Spring Into AIS

Albanian International School

Apr i l 1 s t , 2014 Vo lume 2 , Issue 7

February ended with an important special event at AIS — the Black History Month celebration. AIS students put on an hour-long presentation of Black Americans in America. The students portrayed the courage, commitment and persistence of many Black Americans to free themselves from not only slavery but racism and bigotry as well. It continues to be a fight that brings to reality the ideals under which the U.S. was founded. Learning about their struggle for freedom taught AIS students that one person can make a difference and that standing up for what is right against great odds can be victorious. March has been much quieter. Students have been finishing projects and taking tests marking the end of the second term at AIS, which ended on March 28th. On the 28th, parents met with teachers to discuss their child’s progress now that two-thirds of the school year is over. April will be a busy month at AIS. When students return they will find three young English-speaking volunteers from various Balkan universities and countries at AIS six hours a week for five weeks. These volunteers are part of AIESEC (l’Association Internationale des Étudiants en Sciences Économiques et Commerciales) that is placing volunteers in Albanian schools to help teach students about the environment—including water quality/pollution, soil pollution, recycling, reusing and renewing items we would otherwise throw into landfills. The culmination of he AIESEC volunteers’ presence at AIS will be a Science Fair to be held on Saturday, May 10th. All grades will participate and present some exhibit or science experiment to demonstrate what they learned about the environment. Also in April we will begin a major push to recruit students for our third Summer Camp at AIS as well as to recruit students for the 2014-15 school year. I ask that our current parents as well as friends and supporters please suggest to your friends and family that they visit the AIS campus, go to our web page at www.ais-tirana.org or visit our Facebook page in order to get the true picture of the Albanian International School and the great learning that is taking place here! I encourage everyone to join us at the Sheraton Hotel on Sunday, April 13th between 12:30PM and 4:00PM. AIS will be presenting the wine for Sheraton lunch customers at this time. We’ll also be available to talk about the school. Bring your children too, as there’s a special children’s corner with videos, art, face painting and balloons. Check with the Sheraton for cost and what’s on the buffet menu. As always, feel free to contact me with any questions, comments or concerns about AIS! I am always available and happy to take prospective parents on a tour of the school and to discuss the value of an AIS education.

Warren Anderson, Executive Director Mobile: +355 067 416 0637.

A I SA I S A p r i l A p r i l N e w sN e w s

From The Executive Director

On March 8th 2014, Executive Director Warren Anderson and several of Albanian International School’s most dedicated staff members made their live television debut on the popular talk show “Zone e Lire” (Free Zone), which airs live on the TV Klan network. It was an excellent opportunity to showcase the school and let all of Albania know about the benefits of our Core Knowledge curriculum, our affordable tuition rates and our amazing staff! Head Teacher Keelah Rose Calloway, kindergarten teacher Tamara Rahoumi, French language teacher Michel Ramond and Pre-K teacher Barbara Meinel also appeared to discuss the wonderful things they’ve accomplished while working at AIS, as well as the ups and downs of life in Albania. It was a fantastic experience to appear on television, but they’ve all really tried not to let the fame go straight to their heads!

Hosted by Arian Cani, Zone e Lire airs live every Friday at 9:00PM with repeats on Saturdays at 11:00AM.

AIS Staff LIVE on TV

Klan’s Zone e Lire

Pre-K News Ms. Barbara Meinel

I Can Write My Name. Preschoolers this month will be learning to write their name by free hand, without using dots to trace them. They have been stepping out more with their writing exercises and motor skills. We’ll begin doing more group activities such as the Continental Walk, Pre Writing, Drama with Puppets, and afternoon storytimes. The four and five-year-old children are stating addition and subtraction using the www.abcya.com programs. They are also continuing on with phonics and early reading activities. The three-year-old children are continuing on with prewriting activities and joining us with the Continental Walk, early addition, puppet shows and dacing.

