"Oppression is not necessary for success!" – Mr. Martin

Did you ever wonder who painted the murals in the ES library?  Those were done by painters from the Jinshan Peasant Painting Village.

The fifth grade will be heading there on Friday to do some artwork and visit a nearby water town.  We are very excited for our trip this Friday.

Please make sure your children bring a snack, lunch and a drink.

Basic Itinerary:

8:15 Buses leave school

9:30 Arrive at Jinshan Painting Village

9:45 to 11:15 a.m. Group 1 tours museum and has painting class, while Group 2 visits Fengling water town

11:15 to 11:30 – Both groups will switch locations.  Because we are very tight on time, we will eat lunch on the bus.  It is imperative that everyone bring lunch.  We will not have the opportunity to buy snacks or drinks.

11:30 to 1 p.m. Group 2 tours museum and has painting class, while Group 1 visits Fengling water town

1:00 Depart for SAS directly from the painting village or water town

For more information, click here to go to a CNN travel story about the Peasant Painting Village.

An article from 2006 in the China Daily Newspaper –http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/citylife/2006-12/21/content_764263.htm

Fengjing Ancient Town

Situated in the southwest of Shanghai, Fengjing Ancient Town is 57 kilometers (about 35 miles) from Shanghai City. Encompassing 2.09 square kilometers (about 516 acres), the town has long been known as a typical ancient water town, as well as one of the four most famous towns in the south China. Others which enjoy similar reputations are Nanxun Ancient Town, Wangjiangjing in Zhejiang Province, and Shengze in Jiangsu Province.

Fengjing Ancient Town has a history of over 1,500 years. Demarcated by the boundary river in the center of the town, it was governed separately by Zhejiang and Jiangsu Provinces from 1430 during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

In the town, one will see many buildings, of which most are of the Ming and Qing style. They are mainly two-story structures of brick and timber with white washed walls and black-tile-covered roofs. Each has wing-rooms, dooryard and walkway. The total area of old residences in the four main streets of the town reaches 48,750 square meters (about 12 acres), and nine locations among these are included in the Shanghai Unmovable Cultural Relics.

With its surrounding water network, the ancient town boasts 52 bridges. Zhihe Bridge, with lichen in crevices of the stones, was built in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). Standing on the bridge, travelers will have a panoramic view of the trees and old houses. One also can see red lanterns hanging under the back eaves, which add a beautiful scene to the bridge at night. Another famous one is Rainbow Bridge, which is also distinctive.

Our class is seeing three visiting authors over the next three days. If you want your child to purchase one of their books, please send in the appropriate money.

Dear 5MM parents,

This morning, the fifth grade met with Mr. Rosen and Mr. Poulin, the middle school principal and vice principal respectively. Below are some bullet point notes about the meeting so that you can talk to your children about today’s topics.

Course elective sheets must be done and brought to school by NEXT TUESDAY, APRIL 17th.

Who’s nervous about going to middle school and what are you nervous about?
• almost everyone raised their hands
• responsibilities
• knowing where to go
• forgetting your locker combinations
• someone hacks into your computer
• getting lost
• losing the computer
• how much stuff you have to carry around
• 8th graders bullying 6th graders
• time management
• homework
• lots of projects
• everything being too hard
• REMEMBER – thousands of kids have done it before and they were able to deal with it, but everyone gets it and at their own pace and in their own time.

There will be a lot of change.
• classroom design
• moving from classroom to classroom
• lockers
• computers
• BUT you will start developing the skills to deal with all the changes!

Mr. Poulin addressed some of the usual concerns:
• Combination locks – one for sixth grade and one for PE locker
• Being late for class –
• Not having friends – once you get to MS, your friends will change a lot. The counselors and homebase teachers really watch out for you.
• Cafeteria – you have to take care of your own card;
• Being too different – being different is cool. Being the same is cool too. MS is a time of self discovery.
• Tough classes – Remember, you thought grade five was hard when you were in Grade 3 and 4. Same idea. You will adapt and learn and get better.
• Getting lost – It’s to be expected. You will figure it out.

Connections
• we want you to make connections from one class to another
• we want you to make connections from class to the outside world around us
• we want you to make connections to yourself

Creativity
• we value this highly in all classes, not just art, but math, science, language
• How can you be a creative person?
• It’s about thinking in creative ways.

Collaboration
• it’s very important to be able to work in a group with others on projects to solve problems
• you don’t have to like the people, BUT you need to be able to work with them!!
• In life, you must have the skills to work with people.
• It is an expectation in middle school.

