From the Principal

May/June 2013

ISB Lower School Specialists’ Newsletter

Inside this issue:

French/Spanish 2

Art 3

Serbian/Serbian MT 4

PE/EAL 5

EAL/Music 6

sive and holistic primary school education. The content of these subjects is transdiscipli-nary 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 example of this is when your children ‘connect’ their school learning with some-thing that happens when they are at home or out and about with the family. Our spe-cialists teachers work alongside our classroom teachers to develop lessons and learning opportunities that are both interesting and connected to the classroom Units of Inquiry. Our specialist teachers work with our classroom teachers regularly to find connections between subjects and even participate in field trips when the connection is natural. 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 our specialist newsletter six times during the school year. As always, if you have any ques-tions about your child’s education, feel free to contact us. Enjoy your summer holiday. I look forward to seeing you all here on the Lower School campus, Brian H. Lettinga

Gr. 2

Welcome to final edition of our Specialist Newsletters. We have had a great school year here at ISB! Our specialist teachers (also referred as single-subject teachers) play an integral and important role in our Primary Years Program. The arts, physical education, and language study are essential elements to a comprehen-

French

Page 2

Newsletter Title

Dubravka Kostanjsek

French Teacher

Milica Rkulovic

Spanish Teacher

Spanish

Dear second grade parents,

Here is the last newsletter for the French class for this school year.

Since you’ve last heard from us, we continued learning about cities and villages

practicing different possible everyday communicative situations through various

oral and written activities. Until the end of the school year, we will be reviewing

all of the most important contents we have covered since September through

various games and activities.

Thank you very much for all of your support and collaboration throughout this

school year.

I wish you nice and exciting summer holidays!

See you next year!

The grade two Spanish students showed great enthusiasm and very good lan-

guage skills in our recently completed unit on animals. As an end-of-unit activity

they joined their efforts to create a class book about animals which now stands

as a great resource on our bookshelf and contains information about various spe-

cies of animals. In our last unit of the year we’ll be looking at vocabulary and ex-

pressions associated with preparing trips and going on vacation. We’ll study

different means of transportation, pros and cons, discuss things we like to take

with us when traveling and activities usually associated with different destina-

tions.

Page 3

Art

Svetlana Spasic-

Glid

Art

Over the past weeks, as our last unit of study slowly began to come to an end, the students

expressed their learning about the ways people communicated in ancient Egypt through hier-

oglyphs. They made clay forms which served as canvases for carving messages and their

names with hieroglyphic markings.

We continued with the unit of inquiry entitled Where We Are in Place and Time as we ex-

plored different artistic approaches to presenting portraits and the human body. The stu-

dents drew and painted as they responded to the works of Amadeo Modigliani, Pablo Picas-

so, and Huan Miro.

The students spent time learning about line, shape, color, and space. Also, they reflected on

their learning during this trimester.

I wish my students a great summer break!

Grade 2A students have classes on Thursdays.

Grade 2B students have classes on Wednesdays.

Serbian as a Foreign Language

Page 4

Newsletter Title

Ivana Jovanovic

Serbian Language Teacher

Upon completing the unit My Room, Grade 2 students started reviewing all that we

have learned during the course of the school year. So far, we’ve reviewed animals,

colors, numbers and clothing through a creative book project about silly animals

that have troubles dressing themselves. We will continue to review our vocabulary

as well as to improve our listening skills and understanding by watching short ani-

mated videos and doing accompanying activities – labeling, writing and identifying

new words and phrases.

