SN February Gr.2

February 2013
Gr. 2
ISB Lower School
Specialists’ Newsletter
From the Principal
Welcome to the fabulous fifth edition of our
Specialist Newsletters!
Our specialists teachers
(also referred as singlesubject teachers) play
an integral and important role in the Primary Years Program.
The arts, physical education, and language
Inside this issue:
French/Spanish
2
Art
3
Serbian/Serbian MT
4
PE/EAL
5
EAL/Music
6
study are essential elements to a comprehensive and holistic 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.
A great example of this is when your children ‘connect’ their school learning
with something that happens when they are at home or out and about with the
family, and especially on designed field trips. Our specialists teachers work
alongside our classroom teachers to develop lessons and learning opportunities
that are interesting, engaging, and connected to the classroom Units of Inquiry. Our specialist teachers are regularly seeking these natural connections
between subjects.
For this reason, we think it is important that we keep our parents informed
about the teaching and learning taking place in our specialists’ classrooms. You
will receive the specialist newsletter six times during the school year. As always, if you have any questions about your child’s education, feel free to contact us. Enjoy the Spring season of learning!
I look forward to seeing you all here on the Lower School campus during our
Student-Led conferences,
Brian H. Lettinga
Newsletter Title
French
Dear second grade parents,
Here is our fifth newsletter for the French class which is aimed at keeping you
informed about the things we have been learning during the last period.
Dubravka Kostanjsek
French Teacher
Since you’ve last heard from us, we have started working on our unit about animals. As we announced in the previous newsletter, the students have worked on
establishing relationship between animals and their habitat and have learned
how to say what different animals eat. We also introduced different animal body
parts in conjunction with the verb to have (a bird has wings - un oiseau a des
ailes) and have been practicing to describe various animals. Right now, we are
about to start making posters about different animals (each student will choose
five animals, write short texts about them, illustrate their work and present it to
the class).
It will be my pleasure to see you all soon and discuss your child’s work and progress.
Thank you for your time and please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Spanish
Milica Rkulovic
Spanish Teacher
Page 2
As a wrap up activity to the unit in which we looked at family vocabulary and
practiced describing the physical appearance of first ourselves and then of our
family and friends, the grade two Spanish students are currently working on their
family mobiles. It’s wonderful seeing how much they enjoy sharing information
about their parents, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandparents, all in
Spanish. In this unit, apart from learning/reviewing family vocabulary and experimenting with adjectives used to describe people, we devoted time to understanding the importance of using appropriate forms of adjectives (masculine or
feminine, singular or plural). The students demonstrated a good understanding
of both vocabulary and concepts taught in class.
Art
During the past few weeks the students spent time drawing with various materials, making
sculptures and painting. We continued our inquiry into the works of the Impressionist artists
and enjoyed experimenting with the use of color and space while doing observational drawing and painting based on the photographs taken in the schoolyard and the Senjak area. The
students explored the possibilities of sculpting with clay as they created objects that interest
them and tried their hand at observational sculpting. We also took the time to reflect on our
learning in the second trimester.
Grade 2A students have classes on Thursdays.
Grade 2B students have classes on Wednesdays.
Page 3
Svetlana SpasicGlid
Art
Newsletter Title
Serbian as a Foreign Language
Ivana Jovanovic
Serbian Language Teacher
During February Grade 2 students were learning through a variety of activities in
order to learn clothing vocabulary. They read and translated a set of paragraphs
that described members of one family – porodica Petrović. Students followed instructions given orally and in writing to draw a person. Also, they wrote descriptions
of people they could see on the pictures. This was a comprehensive unit and students practiced reading, writing, understanding and listening skills. Currently, we
are making a small connection to the PYP unit Weather. Stating the current weather
conditions is now part of our regular class routine. However, we are also taking it
further by reading more detailed weather reports. As Grade 2 students are making a
public announcement every morning about the weather forecast for that day, we
are going to be real risk-takers and try to do it in Serbian as well.
