May 27th, 2018

Our Week in PreK:

The students have been working hard on their environment signs to teach the community about air pollution.  We were preparing for our field trip during the week but due to the extreme heat, we changed the field trip date to Friday. 

Signs were hung in the basketball court temporarily when a high school student was spotted playing outside during an air pollution day. The children wanted to keep everyone at CAC safe by letting them know to "go inside" when there is air pollution!

A big thanks to everyone who was able to come out on Friday and support the Race to Clean Air and our students' efforts to reduce pollution in our environment. We all understand that it was hot and given the circumstances of Ramadan and the weekend timing, it wasn't easy for all to attend.  We appreciate your efforts and understand that families may choose to visit the garden at other times.  Here are some photos from Friday's visit to the Midan when we planted trees and hung our signs.

Another big part of our week was preparing for and sharing our portfolios and learning at student led conference day.  Thank you so much to families who came to celebrate student learning and the journeys that your children have been on during this school year.  It was incredible to hear the students reflecting on their experiences throughout the year, with statements such as "I remember this day, I was doing....." and to hear families asking questions including "can you tell me more about this?" to encourage conversation and understanding. Your child's portfolio video will be delivered to you very soon.  Thank you for your partnership.

Students preparing for SLC in the classroom together.

As the year begins to come to a conclusion, we are wrapping up some things. The students planned and created a goodbye celebration for Ms. Sanne on Thursday.  We discussed as a group what they would like to do for her, and the students created a plan to sing songs from a movie they have been very interested in lately ("The Greatest Showman"), make a movie for her, and have popcorn.

Here are the videos of the students' performances of two songs from "The Greatest Showman" for Ms. Sanne:

Ms. Sanne we will miss you a lot.  Best of luck in your next adventure and we hope to see you soon!

Here are some more photos from our week together:

Practicing with recycled material instruments (and drum stick tricks).

Play dough cupcakes with natural materials.

A recycled material dragon.

The great water table incident of 2018.

Next Week:

It's hard to believe that next week is our last full week together.  The students will be finishing up classroom studies and getting ready to say goodbye to their year in PreK.  We will introduce the idea of moving on from our classroom community and we will visit Kindergarten on Thursday.  We will also have our last meeting with our fifth grade buddies on Thursday, and say goodbye to them.

Reminders:

Greetings from the library!

Sunday was our last library class. We celebrated a year of reading by accessing our Scholastic BookFlix collection. BookFlix is a series of paired fiction and non-fiction stories. Picture books have been turned into animated stories and paired with a non-fiction ebook for an engaging online reading experience. We read a non-fiction book about squirrels and then watched a movie made from the book Scaredy Squirrel by Melanie Watts. 

Here's how to access BookFlix. 

1. Visit our library catalog, library.cacegypt.org. 

2. Click on the elementary library link. 

3. Log in to the catalog from the top right hand corner. Use the CAC Quick Login:  username - cacegypt, password - cacegypt. 

4. You will arrive at the home page. Scroll down the page until you find the link for BookFlix. Make a note of the username and password listed there. 

5. Allow the Flash plug-in to run. 

6. Choose a category and then a book. Let your child guide you and enjoy reading. 

Note that you will need an Internet connection to access BookFlix. Also, please keep the CAC Quick Login credentials to yourself. Certainly share with your children who attend CAC, but do not share it outside of the CAC community. 

Summer checkout starts on May 17. That's for returning families. Each patron can check out 25 books. They are all due back on the first day of school in August. Families are responsible for lost or damaged books. 

Happy summer reading!

Mrs. Fitzgerald

Upcoming Events:

March 29th: Big Splash!

All ES Students will have the last house event on March 29th, the BIG SPLASH!

We will go to the pool to watch older students jump from the diving boards and see who can make the biggest splash.  PreK students will have the opportunity to toss balls into a floating basket to get points for their team!

We will meet in the classroom and then walk to the pool at 7:50.  At the pool, students will remove their shoes and place them in a large basket labeled PREK.  Any clothing they are wearing will be removed as well and placed in the basket.  Students will enter the pool area wearing only their bathing suits to watch the event and cheer.

After the event, teachers will help all PreK students collect their towels and we will walk together to the classroom to get changed.  We already have extra teachers assigned to support with changing the PreK students in the classroom.

PLEASE:

• Send your child to school in their bathing suit.
• Pack a full change of clothes that your child can be changed into after the event (teachers will help) in their backpack.
• Pack a towel - labeled.
• Understand that your child will get wet, but will not go into the pool.  If you have concerns, email Ms. Trillian.

May 31st: Grade Up Visit

PreK students will visit Kindergarten classrooms to learn a bit about kindergarten and what to expect.  The current KG students will give them a tour.  The students will not be visiting their future classroom or be traveling with their future classmates; they have been randomly assigned a group and will be visiting a classroom randomly as well.

