Grade 5 Exhibition Presentation

GAIS, the first authorized IB World School in the Bay Area, will present its fifth annual Grade 5 exhibition to the community on Thursday May 5. In the final year of the Primary Years Programme of the International Baccalaureate (IB), student engage in a transdisciplinary inquiry process that engages them in identifying, investigating and offering solutions to real life issues or problems.  

Under the unit heading, "Sharing the planet", the fifth grade students have created a central idea to be explored through different lenses. The central idea that they developed was, "The way people treat the environment, themselves, other living things and resources affects life on this planet" and students chose a topic connected to this idea that they researched in depth. For 6 weeks the students investigated anything from terrorism, illegal killing of whales and dolphins, world hunger, world population, child labor, slavery, water recourses, addiction, eco friendly communities, sustainable living, global warming, hybrid cars and polio.  They explored the effect this has on the planet and communities and thought of action that they and others can take in response. In their presentation to the community, some of the visuals and multi media tools the students will use to demonstrate their findings are posters, power point software, music and models.

The Exhibition unit is seen as the culmination of the Primary Years Programme (PYP), a rigorous educational program which has world wide recognition at the highest levels.  Most of the GAIS students will move on the IB Middle Years Programme, which is also offered at the school. 

GAIS Hits Enrollment Cap

 
Two days ago we enrolled the last student possible under our daily enrollment cap of 300. In fact there are 314 students enrolled for the 2011-12 school year but three day preschoolers count as .6 and two day preschools as .4.   This will be the fist time the history of the school that GAIS will need to turn away applicants as a consequence of being full-up.  The reasons for this growth are twofold.  First the retention rate has increased as the school continues to strengthen the quality and diversity of its academic offerings. The new International Middle School program with various language offerings, the growth of the school's IB program with the implementation of the MYP, the decision to add an instrumental music program next year, the flattering PYP and WASC accreditation visits, are developments that have encouraged parents to continue on at GAIS.  Second is the increase in outside applications as the economy of the area starts to gear up again after the last two stagnant years. 

While hitting our enrollment cap can clearly be looked at as good news, it does present problems as there are still spots to fill in some of the grade levels and applicants still in the waiting pool.  Recent discussions with the City of Menlo Park, which is responsible for setting the terms of the use permit, have resulted in an agreement to conduct a traffic study at our expense.  This study will evaluate the traffic flow to and from the campus and will determine some measures which will hopefully allow the school to increase its enrollment cap.  A task force is working on this project and will discuss the details at the upcoming Members Meeting this month.  What is clear is that some strategies will need to be implemented to keep the traffic flow unchanged even as the school number grows.   

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MYP Corner by Dominic Liechti

Last Sunday our six grade participated in the award ceremony of the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG) contest at Stanford in Cubberley Auditorium.  More than 25'000 students from a variety of high schools and other German private schools in the USA took the AATG National German Examination.

The AATG contest test was conducted in German and included listening comprehension: brief interchanges and longer dialogues; situational questions testing reading and conversational skills; applied structure or grammar and idioms in context; comprehension of connected passages of approximately 200 words each, and comprehension of some authentic materials.

The AATG contest has four different levels. Most of our students took the test on Level 4, which is the highest level, and they scored in the 93th percentile and above. We had six students who scored above the 95th percentile and a representative of the German Consulate honored them with a medal.

I commend all the students for their outstanding performance and the teachers for their dedicated work in the classroom.
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PYP Corner by Maike Silver 

Today the fifth grade presented the PYP culminating project - the exhibition - to the older students. Tonight at 6:30, members of the school and outside community are invited to attend the presentations that are all linked to the transdisciplinary theme "Sharing the planet". The students conducted an inquiry of their choice in the spirit of personal and shared responsibility that is a celebration of their learning as students move from the PYP into the middle years of schooling.  At the same time the Preschool is finishing their final unit about the purpose of animals in the backyard.  In the elementary school all classes have started their final unit of the school year. Vorschule is looking into the organization of journeys. Grade 1 explores elements of creating a story. The role of time is being investigated in grade 2. Relationships and friendships are the concepts examined in grade 3. Economic principles are inquired into in grade 4. And finally once grade 5 is finished with the exhibition they will study interacting systems that govern our lives.  With the summer just around the corner these units are designed to keep students and teachers engaged until the end of the school year.

