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Weekly Newsletter
September 23, 2010
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International Day of Peace at GAIS
The
general assembly of the UN  declared September 21 as the "International Day of
Peace". Among others they invited educators to help raise public
awareness to establish a global ceasefire. As an International School
with the mission to foster global thinkers, GAIS joined in with the more than 3500 events that took
place in over 200 countries to observe this day. Our students spent the day on
September 21st, engaged in a variety of activities on the Peace
theme utilizing the four different focus points of creativity (visual arts,
communication, performing arts and problem solving). One of the activities was
a brainstorming session and poster on the question, What is Peace? These posters
can be found on the website, www.gais.org, in
the photo gallery. At 1:15 pm, the whole
school participated in an assembly where each class highlighted their
activities of the day. A Peace Song,
written by Annaliese Messner, was sung by all students. Mr. Giesen's drama club
presented a clever and amusing play, written by Mr. Giesen himself, entitled,
'Peace of the Action- A Scenario for Peace Studies'. Grade 6 students recited
famous peace quotes, Grade 7 showed a video they made on children in war torn
countries, and Grade 8 did a skit on finding peaceful solutions between
continents. The assembly concluded with all students
observing a moment of silence followed by the peace prayer.
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News from the Head of School
Hanging out at the Library
The GAIS library is a fantastic resource for our
 community and a great place to hang out for parents. Drop off and pick up times
are of course the most popular for parents looking for books or dvd's for
themselves or their children. To accommodate the requests for increased opening
hours, I am happy to report that we have now opened the library one additional
afternoon. Each Wednesday afternoon Uli Francis will now be on hand until 2:00
pm to help students and parents with their reading needs. The library opens each day (M-F) at 8:30 and
closes Monday at 3:00 pm, Wednesday and Thursday at 2:00 pm and Tuesday and
Friday at 12:00.
The GAIS library has seen phenomenal growth in the
past 5 years. Once being housed in a
small classroom at the back end of the school, it moved first to the breezeway
(current staff room) and two years ago to its new portable. The library has
thus moved from the periphery to the very center of the school, both
geographically and also in terms of its importance to our academic program. The
library not only fosters a love of reading in both school languages, but
contains the resources important to the IB units of inquiry. Under the care and
guidance of our librarian, Jana Seidel, and her team of dedicated volunteers, our
collection has grown from under 3000 volumes in 2005 to over 11,000 today. This has been the result of fund raising,
book donations and numerous Book Fairs. This impressive result will be further
aided by the upcoming German Book Fair scheduled for October 26-30. Your
continued support of the library is appreciated.
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IB Corner by Maike Silver
At the beginning of the
school year we officially started  with the implementation of the Middle Years
Programme (MYP). This program is designed for students aged 11 to 16 and
provides a framework of academic challenge and life skills, achieved through
embracing and transcending traditional school subjects. Eight subject groups
provide a broad, traditional foundation of knowledge, while the pedagogical
devices used to transmit this knowledge aim to increase the students' awareness
of the relationships between subjects. This is how the MYP subject groups
translate into our lesson plans: Language A = subjects German + English at GAIS, Language B = French or Spanish, Science =
Physics + Chemistry + Biology, Humanities = Geography + History + Social Studies, Art = Music + Visual Arts, Physical Education, Math, and technology which at
GAIS is an integrated subject. Students
are encouraged to question and evaluate information critically, to seek out and
explore the links between subjects, and to develop an awareness of their own
place in the world. To find out more about the MYP and its relationship to the
PYP please join us at the Members Meeting, where we will provide you with a
closer look into the continuum of the programs.
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Preschool Corner by Heike Schmalstieg
Last Tuesday was Peace
Day. Peace is a very abstract concept for Preschool children. In the Preschool,
peace means that we want to get along with each other without fighting and
hurting each other, even when we really, really want to have the toy another
child is playing with. We talked about how to solve problems and conflict's on
a level the children can understand. We also talked about how it feels when
children won't let children play with them and introduced our rule: "You
can't say - you can't play" or "Alle dürfen mitspielen".
We have a blue circle with a pictogram of children holding hands in a
circle to symbolize that rule. You can ask your child to point one out in the
Preschool. The children made crowns, decorated with that pictogram to
remind each other of that rule. Puppet plays are excellent tools to teach
preschoolers new concepts. We used a puppet play both on Tuesday and
Wednesday to teach the children about conflict resolution and asked the kids to
actively participate in solving the problems presented. Problem solving and
conflict resolution does not happen on peace day alone and it isn't learned in
one day. It is an ongoing learning process and will be used every day, all year
long.
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CPR Training
All
staff members at GAIS have CPR training every two years. This year the training session will be held
on October 5 at 3:00 - 6:00 pm in the gym.
We still have some open slots for parents who wish to participate in this training session and wish to learn the latest information and techniques in cardiopulmonary
resuscitation. If the school has enough participants, we will be given a defibrillator. The cost per participant
is $50. If you are interested please
contact the office by Monday, September 27 at 2:00 pm.
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Middle School Information
Breakfast - October 7
Next year, GAIS will be launching the International Middle School
which will create a much broader range of course offerings in Grades 6-8 and
result in a more attractive program for our students as well as others in the
bay area. Dominic Liechti, Director of Academic Programs and Peter Metzger,
Head of School, will hold an information breakfast on Thursday, October 7th
starting at 8:30 in the library. This
will be a great opportunity to learn about the structure of the new program,
how it will benefit our school and students and how it compliments the
International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program.
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SMV Bake Sale
for San Bruno by Alexa Joshua
As most of you know, a fire
occurred in San Bruno
a few weeks ago. We, the students of GAIS, decided to raise money for those
people who had their homes destroyed in the fire. The SMV, along with the
5th grade, organized a bake sale that took place at the front of the school on
Wednesday afternoon. After some hard days of baking some treats for the school
and selling them, we were able to raise $ 360 for the people of San Bruno! This money will be donated to those
in need, and be divided fairly among those in San Bruno, making it
possible for them to rebuild their homes. The SMV would like to give
special thanks for those parents who helped out by baking the treats and the
5th grade who pitched in by making some posters for the bake sale. It
wouldn't have been possible without you! Thank you! The SMV
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Keyboard Donations
The Middle School is kindly asking for donations of music keyboards so students can practice at home. If you have one to donate or have any leads please contact Dominic Liechti at dliechti@gais.org.
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Fall Break
Our Fall
Break is from October 11 - 15. As in the past, we will offer HORT from 8:30 am
to 6:00 pm during the break. Spaces are limited (on a first come, first serve basis), therefore sign-up or email to
the office to reserve a spot. The deadline is October 1. Please note that there
is regular school on October 8th. An early draft of the calendar had
that date marked as an In-Service day but this was later changed to April on the final calendar.
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Members
Meeting - September 29th
Our first annual Members
Meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, September 29 at 7:30 pm and will take place
in the Gym. All parents are invited to attend this important meeting which will
address the schools plans and objectives for this year, highlight the new International Middle School project for 2011, and
review the school's financial situation. The GAIS Board of Directors and
Administrative team invite you to attend this important meeting.
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For
newsletter information, questions or article submissions, please
contact Dagmar Stullich at offmgr@germanamericanschool.org. or call the
office at 650-324-8617.
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