The Weekly Newsletter of the New Mexico International School
Volume V-14
October 26, 2015
Todd Knouse
Head of School
– From the Head of School
“All the Knews You Kneed to Know”
Knouse Knews
1
Accolades!
2
Curriculum Corner
2
Kinder News
3
First Grade News
3
Second Grade News 4
Third Grade News
5
Fourth Grade News 6
4th/5th Grade News
6
Committee News
7
Upcoming Events
7
Help Wanted
7
NMIS Sponsors
8
Looking for volunteer to
fill in our big ole mud
puddle in the play area
with gravel. Call Anna to
help.
Pastry Puffin Fundraiser
Thank you to our families for
participating in our Pastry Puffin
Fundraiser. This is an event organized
by our dedicated fundraising
committee. Pastry Puffins are
(delicious) frozen pastries you can heat
up and serve at home. Even if you are
as challenged of a baker as I am, you
too can make these treats!
Like all fundraisers, our goal is to raise
as much money as we can, and allow
our School Advisory Committee (SAC)
to allocate it to the school’s areas of
need.
Here are some ways this money will
likely be allocated:
 Art supplies
 Violin maintenance
 Field trip costs
 Library needs
 Computer repair and upkeep
 Facility maintenance
All in all, its money that will be raised
to keep offering your child the quality
program we strive for at NMIS.
I have given clear directions to our
students that they should not engage
in door-to-door selling of these items.
Rather, it’s best if parents take the
order forms to workplace, or solicit
from friends and families.
Orders are taken and money collected
directly by students. Orders are due
to the school by November 2 and items
will be made available for pick up
November 9.
Thank you to our Fundraising
Committee for organizing this event,
and thank you to everyone for their
support!
November Hot Lunch
Hooray! The November Hot Lunch
Menu is out! Remember- order in
bulk and the price to run the
program for the school goes down!
Thanks everyone for your hard work
at making this a success.
Report Cards and
Conferences
Although a few weeks off, our
teachers will begin working on fall
trimester report cards soon. The
end of the trimester is November 6.
Conferences are November 11-13.
School will dismiss at 11:30 on
these days so that these
conference can occur. You should
be receiving details on how to
request a conference time in the
days to come.
Change your clock this weekend!
Spotlight on NMIS Students Doing Great Things
Got some good news to share about your
child? Send in something for the school
newsletter’s “Accolades!” section! We love
to celebrate our kids and their
achievements both and in and out of school!
An Update on Curricular Issues of the School
By Yvonne Martini IB PYP Coordinator
First Steps in Creating a Unit of
Inquiry
As NMIS parents, you have undoubtedly heard
your child talk about a unit or subject being
studied at school. What you may not know is
how these units are conceived, designed, and
perfected by the teachers themselves.
Teachers begin with the six International
Baccalaureate (IB) trans-disciplinary themes.
These themes provide the framework for guided
inquiry and construction of knowledge. They are
designed for students develop to an
understanding of important concepts, acquire
essential skills and knowledge, develop
particular attitudes and learn to take socially
responsible action.
Next, teachers take a section of the overall
theme and create a central idea. This is a onesentence statement that delineates the
direction of a particular unit. The central idea
is the heart of the inquiry since it is the
essential concept toward which students are
guided. A unit of inquiry is only as strong as its
central idea. Teachers have to ask themselves
what transfers beyond the content knowledge of
the curriculum and the classroom.
Writing a good central idea is not easy. There
needs to be a balance between flexibility for
the generation of inquiry and be specific enough
to ensure the developing of knowledge, skills
and conceptual understanding. When the
central idea is finally developed, teachers then
can move onto how to design the actual process
of exploration.
At the beginning of each unit, teachers will
communicate the central idea to parents via our
newsletter and/or by email. You may also visit
your child’s classroom anytime to view the IB
bulletin board. The bulletin board will display
the written central idea along with the theme,
skills, and attitudes involved in that particular
unit.
by Maestra Salley ([email protected]) & Maestra Román ([email protected])
This week we will keep on learning about
conflicts on our IB unit 2 “ Conflict
Resolution” where we will read books about
different types of conflicts and their
resolutions, as well as role play different
conflicts. We will read again the book from
“Tesoros”: “amigos de aqui y de
alla”,watch the videos: “ La ciguena” , y
“los pajaros” about friendship and problem
solving and comment on them.
