Week 37

Welcome to the Grade 2 Newsletter

Important Dates

• May 21 - Student-Led Conferences
• May 22 - Last Library day for classes; All books are due
• May 29 - Big Splash House Event
• May 29 - May/June/July Birthday Lunch
• May 29 - Summer check out starts at the Library
• June 3 - Grade 5 Move On Ceremony
• June 4 - Grade 2 End Of The Year Celebrations
• June 5 - Last Day of School (Early Release Day)

End of the Year Party

Save the date!!! On June 4th, from 12:15 to 1:15 we will celebrate our End of Year party at the ES Hall. Grade 2 students will have a special lunch and some other activities. All parents are invited to celebrate with us. Thank you to Nina, Linda and Ahmed, our room parents, for their help organizing this.

Student-Led Conferences

Students are looking forward to your visit so that they can take the opportunity to share with you how much they have grown this year. May 21st is not a regular school day, as students will come in for their conference only. We hope all parents can attend and we look forward to a positive day celebrating growth.  

The purpose of student-led conferences is to open the eyes of students to their own learning and to help them take personal responsibility for their progress. In the traditional parent-teacher conference, students are “third parties” to assessment, hearing about their progress through the teachers and parents. Teachers and parents do play a vital role in assessment but students must also take an active role in this area to maximize their potential for success.  

In preparing for a student-led conference, students see how their strengths, challenges, and behavior can affect them as learners, thus allowing them to take more responsibility for, and control over, their achievement in school. Student-led conferences are an experience that can improve the communication patterns of both students and parents. In a student-led conference, students learn how to reflect on their learning, evaluate their progress and communicate this information to their parents. Parents learn how to listen to their students, how to encourage growth and how to best help their student with specific challenges. 

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. 

POSSIBLE QUESTIONS TO ASK DURING THE CONFERENCE

• Can you explain this to me?
• How did you come up with this idea?
• How have you grown in this area?
• How can you improve in this area?
• How can we help you at home?
• What was important to you about this?
• If you could do this work over again, how would you change it?
• What future goals do you have as a student?

Fasting Students

Parents, please inform your classroom teacher if your child will be fasting so we can make any necessary arrangements to make sure they are comfortable. It is helpful to know if they fast for the whole or part of the day at school, food or water.

Skyward online payment for food services open

Elementary Parents,

We are pleased to announce our Skyward online hot lunch payment system will be open for Kindergarten-Grade 5 students from Sunday, May 13. Parents can pay into your family account for the hot lunch commencing via the CAC cashier’s office in our welcome center. For this week only (May 13 - May 17), the cashier's hours will be before 10:00 am and after 2:00 pm. Minimum payment of 500 LE per student is required.

This new system will give parents and students a more convenient way for their elementary child’s hot lunch.

Making payment is straightforward and offers you the freedom to pay CAC’s cashier in our welcome centre whenever you are on campus or send the money via your child and the class/grade aide will pay on your behalf and send the receipt to you. Your Skyward secure online food service tab is part of your Skyward account and the link can be found on your parent dashboard. This system will support if you have more than one child in our division as each child has a personalized bracelet which will register who, when and cost of each hot lunch purchased. Parents can view this on their Skyward account. Please see this link for a quick tutorial.

If a student orders hot lunch and the family account does not have funds, the meal will be given to the student and the parent will receive an automated email informing them. Also, when the amount drops to 300 LE the email will request the replenishment of the student’s account balance. At the end of the year, if the family account is overdrawn and you have a debit balance, the report card will be held until cleared. If there is a surplus it will be rolled over the following year for returning students, grade five and departing students will be notified by elementary school office and the refund can be collected from the cashier’s office.

From the student side their class/grade aide will hand out the bracelets to students having hot lunch and collect them after lunch. The food vendor will scan the bracelet and return to the student.

38 LE meal card & 45 LE Combo meal/ juice cards are acceptable in lieu of cash for your child’s meal until May 31 which is our last day for hot lunches. Please hand them to the cashier and receive a payment receipt.

Who do I see if I have a problem?

• If you have feedback, questions regarding the Skyward online payment system please contact our technology office, Mr. Fadi Duweni, email: felduweini@cacegypt.org, Ph: 2755-5495
• If you have feedback, questions regarding the payment please contact CAC’s cashier Reda Ibrahim, email: ribrahim@cacegypt.org, Ph: 2755-551
• If you have feedback, questions regarding the use of the bracelet or general please contact Mrs. Jackson-Jin, email: jjackson@cacegypt.org, elementary office: 2755-5222

Parent questions so far?

• What if my child uses their bracelet to buy a friend’s lunch? Your child will only be permitted to scan for their own lunch and the bracelet.
• What if I don’t want my child to buy juice with lunch? We can add it as an alert for the vendor on the system, but please understand that it comes by practice and vendor may miss this sometimes initially.

I would like to thank our lunch committee chair, Sandrine Kachour and development chair Jackie Goodall Riley, for their support in trialling the system and giving us feedback. As we know with any new systems their may be glitches, so we would appreciate your feedback.

Best regards,
Julie Jackson-Jin
Elementary Principal

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.

What’s Going on This Week in Grade 2

Readers’ and Writer's Workshop

This week students will be using their Readers’ and Writers’ Workshop time to reflect on Student Led Conferences. We will also review the variety of genres we read over the year and talk about the different accuracy and comprehension skills studied this year. Students will read independently and read with a partner thinking about fluency and intonation. Our readers will also think about using sentence starters to help keep their partners accountable and dive deeper into understanding their books. 

Math

Students will be bringing home Module 8 Topic A assessment this week. Please review it with your child, sign it, and return it to school by the end of week 37. The next topic is focused on telling time using an analog clock. Students will understand how to tell time to the nearest five minutes and relate a.m. and p.m. to time of day. Students will also be exposed to the application of fractions to tell time. 

Please refer to the Unit 8 Parent Newsletter for more details about this unit. 

Mathletics Review Lessons for this unit:

• Counting Sides and Corners (corners here means angles)
• Measuring Length
• Comparing Length
• Number Lines
• Making Graphs

Social Studies

This week we will continue our Social Studies Unit titled: We Live In Urban and Rural Communities. Students were asked to interview an adult about their preferences. Please be sure to turn in the assignment this week. We will also take the written assessment. Students will choose from a variety of ways to tell others their preference of living in an urban or rural area. 

Essential Questions:

• What is a community?
• How do communities meet our needs?
• Why do people choose to live where they do?

Circles

Focus: review all the core values and display them especially when working with others, in the classroom, at school, at home, and in the community.