This month grade 1 moved into a large new classroom, where the new space is entirely their own. In Math, students will continue to work on the fundamentals as well as increasingly more complex arithmetic and problem solving. In Science, students will build on previous units on animals and plant life to explore environments; the goal is to integrate knowledge of animals and plants with the new material on biodiversity to explore the many ways nature is connected to create so many different environmental landscapes. In Social Studies, the students will continue their unit on ancient Mesopotamia. This will set the foundation for learning of other great ancient civilizations such as the ancient Grecians, Mayans and Celts before the end of term. In Language Arts, the students will continue their readings of fables, setting the stage for discussion of moral issues, which even in Grade 1 are important and accessible, such as the nature of friendship, personal responsibility and ethical behavior. One goal for Grade 1 for the end of term, from word problems in Math to exercising critical thinking in Language Arts, is the writing of complete sentences. Through the end of term, Grade 1 students will be encouraged to reply in writing as well as speech using grammatically well-formed sentences in every subject area. An exciting addendum to Science—the students will begin preparations for participation in an upcoming Science Fair where each class will produce a unique and challenging science project. The theme is water and various ideas are being explored at this stage.

March came in like a lion and gripped our class in its teeth, holding us back somewhat from our original plans for the month. We accomplished a lot but we have miles to go before our big Summer sleep in order to make sure students are adequately prepared to enter the next grade. In Science, we made it through Unit 6 (Earth’s resources) as planned but didn’t have time for the exam, so students will have that to look forward to on the first day back from Spring Break! Our Unit 5 food web projects are now displayed in the classroom science corner. In Term 3 we’ll have a science fair that builds on concepts we’ve already learned, such as the water cycle, resources, how to research a topic and how to use experimentation to prove a concept. Unit 7 will review weather, but the main focus will be letting students begin working with the AIESEC volunteers to prepare their science fair projects. Math for grade 4 has been a challenge, so we’ll begin Term 3 by reviewing the more difficult concepts from Term 2, such as estimation, orders of magnitude and square roots. Grade 3 students will continue investigating probability and Grade 2 students will get more practice with different types of lines and angles. Social Studies was fun for everyone because we extended our lessons on ancient Greece with a look at some commercial films based on Greek mythology and history. The films contained very challenging material, so we dedicated a lot of class time to pausing the movies (even during exciting parts!) to discuss what was happening, and make sure students understood. In April we’ll complete the unit and have a slightly easier test than the first one, then change gears completely by issuing new geography textbooks to every student! The new books will cover topics such as the spread of Islam, Chinese dynasties, African kingdoms, and U.S. history. CKLA 2 students will be ready to move on to Domain 3 (Ancient Greece) in the Listening and Learning Strand at long last after a brief Domain 2 review, and then work hard to finish up their Unit 4 Skills Strand workbooks by May. CKLA 3 students are ready for Domain 4 (Ancient Rome) right away, and will work diligently to understand the difficult scientific concepts in Unit 5 of the Skills Strand and complete that workbook by the end of April. I am sure they will succeed!

Albanian International School April Newsletter Page 2

Grade 1 News Miss Andrea Messenger

Grades 2-4 News Miss Keelah Rose Calloway

Kindergarten News Miss Tamara Rahoumi

Having welcomed a pleasant change in weather as we enjoyed Summer’s Day and some much deserved relaxation time during Spring Break this past month, it’s safe to say that we come back to school this month refreshed and ready to get a jump start on all of the new material we’ll be learning in April. The kindergarten class has been exploring the interesting history of Native Americans in our CKLA Listening and Learning Strand, and as we finish up this unit, we will move on to our unit on kings and queens! This will be an especially fun unit as it provides a lot of opportunity to draw connections to well known fairy tales involving kings and queens and incorporate a lot of wonderful activities and crafts into our lessons based on these connections! In our CKLA Skills Strand, we’ll begin a new unit in which we start by taking a break from learning how to recognize phonics diagraphs and begin introducing and focusing on specific “tricky words” or words that do not necessarily adhere to the phonics rules we have learned thus far. In math we’ll continue expanding our knowledge of patterns and 3D shapes among other things as we look at more complex sound and image patterns. We’ll also continue with different coin and dollar values in order to use them for “shopping” in the classroom. Finally in science, we’ll discuss position and directional terms such as “above” and the movement of objects, combining intensive English instruction with science.

