News from our Elementary Principal, Ben Voborsky
Hello GAA Community,
It was great to see so many of you at the International Food Festival. Sampling delicious foods from around the world while sharing our cultures and traditions is such a valuable community experience. This is one of the many ways we build intercultural competencies throughout our community!
Another way of sharing our international curriculum and how we are developing global citizens is through our Student Led Conferences. Student Led Conferences are rapidly approaching on March 15th and 16th. We will be using the same conference booking system as in the first semester. Instructions on how to book appointments goes out today. You will get a link from your teacher on Monday, March 6th at 3pm via Seesaw to sign up.
Conferences are scheduled for:
Wednesday, March15th (KG-12): 11:30am-7:30 pm
Thursday, March 16th (KG-12): 7:30am-3:30pm
Have a fantastic weekend,
Regards,
Ben Voborsky
It was great to see so many of you at the International Food Festival. Sampling delicious foods from around the world while sharing our cultures and traditions is such a valuable community experience. This is one of the many ways we build intercultural competencies throughout our community!
Another way of sharing our international curriculum and how we are developing global citizens is through our Student Led Conferences. Student Led Conferences are rapidly approaching on March 15th and 16th. We will be using the same conference booking system as in the first semester. Instructions on how to book appointments goes out today. You will get a link from your teacher on Monday, March 6th at 3pm via Seesaw to sign up.
Conferences are scheduled for:
Wednesday, March15th (KG-12): 11:30am-7:30 pm
Thursday, March 16th (KG-12): 7:30am-3:30pm
Have a fantastic weekend,
Regards,
Ben Voborsky
News from our Elementary Vice Principal, Sofia Lyons
International Mindedness & Global Citizenship at GAA
Last Thursday, during our Professional Development half-day, the whole teaching community met to develop and share our understandings of Global Citizenship and International Mindedness.
After the PD session our teachers reflected on three key questions:
What does it mean to be a global citizen?
What does it mean to be an interculturally competent teacher?
What does it mean to be a successful student at GAA?
Here are some of our teacher’s reflections?
We are still receiving responses from our teachers but we hope that these reflections give you a flavour of how internationally minded our faculty are and the vision we have for our students and our whole community.
Sofia Lyons
Elementary Vice-Principal
Last Thursday, during our Professional Development half-day, the whole teaching community met to develop and share our understandings of Global Citizenship and International Mindedness.
After the PD session our teachers reflected on three key questions:
What does it mean to be a global citizen?
What does it mean to be an interculturally competent teacher?
What does it mean to be a successful student at GAA?
Here are some of our teacher’s reflections?
- As a global citizen at GAA, it means to be a member of a global community sharing a respect, understanding and tolerance of all people.
- To have a deeper understanding of cultural differences and be accepting of it. Also, you should be willing to embrace, or learn from people's backgrounds/beliefs.
- Embracing different cultures and encouraging students to embrace their mother tongues.
- To value all cultures and nationalities, to respect all opinions and understand that people have different influences and that no one way is right. To contribute towards the community and offer the students opportunities to learn about different perspectives
- To be understanding of, empathetic towards and committed to taking action on global issues.
- I believe it means to support cross cultural and multi cultures without biases and prejudice. Being open-minded and embracing differences.
- An interculturally competent teacher respects students of other cultures and actively encourages students to be open-minded. Teachers actively teach their subject from the perspective of other cultures and incorporate it in their lessons.
- Be considerate to norms that are very different than your own and not make judgements
- It means to be a well-rounded, knowledgeable and ethical individual who is a responsible member of the community (both local and global) and who acts according to those principles.
- An open-minded, kind, considerate young person who knows it is up to him/her to create a pathway to a successful future of happiness and fulfillment.
- To learn and to grow to love learning. To ask questions about everything, including classmates, in a respectful way and allow others to express their beliefs. To take ownership of their learning.
- A successful student at GAA would model the attributes of the Learner Profile and the attitudes of the IB. They would understand their place in the world and that others although they may be different can also be right. They would work with others to make the world a better place for all.
We are still receiving responses from our teachers but we hope that these reflections give you a flavour of how internationally minded our faculty are and the vision we have for our students and our whole community.
Sofia Lyons
Elementary Vice-Principal
News from our PYP Coordinator, Mike Hopaluk
Elementary Community Share
On Thursday morning, students from 1D and 4D shared some of their learning from their recently finished units of inquiry. In both grades the transdisciplinary theme was ‘How we express ourselves’. The Grade 1 students have been inquiring in celebrations around the world and shared what they had learned about New Year celebrations in China and India. In Grade 4, students have been learning about how Art can express beliefs and values. Each student shared showed a creation of their own and talked about the beliefs and values expressed in it.
The Community Share was completed with the celebration of the students who received a Star Student award this week for their demonstration of PYP attitudes and/or IB Learner Profile attributes. These students got a front row view of the sharing in the “VIP Section” before they were called up to be recognized on stage. You can see many more photos of the event here.
On Thursday morning, students from 1D and 4D shared some of their learning from their recently finished units of inquiry. In both grades the transdisciplinary theme was ‘How we express ourselves’. The Grade 1 students have been inquiring in celebrations around the world and shared what they had learned about New Year celebrations in China and India. In Grade 4, students have been learning about how Art can express beliefs and values. Each student shared showed a creation of their own and talked about the beliefs and values expressed in it.
The Community Share was completed with the celebration of the students who received a Star Student award this week for their demonstration of PYP attitudes and/or IB Learner Profile attributes. These students got a front row view of the sharing in the “VIP Section” before they were called up to be recognized on stage. You can see many more photos of the event here.
This week in 2E, students have started investigating our new unit of inquiry: How We Express Ourselves. Students deconstructed our central idea of “Patterns are Used as a Form of Expression.” As a provocation to get us thinking, students investigated various objects strewn across our carpet to determine if patterns were present or not. The conversation was rich and engaging. As part of our tuning in, we took a ‘pattern walk’ around our classroom and school to observe patterns in and out of the classroom environment. Students used their iPads to record their observations and share their knowledge with parents on Seesaw. This unit lends itself well to the transdisciplinary nature of the PYP as we are able to authentically integrate our language and mathematics into our unit of inquiry. In Mathematics, we are currently exploring different types of patterns (growing, shrinking, repeating, number sequences, etc.). In language, students are developing their knowledge of patterns in how writers structure poetry differently than prose. Please encourage your child to discuss patterning at home. We would love to see students taking action at home by bringing in a photo or picture demonstrates the concept of pattern.
KG Corner
This week in KG2, we are finishing our exploration into storytelling! We can now describe, evaluate and create our own stories through plays, writing and acting.
KG2 students did a great job on the KG2 Arts Festival last week! Congratulations to all KG2 classes on a job well done!