ISY Elementary School Blog

ISY Elementary Blog

Thank you, Ms. Delphine!

Mike Simpson, Elementary School Principal

April 9, 2021

This week we celebrated Ms. Delphine’s 40+ year connection with ISY. You will know Ms. Delphine from the Elementary School office where she has served our community for 26 years. At the end of this school year, Ms. Delphine is retiring.

Ms. Delphine’s connection to ISY goes all the way back to our old campus where she held various administrative roles before pursuing other career opportunities. In 1995 she returned to ISY and joined the Elementary School on our current campus.

International Schools like ours always have people coming and going, joining and leaving. Schools like ours are also required to deal with more changes than most as we have seen this year.

Through so many changes over her 26 years with ISY’s Elementary School, Ms. Delphine has provided us all with a sense of continuity and has kept us connected as a community. She has done this with professionalism and kindness and as the face of our school to so many of us, she has played a very important role in promoting our compassionate Mission and Vision.

I am personally very grateful for the support that Ms. Delphine continues to give me in my first year as Principal. I know that there are many others in our community who are also very grateful for the support that she has given them.

Thank you, Ms. Delphine. We appreciate all that you have done for us and our school.

COUNSELOR’S CORNER with Ms. Patty:

Mindfulness over the Thingyan break

Here is a link to some Mindfulness Activities for Thingyan that you might want to try over the break. These activities were put together by the Myanmar International School Counselors Association in which our ISY counselling team is very active.

Things to do over the Thingyan break

Typically, this last day of school before the April holiday would be filled with water play and celebration. Unfortunately, this is not the case again this year. For those concerned that their family may need some support thinking of activities to fill their days, here are some suggestions for both on and off screen activities.

On Screen Family Fun:

Take a virtual field trip: Want to join an African safari? Stroll the halls of the British Museum? March down the streets of Hollywood, tour Anne Frank’s home or check out the San Diego Zoo. Google Art and Culture gives you access to discover, learn and uncover a whole world of international treasures. Explore.org takes you to live web cameras of wildlife around the globe.

Learn a new hobbie: There are hundreds of downloadable apps to learn a great variety of things. Further, Youtube is filled with How Tos and Do It Yourself (DIY) lessons. KiwiCo.com offers weekly challenges to get families thinking and working together.

Off Line Family Fun:

Concerned internet access might be difficult? Try a purposeful unplugging.

Physical Activity: Organize physical activities throughout the day and week. Be creative, make up a new sport, for example, combine two sports into one or use an unusual ball, like a rolled up sock. You don’t need the official equipment, just your imagination.

Creative Story Time: Expose your family to a variety of genres by reading in a variety of ways and places. Read an adventure story in the family tent, close out the lights and imagine you are in space for a science fiction text. Take turns when reading, choosing the book or use silly voices. Only your creativity is limiting you.

Pick a theme: Select a theme the family can enjoy with costumes and meals.

Card games: A deck of cards can produce hours of fun. This website explains over 40 different games.

Patty Amundson-Geisel, Elementary Counselor is available to ISY families in need of social-emotional support. She can be contacted through email: escounselor@isyed.org

QUARTER 3 PROGRESS REPORTS

Your child(ren)’s Quarter 3 Progress Reports will be available on Powerschool from 1pm today:

Login to PowerSchool
Once you log in, you will see your child/children’s name on the left-hand side top of the screen along with the information of the student schedule.
Click on your child’s name
Click on the “Document” icon on the left side of the screen
Student Documents box will appear on the screen
Click on the file name “Q3 Progress Report 20-21”

If you have issues logging in or accessing the report please email powerschool@isyedu.org.

INTERNET PROBLEMS & OFFLINE LEARNING

We have done some planning for the unlikely event that there is a country wide permanent loss of access to Google tools. In that event everyone should log in to PowerSchool and look for the menu item on the left side of the screen called ‘Office 365 Credentials’. Here you will see a single user name and password for both email and for documents. The email has already been set up such that all school email from now on is being forwarded to the alternative email platform. The documents platform is the place where teachers would upload documents for students. There is no need to log in to Office 365 before losing access to Google. It is advisable, however, to login to PowerSchool just to make sure you know your login and password. If anyone needs help with logging in you can review this simple guide to resetting your password and if that doesn’t help you can contact the PowerSchool Help team at powerschool@isyedu.org.

Although we have yet to lose complete access to the internet during the school day, we do have a plan for this happening. In that event, students not involved in a transition day, will work from home on pre-arranged work that they have downloaded already. Elementary School teachers have sent a download to parents today and Secondary School parents and students will be getting their downloads on Monday. Secondary students and Upper Elementary students will go through the download process with their teachers in class. It is important that this work is downloaded as soon as it is received so no use of the internet will be required to access the instructions. These downloads will be updated from time to time in line with the progress of students through their various studies.

Offline Learning Activities in the Elementary School:

The grade level emails you receive every Friday have a PDF document attached. This document is a selection of Offline Learning Activities. Students are to do these activities only if we lose internet access and classes cannot proceed online. These activities are connected to what we are doing in class but they are only to be done on days that we cannot meet as a class. When classes resume, students will share and reflect on their work. Please download the PDF Offline Learning Activities Document when you receive the email on Friday. In this way these Offline Learning Activities will be immediately available to students if we lose internet access in the following week.

Below is a video that outlines how to download a PDF document:

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