Serbian Mother Tongue
Milena Jovanovic
Serbian Language
Teacher
Page 4
Drugi razred je započeo novu nastavnu jedinicu o narodnim umotvorinama. Naučili
smo da su to izreke koje potiču iz naroda i da se ne zna tačno ko ih je smislio, kao i
da u narodne umotvorine ubrajamo poslovice, zagonetke, brzalice, razbrajalice,
pitalice, pesme i priče. Naučili smo svaku od ovih vrsta ponaosob, a čak smo se
oprobali i u smišljanju sopstvenih umotvorina. Rešavali smo i zadavali zagonetke i
pitalice, tumačili poslovice, delili se u timove uz pomoć razbrajalica i vežbali da što
brže izgovorimo brzalice. Naučili smo i kako da koristimo pitanja koja su nam data
prilikom pisanja priča. Odgovarajući punim rečenicama na ta pitanja sastavljali smo
svoje priče i opisivali članove porodice, kuću ili stan u kome živimo, omiljene biljke,
životinje i igračke. U februaru smo takođe radili testove iz čitanja, slušanja i pisanja.
Na narednim časovima ćemo pričati o Vuku Stefanoviću Karadžiću i njegovoj ulozi u
stvaranju azbuke i prikupljanju narodnih umotvorina.
Physical Education
Second graders spent the last couple of weeks handling scoops and practicing floor
hockey sticks, safely. Through different individual and pair activities, students worked
on improving their eye-hand and body coordination, along with their agility.
Before taking part in games such as ‘Scoop-ball’ and ‘Floor Hockey’, students were introduced to basic game rules, and had a good discussion about the importance of cooperation in team games.
Marija Dimitrov
PE Teacher
The discussion brought up the question “What makes a good team?”
We identified what we should look for in players when choosing a team for a certain
game.
This helped us to make fair teams, as well as to communicate and cooperate better with
each other throughout the unit. Students worked on developing
appropriate attitudes and sports-like behavior while enjoying
matches we played.
EAL
Grade 2 students continue to work hard in their EAL class! We continued developing
reading comprehension as we read EAL leveled books. We focused on answering
Who, Why, Where, When and How questions. Students read the story Goldilocks
and the Three Bears. We have been looking at different verbs and practicing how to
read, say and write them in the present and past tense. Also a strong focus is kept
on developing vocabulary. Students have been writing their own stories using word
banks.
Page 5
Ivana Nedeljkov
EAL Teacher
EAL
Beginners’ Group
We continued developing oral language and literacy skills. We focused on learning new
words, and identifying words that rhyme, as we practiced listening and reading skills. The
students particularly enjoyed reading, learning new vocabulary, and role-playing “The
Princess and a Pea”. As a follow-up, the students practiced retelling the story using sequencing words, and writing complete sentences, paying close attention to basic punctuation and capitalization. In addition, we learned how to describe various weather conditions, and provide weather forecast using future tense. We used the Weather Channel
iPad application to get information for a 7 day weather forecast. We used the information to write sentences in the past, present and future tense.
Divna Stakic
EAL Teacher
High Beginners
We started supporting the trans-disciplinary theme How the World Works – the Weather
unit, and its central idea: People use science and technology to explore, understand and
predict the weather.
The lines of inquiry led us into looking more deeply into weather, and how it affects us.
We named different weather conditions, and practiced describing pictures in present
tense. Supporting the Unit of Inquiry, we continued reading leveled books. The students
showed particular interest in reading the book titled: “Weather”. We focused on developing reading fluency and comprehension. In addition, we enhanced contextual understanding by reading illustrated fiction stories with more sophisticated vocabulary, providing word explanations and developing dictionary skills. We continued our focus on simple/compound sentences, and writing conventions: capital letters and basic punctuation.
In addition, working with a partner we researched various weather conditions using iPad
apps, and presented it to our peers, using Two Stars and a Wish peer assessment strategy.
Music
Grade 2 students were hard at work these past weeks. With my absence they were
lucky enough to have two lovely Milicas stepping in and stepping up to help them
wrap up the second trimester and prepare for the student led conferences. Students
played recorders and learned to appreciate music. Focusing on tones BAG, they
played simple patterns practicing their fingering and blowing techniques. Looking at
the work of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, students engaged in discussions about technical and artistic value of his work. Meanwhile, they learned a number of new music
terms.
Page 6
Ljudmila Janicijevic
Music Teacher