Learning Should Be Challenging … But It Doesn’t Have to Be Stressful
• A little bit of stress is okay. It’s good for you.
• Thinking about exercising. It’s okay to put a little stress on your body. A little is okay. Same thing with your mind.
• Next year, there will be times when you are stressed out.
• There is a support network in place for you to learn how to deal with it.
• You will learn how to deal and manage stress.

Community Service
• The Giving Tree
• By grade level – on China Alive trips
• Join elective classes that are based on community service

Making the Most of Our Host Country Culture
• continue to interact cross culturally
• in PE classes, Chinese classes, regular classes
• learn about it in an active way

Passions and Interests
• program and course offerings are designed to recognize that people are different

Organization
• Mac and Me elective class – everyone has to take this class. It will be fun AND we will teach you how to get organized technologically. Using iCal, digital sticky note, My Procrastinate. There are many tools. You will choose the one that is best for you.
• Subscribe to teachers’ calendars and blogs

Technology and “The New Normal”
• Your parents will be officially issued a Mac computer that they will “lend” to you for school use.
• Night meeting for students and parents – during first two weeks of school to discuss expectations, rights and responsibilities.

What is a Student as a Learner Profile?
• In addition to academic report card, teachers will grade on behavior categories as well.
• 4 behavior categories – cooperation and collaboration, preparation and organization, integrity and attitude, and active learning and effort
• how you learn is WAY more important than a number.

What is Humanities?
• ties history, literature, philosophy and ethics, different cultures, linguistics, law, archeology, writing, religion,

What is Homebase?
• like an advisory program
• 5-7 minutes daily at the beginning of the day
• attendance, announcements, daily check-in
• Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays – you will also meet in Homebase with 11-12 kids to learn about things that don’t get covered in academic classes (ie personal identity, relationships, community).
• Big Three Questions – Who am I as a person? Who am I as a learner? Who am I as a part of a community?

HOT – Homework Opportunity Times
• Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays – afterschool times for students to work on assignments with teacher supervision and help
• Voluntary
• If need be, teachers will ask students to attend to get extra homework help.
• These will supersede sports commitments

China Alive
• “Week without Walls” in May — Moganshan, Wild Wall, Xi’an and Sichuan

Bonding Day – Century Park in October
• for teachers and students to bond through fun, outdoor, team building activities

Programs and Activities
• ASA – After School Activities
• CISSA – China International School Sports Association – soccer, floor hockey, cross country, table tennis, badminton. Doesn’t matter if you aren’t good at it. Sign up, get exercise and have fun.
• MYG Night – 5 times a year; night events; dances; hang out; dodge ball tournaments (MYG is GYM spelled backwards)

Course Catalogues – Mr. Rosen highlighted the following items and pages.
• bottom of first page – NOTE TO STUDENTS: CHOOSE THOUGHTFULLY AND CAREFULLY
• bottom of first page – NOTE TO PARENTS – YOUR CHILDREN APPRECIATE YOUR INPUT AND GUIDANE, AND THEY ALSO APPRECIATE BEING GIVEN THE FREEDOM TO EXPLORE NEW AND UNIQUE INTERESTS. TRUST THEM!
• Electives – Tuesday and Thursdays, last bloc; choose 8, you will get 4 of them.
• Pudong Middle School Course Selection – first pink page – you will have a choice for foreign language and performing arts; needs student and parent signature
• Everything before first pink page – includes info about language and arts
• White pages between first and second pink pages – descriptions about elective programs; about 100 courses; no grades; most electives last about 9 weeks, some are full year, some one trimester.
• Everyone must sign up for “Mac and Me”
• Electives – except for Mac and Me, all other electives will have 7th and 8th graders as well
• There is a sample “electives sign up sheet” for you to look at.

*Our class will be signing up for electives early next week, so please take time to talk with your child over the weekend and help him/her to make selections. Don’t forget to sign the sheet. I will be able to answer any questions as they arise and will allow access to middle school counselors as needed for further clarification.

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Eleven

By Sandra Cisneros

What they don’t understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you’re eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don’t. You open your eyes and everything’s just like yesterday, only it’s today. And you don’t feel eleven at all. You feel like you’re still ten. And you are—underneath the year that makes you eleven.

Like some days you might say something stupid, and that’s the part of you that’s still ten. Or maybe some days you might need to sit on your mama’s lap because you’re scared, and that’s the part of you that’s five. And maybe one day when you’re all grown up maybe you will need to cry like if you’re three, and that’s okay. That’s what I tell Mama when she’s sad and needs to cry. Maybe she’s feeling three.

Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one. That’s how being eleven years old is.

You don’t feel eleven. Not right away. It takes a few days, weeks even, sometimes even months before you say Eleven when they ask you. And you don’t feel smart eleven, not until you’re almost twelve. That’s the way it is.

