November News

So many events on the go, and  so many details to keep track of!

Here is the scoop:
Parents are encouraged to check out Mrs. Hritzuk's blog as she has important messages from the library: http://mkis-esblog-nhritzuk.blogspot.com/ 

Also, a remind to students and parents to check out Mrs. Story's blog as she has very important information regarding the upcoming concert. She also has ALL of the music posted so students can be preparing at home, both with the music, and with performing in front of others!!!

On Friday, many important papers went home:
*SRI (Scholastic Reading Inventory) and ITBS testing results went home. If you have questions regarding this information, please let me know, or we can discuss it at the upcoming conferences.
*Time-slots for upcoming conferences were sent home as well. Thank you to those of you who have already gotten back to me regarding your times. If you need to change your allotted time, please let me know and we can work something out.

Other items to note:
*Report cards will be available to check online, on Monday, November 25th. Please be sure that you know how to log in to your Aspen account in order to check the reports. 

*We have started algebra in math. This can be a rather tricky subject. Students are encouraged to be reinforcing the lessons learned in school, at home each night. IXL is a great way to do this.  Also, we do have an IXL trial account for Language Arts, which will expire on November 27th, so students are again encouraged to try these skills out before the trial ends!

*In Science, we have been studying Earth and it's plates. I showed the students a neat website where they can track earthquakes over the past month. You may enjoy discussing this site at home with your child! Here is the link to Earthquake site.

*Thank you to Savitree for sharing some pictures form our field trip. If anyone else has pictures, you can send them in to me and I will add them to the album. Field Trip Pictures

Updates

Thank you to our volunteers for Friday's field trip to the Petrosains museum. Susan, Savitree, and Caroline did a great job keeping the students focused and moving through the museum. I think that everyone enjoyed the day, and hopefully learned a thing or two about Earth's layers!

A message from the Varsity Sports:
PACK THE PLACE!  Varsity Basketball is back and let's pack the gym tomorrow at 4pm to help our TIGERS defend the local championship.  It's the first game of the season versus rivals ISKL.  First 100 supporters will receive a popcorn coupon courtesy of the team, Connie's Kitchen, and the athletic department. GO TIGERS!

The Grade 3 & 4 Music Concert is coming up on December 10th. More information can be found on Mrs. Story's blog, or in the Link. 

In Class:
Language Arts:
Students have started presenting the book reports for Trimester 1. They look great so far, and I think that the students are benefiting from the opportunity to present to their classmates. These presentations also provide the students with a long list of suggested books to read. Last week, students took their SRI (Scholastic Reading Inventory) test, which is a reading test done online. Results will be going home this week.  Also, students are reminded to be constantly working on their Reading Reflections. Every other week, two reflections are due, along with 10 interesting vocabulary words. Students do have class time to work on this, but are reminded to work on them at home as well, in order to get them completed in time. 

Math: 
Students have been working hard on the multiplication facts. They have recently finished Chapter 4 and are now moving on to Chapter 5, which is an introduction to Algebra. This can be a difficult chapter, but with lots of practice at school and at home, I am sure that students will be successful. 

Science:
We are still covering Earth and changes in it's surface. We will be looking at earthquakes and volcanoes, how they are created and the impact that they can have on Earth's surface. This is a really fascinating unit for the students. 

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween:
This Friday, November 1st, the Parent's Association will be putting on a Halloween event at MKIS for the students to go trick-or-treating through the hallways. All students are invited to come to school in the evening, wearing their Halloween costumes for a chance to show off their costumes and get some treats! In order to prepare for this special event, parents will be decorating the Grade 4 hallway on Friday afternoon. Savitree and Susan will be coming in around12 noon to start decorating, and they would love some help with this, if anyone else is available!  If you are not available to help with the set-up, you may want to consider helping with taking the decorations down, as that needs to be done on Friday evening, after the festivities. As of right now, it is only Savitree and her husband Dietmar, so again, any help would be greatly appreciated!

Field Trip:
As you are aware, we have a field trip coming up on November 8th. Currently, I have 2 mom's volunteering to help out on that day. It would be great if we had 2 more so that we could have small groups to move around the museum that day. Please email me to let me know that you are interested in helping out that day.

IXL for Language Arts:
I have signed the class up for a ONE MONTH FREE TRIAL of IXL for Language Arts. Their log-in is the same as usual for IXL. They just need to click on the Language Arts tab once they are logged in. They can try ANY of the skills. The opportunity to try the skills will be over on November 27th, as that is when our free month trial is over. It would be great if students are able to spend some time this month trying the various skills.

Book Reports:
Students were given information about upcoming book reports. The report should be done on a book that they have read and completed in Grade 4. They need to do 2 parts. Part 1 is 3 paragraphs about the book (a short summary, their favorite part and details about the character, and their overall opinion and rating on the book). Part 2 is a presentation to the class. Students should create some sort of visual for this part. They were given a page of ideas. The only need to do ONE visual project. It is advised that they practice their presentation at home before getting up in front of the class! They will be asked to complete 1 book report each term.

Greetings, and Welcome back.

I trust that everyone had a relaxing break. 4B Students seemed excited to be back to school. We eased our way back into routine today, but we should be back in full gear tomorrow. 

Today, we welcomed Julius Robberechts to 4B and MKIS. He was most recently living in Abu Dhabi but is excited to be joining us here at MKIS. He fit right in with us, and played basketball with some of the boys during recesses. Welcome, Julius and family to Mont Kiara!

