Noticias 2D
Queridos Padres,

I trust that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend! It is hard to believe that we are already counting down the days until Christmas. The next few weeks will fly by and be filled with excitement in our classroom. I pray that we’ll stay focused on Christ as the center of all of this holiday fun!

Huge thanks to Erin Bremmer, our amazing room-mom for preparing a great back to school with Pizza Party to celebrate that they won a letter, these guys are working amazing!

Finally, I am attaching the letter from our director of immersion with very important news about a new addalingua project-based assessment; please read carefully and please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks for your continued prayers for unity throughout this year! 

Blessings,


Hilda Durán

This Week:
Bible Memory Verse: Luke 2 Due Date: December 18
Bible: This week we are beginning our Christmas unit. We will begin by learning about Zechariah, Elizabeth and John the Baptist. Then we will learn about Gabriel’s visit to Mary. Thank you for working on the long Luke 2 Bible memory verse at home!
Reading: This week we’ll learn about how to use resources such as dictionaries, other texts and friends to find out the meaning of new words as we read. In our shared literature selection we’ll work on making inferences about the text.
Writing: We will continue with our realistic fiction unit and will work on creating plots that are engaging yet realistic. This is always challenging. 
Math: This week we will identify 2D and 3D shapes
Science: This week students will start 2 Science Unit titled, What Does It

Matter? Answering questions by themselves and as a group discussing the best answer.

“Housekeeping” Items:
Christmas giving opportunity: Thanks for helping out with Beacon Ministries. I will send the hard copy letter tomorrow Monday. Also here is the link, https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1d4YRQ3HpiHbOvUrMVElyDGay-6vrDDz_
Please bring items in by Monday, Dec. 20 as I will be dropping them off then.
Secret Santa Cards: This Friday your child will bring home a half sheet of paper explaining a secret santa Christmas card exchange we will do at our Christmas party on Dec. 20. Your child will have almost 2 weeks to work on this, but please read it through as it should be completed at home. Thanks!
December 4-6 Hearing/Vision Screening - Hearing: K, 2nd, 4th                            December 10 Elementary Christmas Musical- 7:00 p.m. – Community RC 
December 13 No PM Busing
December 16, 18 Jingle Jogs
December 17 Middle School Christmas Concert 7:00 p.m. – ZCS Gym 
December 19 All School Chapel - 9:00 a.m.
Dec. 23 – Jan. 3 Christmas Vacation

Dear Spanish Immersion families~

I am excited to share with you some information about a new addalingua project-based assessment. The Cultural competency, Academic alignment & Spanish language Assessment (CASA) is designed to measure students’ progress toward the three goals of immersion education. We are excited at ZCS to be able to pilot this new project-based assessment program-wide.

While the format of the CASA is similar to the aalpa, these new assessments bring more attention to cultural competency goals and student reflection.

What’s similar to the aalpa:

• three tasks (interpretive, interpersonal, presentational)
• timeline for completion
• feedback loops to give students opportunities to set goals for themselves
• helps teachers see how students authentically use Spanish language skills

What’s different from the aalpa:

• deeper focus on cultural competency
• greater emphasis on student reflection
• topics tied to identity development and global empathy
• new, interactive online learning platform

Our Spanish immersion teachers have spent the past few weeks being trained in how to administer the assessment and are excited to be able to work through this project with their students in the time between December 2 and Christmas Break. addalingua will, in some cases, be observing and collecting feedback to inform future development. It is an honor for us to be able to speak into the development of these assessments, and it will result in a final product that is tailored to the needs of addalingua schools such as ZCS.

Because this assessment spans several days, and each day builds on the previous days, it is important that students be present as much as possible during the assessment periods. We know that sickness is unavoidable at times, but we do ask that if your child must leave for an appointment that you avoid the following times listed here by your child’s teacher.

•    Monday, December 3-16-2019

We value your partnership in the education of our students and are excited to be piloting yet another element that will improve the quality of immersion education here at ZCS!

Thank you,

Jodi Pierce and the immersion team