From the Principal

December—January 2014

ISB Lower School Specialists’ Newsletter

Inside this issue:

Art 2

Spanish 3

SFL/SMT 4

Music/EAL 5

PE 6

French 7

study are essential elements to a comprehensive and holistic primary school education. The content of these subjects is transdisciplinary in nature, meaning that the skills and concepts developed by specialist teachers have relevance throughout the Lower School curriculum and our students’ lives beyond school. A great ex-ample of this is through the multiple field trips our students enjoy throughout the school year. This year we have seen all our classes on field trips inquiring into the Units of Inquiry throughout the city of Belgrade. Our specialists teach-ers do work alongside our classroom teachers to develop lessons and learning opportunities that are both interesting and connected to the classroom Units of Inquiry. For this reason, we think it is important that we keep our parents informed about the teaching and learning taking place in our specialists’ classrooms. You will receive the specialist newsletter six times during the school year. As always, if you have any questions about your child’s education, feel free to contact us. Enjoy the February Holiday and travel safely. School resumes for all ISB students on Monday, February 24. Hope to see you all around campus soon, Mr. Lettinga Lower School Principal

Gr. 2

Welcome to our fourth edition of our Specialist Newsletters! Our specialist teachers (also referred as single-subject teachers) play an integral and important role in the Primary Years Pro-gram. The arts, physical education, and language

Page 2

Art

Svetlana Spasic-

Glid

Art

In the previous weeks, students were practicing the use of patterns through their drawing and weaving projects and the use of form, symmetry, and texture. Students used play dough and clay. We have started working on a single subject Unit of Inquiry How the World Works – Elements and Principles, as a connection to their learning in the homeroom. Through this unit, students will explore the use of line, color, form, pattern, and texture in their works for creating their pieces of art. In this unit, students will be exposed to different art styles within Impressionism and Post-Impressionism in order to learn how the weather influenced the artists’ choices re-garding color, line, shape, and pattern since those artists drew much of their inspiration from nature. We will continue with the inquiry into drawing or painting while using elements and principles for clearly distinguishing between the water and sky in students’ pieces of art. Chil-dren can choose the media to work with, a specific artist, and to explore day or night pictures if they are interested in it. Grade 2A students have classes on Thursdays. Grade 2B students have classes on Wednesdays.

Serbian as a Foreign Language

Ivana Jovanovic

Serbian language Teacher

Grade 2 focused on writing to socialize. We learned about birthday parties. Students

practiced reading and translating simple descriptive paragraphs about organizing a

birthday party. Then, they learned how to write an invitation and a birthday card. Our

focus was on question words ko (who), gde (where) and kada (when). We rounded up

this unit with a telephone conversation – an invitation to a birthday party. We started

by practicing pre-written dialogue, and ended with our own improvisations.

Page 3

Newsletter Title

Sonja Jecmenica Spanish Teacher

Spanish Welcome to our fourth Spanish newsletter! In this letter you will find out all the exciting

learning activities taking place in the Lower School Spanish class.

After successfully completing our Classroom Unit where students demonstrated

knowledge of classroom vocabulary, basic action verbs and some grammatical struc-

tures, grade two Spanish students began working on the home unit. They learned the

words about the home and its rooms (la cocina- kitchen, el sótano- basement, el cuarto

de baño- bathroom etc.). Then students learned about the different actions that they

can do in each room (for example En mi salón yo puedo ver la tele, hablar con familia,

jugar a los video juegos… - In my living room I can watch TV, talk to family, play video

games…). We also practiced talking about the place positions of home furniture, as well

as, we learned a lot of household items. We classified the objects that are used in each

room (En la cocina hay: la lavaplatos, el lavabo, la nevera… - In the kitchen there are

dishwasher, sink, refrigerator etc.). During this unit we learned and practiced through a

variety of activities (Act out the given instructions, “Pesca -Go fish”, Tablero – Board

game, Juego de memoria – Memory game etc.). In this unit the focus was on the read-

ing/listening comprehension activities and on improving the students´ writing skills.

We have just started the new unit – Weather, which will be our unit of study for the next

month. I am glad that all grade two students enjoyed the home unit and showed good

understanding of the covered materials.