Only today I wish I didn’t have only eleven years rattling inside me like pennies in a tin Band-Aid box. Today I wish I was one hundred and two instead of eleven because if I was one hundred and two I’d have known what to say when Mrs. Price put the red sweater on my desk. I would’ve known how to tell her it wasn’t mine instead of just sitting there with that look on my face and nothing coming out of my mouth.

“Whose is this?” Mrs. Price says, and she holds the red sweater up in the air for all the class to see. “Whose? It’s been sitting in the coatroom for a month.”

“Not mine,” says everybody. “Not me.”

“It has to belong to somebody,” Mrs. Price keeps saying, but nobody can remember. It’s an ugly sweater with red plastic buttons and a collar and sleeves all stretched out like you could use it for a jump rope. It’s maybe a thousand years old and even if it belonged to me I wouldn’t say so.

Maybe because I’m skinny, maybe because she doesn’t like me, that stupid Sylvia Saldivar says, “I think it belongs to Rachel.” An ugly sweater like that, all raggedy and old, but Mrs. Price believes her. Mrs. Price takes the sweater and puts it right on my desk, but when I open my mouth nothing comes out.

“That’s not, I don’t, you’re not . . . Not mine,” I finally say in a little voice that was maybe me when I was four.

“Of course it’s yours,” Mrs. Price says, “I remember you wearing it once.” Because she’s older and the teacher, she’s right and I’m not.

Not mine, not mine, not mine, but Mrs. Price is already turning to page thirty-two, and math problem number four. I don’t know why but all of a sudden I’m feeling sick inside, like the part of me that’s three wants to come out of my eyes, only I squeeze them shut tight and bite down on my teeth real hard and try to remember today I am eleven, eleven. Mama is making a cake for me for tonight, and when Papa comes home everybody will sing Happy birthday, happy birthday to you.

But when the sick feeling goes away and I open my eyes, the red sweater’s still sitting there like a big red mountain. I move the red sweater to the corner of my desk with my ruler. I move my pencil and books and eraser as far from it as possible. I even move my chair a little to the right. Not mine, not mine, not mine.

In my head I’m thinking how long till lunchtime, how long till I can take the red sweater and throw it over the schoolyard fence, or leave it hanging on a parking meter, or bunch it up into a little ball and toss it in the alley. Except when math period ends Mrs. Price says loud and in front of everybody, “Now, Rachel, that’s enough,” because she sees I’ve shoved the red sweater to the tippy-tip corner of my desk and it’s hanging all over the edge like a waterfall, but I don’t care.

“Rachel,” Mrs. Price says. She says it like she’s getting mad. “You put that sweater on right now and no more nonsense.”

“But it’s not—“

“Now!” Mrs. Price says.

This is when I wish I wasn’t eleven, because all the years inside of me—ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and one—are pushing at the back of my eyes when I put one arm through one sleeve of the sweater that smells like cottage cheese, and then the other arm through the other and stand there with my arms apart like if the sweater hurts me and it does, all itchy and full of germs that aren’t mine.

That’s when everything I’ve been holding in since this morning, since when Mrs. Price put the sweater on my desk, finally lets go, and all of a sudden I’m crying in front of everybody. I wish I was invisible but I’m not. I’m eleven and it’s my birthday today and I’m crying like I’m three in front of everybody. I put my head down on the desk and bury my face in my stupid clown-sweater arms. My face all hot and spit coming out of my mouth because I can’t stop the little animal noises from coming out of me, until there aren’t any more tears left in my eyes, and it’s just my body shaking like when you have the hiccups, and my whole head hurts like when you drink milk too fast.

But the worst part is right before the bell rings for lunch. That stupid Phyllis Lopez, who is even dumber than Sylvia Saldivar, says she remembers the red sweater is hers! I take it off right away and give it to her, only Mrs. Price pretends like everything’s okay.

Today I’m eleven. There’s a cake Mama’s making for tonight, and when Papa comes home from work we’ll eat it. There’ll be candles and presents and everybody will sing Happy birthday, happy birthday to you, Rachel, only it’s too late.

I’m eleven today. I’m eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and one, but I wish I was one hundred and two. I wish I was anything but eleven, because I want today to be far away already, far away like a runaway balloon, like a tiny o in the sky, so tiny-tiny you have to close your eyes to see it.

From Woman Hollering Creek Copyright © 1991 by Sandra Cisneros. Reprinted by permission of Susan Bergholtz Literary Services, New York. All rights reserved.

Your Name in Gold

by A. F. Bauman

Anne sat at the breakfast table, eating her cornflakes and reading the print on the cereal box in front of her. “Tastee Cornflakes—Great New Offer!” the box read. “See back of box for details.”