In math, we will keep on working on base
ten: recognizing tens and units and using
manipulatives. We will learn how to count
by tens.
In science we will keep on learning about
the seasons and their characteristics. We
focus on Fall, since it is the season we are
in now, but we are also learning about the
other seasons. We will do an experiment
involving hot and cold.
In literacy, we will continue our Tesoros
unit where we are working on letter “t” and
“p”. The new word we are learning is “el “
(the).
by Maestra Cooper de Uribe ([email protected]) & Maestra Garcia ([email protected])
The fall holidays are upon us! Halloween and Día
revisit our previous studies on houses around the
de los Muertos are drawing near, and though we
world, and focus on the styles of homes and
will not be dressing up at school for Halloween
neighborhoods in New Mexico that are often
this Friday, we will be spending time in Social
dictated by our surrounding world. Wherever you
Studies learning more about the origins of the
live in the area, you might open up a
holiday through read-alouds, as well as Día de los
conversation about why adobe was a more
Muertos, which begins this coming Sunday. We
common material than brick in earlier years. Or if
wish you all a fun and safe holiday weekend, and
you live near an acequia (irrigation ditch), you
encourage you to think out loud about the
might talk about how they are used to water
traditions your family has (or doesn’t) during this
fields. This all helps children feel a deeper sense
time of year. Tell stories about your own
of connection with where they are growing up.
childhood experiences, too. Kids who know about
and feel connected with family anecdotes are
In language arts, we will be using the following
often the most well-adjusted, so dig into those
high frequency words: hábitat, desierto, selva
memories and tell some stories this week.
tropical, zona polar, and pradera. We will
continue to hone our sense for what a sentence is
In addition to that seasonal Social Studies work,
and how to write one with capital letters at the
we will also be dedicating time in Science to
beginning and punctuation at the end. We will
learning about four different habitats around the
also do exercises that help us think about articles
world and which animals live in them. This will
and their gender (examples being el desierto
wrap up our first line of inquiry in our IB Unit
instead of la desierto). The classes will be using
“Who We Are,” in which we have been exploring
their Tesoros textbooks to practice non-fiction
the characteristics of plants and animals. We will
reading on the theme of animals, as well.
then move into the next line of inquiry, which is
about the relationship between human
In math, we will continue in Unit 3, beginning
organization and natural laws. In that inquiry, we
with addition and subtraction on a number line.
will take what we learn about desert habitats and
We will move beyond telling time to the hour,
apply it to a closer look at where we live:
using our classroom analog clocks to tell time to
Albuquerque. Through guiding questions and
the half-hour. Lastly, we will think more in-depth
activities, we will explore responsible ways to
about patterns in numbers as we introduce
coexist with plants and animals while taking care
“frames and arrows.” These activities push kids
of resources like water and land. We will also
toward finding skip-counting patters that
represent addition and subtraction. If you are
interested in learning about and practicing this
activity with your child at home, you can access
more resources here:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/everydaymath/em_a
t_home/Grade+1/home_link_3.6.pdf
https://s3.amazonaws.com/everydaymath/em_a
t_home/Grade+1/home_link_3.7.pdf
https://s3.amazonaws.com/everydaymath/em_a
t_home/Grade+1/home_link_3.8.pdf
https://s3.amazonaws.com/everydaymath/em_a
t_home/Grade+1/home_link_3.9.pdf
by Maestra Tuttle ([email protected]) & Maestra Pedrotty ([email protected])
This week in second grade our unit Who We Are
continues as students inquire deeper into the
themes of health and balance. A big thank you
to Lee Anne Klombies for her informative talk
on the body's balance systems. Our yoga
classes have been rescheduled for this
Tuesday.
After exploring the digestive system in depth
last week, we will move on to other systems of
the body, their component parts, and what we
can do to make sure everything is functioning
optimally. We will have fun tying in a Día de
los Muertos sugar skull activity with our look at
the skeletal system.
Our choices and how they affect our well-being
is the underlying idea of this unit and will
inform our discussions not only in Science, but
throughout the curriculum. With regard to
emotional health, we will work on more
strategies for calming down and achieving
emotional equilibrium. The second graders
will learn about the “Choose 2 Wheel” this
week, a visual reminder of some of the healthy
choices they have when confronted with a
difficult situation (walking away, talking it out,
and so on).
