Newsflash: April 3, 2020

Admin News

Dear CIS Community,

The start of our Spring/Easter break marks the completion of our first three weeks of Remote Learning, with the last week under Enhanced Community Quarantine conditions. Congratulations and good effort everyone! We are pretty sure you are now ready for a break, but as we are all confined to our residences, we wanted to give you a few options to try something different, novel, or fresh over the break.

So, instead of getting bored, or binging on Netflix or video games, in addition to reading novels, why not visit the Louvre, the Guggenheim, the Museum of Modern Art, the San Diego Zoo, LEGOLAND and the Monterey Bay Aquarium – all without leaving your house, and if you want, all within a day!

Click on the link below to create your itinerary, and remember to make at least some of these family activities! Thanks to the CIS faculty for the ideas, and especially Mr. Jon Denton for collating them for our collective use!

Spring/Easter Break Activities for Students, Parents, Staff and Teachers

Enjoy the break, and make good use of this opportuinty to spend time on you and with your family ! These are trying times, but through adversity, we can develop ourselves into better people!

CIS will resume our remote learning classes on Tuesday, April 14 (Day A).

Warm regards,

Dr Gwyn Underwood
Superintendent

Elementary News

by Mr. Glenn Davies, Elementary Principal/PYP Coordinator

Dear Elementary Community,

With three weeks of remote learning now completed, we can reflect upon both the successes and challenges faced by each of us in the community. One of the more significant challenges many of us have faced is isolation. Human beings are very social and we love to live, learn and relax together. For many, living at a distance causes loneliness and boredom, and sometimes stress.  Additionally,  so much of the energy for our learning comes from our social interactions and from our relationships with each other.  For this reason it is important to maintain connection and community with the CIS community, and to assist with this we have created the CIS Elementary Remote Learning Community Website. This website was shared with the elementary community on Monday, along with the Permission Slip, giving permission for your child’s work, videos or photos to be shared. The website cannot be found on search engines but can be accessed when someone has a direct link.

During the week our teachers have been posting the teaching that has been taking place across the elementary school in various grade levels, and with parent permission examples of student learning have been shared. It is my hope that this website will become a place of connection and sharing over the coming weeks as parents and students see and comment on the teaching and learning happening across the school.  Some of the teaching sessions I have enjoyed seeing this week in the CIS Elementary Remote Learning Community Website have included Ms. Jeralyn Early Years’ lessons and Coach Jay’s PE classes. In addition to this, there are videos from the Grade 2 teaching team, instructional videos from Ms. Natasha and Ms. Thea, almost every teacher’s work is represented here. I am so proud of how the CIS Teaching team has pulled together to support learning at home.

At home, you have also carried a huge responsibility. I give my sincere thanks to each family for the sacrifices I know have been made over these past three weeks. As parents, you have been required to drive learning at home and many of the learning experiences designed by teachers would not have been possible without your intervention, supervision and support. The CIS Elementary Remote Learning Community Website is also here to celebrate the learning that has been taking place at home. At home, we can easily feel disconnected from what is happen across the school. Privacy requirements do not enable the sharing of learning freely and it can be challenging to connect. With parent permission, we are able to share the learning that is happening at home. If you would like your child’s work to be shared, please do complete the permission form, and if there is a particular piece of work, or a video you feel the CIS elementary community may enjoy, please ask your child’s teacher to post this on the Remote Learning Community website. This week some of the work that has been shared included Underwater Art, Finding Fractions at home, A video on how to avoid getting germs, and a very special video of one of our youngest learners responding to Ms. Jeralyn’s teaching video.

We now have a few days away from remote learning, and this too will be different to what we are used to. Mr. Eerik collated a document called 46 offline things to do, and I encourage you to use this document during the coming vacation time. There are also a number of suggested activities on the ‘Keeping Busy” section of the Remote Learning Community website which may also be helpful, include technology building challenges (no devices required), and virtual tours of museums.

The CIS teachers wish you all well over this coming week.

Middle and High School News

by Mr. Dale Wood, Middle and High School Principal

Now that we have completed three weeks of remote learning in the Middle and High School, we just wanted to share more examples of how our teachers are modeling critical and creative thinking in engineering and guiding our students through dynamic learning experiences and collaborating even though we are not physically together.

