December 6th is Sankt Nikolaus

Dear Parents,

On December 6th Nikolaus is celebrated in Germany. Who was Nikolaus and why do we celebrate this day?

The following information was taken from Wikipedia: "Nikolaus was a Saint and Greek Bishop of Myra, part of modern-day Turkey. He had a reputation for secret gift-giving, such as putting coins in the shoes of those who left them out for him, and thus became the model for Santa Claus, whose English name comes from the Dutch Sinterklaas."

Children in Germany will place their boots in front of the door Sunday evening, December 5th. Nikolaus will leave a small treat or gift for the good boys and girls. This may include chocolate, nuts, tangerines, oranges or a small toy.

Enjoy!

Your German Teachers

Technology (ICT) In Our School

In our class, we have been looking at technology that we use in the school, specifically ICT (Information and Communication Technology). 

Here we have a list of ICT that we have already figured out that we use at our school:

• Computers
• Whiteboards
• Cameras
• Video Cameras
• Visualisers (Easi-View and Elmo)
• CD players
• Walkie Talkies
• Telephones
• Mobile Phones
• Recording Microphones (Easi-Speak)
• Printers/Fax Machine
• Loud Speakers
• DVD Players
• TVs
• Recording Pens (Smartpens - livescribe)
• iPod Touch
• iPad
• USB Sticks
• Speech Bubbles
• Card Readers

If you use any other ICT in your classroom, please comment and add to our list (additions by other people are in blue)!  Please be sure to look at what we've already listed so that we don't repeat our list. 

A Word from Mr. Lorenzini

                                                                                                            November 26^th, 2010

Dear Parents,

Thank you to all of you who were able to join us this month for Portfolio Days and the Reflective Conference Day. The students were thrilled to see you and share their work and thoughts with you and the teachers.

I trust you all had an enjoyable and relaxing long weekend while the teachers had the opportunity for some outstanding professional development. We were privileged to have Dr. Anne Davies join us and share her expertise on assessment for learning. Her books have been the cornerstone of our assessment practices and it was very re-affirming to see that we are so well aligned to current, research based ideas around 'best practice'.

One visible consequence of this visit will be some revisions to our report card. We took the opportunity to consider ways to more carefully align our written, taught and assessed curriculum with our recording and reporting systems. I would like to invite everyone to a brief presentation with Mrs. Coffey at 14:30 on Thursday, December 9^th to hear a snapshot of Dr. Davies workshop as well as an overview and explanation of the newly formatted report card.

On a slightly different note, I would like to take a moment of your time to remind you of one of our most meaningful annual projects. In addition to the school walk-a-thon, the Frauenhaus, a home for battered women and their children, is our second big community service project of the year. Our project begins on November 30th and ends on December 14^th. During this time we encourage our families to speak with the children about those people in the world who are not as fortunate as they are. Some of these people live in Düsseldorf and we try to help them for the Christmas Season. This year the Center asked for the following donations:

·        Small games and puzzles for different age groups.

·        CDs/ Cassettes (children's songs or radio plays in German).

·        New and almost new baby/children's clothing up to 12 year olds.

·        Arts and crafts supplies.

·        Small stuffed animals (no bigger than 30 cms./12 inches long)

·        Baby toys

Our Student Council decorates a 'Giving Tree'. All gifts are placed under the tree. The children are asked to donate something of their own from home that is in good condition, or to earn money doing chores around the house to purchase a present from the list above. We encourage parents to involve the children in choosing a gift, buying a gift and wrapping it. Parcels should be marked 'girl' or 'boy' and the age group for which it is most appropriate. The children in the center range in age from infants to twelve.

The generosity of the school community has been overwhelming in the past. Please help us make this Christmas special for these women and children who have so little. Thank you for your support during this season of giving and for helping our children learn the value of thinking about others.

Warm regards,

Alan Lorenzini

Elementary School Principal

Where We Are In Place and Time

We've started our new unit: Where We Are in Place and Time.  We have been busy unpacking our central idea: Advances in technology change the way we do things.  As a class, we have talked about what this central idea means and we had lots of different ideas about what technology is.  We talked about how technology usually helps to make things easier for us. 

We decided that while technology covers a lot of different things, we would be focusing on ICT (Information and Communication Technology) for this unit.

After unpacking our central idea, we rewrote it in kid friendly language or our mother tongue to help us better understand.

Assembly on Friday!

This coming Friday (November 26th), fourth grade will be repeating our assembly performance for any parents who would like to attend after the main assembly.  This should be around 9:15.  Parents can wait in the foyer until the school assembly is over.  The performance should last approximately 10 minutes.  We look forward to seeing you there!

Book Fair

There will be a Book Fair in the Elementary School on Wednesday, November 24th and Thursday, November 25th.  If you would like to buy some books, our class will be visiting the Book Fair on Wednesday afternoon. 

Our Unit Oral Presentations

We've spent a lot of time last week preparing oral presentations with a partner to show our understanding of the central idea this unit: Limited access to natural resources makes people vulnerable.  As a grade level, we got together and decided on criteria that would be essential for a meaningful presentation.  We have worked hard to create a script and plan a PowerPoint to use as a visual during these presentations.  Then we practiced so that we could focus on our oral presentating skills.  We will use these presentations in the future to help us raise awareness across the school about water issues in the world.  These oral presentations will help us when we are ready to have our Water Campaign to help raise money to build wells in places that do not have access to clean water.

German News from the Intermediate group

Students had time in the computer lab to view programming on http://www.tivi.de/ and http://www.planetschule.de/ as well as to practice German on livemocha.com.  Here are some pictures of students watching episodes of Mumbro und Zinell from Planet Schule.  

Best Regards,

Herr Neas

Portfolio Day!

Today we had our first Portfolio Day of the school year.  We have been busy collecting evidence of our hard work in Grade 4 so that we could share it with our guests as they came for Portfolio Day.  We spent the morning talking to our guests about our learning and understandings so far this school year.  4.2 students were really proud of themselves today!

 

News from the German Department

Sankt Martin

November 10, 2010

The St. Martin´s parade is on Wednesday, November 10th, 2010 in Kaiserswerth. To participate in the parade is free, but a bag of treats is available with a ticket. The tickets for the bag of treats will be on sale at the school gate from Monday through Wednesday, November 8-10 from 8:30-8:50 and 15:40-16:00. Each ticket costs €3.00.

Each child has made a lantern in school. Any child that is intending to attend the St. Martin´s Parade will need to buy a lantern stick with batteries. This can be purchased from Strauß or Max Apel in Kaiserswerth or Real, Karstadt, etc. The lantern stick should be kept at home unless your child has been asked to carry their lantern in the school assembly on November 10th.

On Wednesay, November 10^th, we will meet at 16:45 on Fliedner Straße (behind Strauß) where the parade begins. After about 45 minutes of walking through the streets of Kaiserswerth the parade will end at the German Elementary School behind Strauß.  At this time the children with a ticket will line up to receive their bag of treats in the school building. Afterwards the students may want to visit a few local shops, sing St. Martin songs and receive treats from the shopkeepers.

St. Martin´s Day is an opportunity to participate in the local community. It is common to have a parade within each suburb. Here are the parade dates for the surrounding communities. More information is available on the Internet.

Angermund: 09.11.2010

Lohausen: 06.11.2010

Wittlaer: 12.11.2010

Meerbusch-Strümp: 05.11.2010

Meerbusch-Büderich: 11.11.2010

Kalkum 14.11.2010

The ES German Teachers,

Frau Winkelmann       Frau Rabearisoa       Frau Scherpel

Frau Laute     Frau Grassnick    Herr Neas     Frau Thielmann