June 3: Grade 5 Moving On Ceremony (7:55)

All grade levels will attend the Grade Five moving on ceremony.  We are looking forward to wishing our fifth grade buddies (5J) best of luck. 

June 4: PreK End of Year Celebrations

Please click here to review the schedule for the day and sign up for volunteer opportunities!

June 5th: Last day of School

End of Year Assembly: 10:30 AM

Dismissal 11:30 AM

Please be sure to pick up your child's extra clothes and any other belongings that may be at school by the end of the day on June 5th.  If you prefer to take them home on June 4th, this is fine!

End of year dates for the ES Library:

May 27 - the first day of summer checkout
Summer checkout is available to all students and parents who:

• Have cleared their library accounts for the year
• Are returning to CAC in the 2018-2019 school year

Limits:

• 25 books per patron (parents must be present for checkout)
• 5 DVDs per family checked out to the parent

All books due back the first day of school in August
Damaged or lost books will have to be paid for by the patron who checked them out.

Parents' Corner:

At this time of year, student behaviors can change dramatically. It's a good reminder to step back and think about all of the transitions we are expecting young children to go through, that developmentally are quite a lot for them to process! Most of the children don't know what it means to "start kindergarten" and may be worried about leaving their friends, teachers, and community they have built over the past 10 months.  Click here to learn more about worry or anxiety in children and how you can support your child during this time.

May 20th, 2018

Our Week in PreK:
We had a busy week in the classroom as students finished up curriculum in both math and handwriting and moved on to review concepts from the year through games.  We continued our learning about the environments and ways that we can make a positive difference.

Students are highly engaged in the concept of litter and pollution.  We completed our experiment of the "garbage museum" after having watched baggies of trash decompose for six weeks.  Were our original predictions of what would happen true?  Not in all cases!  Many children predicted that the trash would stay the same, but in actuality, the only trash that did not change at all was plastic.  We have been learning a lot about the harmful effects of plastic in the ocean and rivers (water pollution) and we conducted a second experiment to see if we could clean water in our classroom of trash (the students thought we would be able to, but we were not).

We have also been studying air pollution and we are really excited to share our learning with the community during our field trip on Tuesday. Please contact Ms. Trillian at tclifford@cacegypt.org if you wish to join as a volunteer to hang signs with us and help us plant trees.

The students became highly interested in different ways of representing their own identity this week.  As the end of year approaches it is natural that children begin thinking of themselves and their relationship to the group, as well as how that may or may not change.  An activity to take care of babies by bathing them soon turned into changing our own appearances and what it might look like if we wore different hairstyles or tried out new hair colors.  Students also wanted to create flags representing their home countries, or the country they visited, or the country they live in now. All of these pieces of the puzzle fit together to create the sense of self and sense of community both as a part of the PreK classroom and as a part of the CAC school and community, and these explorations are a vital part of the PreK curriculum during our choice time.

Next Week:
We are looking forward to a fantastic week as we share our portfolios with you during Student-Led conferences on Monday, and continue with our plan to "Save the Earth!" with a field trip on Tuesday.  In the classroom, we will be working with math games to reinforce concepts in differentiated groups, and practicing literacy skills in similar ways.  We are looking forward to enjoying our last three weeks together as a class.

Reminders:
Ms Sanne's last day will be Thursday, March 24th.  Please be sure to say goodbye and thank you for all that she has done in her time here.  We are going to miss her so much!

ES Yearbook 2017-2018 Pre-Sales ( Repeated)

To our cashier, Mr. Reda in the Welcome Center.

May 13th till May 31st for L.E. 580 ($33)
After May 31st, price increases to L.E. 650 ($37)
Please note that for this week only (May 13 - May 17), the cashier will only be available before 10:00 am and after 2:00 pm.



End of year dates for the ES library
May 15 Last day for check out
May 22 Last day for classes; All books are due
May 23 Overdrive and ebooks training - 8:15 am and 2 pm
May 29 Summer check out starts

Upcoming Events:
Student Led Conferences
Annual Art Show
May 21, 2018
8:15 - 4:00 PM
Thank you to all families who have signed up already, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow!
Parent letter for Student Led Conference Day

TIPS FOR PARENTS

• Express positive interest and anticipation about the upcoming conference.
• Be on time.
• Listen and respond to the student (not the teacher).
• Express pride in growth and progress.
• Ask questions (see below for samples).
• Be positive, offering to help in areas where improvement is needed.
• Recognize that students need to develop independence in communicating progress – the teacher will be there to facilitate and answer specific questions but will not take charge of the conference.