Nonfiction texts about the body systems
provide the bulk of our Spanish read-alouds this
week, while our English read-alouds will
continue to explore friendships, the choices we
make, and our impact on others. We will read
a biography selection in Tesoros about Cuban
singer Celia Cruz, “Me llamo Celia” and
examine her life in the context of balance and
choices. Students will practice summarizing as
a comprehension strategy.
In Math, students are enjoying a variety of
explorations on length, area, and attributes in
partner and small-group activities. The second
graders are measuring to the nearest inch and
centimeter, tiling surfaces to explore area, and
sorting attribute blocks according to different
rules. We are also working with a variety of
strategies to add multidigit numbers (none of
which is how you probably learned!). Everyday
Math teaches multiple methods to encourage
conceptual understanding as well as to address
the fact that different methods will appeal to
different learners. Students will also use
estimation (rounding) to decide if their
answers are reasonable.
by Maestra Martini ([email protected]) & Maestra Rodriguez
([email protected])
IB trans-disciplinary unit- This week,
we begin our Who We Are transdisciplinary unit. Our focus will be on
justice and our central idea is: “An
equitable justice system requires a
balance of freedom and order.” We
will begin by discussing how to identify
and describe a good rule. Rules are
necessary in providing a safe
environment and ensuring everyone’s
well-being. Our field trip to the
Bernalillo Metropolitan Court will be
on Tuesday, December 1st!
Math- Students will be engaged in our
ongoing practice of math problems and
how to resolve them. This week, we
will focus on subtraction word
problems, using the QuantityDifference diagram. Third graders
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friend
government
half
happened
high
hurt
need to also know how to get a ballpark
estimation of multi-digit addition and
subtraction problems before finding the
actual answer. We are still practicing
multiplication facts 1-6, but now have
moved on to 7s. Please continue to
support your child at home if possible
with this endeavor. We are also
planning on having Fraction Fridays
from now on to get the students
accustomed to them before beginning
the actual unit in our text.
Science- Students did a wonderful job
with their water cycle posters and they
are now hanging just outside our
classrooms. This week, we will assess
students’ understanding of the states
of matter.
Our English Spelling words for the week
are:
We will also be showing the Spanish version of
Hotel Transylvania this coming Friday
We will also be showing the Spanish version of Hotel
Transylvania this coming Friday
by Maestra Ortiz Mingorance ([email protected])
Thank you so much for sending pumpkins to
school. We will be working with our pumpkins
on Thursday through our math and language
arts’ lessons. We are in need of a few scales to
weigh them, so if you have one at home, please
let us borrow it.
We continue working on our IB unit about
Explorations. In Language arts, we will take a
test to evaluate cause and effect, and the
vocabulary: reference, conducted, circular,
annoyed, outstretched, disappointment,
properties, alloy, and carat. We will also start
learning about the first explorers that arrived to
the Northeast coast of the USA in 1631. In
Spanish, we will read “La Historia a Tus Pies”
with the vocabulary: rozar, aflojar, asombro,
misterioso, responsabilidad, y retazo.
Maestra Bouché ([email protected])
Hello Parents! This is our final week of
October! Wow! How did October fly by so
fast?! ----Day light savings time is also coming
up this weekend on Saturday, November 1st. A
sweet reminder that our Parent Teacher
Conferences are also coming up this month in a
few weeks. (11/11-11/13).
Our current IB Learner Profile: Knowledgeable.
(10/12-11/6)
Students explore concepts, ideas and issues
that have local and global significance. In doing
so, they acquire in-depth knowledge and
develop understanding across a broad and
balanced range of disciplines. Ask your child
how they were "knowledgeable" this week.
In our current IB unit, we are studying How We
Organize Ourselves. The focus is in societal
decision making.
In Social Studies, we will discover details about
the Spanish explorers who first arrived to
California.
In Math, we will review unit 3 and complete the
assessment for it. This will include
multiplication and division, the use of
parenthesis in number sentences, solving
algebraic equations, multiples, and factors.
In Science, we will be starting a new unit called
Survival. We will explore how plants and
animals adapt to survive.
Quote of the week about Exploration: “We shall
not cease from exploration, and the end of all
our exploring will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time”.
T. S. Eliot
4th Grade Math: Unit 4. Our focus this week
will be on measurement. Our vocabulary terms
will be place value, tens, tenths, thousandths,
whole(or ONE, or unit).