Anne’s older sister, Mary, sat across from her, reading the other side of the cereal box. “Hey, Anne,” she said, “look at this awesome prize—your name in gold.”

As Mary read on, Anne’s interest in the prize grew. “Just send in one dollar with proof-of-purchase seal from this box and spell out your first name on the information blank. We will send you a special pin with your name spelled in gold. (Only one per family, please.)”

Anne grabbed the box and looked on the back, her eyes brightening with excitement. The name Jennifer was spelled out in sparking gold. “That’s a neat idea,” she said. “A pin with my very own name spelled out in gold. I’m going to send in for it.”

“Sorry, Anne, I saw it first,” said Mary, “so I get first dibs on it. Besides, you don’t have a dollar to send in, and I do.”

“But I want a pin like that so badly,” said Anne. “Please let me have it!”

“Nope,” said her sister.

“You always get your way—just because you’re older than me,” said Anne, her lower lip trembling as her eyes filled with tears. “Just go ahead and send in for it. See if I care!” She threw down her spoon and ran from the kitchen.

Several weeks passed. One day the mailman brought a small package addressed to Mary. Anne was dying to see the pin, but she wouldn’t let Mary know how eager she was. Mary took the package to her room. Anne casually followed her in and sat on the bed.

“Well, I guess they sent you your pin. I sure hope you like it,” Anne said in a mean voice. Mary slowly took the paper off the package. She opened a little white box and carefully lifted off the top layer of white cotton. “Oh, it’s beautiful!” Mary said. “Just like the cereal box said, your name in gold. Four beautiful letters. Would you like to see it, Anne?”

“No, I don’t care about your dumb old pin.”

Mary put the white box on the dresser and went downstairs.

Anne was alone in the bedroom. Soon she couldn’t wait any longer, so she walked over to the dresser. As she looked in the small white box, she gasped. Mixed feelings of love for her sister and shame at herself welled up within her, and the pin became a sparkling gold blur through her tears.

There on the pin were four beautiful letters—her name in gold: A-N-N-E.

From Chicken Soup for the Kid’s Soul © 1998 by A. F. Bauman. Published by Health Communications Inc. Reprinted by permission of The Permission Company.

Spaghetti by Cynthia Rylant

It was evening, and people sat outside, talking quietly among themselves. On the stoop of a tall building of crumbling bricks and rotting wood sat a boy. His name was Gabriel and he wished for some company.

Gabriel was thinking about things. He remembered being the only boy in class with the right answer that day, and he remembered the butter sandwich he had had for lunch. Gabriel was thinking that he would like to live outside all the time. He imagined himself carrying a pack of food and a few tools and a heavy cloth to erect a hasty tent. Gabriel saw himself sleeping among the coyotes. But next he saw himself sleeping beneath the glittering lights of a movie theater, near the bus stop.

Gabriel was a boy who thought about things so seriously, so fully, that on this evening he nearly missed hearing a cry from the street.

He stared into the street, up and down it, knowing something was there. The street was so gray that he cold not see…But not only the street was gray.

There, sitting on skinny stick-legs, wobbling to and fro, was a tiny gray kitten. No cars had passed to frighten it, and so it just sat in the street and cried its windy, creaky cry and waited.

Gabriel was amazed. He had never imagined he would be lucky enough one day to find a kitten. he walked into the street and lifted the kitten into his hands.

Gabriel sat on the sidewalk with the kitten next to his cheek and thought. The kitten smelled of pasta noodles, and he wondered if it belonged to a friendly Italian man somewhere in the city. Gabriel called the kitten Spaghetti.

Gabriel and Spaghetti returned to the stoop. It occurred to Gabriel to walk the neighborhood and look for the Italian man, but the purring was so loud, so near his ear, that he could not think as seriously, as fully, as before.

Gabriel no longer wanted to live outside. he knew he had a room and a bed of his own in the tall building. So he stood up, with Spaghetti under his chin, and went inside to show his kitten where they would live together.

Dear Parents,

Please join us for a very special ES PTSA Meeting with special presentations from our students, staff, Middle School administration and a special guest to talk with us about MAP tests.  It is going to be a packed agenda with a lot of very important information so please bring a friend, drink some coffee and get ready to learn!

PTSA Event Agenda:

9:30-10:00 Gail Sealy Presenting Map Testing the Road Ahead

10:00-11:00 ES PTSA Meeting

10:05 ES Choir Performs

10:15 PTSA News from Inga & Friends

10:30 ES Calendar Up-Dates from Sacha & Jason

10:40 Julian Thornbury Presents The Importance of Nutrition

11:00-12:15 Middle School Administration Presents to Parents about 5th Grade Transition

Sacha McVean

Shanghai American School

Elementary Principal

Pudong Campus