It's been a while since we posted here so I thought it was time to give a brief update about what has been going on these past few weeks. In short it's been lots of school! The first quarter came to a successful end and we had our parent teacher conferences and some teacher meetings.
Our school continues to work this year towards taking the first steps in the accreditation process, as we have mentioned in previous posts. Our main goal for this year is to work on documenting our curriculum. Significant parts of our school do not have any written curriculum that can be used for our own reference and is an obvious prerequisite before we can begin an accreditation process. This will be an important step towards giving our school greater structure and stability.
The problem has been that with so many moves/changes/teacher turnover, it has been difficult to assess what has been done in each subject area/grade level from year to year. The 6th grade class alone has had four different teachers over the past four years! Also, at the moment the middle/high school history sequence is something that I have devised on my own with minimal input from others. While that may suit me just fine, we obviously need to make sure that everyone as a school is onboard with what we are offering and is at least somewhat aware of the general scope and sequence of what is being taught in different subjects and at the various grade levels. So this year we are working to map out what we are actually doing, to learn more as teachers about what other teachers are doing, and to work towards creating a written curriculum and course catalog that will be the foundation for our school and a guide for any new teachers who come here. It is an exciting and at times stressful process, and one for which we continue to ask for your prayers!
At the end of first quarter, in mid-October, we had our second annual International Day! The elementary school had activities all day, while for the high school and middle school it was a little more subdued. However, the students did get the chance to learn how to play cricket in gym class and did an international-themed photo scavenger hunt at the end of the day. It's always fun to be able to celebrate all of the different countries and cultures that make up our school:-)
Our classes continue to go well, as do our after school activities. I continue to work with one of my 10th grade students to help her with Russian history and Amanda's literature circles are still having lots of fun with the books they are doing. Amanda's theatre class has begun work on the play now too! Last Friday was the first after school practice to work out blocking the action for the play. Theatre has been going well, but Amanda is understandably nervous since this is her first time doing it. The students are having a lot of fun and it looks like once again IA has been blessed with a number of very good actors. I'm sure we'll write more about this in the coming months as we draw closer to performance time in April!
Here are a few recent photos of things that we've taken for your enjoyment as well:
Gym time! These are photos that Amanda took on International Day when she went to P.E. class to see them play cricket. We rent a gym that is a short distance away from our school. Here the students are doing their warm-up stretches.
Jogging!
Here are our students attempting to play cricket. One of our Australian students explained the game to us and had the equipment needed to play. It was a learning experience for all involved since almost none of our students had ever played cricket before!
This is a short video of the action:-)
The next photos are all of familiar places. We went out this weekend to walk around downtown and ended up taking some pictures of the city at night. It was lightly raining which added a nice reflective glow to everything.
The Singer building on the corner of Nevsky Prospect and Canal Griboyedov.
The next several are of the Spilled Blood cathedral in all of its nighttime glory.
This is the wrought iron fence that goes alongside the Mikhailovsky Gardens.
The statue of Pushkin in front of the Russian Museum
Nevsky Prospect
The Eliseev Emporium. One of the more striking buildings on Nevsky Prospect. It is a store that sells all sorts of nice sweets, meats, cheeses, etc. The building was originally constructed at the beginning of the 20th century and has been renovated to keep up its turn of the century appearance.
The interior of the emporium.
In the center of the emporium is a giant pineapple surrounded by tables for people ordering food. We had vanilla mango muffins:-)
Another image of the interior.
In the center is a self-playing piano. There were also live musicians on a balcony for part of the time we were there.
And lastly, a photo of yours truly. Beautiful as always :-P
That's all for now!
-Matt
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