5th Grade Math: Unit 4. Some of our math
vocabulary for our next unit will be... bar
graph, circle graph, denominator, numerator
and percent. You will receive the Unit 5 family
letter within the next week.
For those students who complete their math
assignments early, there is extra work to do in
accelerated math.
4th Grade Vocabulario/Vocabulary:
En espanol, ...similar, disenar, desafio,
limitaciones, lograr, variado. Leeremos sobre
los paralimpicos, los buenos deportistas, y
"Jackie, La Poderosa", escrita por Marissa Moss.
English... similar, challenges, designed,
achieved, varied, sanctuary, descendants,
threatened, emerge, fragile and habitat. We
will be reading "Making a Splash", by Jenny Hull
and Wild Horses by Cris Peterson while working
on creating a cause and effect chart.
5th Grade Vocabulario/Vocabulary:
Vocabulario en espanol... mercaderia, genero,
tesorero, educar, carga, reconocimiento,
desafortunado y instruir.
Leeremos "Cuando Esther Morris Se Fue al
Oeste" escrito por Connie Nordhielm
Wooldridge. Estaremos completando una tabla
de hecho y opinion sobre este cuento.
Vocabulary in English... damages, property,
available, contact, atmosphere, destruction,
surge. We will be reading "The Extreme Costs
of Extreme Weather" by Eliana Rodriguez and
"Hurricanes" by Seymour Simon.
We will be sending 8 tennis balls home with
each child today. Please cut an "X" into them
so that we may be able to slide the chair/desk
feet into each one for noise control in our
classroom. Thank you.
Library Committee – Heather Norfleet [email protected]
Scholastic Book Fair Subcommittee – Amelia Klauser and Amy Robinson
[email protected]
Fundraising Committee – Susan Martinez [email protected]
Parents, please don't forget to help your child sell the Puffin Pastries for our fundraiser. Not only are they
easy and yummy, $5.00 of each box sold goes to our school! We have so many expenses, such as field trips,
violins, technology, and art supplies. Prizes will go to top sellers and the best class sales!
Grant writing Subcommittee – Tiffanie Cortez
[email protected]
Box Tops Subcommittee – Ericka Lucero
Special Events Committee –Parisa Wright and Brenda Vigil [email protected]
Enrichment Committee – Kelli Bishop [email protected]
Uniform Committee – Gabriella Sim [email protected]
Yearbook Committee – Alexa Verardo
[email protected]
School Advisory Committee –
Next SAC meeting is December 2
Grade level representatives:
Kindergarten
First Grade
Second Grade
Third Grade
Fourth Grade
Fifth Grade
2015 at 6:00 pm here at NMIS.
Shonesha Rogers
Lotem Levitan
Mark Brooke
Joanna Cosbey
Sarah Baca
David Vigil
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
New Mexico
International
School
8650 Alameda Blvd. NE
Albuquerque, NM 87122
(505)503-7670
www.nmis.org
School Hours: 8:30-2:40 M-F
Office Hours 8:00- 3:00 M-F
(or by appointment)
For general information and
questions; as well as to
report an absence, contact
our registrar,
Anna Thompson, at
[email protected]
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Sunday, November 1: Daylight Savings Ends
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Wednesday, November 25 - Friday November 27: School Closed for
Thanksgiving Break
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Wednesday, December 2: SAC Meeting 6:00
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Wednesday, January 6: SAC Meeting 6:00
Friday, November 6: End of Fall Trimester
Tuesday, November 10: Make up of Fall picture day
Wednesday, November 11 – Friday November 13: Fall
Parent/Teacher Conferences – students dismissed at 11:30.
Parent/teacher conferences to review student progress over fall
trimester. Conferences held between 12:00-3:30 each of these three
days.
Thursday, December 17: Governing Council Meeting 5:00
Monday, December 21 – Friday, January 1: School Closed for
Winter Break
Monday, January 18: School Closed for MLK Jr. Day
Thursday, January 21: Governing Council Town Hall
NMIS thanks these sponsors for their support!
9780 Coors Blvd. NW
(505)890-WINE
www.nickyvs.com
CALL SUSAN NAGEL (505)720.8699 AT
MIDTOWN SPORTS AND WELLNESS FOR
A FREE GIFT
Want to sponsor the NMIS El Correcaminos?
A great way to advertise your business or event.
Distributed weekly to the entire NMIS community!
Contact Business Office for more information