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All the Knews You Kneed to Know Todd Knouse, Head of School

National School Choice

Week! This week, January 23-27 is National School Choice Week. This is a massive, nation-wide event where school communities celebrate being able to make choices for their children’s education. Our special events committee has several fun-filled evets throughout the week at NMIS scheduled. Review the attached flier for details. I am also asking parents to reflect on why NMIS is a good choice for their child. Please take a minute and send me an email telling me in a sentence or two why NMIS continues to be the “School of Choice” for you

elementary student. We also have a Town Hall meeting this Thursday. This is a chance for community member to meet the Governing Council of NMIS. The event is 6-8 pm on campus.

Pledge Drive 2017 The NM Intenrational School Foundation is a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization that supports NMIS financially. They are launching their Annual Fund Pledge Drive. It is from January 23-February 17. The goal of this year’s drive is to raise $30,000 to fund fine arts programs at NMIS for the 2017-2018 school year. If all families donate $150, we will easily make this goal. That provides your child with 120 fine arts lessons next year: less than $1.25 per lesson! I have written a letter about this fundraiser and attached it to this newsletter.

Intent to Return Forms

All families on our email distribution list received a copy of the Letter of Intent to Re-enroll for 2017-2018 school year. This is the letter you receive every year wherein you indicate if you

The weekly newsletter of New Mexico International School

Todd Knouse Head of School

Volume VI-23 January 23, 2017

In this week’s edition:

Knouse Knews 1 Kindergarten 3 First Grade 3 Second Grade 4 Third Grade 5 Fourth Grade 5 Fifth Grade 6 Art Update 7 Accolades! 7 Committee News 8 School Info & Contact 11 Upcoming Events 11 Sponsors 12

Scan Here to Make a

Contribution to the

NM International

School Foundation

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intend your current NMIS student to return to our school next year. You must turn this form in by February 10 at 3:30 pm. Failure to turn this form in on time will constitute a forfeiture of your child’s enrollment for 2017-2018. If you have siblings of students who are returning for 2017-2018, please also indicate them on this same form. This will tell the school that such a child needs an Offer of Admission letter that will be sent the following week and due February 17.

Make Up for Closures and Delays As of now, we have had only one closure,

and still have several hours beyond our required instructional hours. Thus, there is no need for a “make up day” for the recent snow closure. Of course, this may change as they year progresses.

Winter Trimester Volunteerism As we look to School Choice Week next week, I wanted to say “thank you” again to everyone for their dedication to volunteerism at NMIS. Choosing NMIS means really being a participant in the school’s community. I have attached another copy for the Winter Trimester Family Contribution Log for you to keep track of your efforts towards the betterment of your child’s school. Thank you so much. Just as last trimester, you will turn these in at the next

Parent/Teacher conference time, which is February 23-24.

Lunch Room Help We are still looking for a volunteer every other Tuesday to help in the lunch room. See the Committee News section for details.

Poetry Contest: Poesia Eres Tu Please be sure to read the Special Events section for information on how your child can participate in the 17th annual Poesia Eres Tu competition. This is organized by the National Hispanic Cultural Center. It is a poetry dramatic recitation competition

where students in grades 1-5 recite a Spanish language original poem (no translations). This is an incredible opportunity for your child to represent himself/herself as well as NMIS in something really big and amazing. See page 9 for more details.

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by Maestra Salley and Maestra Pedrotty

We will begin our week by reflecting what we have learned about the IB

attributes and all the different ways we can express ourselves as we prepare for our field trip this Thursday! We will

also learn about the IB attribute of being balanced. We will do a brainstorm

activity of what help us feel "just Right" and students will create their own collage book of what makes them feel

balanced "just Right"what Communicators and Open minded

people do and how we can express ourselves by growing on these two IB attributes. We will do a fun activity by

showing a part of a big picture and then opening a discussion of what each kid shares what the picture is about. As

students disagree we will ask why do you think differently? We will continue

to record on our IB attributes booklets

how students expressed each attribute during the week.