In math, we will continue our explorations of geometry. We’ll continue measuring interior and exterior angles and trying to notice relationships between the angles, their shapes and the sides. The highlight should be putting together all of the things we’ve learned and then solving logical puzzles. If the enthusiasm is there, I’ll give students an opportunity to create their own logic puzzles to challenge each other. With a little luck and effort we may even explore some trigonometry. In science our project to save the egg was met with a limited amount of success. Everybody managed to save the egg from a 3-story drop onto concrete; though it was very, very expensive. After break, I am hoping that the students will start to understand some of the different forces at work and then start to use that knowledge in a more focused way to build cheaper, more effective egg-saving vehicles. We should also have a chance to finish up with some conclusions on the stickleback lab, before moving onto dinosaur extinction and possibly another lab exploring the repercussions. In history, we finished up our look at the American expansion westward and there was a general consensus to move onto new and different topics, leading to our current focus on Japan. We’ll look at some of the similarities and differences we’ve seen in Europe and the United States such as the way that land was distributed and owned. After Japan, we’ll jump into some more ancient civilizations like the Aztecs, Incans and Mayans.

Art News Miss Ida Metaj

Albanian International School April Newsletter Page 3

PRE-KINDERGARTEN/KINDERGARTEN We will recognize that some beats have accents (stress), move responsively to music (marching, walking, hopping, swaying, etc.), recognize short and long sounds, discriminate between fast and slow, and discriminate between obvious differences in pitch (high and low). We’ll work on new songs: Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, Turn Around, Go In and Out the Window, Go Tell Aunt Rhody, and Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush. We will also talk about famous composers.

GRADE 1/2 We’ll learn about keyboard instruments, recognize the piano and organ, and listen to a variety of keyboard music, including Mozart, Rondo Alla Turca from Piano Sonata K. 331, Beethoven, Für Elise, and Mendelssohn. Along with reviewing all of the symbols we have learn so far, we will try to find them in songs we sing.

GRADE 3/4 We’ll be learning new rhythm patterns and symbols and become familiar with woodwind instruments — flute and piccolo (no reeds); clarinet, oboe, bassoon (with reeds) — and listen to Claude Debussy, Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun (flute), Opening of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (clarinet). And we’ll hear new songs also: Alouette, America (“My Country, ’tis of Thee”), A Bicycle Built for Two (chorus only), Down in the Valley, and He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.

GRADE 5/6 We’ll study composers and their music: music from the Renaissance (such as choral works of Josquin Desprez) and lute songs. We’ll study Baroque music, such as Hendel. We’ll study the classical symphony (typically in four movements), Mozart, and Symphony No. 40. We’ll be learning different rhythm patterns while singing new songs: Battle Hymn of the Republic, Danny Boy, Dona Nobis Pacem (round), and Git Along Little Doggies.

French News Mr. Michel Ramond

Music News Miss Veisla Mucaj

Grade 5/6 News Mr. Alex Semerjian

Grades 2-6 In March: The lessons were a bit easier this month after the more complicated lessons on verb tenses and adjectives from the past two months. We finished Section 3 in the study book: school subjects, school routine, jobs and talking about jobs. The students did all corresponding work pages and we also worked on spelling words list #3 (25 new words). We watched slides to help illustrate some French some French culture and parts of fun videos using it as word games which help make the course more interesting and fun. In April we plan to study Section 4: directions and distances, shops and places in town, food and drinks, clothes and colors. Plus in Section 8: the past tense (perfect tense). We’ll work on a new spelling words list (#4) with 25 new words. If they do well with lessons and work pages and time permitting, we’ll watch other videos in French combined with words games in which they enjoy and it helps to practice some of what they’ve learned so far.

Pre-K/K Good progress in March with activity pages introducing new vocabulary words, flash cards, reviewing all those that they already know (we now completed the whole set of basic Flash cards). For the reading method, we should finish the course by the end of the school year. Also working on a few basic Question and Answer phrases. Once or twice a week, we have short French educational videos suited for their age group. For April : we’ll continue activity pages introducing new words, and continue flash cards as well as a few other basic Question and Answer phrases. We’ll cover new pages in the reading method. We’ll have more French videos each week since they seem to learn well from those, especially with those interactive questions.

PRE-KINDERGARTEN This term we’ll do more paintings and drawings. We’ll start with how to create prints! The printing technique is used to create newsprint, books, posters, etc. but we’ll use it to create masterpieces. Usually for this technique we use metal plate but as the artists that we are, we’re going to make it more creatively, using potatoes, stones and sponges as stamps.  

KINDERGARTEN We’ll be looking at and talking about works of art. Now that children have been introduced to some elements of art and a range of artworks and artists it’s time to analyze them and express their opinion, their first impression, what they notice and how they feel. We’ll observe and discuss Children’s Games by Pieter Bruegel and The Banjo Lesson by Henry O. Tanner. Then they’ll create their own paintings of a playground.