A letter went home today regarding our upcoming class field trip. Please read over the form with your child. When you are ready, please sign it and return it with the 17RM needed for the day. Students will need to buy a lunch at the food court that day, as they cannot take bags into the museum, and there is not really a place to store their bags while they are inside. Students will be reminded to make healthy. reasonable choices for their lunch. I will take out the necessary money for the entrance fee and return the rest of the money to them, to buy their lunch. The reason we collect the money for lunch ahead of time is to make sure that everyone will actually have money with them on the day of the trip. We are also looking for 4 parent-volunteers. If you are interested and available, please email me and I can organize the groups for the day. You could likely ride on the bus, or meet us at the Petronas Towers-whichever is easiest for you on that day.  Thank you in advance!

Also, if you have not yet had a chance, please take some time to look at the 4B Photos page to see what we have been up to so far this year!
 
FYI: 
Project Cambodia is raising awareness and funds for street children in Cambodia this week.

Wednesday and Thursday: Project Cambodia will be collecting children's clothes, old school bags, pens and pencils.  Items brought in can be placed in the wooden boxes in the breezeway. Friday: Alternate Dress day. Students should bring RM5 and wear red and blue. (They can always bring in additional money for donations. 5RM is the minimum)

 *********************************************************************************************************

ES Art: Parents are encouraged to view the Art Blog this month. Ms. Lucas has posted a new monthly entry.  

**********************************************************************************************************

One more event to mention... UN Day

UN Day:

 

Our Elementary School children will soon be celebrating United Nations Day! This is a great opportunity for the students to share their culture with their schoolmates. Parents are invited to join the event, as well.

Date: Oct 18, 2013 (Friday)

Time: 8:40am to 10:00am

Venue: School Gymnasium

Attire: Country colors or traditional outfits

Students may wear their traditional attire or country colors for the entire day.

Updates from around the school...

MCF Week is coming to an end on Friday. Student will be participating in a skip-a-thon Friday morning in the gym. They are reminded to wear appropriate shoes, and come dressed in yellow to show their support. Donations and their yellow pledge forms are due on Friday as well.

Salva Dut Visits:
Students have been excited about the assembly with Salva Dut, but they are also very much anticipating the classroom session to be held with him on Monday, October 14th. As excitement increases over Salva's classroom visits, it is important that we keep the focus on student learning. With that in mind we are implementing the following guidelines as a school wide approach:

• Unfortunately, parents are not allowed to come to classrooms during Salva's visit.  This is a time for students to work with Salva and show him how they have "answered his challenge" and since we only have 15 minutes to meet with him, we need to stick closely to the task at hand.

• Students can not ask for his autograph.  This is a time consuming request and does not advance student learning.  However, students will be receiving a memento from Salva's visit which they can have transformed into a book mark, or possibly taped to their water bottles.   

• Students can not bring cameras to take Salva's picture on Monday.  I will be taking pictures, and I will place them on our class blog for you all to see.

It is important that all of us follow these guidelines to ensure uniformity and perceived fairness from students and teachers. Thank you for making Salva's visit a meaningful learning experience, and understanding the need for this structure!

Important Aspen Update
Firstly, I would like to thank all of the families who visited their family portal and came to the Elementary School Office to update their information. In our efforts to ensure that we have accurate and up-to-date contact and health information on all our students you received an envelope on Friday, October 11^th. This will be distributed to the youngest and/or only children in each family and will contain a green record sheet of the information that we currently have on each of your child/children enrolled in grade KP to 12. Please verify or correct the a) Contact; b) Health; c) Nationality information. This is a second tier attempt to ensure accuracy as we are continuing to encounter difficulties when gathering and using information from our Student Information System (Aspen). We ask that you read over what we have, check Aspen to ensure the health information is correct and make any corrections directly on the form. These will be returned to the Home Room Teacher of your youngest/only child. If the information on these forms is accurate we ask that you still return the form with your signature to indicate this. We have provided an envelope to provide privacy for Health information.

This information is very important to us. It is challenging to keep it current as people often make changes to their hand phones, residence and e-mail address. Therefore we have now put into our practice at the school that this paper update will take place two times over the course of each academic year. Thank you for your cooperation in this.

October 16 is World Food Day!
It has always been an MKIS tradition to support this cause. We would like generous donations from you. These donations will benefit a few charity homes in Kuala Lumpur.
Please donate these food items:
1. Canned food (check their expiration date, please)
2. Milo/Horlicks/condensed milk
3. Instant noodles
4. Cereal
5. Biscuits/crackers
6. Rice
7. Grains
Collection of donated items will be from Wednesday, October 16 to Friday, October 18, 2013.
Please leave these donations at the main breezeway.

Special Guest Salva Dut

 Well, after all of our efforts in preparing for our guest, Mr. Salva Dut, we finally got to hear him speak! Students assembled in the auditorium this morning to hear Salva speak about his struggles growing up. He spoke with the students about the importance of goal-setting and encouraged them to set some of their own goals to help push them further in life. He also spoke with them about his program, Water for South Sudan, and how the organization brings clean water to communities around South Sudan. He shared pictures of the process and had students think about the difficulties that many people living in South Sudan face regarding water, and what having clean water can do for a community. We look forward to Monday, when he will be coming in to our classroom for 15 minutes to meet with the students in a more intimate setting. I am sure that the students will have many questions for him, and they are eager to share their thoughts with him as well.

Below are images of the  4th Grade bulletin boards which display efforts from the students as they prepared for Salva's visit.  Students met with each 4th Grade teacher to explore different areas about Salva Dut's story. All lessons were connected to what students have already been studying in class, and this, along with hearing Salva's story and meeting him, have made these lessons quite meaningful for the students.