For Language arts, students will learn words that begin with the letter Q and

Z. We will begin our Tesoros booklet about "animales" and we will review the

words of En and Estar. Students will create their own estar conjugations book (yo estoy, tu estas ) as we review

feelings this week.

For Math, we will review "decrease y unidades" (tens and ones) as we review two digit number thru a variety

of hands-on games. We will continue to learn addition and subtraction through math stories and problems.

For Science we will continue to learn

about the five senses and will do the science kit for hearing.

by Maestra Cooper de Uribe and Maestra Sayer

This week, we will continue

investigating our new IB unit on How the World Works. The central idea of this unit is: The sun may cause change

on Earth. Our first line of inquiry will take a look at how the sun affects conditions on Earth, so we will spend

this week we will continue thinking about the sun, but introduce aspects of

the moon. We will learn about the different phases of the moon. The moon

is used to mark time and plays a huge

role in our cultural imagination, such as the lunar new year. At home with your kiddos, if time permits, you all can

try tracking the sun and/or moon together! Expect an email from us attached with a letter on how to track

them! During read-alouds we will be reading both fiction and non-fiction

books abut the moon, such as Goodnight Moon. Our vocabulary words

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will be luna, espacio, Tierra, llena, and universo. In math, we will continue to practice with 2-digit addition and to compare

numbers to see what is greater than, less than, and equal. We will also introduce the aspect of weight and

compare weights of objects using a scale. We are also reviewing coins again, but this time we are going to find

the difference! We will review number models using a number line, and learning about place value. In place

value, the students will start to learn about where is the 10’s spot and where is the 1’s spot.

We hope you all have a great week, and

Happy Chinese New Year, the year of the rooster!

by Maestra Tuttle and Maestra Pell-Schaver

This new week the focus of our IB unit

sharing the Planets will be habitats. Students will be having different learning experiences connected with the

various habitats living things (i.e. plants, animals, etc.) around the world.

We will start by previewing their prior knowledge to get an idea of what they already know, and then they will watch

a short fun DVD called “About Our World – Habitats”. Students will start creating personal Habitats Book, where

they will be showcasing their awareness of what habitats are and its specific

characteristics. For science our second graders will

continue observing and caring for their mealworms. We will also keep hoping

that our cucumber seeds start sprouting. Hopefully we have more sunny days in the upcoming days!

Our Tesoros reading this week will be

“La selva y sus animals” and “La

canción del geco” which will help

students learn a little more about the rainforest and the type of animals and plants that you can find there.

Through these stories our second graders will be building new Spanish

vocabulary related to the IB unit. In Math we will be working with the

middle value (median) of a set of data. They will sort numerical data and arrange it in ascending or descending

order, then they will be able to identify the middle value (median) of the

different sets. Students will be also collecting and graphing sets of data. In addition to working with the medians

and graphs, we will assess our student’s progress on mathematical

content through the end of Unit 7. We will also introduce unit 8 – Fractions. Unit 8 will emphasize fractions of

regions and collections of objects, as well as relationships between fractions

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by Maestra Martini and Maestra Saenz

IB trans-disciplinary unit- This week, our attention will be directed toward the

history of money. We will begin from the early bartering system through the development of the contemporary

monetary systems. Students will make a time lime outlining the most

important events with regards to the history of money.

Math- Students will learn how to solve equations containing parentheses. They

will realize that the placement of the parentheses affects the answer. Students will continue to investigate

patters in multiplication and division by resolving riddle boxes.

Social Studies- Students will read a couple of biographies of famous

business people in their Comunidades textbooks.

Spanish Reading- Students will read El prado de Tío Pedro (Uncle Pedro’s Field).

This is a story of three brothers who inherit sheep and who have to decide

how to best manage this valuable resource. They will learn that having

more sheep will not necessarily equate to more revenue.

