ISY Elementary Blog

Elementary Update – October 25th

Sandy Sheppard, Elementary School Principal

Dear all,

Welcome back and we all hope you had a fabulous break. This week we have been very busy exploring and learning about literacy practices. Thank you to all of you who attended our Literacy open morning. The turn out of parents was amazing. We hope you enjoyed your time. 

Have a great weekend

Sandy Sheppard

GRADE 3 UNIT

As part of our strategic theme of Environmental Consciousness, ISY has made a goal of becoming carbon neutral with 5 years. One of the methods we are employing to achieve this goal is carbon mitigation through the reforestation of mangrove forests in Myanmar. ISY has formed a partnership with Worldview International Foundation and the Thor Heyerdahl Climate Park to create the “ISY Climate Park” which comprises more than 100 hectares of land in which the ISY community can plant up to 250,000 mangrove trees. This December we will be taking a group of high school students for a Week Without Walls trip to set up the park and also to begin planting our first trees on the land. 

 Dr. Arne Fjørtoft, Secretary General and founder Worldview International Foundation, visited ISY to speak to Grade 3 students. It was perfect timing as Grade 3 has begun a unit on weather and climate.

 Dr. Arne spoke to Grade 3 extensively on a variety of topics including the climate crisis, what we can do to help and the importance of mangrove trees in reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It was quite amazing to see him keep the attention of the entire 3 Grade class for an hour and elicit many poignant questions from this group of your learners. 

PROGRESS REPORTS

Our first new Progress Reports will be going home on the 8th of November. Please see the attachement for a guide on the new reports.

Progress report information

PARENT CONFERENCES

Parent conferences will take place all day on the 21st of November. Sign up will go out the week before. Meetings are 15 minutes long. They start at 9am and finish at 5:30 PM. Specialist teachers are available on that day in the Cafeteria for drop in meetings. We look forward to seeing you all at the conferences.

The children in Grade 3 were very engaged with our visit from Dr. Arne that supported our strategic theme of Environmental Consciousness

UPCOMING DATES

31st October – Halloween celebrations (see more information below)

5th November – Counselor’s parent presentation ‘Raising Students in a Stress-filled World’ 5:30 – 6:30 PM

8th November – Progress Reports go home

8th November – ASA Session 1 ends

11th/12th November – No school (teachers are participating in professional development)

16th November – Family Fun Fair (see more information below)

21st November – Parent Conferences – full day no school

28th November – 1st December – Thanksgiving Holiday

7th December – UWS Sports-a-thon fundraising event

MOVIE NIGHT

All families are invited to join the showing of “The Secret Life of Pets 2” this evening.  This outdoor screening will be held in the library courtyard and will begin at 6:00 PM. The show is free to attend, although donations are appreciated.  Snacks will be for sale.

FAMILY FUN FAIR

The International School of Yangon is holding its annual ISY Family Fun Fair on the 16th of November, 2019 from 4:00 to 7:00 P.M. This event, which is for our ISY students and their families, will be the 27th time it has been held!

The entrance fee is 5,000 kyats per person, which includes one raffle ticket.  There will be more raffle tickets on sale on the day of the fun fair at 1,000 kyats each.

In an effort to reduce paper use, we will not be using a coupon system for food purchases.  All food and beverages, will be paid for with cash directly to the vendors. For games and rides we will be using coupons which can be purchased at the coupons sales counter on the upper court.

The Fun Fair events include our popular raffle draw and games for kids of all ages.  The High School Student Council, which is in charge of this event, cordially requests your personal and business contributions to our raffle program by donating gift vouchers, clothing, electronics, food and other miscellaneous items.

The Student Council is also collecting items for the Second Hand Sale: old tennis racquets, shoes, clothing, books, and even toasters, etc which are no longer useful to you may be donated for a good cause. Please bring all the donations to Dr. Winsome Saldanha in the High School building room SAS 306e.

Please contact Swan Pye Aung, President of the High School Student Council (aungs@isyedu.org) or Mr. Nicolas Lapoujade (nlapoujade@isyedu.org) with any questions.

Please help us make the ISY Family Fun Fair a success.

The students are enjoying lots of fun activities at recess time. We have added equipment to our mud kitchen as well as hoops and skipping ropes to the playground.

 

Parent’s engaging with our literacy consultant.

LITERACY CONSULTANT & OPEN DAY

Thank you to all who attended the workshop on Thursday by our Literacy consultant, Joan Turner. Thank you also for coming to visit our classes in the morning for our first literacy open day. The turn out at the event was amazing. Thank you

If you could not attend the workshop here is a link to the presentation

HATS

The weather has really heated up please make sure your child has a named hat for school every day. Hats are required when playing outdoors.

HALLOWEEN

It’s nearly time to dust off your witch”s hats and head to the ISY Parents’ Association Halloween Party.
The fun starts at 5.30 on Thursday 31st with  Scary Stories being read in the Elementary Classrooms (Building A) The children can then go Trick or Treating in the Pre-K classrooms, Play Ghoulish Games on the field, make a magic wand or dance in the KGH &KGB classrooms, enjoy some food on the wooden decking. Please bring a reusable water bottle. If your child is gluten intolerant please tell a volunteer.
The event is free but do bring some money to support our Secondary Students who are raising funds for the Myanmar Children’s Health Program by selling delicious baked good, drinks and super cute trick or treat bags.
The combination of sugar, costumes and excitement can get a little crazy – please keep an eye on your child so that there is no pushing in the trick or treat line or other monstrous behavior. There will be no teachers on duty. Children are asked to only trick or treat once – naughty children might be fed to Dracula!
We still need a few more volunteers to make the evening run smoothly. I promise it will be fun! If you can help on the night please contact:
Or
It’s not too late to donate sweets / candy. Simply drop them off at the Elementary School office in the special box.
See you there!
Louise (Volunteer Witch)

 

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