GRADE 1/2 Hands-on texture: baskets, ribbons, and frames made by different media. Sometimes artists incorporate real objects into collages, pasting fabric, sand paper, beads and other items onto the surface.  

GRADE 3/4 This term we’ll explore the ancient Rome and Byzantine civilizations as well as the Le Pont-Du Gard Aqueduct in France, the Pantheon in Rome, and Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. We’ll learn about arches, keystones, lintels and masonry. In end they’ll make their own ancient masterpiece.

GRADE 5/6 We’ll learn all about the art of Japan: simplicity of form and design, beauty of nature, calligraphy, furniture, bamboo — all these things are characteristics of traditional Japanese art. They are going to paint with ink and tiny brushes like the Japanese did, create some hand fan paints and at the end they will have a research project about Japanese gardens and the tea ceremony as the culminating activity for this unit.

Albanian International School : Dream bigger. Learn better. Shine brighter.

24 Rruga Elbasanit Tirana, Albania 1001 042 273 488

Albanian International School April Newsletter Page 4

Monday, April 7th at 8:00AM Spring Break ends, classes resume, Term 3 begins.

Final Report Cards: Mon. Apr. 7th 2014 Final Term 2 grades issued.

Sunday, April 13th: 12:30PM-4:00PM Sheraton Hotel brunch buffet with special wine sponsored by Albanian International School

Thurs. May 1st 2014 May Day — no school.

Midterm Report Cards: Fri. May 9 2014 Term 3 midterm grades issued.

Saturday, May 10th, 2014 Albanian International School Science Fair

This Month’s Highlights:

Students of the Month

Siera Rrenja & Salvatore Morrullo .SIERA was nominated by Ms. Tamara and Ms. Mucaj for the incredible improvement she has shown in class, along with her behavior and hard work. She is a model student: she is helpful, kindhearted, and an absolute joy to work with. She brings bright, happy energy to the classroom and deals gracefully with change. Fabulous, job Siera! You truly deserve this honor! SALVATORE was nominated by Mr. Semerjian and Mr. Ramond. He had good behavior, showed respect and was very helpful. He put effort into learning even when things were difficult. Job well done, Salvatore. We’re all very proud of you!

Student Spotlight Alesio Mulaj, Grade 5

I liked this month because I had a lot of fun in English, French, math, music and science. In English, I learned about phrasal verbs and how to do a story with phrasal verbs. Phrasal verbs for me are difficult because the phrasal verb is not the same as the verbs. For French, I learned about school tools (pencils, erasers, etc.). I saw a movie in French. For math, I liked it because Mr. Semerjian taught us about triangles and pentagons. For science, I liked everything because we ha an experiment with a mirror and with dropping an egg from the 3rd floor window. My experiment with the mirror was good because I successfully passed the experiment. I should also add that in library time, Ms. Pitarka told us about new rules and read us a beautiful book.

For every riddle you solve before April 30th, you will receive a prize! But no using the internet! Think for yourself or get an

adult to help you!

1. Pronounced as one letter but written with three, only two letters are used to make me. I’m double, I’m single. I’m black, blue and gray. I’m read from both ends and the same either way.

2. Where do fish keep their money? 3. Mary’s father has four children. Three are named

Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. So what is the 4th child’s name?

4. Which bone has a good sense of humor? 5. The more of them you take, the more of them you

leave behind. What are they? 6. I am the beginning of sorrow, but the end of sickness.

You cannot have happiness without me. I am always in risk, but never in danger. I am in the sun but always in the darkness. What am I?

7. What flies without wings? 8. What happens if you throw a white rock into the Red

Sea? 9. There’s a 1 story house that’s all green inside. The

floor is green, the walls are green, the furniture is green and the ceiling is green. So what color are the stairs?

10. What happens once in a minute, twice in a moment but never in an hour?

11. What kind of window has no windows, no doors, no ceiling and no floors?

12. A farmer has a pear tree with 24 branches and each branch has 12 boughs and each bough has 6 twigs. How many plums can the tree grow?

13. What always goes around our school, yet never moves an inch?

It’s coming . . .

Check out next month’s newsletter for details, and our

website for the most up-to-date enrollment information!