May 13th, 2018

Our Week:
The children have been taking their next steps in learning how to help the earth and make a positive difference for the environment.  They are learning about air pollution as well as ways to reduce the impact of trash in our neighborhood.  We are excited about the upcoming midan beautification project and want to ask all families to join us on May 18th (Friday).  Details to come soon by email.

The children learned about the impact of air pollution and thought about the different things they have seen or experienced, as well as things they could do to help.  Some comments included:

• "I got a cough when I went outside and the air was dirty."
• "Maybe we could tell everybody not to put smoke in the air."
• "Tell everybody to stop smoking."
• "Don't throw cigarettes out the window."
• "Stop starting fires."
• "Stop killing plants."
• "Maybe we can make more plants."
• "Air pollution makes people be sick."
• "We should talk to a doctor."
• "See if we can get medicine for them."
• "Let's find a doctor for them to help them."

For now we have decided a next step in our study is to look at ways that we can help reduce air pollution in our school and neighborhood, and make signs to educate others and hang them up.  The children are enthusiastic about planting trees outside and we will be sending home invitations for you to join us on our upcoming field trip to do this.

This week we finished our final math unit, counting to twenty and addition and subtraction stories.  Students are naturally at various levels of competency and we will spend the remainder of the year continuing to differentiate activities through math games and small group work so that student needs are met and children can continue to feel confident and develop their abilities according to our PreK stated curriculum.

More photos from our week together:

Practicing letter "T" at the carpet.

Self-portraits.

A simple machine.

The workshop in action.

P.E. obstacle course.

Mixing paint.

Cards for a sick friend we missed!

Next Week:
The students will continue their studies of pollution and its impact on the environment and prepare for our field trip on Friday. Some students will focus on air pollution while others will think more about plants, depending on their interests.

Emergency Drills - Hardened Shelter Drill
Throughout the year, we do talk to students about what to do in case of fire, or intruder, with the subject matter and terminology adjusted for the grade level. The safety and security of our students is our highest priority, and through preparations in advance, we can ensure that students and staff know what to do in the case of an emergency. Next week we will have our first hardened shelter drill Sunday 13, 11am. Parents, if you are in school please follow faculty to the designated areas. The ES moves into the ES Hall.

Reminders:
We only have a few library visits left before the end of the year.  Please be sure to pack your child's library books and bag each Sunday.

Upcoming Events:
Believe it or not, the end of year is quickly approaching.

Ms. Sanne will have her final day with us on March 24th.  Please join me in wishing her the best as she moves forward and take a moment to say thank you and goodbye.  The past three months in the classroom with her have been wonderful and we will all miss her very much!

We will be celebrating our own end of year party on June 4th, and we could use parent volunteers and support.  Please click here to see an outline of the day as well as suggested activities.  If you have additional activities for any time of the day, please email Ms. Trillian with your suggestion- if we can make it work we will!  We really count on parent volunteers to help with a fun, successful day for the kids.  We hope you will join us for some or all of the day, or for helping to prepare some of the games.  Sign up directly on the google document, please!

PreK End of Year Celebration



ES Yearbook 2017-2018 Pre-Sales

To our cashier, Mr. Reda in the Welcome Center.

May 13th till May 31st for L.E. 580 ($33)
After May 31st, price increases to L.E. 650 ($37)
Please note that for this week only (May 13 - May 17), the cashier will only be available before 10:00 am and after 2:00 pm.

21st Century Libraries for Parents: CAC Overdrive and ebook collections
Join us on May 23 at the MHS to access the CAC ebook collections. We have lots of options, and of all of them, Overdrive is our prize collection. Overdrive is an app that allows you to read ebooks and listen to audiobooks offline, and choose from hundreds of titles in our digital collection.

We will offer this session twice, at 8:15 am and at 2 pm. Both times will be at the MHS library.

Please download the Overdrive app before the workshop. It is available for free at all the app stores. You will need your CAC single sign on to access the CAC digital collection.

End of year dates for the ES library
May 15 Last day for check out
May 22 Last day for classes; All books are due
May 23 Overdrive and ebooks training - 8:15 am and 2 pm
May 29 Summer check out starts

Circle Solutions:
Next week we will be talking about friendship and friendly words.

Parents' Corner:
Sometimes, as teachers, we worry that parents might think we are being overly permissive or not noticing actions of our students.  In fact, we are simply allowing students to experience natural consequences so that they can grow and learn from their own choices, rather than having adults impose lessons on them that they may or may not remember.  Allowing children to feel the consequences of certain choices (within limits, and safety considered) helps them grow and mature. Click on the above link to learn more!

May 6th, 2018

Our Week:

This week in small group work we started to talk about reusing materials, in order to help our planet. As we already have our workshop in the classroom, we talked about all our different materials and how the new arrivals of materials started to look messy. Therefore, the children decided to sort them so we can build more efficiently in our maker space.