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The Preschool has a huge selection of children's books in German and English. Over the years, we have been trying to translate some of our English books, which is a daunting task. This year, we had help from our 5th graders. In groups they translated several books. The older children had the opportunity to use this as a project to try themselves in translations, making sure that vocabulary, grammar and punctuations, as well as the meaning and the flow of the story are correct. The younger children had the opportunity to receive a book reading by the 5th graders. The Preschoolers were spell bound, listening to their stories and sharing some songs with them in return. It was a great experience for both and we hope that this will become a new tradition.

Meet our Future Graduates featuring  

Lieselotte Bensen 

Hi, my name is Lotte and I'm in the 8th grade. I want to share an experience of mine. When I was in 6th grade, my class went on a ski trip. It was my first time skiing and I was obviously in one of the two beginner groups.

First, we went down a tiny mountain several times. By the end of the day, both groups had to ski down a "real" mountain to get back to the Lodge.  My group was all over the slope while the other group was skiing down in a perfect line. After a while, everyone in my group joined the line, except me. With much speed, I skied straight past them and shouted to the teacher that I would try to stop. The truth is, I had no intention of slowing down. It was just too much fun! That was my first experience skiing. I loved it then and I still do now. 

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Stammtisch Tonight 

This month's GAIS Stammtisch will take place on Thursday, May 5 at 7:00 PM at the Gourmethaus Staudt (www.gourmethausstaudt.com) in Redwood City. See you there! 

School Forms 

The school forms have been sent out last week. The deadline to turn in the paperwork is June 3rd, 2011. Please note that the Volunteer Form will be revised and will be send out later. 

SSIL - GAIS Soccer Team Defeats Gideon Hausner 

The second soccer match in the season took place last Thursday at the Gideon Hausner Day School. The GAIS team won the game 6-1 with goals being scored by Marc Joshua (3) and Alexander Beckert (3).  Our school team plays its third game this afternoon against the North Shoreview School in San Mateo.  The next game, and only home game, is scheduled for Tuesday, May 10 starting at 4:00 pm. All supporters are welcome to watch our team. 

Vorschule raised Butterflies 

The Vorschule children raised Painted Lady Butterflies in class. We received 10 caterpillars, observed them changing into pupas and then emerge as beautiful butterflies. It was a very fascinating moment for everyone to see them crawling on the teachers finger before flying away.     

Volunteer wanted! Zipper Emergency! 

You probably all know the pillow corner in the library. Unfortunately the zipper of one of the big pillows broke and our librarian, Jana Seidel, is looking for a volunteer to take off the old zipper and attach the new one. Volunteers can contact Jana at jseidel@gais.org or visit her in the library. Thank you for your help.    

Host Families for Interns 

GAIS regularly has a number of interns working with out teaching staff as a means of gaining experience in an international context.  Interns are University students studying education and many have exceptional training and motivation. They are a great help to teachers and provide support for our students. They also help out in the home with homework and child care. Detailed information about the internship program is available from our website under careers.  We are currently looking for Host families the new school year starting in August.  If you are interested in hosting an Intern, please contact Susi Lindley at slindley@gais.org.        

GAIS Sportfest

Our annual Sportfest for students in Grades 1-8 has now been set.  It will take place on Friday June 10th from 8:30 to 12:30 at the Menlo Atherton High School Track. Students should be brought directly to the track at 8:00 am and will be brought back to school by bus. We are in need of a few volunteers to help with this event.  If you are interested please contact the school office at offmgr@gais.org.  More details about the Sportfest will be sent out in shortly.  

Summerfest

Our annual Summerfest will take place on Saturday, June 4 from 2-5 pm. This year's edition will be more in the form of a street fair with more vendors, crafts and games that continue throughout the fest, a magician, climbing wall, and an art exhibit.  Musical performances will go on throughout the fest and mostly involve single or small groups of students rather than whole class performances.  Information about how students can participate has been sent out by Frau Messner already.  In addition, we will have a real rock band so bring your dancing shoes. Look for more details in the weeks to come.

Silicon Valley Open Studio Tour 

The Silicon Valley Open Studio Tour is starting this weekend for the following 2 weekends. This is an Annual event where local artistsopen their studios. Zoe's Cafe has had the magazines and maps about the tour.  It is a great way to see a lot of talented artists in one weekend that you might not have seen before.  Check out the link for details of which cities are on which weekend http://www.svos.org.