Wk 37 May 20th - 24th

Dear parents, we appreciate the time that you take to read our weekly blog. We had a very reflective week, where all students had a chance to think about their growth as a learner in all areas, and they all got to identify their areas of strength and things they need to work on. We spent a good time of the week practicing for our conferences this Monday, we are all looking forward to seeing you here!
As we entered Ramadan last weekend, we ask that you 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, and also if they are fasting food and water or just one.
Thank you

STUDENT LED CONFERENCES

The conferences are approximately one hour and we will have about four conferences taking place at the same time in your classrooms/specialist area.

• Wafers and juice will be delivered to homeroom classes as a treat after students have finished their conference.

• Conference can be conducted in the student’s choice of language

Conference times:

Session 1: 8:15 - 9:15
Session 2: 9:30 - 10:30
Session 3: 11:00 - 12:00
Lunch: 12:00 - 1:00
Session 4: 1:00 - 2:00 

Locations for conferences:

• Classrooms for homeroom
• Art Show on the ground floor corridors and in the art room
• Music in music room, opposite multi-purpose room
• PE in ES hall
• Drama in drama room
• Arabic and Egypt Culture in their classes
• Library open
• CACN broadcasting room will be open for live parent recordings as we would love to get parents feedback on our student led conference day

May 21 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.  

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?

From the Curriculum Corner

Reading Workshop: Reading About Science Topics

The Essential Questions are:

1) How can I learn about Science through reading?

2) How do different texts help me to get information about the same topic?

3) How can I become and expert about a Science topic?

This week our First grade readers will be working with their partners sharing, asking questions, stating their opinion and defending it with evidence from the book. They will also look for contradictions and similarities in the texts they are reading, and they will have discussions with their partners.

Reflecting about our Reading

Writing Workshop: Writing about Science

The Essential Question is: How can I write like a scientist to inform my reader?

This week our First Grade writers will start to write their last book of the year. They will sum up everything they have learned during our Science unit: Matter; and they will use all the skills they have learned during Writer's Workshop. They will review the fact that teaching books can include narrative, how to and persuasive writing and they will begin to plan chapters in their book about Matter.

A book about Matter by a First Grader

Reflecting about our writing

Math: Place Value, Comparison, Plus and Minus to 100

The Essential Questions are:

1) What are efficient ways to count?

2) How does counting by tens and ones help you count larger numbers?

3) What is place value?

4) How does a digit's position affect it's value?

5) How can numbers be expressed and compared?

6) In what ways can numbers be composed and decomposed?

This week our mathematicians will be culminating this unit by practicing problems where they will comparing bigger or small unknown numbers, and they will be having discussions with partners. During these discussions, students will share strategies and give feedback to each other about the strategies used by each one.

Student writing after having a reflective discussion with teacher

Science: Matter Manipulations - Solids and Liquids

The Essential Question is: How and why do scientists change matter?

This week our first grade scientists will investigate another fun way of changing matter by mixing solids and liquids together. After other experiments that involved mixing and dissolving, students will  generate questions and generate hypothesis about what will happen to the ingredients that we will use: cold and hot water, glue, food coloring, and borax. Would it become a solution, a solid, would it stay a liquid? why is matter changing that way? We can't wait to get started with this experiment! 

Making Oobleck!

Circle Solutions

1C This week will be our last session of Circle Solutions. We will be revising the core values and continuing to reflect on our strengths and weaknesses. We will be playing community building games and enjoying our first grade friends.

1M This will be our last week of Circle Solutions activities since next week we will be signing an autograph book for our friends during this time. For this last session we will brainstorm 1 or 2 strengths of each and everybody in our class that will help us remember our good First Grade friends. 

1S This will be our last week of Circle Solutions. During this time we will be working on revisiting all the Core Values and talk about how important each value is to shaping us into students who are always learning and reflecting. Students will have opportunities to share when they have displayed each of these values this year and also recognize friends who have displayed these core values in the classroom and out in the playground.

Skyward online payment for food services open

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

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.

21st Century Libraries for Parents: CAC Overdrive and ebook collections

Join us on May 23 at the MHS to access the CAC ebook collections.

We have lots of options, and of all of them, Overdrive is our prize collection.

Overdrive is an app that allows you to read ebooks and listen to audiobooks offline, and choose

from hundreds of titles in our digital collection.We will offer this session twice, at 8:15 am and at 2 pm.

Both times will be at the MHS library. Please download the Overdrive app before the workshop. It is available for free at all the app stores.

You will need your CAC single sign on to access the CAC digital collection.

Important dates to remember