Grade 10 Art students, working from the statement of inquiry, Creative interpretation of concepts provides different meanings and perceptions, have been tasked with creating illustrations relating to the Covid-19 crisis that will provide a positive impact on their viewers. Students are free to explore any concept, art style, process, or technique and the medium could either be digital or traditional. The goal is to offer a counterpoint to the media which tends to report on this crisis with negativity and stoking our fears. We are empowering students to use their voices, with art as their vehicle, to create works that are inspiring in the midst of these unsettling times.

Student reflections:

The main goal of the artwork is to have a positive impact or communicate a positive message to the audience so I decided that I wanted to do this by emphasizing social distancing. But instead of how we perceive it now, such as monotonous and melancholic since we are being held up in our homes for a long period of time we are not particularly used to, I want to remind the audience that even at this time of crisis it is best to find the fun in the little things. Jodi

Since our topic for this piece was to try and inspire people during a time of Coronavirus. I wanted to take the “apocalyptic” feel of this situation and incorporate it into my artwork. So I decided to look for pictures of normally crowded areas that are now empty because of Coronavirus. These included areas such as empty sidewalks, subways, groceries and many more. My idea was to take one of these areas and draw it devoid of human life. Hence the “apocalyptic” feel. However, in the midst of all the muted colours and somber mood, there is a bright musical song that brings hope to the people. This whole idea was inspired by how even in quarantine, many people sing together as a way to cheer each other up even if just for a little while.  Sofia

When I heard about the positive thing about Corona I thought about the cure and since we are close to creating the cure / medicine for this I thought it will be nice if I try to draw how that might be possible and how it might be made. One sketch is just drawing the actual virus and one is drawing some animatic people and showing what the cure does.  – Luna

English 6 has been studying spoken word poetry the past two weeks, and studied the following poem by Prince Ea entitled, “Before You Catch the Virus, Watch This

This poem is focused on the Covid-19 virus, its impact on our communities, and the poet’s solution. Students were asked to analyze the poem’s figurative language, word choice, sounds devices, and other techniques helping the poet’s message to be conveyed more poignantly.

Just as Prince Ea is using his poetry to convey a positive message in this situation, so too are the Grade 6 students who are creating a primary source documenting their experiences- a journal containing their thoughts, feelings, and experiences which one day they can share with their children who will want to know what life was like during the time of the Covid19 virus. Students are required to enter 1-3 entries per week and use a sketchbook or notebook rather than an electronic document to give them a break from their screens. Students are tasked with making a sketch or sketches to accompany their journal entries and are required to submit a photo of each entry. This week students were asked to describe what life is like being “quarantined,” containing questions like:  What is your daily schedule? How do you spend your free time? What are some of the biggest differences between now and 3 weeks ago? What do you miss most about your life now compared to before?

To end our third week of remote learning on a positive note, the Grade 10 Band students put together a video that shows how music can connect us, even when we’re apart.  The students took individual recordings, which were then mixed to form this “virtual band”. The clever editing leads you to believe that it’s a conference call (even though it’s not).  Here is their rendition of “The Avengers Theme” by Alan Silvestri. Thanks to Deandra and the Grade 10 Band students for making this happen. (Deandra, alto saxophone; Daigo, alto saxophone; Minwoo, trumpet; Keenen, trombone; Soo-A, flute; Umi, trombone, Dominic, alto saxophone).

PHE Activities

by Mr. Jaydil Hermias, PE Teacher

Our students continue to participate in PHE activities at home. Our PHE teachers are constantly looking for creative ways to keep our students active and balanced at home. They have also given students options which they can choose from which fit their diverse circumstances at home.

Grade 12 Psychology

by Ms. Ma. Socorro Laplana, IBDP Coordinator

The Grade 12 SL Psychology class is working on an “off-screen” task by creating a comic strip of a research study in our Developmental Psychology option. In writing the comics, students are required to mention the aim and method of the study and present the findings in a table or graph.

Here are some examples:

Coie and Dodge – Laura T.

Pollitt – Andrea C.

Dragon’s Print

The COVID-19 virus has been extremely infectious and dangerous to many people. It’s led to plenty of people seeking and spreading information to try to inform themselves. However, from all the accurate data, there’s a large amount of misinformation also let loose. In today’s article, we’d like to take responsibility to help you and inform the whole CIS community on the facts and myths of the coronavirus. Read about some common myths about the coronavirus and their true explanations on https://dragonsprint.cis.edu.ph/

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