Good morning, Hope Community!
1: Important Reminders
2: Curriculum Focus - Skills
3: Learning Highlight - Prep class
4: New Staff!
5: House Points
6: Photos of the week
1: Important Reminders
Nov 8: Friends of Hope "Picnic in the Park" from 5pm (More info HERE)
Nov 11-13: NO SCHOOL
Nov 22: Sports day!!
Nov 28-29: NO SCHOOL
Dec 6: Parent Workshops
2: Curriculum Focus - Understanding
Over the last few Blog posts, we have been exploring the three types of Learning Goals for the IPC and the IMYC - Knowledge, Skills and Understanding. This week’s focus is on the final of these three: the understanding goals.
At Hope, we define understanding as:
“Making meaning and communicating ideas”
Understanding goals are often the hardest to see during day-to-day learning, as it takes longer to see the depth of understanding throughout a theme or unit. While knowledge can be quickly evaluated and skills can be clearly observed, understanding relies on the student's communication of ideas and making connections.
Understanding is personal to each student. Students can demonstrate the depth of their understanding through reflecting on their learning, making active connections across subjects, linking to unit's theme/Big Idea, and explaining how it connects to the world around them. The more independent a student is in gathering and explaining these ideas, the more they are demonstrating their understanding.
One of the ways that students can demonstrate their understanding is through the Exit Points. Throughout a unit, students are given time and space to reflect and connect their learning together and it is through these reflections that students can begin to generate ideas for their Exit Points. Reflection plays an important role in allowing students to develop their understanding, while Exit Points allow them to demonstrate it.
Teachers at Hope support the development of understanding through prompting students to make deeper connections, as well as giving guidance and structure to enable successful Exit Points.
3: Learning Highlight - Prep Class
The theme of "A Day in the Life" allows the Prep Class to explore and experience different jobs from different time periods. In their first International task of the unit, the Prep Class focused on the local community and had a chance to act out a variety of jobs that people perform locally to support the community.
4: New Staff!
Please join me in welcoming Ms. Veronica Montalvo to our school community. She will be the grade 2 homeroom teacher, fulling taking over the class from November 14th. Mr. Yoshi will be taking over cooking class for all grades from November 18th and increasing his roles & responsibilities as the Head of Elementary.
Allow me to share Ms. Veronica's personal introduction with you all: "Hello! My name is Veronica Montalvo. I was born and raised in Miami, Florida, USA. My family is originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico. I have a Bachelors and Masters degree in Education from Barry University. I have a Minor in Art and specialized in Special Education. I love art, gardening, and working with children of all ages. I am happy and honored to be part of the Hope International team!"
We are very excited to have her with us and I will be sure to share some of the great learning that will take place in the Grade 2 class in future blog posts!
5: House Points
Basilisk - 1408
Dragon - 1383
Hydra - 1347 (moved into 3rd place!)
Phoenix - 1292
