Dear LES Parents,

We are thrilled to be welcoming all our students back to school on Sunday, October 3. It is exciting that students in Groups A and B will finally be coming together in person as a whole class. There will be a strong focus on classroom community building, in order to ensure that students across Groups A and B develop relationships with each other and work together as a classroom community.

As per Ministry guidelines, we will continue with our current practice of not mixing student groups. With this being said, every class will be its own bubble. Safety measures such as wearing masks and sanitizing will continue to be in place for the safety of our community.

Welcome back everyone!

Homeroom Parent

As you are aware COVID-19 guidelines have seen schools take a hiatus on parent involvement within the classroom. We are pleased to announce that we will be looking to reinstate this position in the near future. Please note that there are some COVID-19 related parameters that are still in place to ensure the safety of our community members.

If you would like to express your interest in serving as a Homeroom Parent, please complete the form which can be found here. Please note that all homeroom parents must be vaccinated so that they may enter the ASD campus for a scheduled classroom event or meeting.

Additionally, the Lower Elementary School would like to include cultural events to celebrate the diversity of the children in each classroom. Please be sure to complete the question on the form that pertains to a cultural celebration that your family identifies with. This can be a celebration that you and your child would be willing to share with the class with the aim of developing students' understanding of its significance and in turn to enhance their cultural knowledge.

PTA Book Fair

Coming up next week is the annual PTA Elementary Book Fair. Students will have an opportunity to visit the PTA Book Fair and to buy books of their choice. Information about the Book Fair was sent home with students earlier this week. Should you have any questions or require further information please contact your child’s teacher or the Elementary Office.

Music Learning Highlights

Prepared by Ms. Sarah Sevenbergen and Ms. Sanae Yamaura - LES Music Teachers

In Lower Elementary Music, students have been working on their music foundation skills including tuneful singing, keeping a steady beat and expressing music through movement.

Pre-K 3 musicians have been busy learning to make music together so far. We’ve been exploring our voices and the different sounds they can make, practicing how to move our bodies safely to music, and experimenting with our egg shakers with different songs.

Pre-K 4 musicians have been exploring their voices during echo songs like No More Pie and action songs like Eensy Weensy Spider. They have also started to practice keeping a steady beat on their body and hand drums in our song Listen Listen.

KG musicians have been reviewing their previous knowledge of music and are beginning to build from it. Our fragment song In the Woods and simple song Peep Squirrel have given our students the opportunity to sing as a group but will also be giving the opportunity for solo singing in the near future. We have also started to introduce percussion instruments with our song William He Had 7 Sons.

Grade 1 musicians are making good progress on building their music foundation. They are starting to demonstrate tuneful singing in their head voice while singing Kye Kye Kule and Hop Old Squirrel. They are capable of creating beat motion for a variety of music and they are ready to play instruments to accompany songs.

Grade 2 musicians have been building a solid music foundation. Most students are demonstrating accurate head voice singing and are capable of keeping a steady beat while singing Closet Key and Yankee Doodle. They will be learning to decode, read and notate music with quarter notes and eighth notes.

Upcoming Virtual Parent Session

We will be holding a parent session on Thursday, October 7 at 10:30 am focused on Math. Mrs. Carol Little, our Math Coach and Coordinator, will be presenting about the importance and the progression of problem solving and math fact fluency from Pre-K 3 through Grade 2. Information will be shared about questions parents can ask their children to reinforce and extend math learning, in addition to games that can be played at home so the entire family can enjoy math together. This Zoom meeting can be accessed on the day by following this link.

Meeting ID: 966 4514 8550

Passcode: 562886

This session will be recorded and posted on the LES What’s On Teneen page.

We will also be holding a Parent Forum during the second part of this Parent Session. If you have topics, feedback, or questions that you would like to put forth for agenda consideration, please send them to us at LESParentForum@asd.edu.qa by 9:00 am on Tuesday, October 5.