Cardboard, plastic, wood, and metal were all discovered, as well as some materials were sorted by their properties (for example: can you bend that material?)

While doing this, the children had some creative ideas of what they would like to build and two interest groups were established: robots and musical instruments.

We worked the rest of the week on these and the children were excited to use some real nuts and bolts as parts of their robots and the music group could even perform some songs as a band with drums, trumpets, and flutes.

One of our small groups was very interested to create musical instruments using recycled materials from the workshop. They created a variety of instruments including drums, trumpets, "three-headed drums," and shakers.  The students were able to perform for the high school drama teacher, Mr. O, who was very enthusiastic about the performance!

Another group built robots using recycled materials.  A natural question that arose was "how can I make my robot move?" We returned to an expert we know, Mr. Miller.  After continuing to develop plans and work on our robots, we may be able to add motors with his help.  Very exciting!

Here are some more photos from our week together:

The bubble machine turned into a bubble bath for our "human" toys. Using hand soap to create bubbles also gives the opportunity for the children to practice hand-washing technique!

Children implementing "math language" at the workshop.

Revisiting balls and ramps through play; sharing knowledge from past units.

Next Week:

The students will continue re-using materials in the workshop.  We will finish our math unit, "counting to 20 and addition and subtraction stories."

Reminders:

Please be sure to pack your child's library books and bag each Sunday.  Thank you!

End of year dates for students from the library:

May 8-10 Used book sale, starting at 2 pm on May 8

May 15 Last day for check out

May 22 Last day for classes; All books are due

May 29 Summer check out starts

Used Book Sale, May 8 to 10:

We are getting ready for our annual used book sale, this year from May 8 to 10. We welcome donations of used books for all ages in saleable condition. This is a good time for departing families to dispose of books before packing. There is a donation box at the front gate. We’ll accept books until May 7. Clean out your bookcases to refresh your home book collections!

Upcoming Events:

Our next and final parent community meeting is May 13th.  Please mark your calendars for a fun "circle," the more the merrier!

Student-led conference day is May 21st.  Please be sure to sign up for a conference time.

Parents' Corner:

The language we use with children is one of our most powerful tools in their development.  We can empower them regularly with simple word choices.  Before you speak, take a moment to think about what you wish to convey and how your child will hear you.  Are you advocating for a strong, independent child who is capable and confident?  Does your child know you believe in him/her?

May 1st, 2018

Families, my apologies for this week's delayed blog post, however I have been unwell for a while and  absent since Tuesday the 24th. I appreciate your understanding as I've taken time off to recuperate and get well. I look forward to returning to school tomorrow as I have missed the students and families so much, but know everything is in excellent hands with our regular teaching team Ms. Salma and Ms. Sanne. The children also got to know Ms. Aya, who subbed on Sunday and Monday, and who will be replacing Ms. Mariam in after-care as she left CAC unexpectedly last week.

Our Week:

Highlights of our week included a field trip to begin our service learning journey and bring the children's hard work to reality when we visited the Midan next to school on Sunday.  The students were so enthusiastic about leaving campus for a real field trip and they couldn't believe their plant houses were there. When they hung up their signs advising visitors not to leave trash on the ground, they knew they were making meaningful change in the community.

Families, we want to invite you for the second field trip to beautify the Midan in conjunction with the Race to Clean the Air group on Friday, May 18th. We hope everyone from the class will be able to attend with a parent.  During this day, volunteers (including PreK students and families) will plant trees and flowers to continue with the PreK students stated mission, "we want to make the whole world beautiful."

Another big accomplishment was our presentation of learning on Tuesday at assembly.  Thank you to all families who were able to make it, and for those who were not here is a link to the presentation.

Here is the video that was a part of our presentation showing the learning journey we undertook over the past two months.

Here are some more photos from our week together:

Working with buddies on Thursday.

Reviewing shapes.

The "bubble machine" in the sensory table.

Exploring different art forms.

Happy, happy birthday!

Next Week:

The students will continue learning about how to reuse materials, utilizing the workshop space.  The teachers will be closely observing the students to re-focus into new interest-based study groups. We will begin writing our addition and subtraction stories using "math language," i.e., 2+2=4.

Upcoming Events:

End of year dates for students from the library
May 8-10 Used book sale
May 15 Last day for check out
May 22 Last day for classes; All books are due
May 29 Summer check out starts

Used Book Sale, May 8 to 10
We are getting ready for our annual used book sale, this year from May 8 to 10. We welcome donations of used books for all ages in saleable condition. This is a good time for departing families to dispose of books before packing. We will soon have a donation box at the front gate.