things by looking at their physical characteristics? This week, our scientists began thinking about these questions by browsing and reading nonfiction books and looking at photos about various living things. In the upcoming weeks, we will studying different plants and animals and observing and studying closely to what they need to reproduce, grow and survive. We will also be having guest speakers to share with us their expertise in different living things seen in Oman, and how humans affect animal habitats and what we can do to help preserve. "Living Things" will be the talk of the town in the 1st Grade hallway!!

Star of the Week - Gabriela!

Our Star of the Week this week was Gabriela. We learned so many great things about her. She is Colombian and speaks Spanish. She likes gymnastics and dance. She is also enjoys traveling with her family. One time she even dressed up in a traditional Thai dress when she was visiting Thailand. Her mother, Dominique, was kind enough to make us some Colombian sweets for the class to enjoy. It was delicious. Thank you for sharing with us, Gabriela and Dominique. We truly enjoyed your presentation.

Next week, our Star of the Week will be Mahmoud. We can't wait to see what you will show us!

Slideshow of the Week!

Thank you and Eid Mubarak

Thank you to all of you for making time to meet with me this past Tuesday and Wednesday at our first Parent-Teacher Conference of the school year. I enjoyed talking with each one of you about your child's progress and appreciated all the feedbacks and questions you had. This conference really helped me in getting to know your child better. If you have further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to email me.

Our first graders' sweet teeth have been very much satisfied with sweets, sweets and more SWEETS! Thank you all the parents and kids who brought in goodies this past week to celebrate the many occasions and festivities. Thank you again for Sara Jansson and Pelle for bringing in Fall Festival cookies. Thank you Kelly Gilreath and her mother and Alex for baking us some delicious Halloween short bread. Thank you Aditi and Ananya for bringing us beautiful Diwali treat boxes and sharing stories of the Diwali tradition. Finally, thank you Birte and Kasper for bringing us cupcakes on Kasper's Birthday.

School will be closed from November 3rd to November 8th (inclusive) for Eid Al Adha Holiday. Eid Mubarak and have a good break everyone! See you back on Wednesday, November 9th. 

Button sorting and living graph in math

This week in math, we read aloud a book called, The Button Box. Like the character in the story, our mathematicians sorted a variety of buttons according to the type, size, color, shape, number of holes, and more. We learned that mathematicians notice different attributes of objects and sort them by properties. Try sorting any collection of objects at home this weekend and see what your child comes up with.

In addition to sorting, we also learned a bit about graphing. We first came up with a question, "What is your favorite food?" and selected 6 different popular choices: fish, pancakes, noodle, pies, rice, and pizza. Next, we surveyed the class and kept a tally mark of each of the food picked. We then graphed the result on a piece of chart paper with labeled axises. Finally, we studied the graph and made some observations.

"Fish and noodle are the same!"
"Fish and noodle have the most."
"Rice and pies have the least."
"There is 1 more in pizza than pancakes."

To wrap up the graph of the day, we made a "human living graph"! We will be learning more about graphing the week after Eid Holiday.

Adessa - Our Star of the Week!

Congratulations Adessa for being brave and be the first student "in spotlight". She brought in a beautiful poster with many pictures of her friends and family and shared with the class last week. We learned a lot more about her - where she is from, who is in her family, her dog's name, and what she likes doing in her spare time and holiday.Thank you!

Next up... Gabriela! We look forward to learning more about you!
For upcoming "Stars", please take a look at the left side-bar titled "Star of the Week" located  under "Important Dates and Events"