Tirana International School 6 February 2018 Important Dates February 7-10 - CEESA HS Tech Robotics/Bucharest 7-10 - HOSTING - CEESA HS Speech&Debate/Tirana 11 - 100 Days of School 11-15 - Math Week 11-14 - Middle States Accreditation Team in Tirana 18-22 - Mid/Winter Break, No School 28 - End of 3rd Quintile 28-3 March - CEESA Swimming in Kyiv, Ukraine March 14 - Summer's Day - No School 15 - Staff Professional Development Day - No School Director's Desk Dear Parents, Students, and Friends of TIS, Next Monday marks the 100th day of school and students have started celebrating by bringing in crackers, buttons and and pencils to symbolize one item for each day of school. We are counting 100 all over the building and with those numbers brings a knowledge of how much our children have accomplished since August. Students have mastered new and difficult concepts in reading, mathematics, science and the arts. In addition, we have had so many students travel internationally with our CEESA events, demonstrating incredible group interaction, independent endeavor and responsibility as they have represented TIS. This weekend will be especially busy for TIS as we have traveling students, the beginning of our accreditation, and are hosting a CEESA Speech and Debate Tournament for secondary students. Our CEESA Robotics team will leave Thursday at 5:00 am to travel to their tournament with their homemade robot. Congratulations to all of the students involved on their hard work in creating an amazing robot. Over the weekend, TIS also welcomes our MSA accreditation team as they plan to be at our school all of next week. Finally, we are so happy to welcome schools from across Europe to Tirana and are especially thrilled that many TIS families have opened their homes to these students for the debate tournament. It seems like everyone will be ready for the February break coming up! Looking Forward, Robert S. Jackson, Director MSA Accreditation Parent Meeting with MSA Visiting Team February 11 - 3:00 PM in Cafeteria (note the change of venue) Reception to follow. Maps and Globes In Cultural Studies, the Fives have been busy constructing and using mental maps during our “Maps and Globes” unit. They have interpreted and used various representations of the earth and have identified the major oceans and 7 continents by learning a memorable song “I’ve Got the Whole World in My Hand”. To culminate their learning about maps, the Fantastic Fives in Ms. Arapi’s class had a load of fun making homemade flour dough maps. Not only was this activity very hands on for their fine motor skills, but it also enhanced their learning about landforms as they got to mold various mountains too. Later, when the salt dough dries out, the Fives will also paint lakes, rivers, and plains. Nonsense words In Literacy support class we use nonsense word fluency drills every day. Nonsense words are a good way to establish the alphabetic principle and to practice encoding and decoding. They help students learn good phonics skills. If you tell a student that the word is not real and won’t make sense, it takes the guess work out of reading and helps the student focus on the sounds in it. Poetry In Albanian Language class, the 11 year old students are studying poetry. They are learning about different types of poems. They are writing a variety of poems about themselves, their favorite things etc. The students are enjoying this unit so much because they can express their feelings in their own way. Our Furry Friends We are learning about different kinds of animals in the Bumblebee classroom. Last week we enjoyed a visit from some furry friends and their owners who helped us to learn more about pets and how to take care of them and interact with them. 100 Days of School! The 100th Day of School is Monday, February 11th! To show their creativity and celebrate this special day, students can create a 100 Items Project. Students can make anything they like using 100 items. Projects can be turned by next Monday to Ms. Eva in the library. Participants will receive a prize. Recreating Art Secondary students in art class are studying famous artists such as Edgar Degas, Franz Marc and René Magritte, in order to analyze, explore and apply techniques used in their artwork. Students are focusing on styles, techniques, medium, moods and process, recreating artist's masterpiece or parts of it. Making studies of artists' masterpieces help students improve their skills, and it increases the confidence in themselves as young artists to push their own work to a new level. 11 yr-old-Science class Students have been using various methods to determine the speed of an object. This past week they used toy cars and calculated how the speed of the car was affected by the slope of the ramp....lots of fun! 12 yr-old-Earth Science Earth Science students have been studying how ocean currents are affected by the Coriolis effect, by temperature and by salt concentration in the sea water. Students performed a lab and observed the affects of temperature on density, then each lab group designed their own investigation to determine the affects of salinity on density. There was a lot of creativity and problem solving going on in room 403. 13 yr-old-Life Science Life Science students have been exploring factors that affect the survival rate of offspring in the animal world. Recently they put their knowledge to the test to construct a model of development and growth of animals. Amazing collaboration and creativity took place and the results were impressive. Activities and Hobbies The 11 year old students in Spanish class have been learning about activities and hobbies. They can also name places they go and different landscapes is Latin America. In addition they have learned about the most important museums and castles in Spain. Creating their own Island The 7 year olds created their own island out of salt dough. Their map includes 3 landforms and 2 bodies of water. Parents, TIS is excited to announce our winter Saturday Sports Program. TIS will offer a six-week gymnastics and basketball program for our students from ages 5-13. Dates: February 2, 16 March 2 Gymnastics for ages 5-7 will run from 9:00 until 10:00 Gymnastics for ages 8-13 will run from 10:00 until 11:00 Basketball for ages 8-10 will run from 9:00 until 10:00 Basketball for ages 5-7 will run from 10:00 until 11:00 Basketball for ages 11-13 will run from 11:00 until 12:00 The cost for the gymnastics is 6000 Leke for the six-week session. Payment will be made directly to the coaches at the first session. The gymnastics training will be conducted by 3 coaches with extensive experience in the United States and Albania. There is no cost for the basketball program. Both programs are open to boys and girls. The schedule has been organized so that children may participate in both activities. Registration for the Saturday Sports program can be completed by filling out the Google form HERE We have a new website where you can look through the items and see if you find anything that belongs to you. |