Serbian Mother Tongue

Milena Jovanovic

Serbian Language

Teacher

Učenici drugog razreda su na časovima maternjeg jezika pročitali nekoliko knjiga iz

edicije Korak 1. Izdavača Laguna. Pročitali smo „Priče o zmajevima“, „Priče o

gusarima“ kao i priču „Alibaba i četrdest razbojnika“. Knjige su podeljenje u kraća

poglavlja koja se ili nadovezuju ili svako za sebe predstavljaju zasebnu priču. Nakon

čitanja i razgovora o svakom od poglavlja, proverimo razumevanje i vokabular koji

smo naučili kroz par vežbanja. Trenutno na časovima kao konekciju sa nastavnom

jedinicom o Kalemegdanu učimo o despotu Stefanu Lazareviću i njegovom uticaju

na Beogradsku tvrđavu. Takođe govorimo i o njegovoj porodici – knezu Lazaru i

knjeginji Milici. Iz gramatike smo obnovili imenice i glagole i naučili da kod imenica

možemo da razlikujemo tri roda – muški, ženski i srednji.

Page 5

Kelly Campbell

EAL Teacher

Track and Field was the unit second graders worked on during May. After a discussion about each event in this sport, our students focused on improving their running and jumping skills. We ran various distances: short, middle and long, in order to improve our speed and stamina. We practiced our agility, starting from different positions and ran races starting from standing or sprint-start positions.

A variety of exercises on hurdles prepared us well for running over them. Our goal was not to race against each other, but to overcome hurdles without hesitation. Relay races were something we all enjoyed a lot. We practiced run-ning with a baton and handing it off to team mates as well as run-ning our best for the team.

Throughout the unit we’ve learnt that people keep records of the results in Track and Field and that the best results are called world records. We all were amazed with the length of the world’s longest jump by a man, 8.95m. We were curious to find out how many jumps it would take us to reach that distance, so we measured the length of our broad jump and calculated it. Aside from broad jump we practiced the proper take-off and landing techniques for the long jump into the sand box. The most important thing for our second graders was not to beat the world’s record yet, but to try their best and become better with each attempt. But one day, maybe! Who knows? Stay healthy through sports!

EAL

Grade 2 students have been turning their reader’s theatre play into a full scale pro-

duction! We have finished with all of our props and will be performing our little play

next week for several different groups of students. At the same time we have been

working on the elements of persuasive writing and will soon be finishing the persua-

sive essay on why Belgrade is a wonderful city. It has been wonderful working with

this group and I wish everyone a wonderful summer holiday!

Physical Education

Marija Dimitrov

PE Teacher

Page 6

Beginners’ Group In May, we continued developing speaking and literacy - listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. We focused on developing reading fluency and comprehension. We contin-ued creating our own sentences using newly acquired vocabulary, and reading EAL books and stories. We practiced describing pictures, and retelling events that frequently occur, using present simple tense. We read “The Stubborn Goat” story, focusing on new vocab-ulary and comprehension, as well as retelling skills. Inspired by the book, the students role-played this short story. In grammar, we enforced basic prepositions, and singular/plural of the common nouns. In June, we reviewed material we have covered thus far. High Beginners This month we have started supporting the trans-disciplinary theme: Where we are in place and time – Significant People and Places unit, and its central idea: People and plac-es today are the product of historical events. This intriguing central idea made us think about important historical events that changed our world, as we read different leveled texts about events that happened in the past. In grammar, we reviewed past simple tense (regular and some irregular verbs), and intro-duced past perfect. We practiced retelling events that happened in the past, and asking questions in past tense. In addition, we introduced idioms, as we read Idiom Tales. We analyzed sayings about animals, colors, and clothing, and used them in our own sentenc-es.

EAL

Divna Stakic

EAL Teacher

Inspired by the song “Ederlezi”, second graders created a number of complex chore-

ographies using body socks and other props. Working in groups, they tried to respond

to different tempo changes with appropriate movements. In addition, they compared

lives and works of great composers, this time focusing on Mozart and Beethoven. We

looked at how one’s personality and temper translates to the music they compose

and produce. During this study we listened to parts of 5th, 7th, and 9th Symphony,

Fur Elise, and Moonlight Sonata.

Music

Ljudmila Janicijevic

Music Teacher