Parent Letter – Sixth & Seventh Week of Online Learning

Message from Academic Principal

 

Dear Parents:

Boston International School hopes that this message finds all of you well.  We would like to share the following updates with you as we look to begin week 8 of online learning:

·       Mock exams for students in grades 12 have been postponed for the coming week.  We are informing all students in grades 10 and 12 about new expectations related to IGCSE and DP.

·       This will be a shorter week for students in their online learning.  We have asked all teachers to prepare only two days of work so that everyone can take a short break towards the end of the week.

Please continue to monitor our school communication for upcoming announcements.  In the meantime, please see all of the highlights from the past two weeks of online learning that have been happening.  We are so proud of our teachers, students, and parents for the tremendous efforts that have been taking place!

As always, please continue to reach out as you have questions or concerns.

In partnership,

Brian Rotunno

Academic Principal

 

EY Teacher

I want to begin on a right note by saying, I am personally glad to know that every member of our Boston Community is safe and healthy, whichever part of the world they are now. I personally believe that is the most important factor to take into consideration before we really get into the intricacies of our teaching and learning. Yes, this season is a surprise to me and all out there, however I have understood that occasionally it is necessary to make unscheduled courses in response to events that may potentially make attendance at school difficult and unsafe. But in order to cross this bridge, Boston Community has gone above and beyond to ensure we provide a Virtual Learning Environment to minimize disruption to educational provision.

 

Purpose of Preparation?

My experience over the last six weeks of virtual learning in a home setting is more successful when children are familiar with technology and learning that will support their collaboration with their parents and teachers. It is expected of every teacher to know their role and take this seriously by ensuring we are well acquainted with the online resources used to implement teaching and learning. I believe as a school and personally as a Teacher in EY, we have established an online means of communicating in real time to answer queries of our parents and children. We have provided a learning environment through ClassDojo where students are provided feedback as part of their ongoing classroom routine. Yes, sometimes it can be challenging for students who are limited to resources, a structural environment and routine. However, when I look back at the last six weeks, I have observed the enthusiasm, dedication, engagement, learning and happy faces of my students who revert to me with their online tasks. This surely has a twist to my initial apprehensions of Virtual Learning for prolonged periods of time. I am very proud of my students in EY4a!

My expectations from my students?

Online learning with Early Years can be a challenge, but this period has shown me that our students have shown immense growth through various transdisciplinary skills, concepts and approaches to learning. I am pleased to say that most of my students who are ELL, have shown me extensive growth via their learning in the last six weeks. My expectations for my students have grown from 3 tasks during week one to a Must do and Should activities across Language, Unit of Inquiry and Mathematics not forgetting Health and Safety an important aspect to our children’s well-being.

The online learning week begins by posting their activities through pdf via ClassDojo. I also provide opportunities for my students to see me online by posting videos in relation to explaining the tasks, teaching concepts and reading being, one of the major expectations at this tender age. I have received feedback from some parents that their children enjoy watching Ms. Sonia on the videos and this enables them to pursue their tasks confidently. Some of the students have ended up imitating my teaching as well.

What are we doing to help students learn?

Tuning In: We had begun our transdisciplinary theme of “How We Express Ourselves”through the Central Idea, “We appreciate both patterns in the natural world and the ones that we create” during the second week of the online learning. Students were asked to search for patterns from their home environment. They were then asked to review the patterns collected from the class community that was posted via a PowerPoint on ClassDojo in order to create their own patterns independently and to collaborate as a class community. Language and Mathematics were integrated through meeting various learning outcomes according to the defined BIS scope and sequence.

Finding Out: Ms. Sonia Wright read a story on “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?” via ClassDojo. Students were asked to then create a page of the story in order to find out what they understood from the pattern story. It was exciting to see many of the students create not just a page but a whole story book on a repeating pattern. Some of them even wrote the words to the story. This was taken further, through making a PowerPoint book of the picture’s students drew and colored. Ms. Sonia had an opportunity to read this story on ClassDojo. 

Sorting Out: Students were provided options to reading a few books such as “Beep Beep Vroom Vroom” by J Spikey, “I went walking” by Sue Machin and Julie Vivas, and“One fish, two fish, Red fish, Blue Fish” by Dr. Seuss. They were expected to choose one of the books and read them to their parents in order to sort out their understanding of patterns and to hit upon learning outcomes such as where the story took place (setting), Who are the characters (people/animals in the story), What happened in the beginning, middle and end of the story. Parents were challenged to ask their children questions pertaining to the stories.

Going Further: A Unit of Inquiry without the spirit of music, dance and art integration doesn’t make the UOI complete and purposeful. Students were provided a video of “Banana Banana, Meatball” song and asked to replicate the patterns through music and dance.

We took this one step further, thanks to Ms. Bibiana Garcia and Mr. David Bremner, they helped us with creating a rap song that had no lyrics. This was a fantastic opportunity for students to showcase their skills. I enjoyed the videos of students dancing and creating patterns to this piece of music.

We have also had an opportunity to enhance the creative skills of our students bycreating animal patterns using the resources from their created home learning environment. We had an opportunity to explore students’ cultural patterns from their individual home countries. The students are currently focusing on “Patterns in Nature” by taking their parents and siblings for a stroll. Some of our students are extending their thinking out of the home environment and visiting beaches to think about patterns in nature. Wow!

In Language, students have been developing their phonics skills through online teaching videos from Ms. Sonia and other awesome teachers in the Boston Community. We have also had opportunities to showcase our creative work of language through our drawing, coloring and creations of letter cubes etc. We have read a few stories over the weeks and have shared some students reading weekly stories as well.

While in Mathematics, students have been developing the skills to enhance their understanding of number concepts which is count on and count back, different ways to make number 5 and number 10, ordinal numbers to 10. We have also been focusing on AB, ABC, ABCD, ABB patterns.

 

How to get to see me and friends?

We have been doing various online calls, initially it was individualized, and I then moved it to group calls as some parents wanted to connect their children to their peers in the class. This was an amazing opportunity for students to just connect and know they are not alone in this process and time.

 

Parent’s role in this process with EY4?

In the Early Years, Parents play a very crucial role as they are the facilitators in the home environment to help support their children’s virtual learning. I just want to take this time to thank all my parents who have been extremely patient, understanding and supportive during your work and personal lives. They have also challenged their children’s thinking and creativity. It is amazing to see many parents so involved in their children’s learning during the last six weeks. Thank you and I am humbled by your support always!

I believe it has been a journey together where we have provided learning opportunities that promote online collaboration, personalized feedback in real time that allowed for redefinition as opposed to substitution. Students have demonstrated excellent engagement and inquiry during this journey. I am proud of them and I continue to encourage all of us to stay positive and look forward because there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.