Page 4

Newsletter Title

Serbian Mother Tongue

Milena Jovanovic

Serbian Language

Teacher

U utorak, 28. januara, smo na časovima Srpskog jezika proslavili školsku slavu Svetog

Savu. Da bismo se pripremili za obeležavanje ovog dana u nedeljama koje su

prethodile proslavi čitali smo priče o svetom Savi i učili o običajima i tradiciji proslave

slave. Naučili smo da slavu slavimo kako bismo se zahvalili svecu koji je naš zaštitnik,

kao i da na taj dan zovemo goste da nam se pridruže u proslavi. Na trpezi treba

servirati slavski kolač, slavsko žito i vino. Razgovarali smo i o životu Rastka Nemanjića i

o tome da se on kao osnivač prvih škola i kao jedan od prvih učitelja, smatra

zaštitnikom svih škola u Srbiji, te se tako proslavlja kao školska slava. Na dan proslave

učenici drugog razreda su održali prezentaciju svojim vršnjacima o svemu onome što

su naučili. Prezentaciju smo počeli pevajući Svetosavsku himnu – Uskliknimo s

ljubavlju, a potom smo prikazali prezentaciju s fotografijama na kojima su učenici

predstavljeni u ulozi domaćina i u ulozi gostiju pokazali kako se slavi slava. U trećem

delu priredbe smo našim gostima, postavili par pitanja o svetom Savi kako bismo

videli šta sve znaju o njemu. Na ovoj adresi možete pogledati fotografije sa proslave

kao i prezentaciju. Nakon ovoga, drugi razred nastavlja nastavnu jedinicu u okviru koje

čitamo prozu.

Page 5

Music

Ljudmila Janicijevic

Music Teacher

January was an action-packed month in Music class. Students returned from the win-ter break recharged and ready to learn. During this month we recognized Mozart’s birthday. We watched a new documentary that revealed many new interesting things about this master composer. Students were especially interested in BBC’s ani-mated version of the Magic Flute, which also led us to discussion and learning about opera. Students showed keen interest and appreciation for Mozart’s work. Grade 2 students played mouth pianos. Focus was on B,A, and E tones. In addition, making connection to the weather unit, we looked into interpretation of different seasons in fairy tales. Our songs of the month came from Disney’s movie “Frozen” and they were “Do you want to build a Snowman”, “Let it Go”, and “Frozen Heart.”

High Beginners/Low Intermediate Group In December and January EAL students worked on various reading and writing activi-ties. Some examples of reading activities include: story predictions, sequencing, dis-cussing characters, setting, problem and solution. We continued our focus on building up vocabulary, and increasing comprehension using context clues. In the last week of January we started supported the Weather Unit of Inquiry, and its central idea: People use science and technology to explore, understand, and predict the weather. We named different weather conditions, and practiced describing pic-tures in present tense. We talked about what we wear, and what we do in different weather conditions. We discussed how the weather affects children and adults. We continued our focus on simple/compound sentences, and writing conventions: capital letters and basic punctuation. In addition, we kept on reading and analyzing fiction stories, enriching our vocabulary and learning grammar in context. We continued paying attention to the sequence of events when retelling stories.

EAL

Divna Stakic

EAL Teacher

Page 6

Physical Education

Marija Dimitrov

PE Teacher

Dear Parents,

The first week of school after the winter break was reserved for scooters games, in indi-

vidual and paired activities. By placing different body parts on a scooter board, students

drove themselves around the gym while improving their strength and body balance.

Using hockey sticks, Second graders practiced pulling and pushing their partners on a

scooter board, driving each other safely around the gym. As all of our students learned

through this experience; scooter games can be great fun when we all listen and follow

directions carefully. This is what helped us all to “get back on a track” after three weeks

of holidays and to get ready for our next unit.

During the past three weeks we have worked on gymnastics skills.

Students reviewed the gymnastics elements they learned in previous years such as

shoulder stand, bridge and bracelet pose.

We also practiced linking different types of rolls in a row (e.g. two forward or two back-

wards rolls, or one forward and one backward) and performing a straddle roll, a roll

with legs wide apart.

Many of us learnt how to perform a headstand and handstand without teacher assis-

tance, as well as how to perform the cartwheel.

Throughout the unit we worked on improving our balance in various poses on the bal-

ance beam, such as knee and front scales. We also practiced a variety of steps, jumps

and turns in order to link the elements and perform them with a graceful flow.

French

Page 7

Newsletter Title

Dubravka Kostanjsek

French Teacher

Dear second grade parents,

Here is the fourth newsletter for the French class in order to keep you in-

formed about the things we have been learning during the last period.

After the holidays, we introduced a Unit about indoor and outdoor games,

sports and other activities and hobbies. We learned the names of various

activities and also practiced expressing our likes and dislikes regarding

those activities. In terms of communication, we learned how to invite a

friend to play with us and also how to accept or refuse politely an invitation

of that kind. We are now coming to the end of this Unit and will soon start

our new Unit, which will be about the weather and how it affects our eve-

ryday choices. All the activities include reading, writing, listening and

speaking skills.

Thank you for your time and please feel free to contact me if you have any

questions.