Grammar- We will work on sentence combining with verbs. This helps

students’ writing fluency as it reduces the use of choppy, short sentences. We

will also review the present and past tenses of the irregular verbs be, do, and have.

Phonics/Spelling- Students will work

on spelling words that contain variant vowels: au, aw, alt, alk, all, ough. Science- Students will watch a short documentary on how paper and

cardboard boxes are recycled. They will see the actual process of breaking down

these items and how the forms change. Sight Words:

special/especial straight/derecho

surprise/sorpresa teacher/maestro-a

temperature/temperature than/que

by Maestra Quiñonez

I hope you enjoyed the long This week

we will continue working on our IB unit How We Express Ourselves.

In Language Arts, students will create

their on poem using the acrostic method. They will also learn about the meaning of prose and its different

forms.

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In Sciences, students will continue learning about the digestive system of the human body.

In math in Spanish, we will pratice using a full-circle protractor to measure

and draw angles less than 360. Students will also learn how to classify

angles as acute, right, obtuse, straight, and reflex.

In Social Studies, students will learn about the famous novel "The Yearling" written by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.

In Math in English, we will pratice reading, writing, and comparing large

numbers. We will also learn about the expotential notation for powers of 10 as

a way of naming the value of places in our base-ten system.

by Maestra Bouché

Congratulations to our class! We are better spellers than we were at the

beginning of the year. Please continue to check their home folders for their

colorful graded spelling sheets. Our goal is 0% incorrect for the entire class and we are very near.

PLEASE WEAR UNIFORMS ON Monday! You may bring pajamas for pajama day,

but please make sure you also have your uniform for our field trip to the

restaurant. MATH. We will continue working in our

graphing unit with plots and circle graphs. Great job this week working on mixed numbers, improper fractions, top

heavy fractions and their conversion.

IB UNIT: Quienes Somos/Who We Are We have begun our new unit. The Central Idea for this unit: Changes

children experience at different stages of their lives affect their evolving sense

of self. Our key concepts are function, change and causation. Your child will soon take

a log home tracking their daily sleep hours. In class we have talked about

important things we must do to keep our brain healthy. Asked them about

what they have learned. Field Trip. We have a field trip with Ms.

Iman on Monday, January 23rd. We will be going to Yasmine's Cafe at 1600 Central Ave SE, where students will be

immersed in Arabic and will be ordering a meal practicing conversational Arabic.

Please make sure your child brings about $10 for a meal. You may pack them a snack and light lunch that

day. The departure time is still a little bit up in the air, but we will be leaving very close to lunch time. There is a

slight correction on the location. Please check your email and confirm. Thank

you. Reminder: Please make sure your child

has brought their ear-buds. We are using them for class assignments with

tablets.

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by Maestra Thompson

We are finishing up several projects in each class. Our Kindergarden students continue to work in process oriented art

centers. First grade is creating a collage of a snowy village. They are cutting out

colorful squares, rectangles and triangles to make a collage of houses. Students learned how to paint a winter

tree with no leaves and next week we are going to finish up by making it

snow (painting snow in the village). Second grade art students are making a

picture of a snow angel. Each student made a person wearing a coat, hat, mitten, boots and scarves out of

construction paper scraps. Painting a snow angel shape to glue their person

onto will complete this project. Third graders are also making a collage.

They are cutting out evergreen trees in various sizes and different shades of

green. The kids are looking forward to splatter painting white paint onto their pictures to emulate snow.

Fourth and fifth grade students are

making the most beautiful 3d, colorful cut out shapes. They are in the style of snow flakes but aren't snowflakes

because they are made with bright colors. I am excited to hang them up in

our school gallery when they are done. Fifth grade kiddos are painting pictures

to be used as part of their performance at The Hispanic Cultural Center during The Festival de Bellas Artes. There are

eight different subjects being painted in a Hispanic folk art style. Small groups

of three students were each assigned one of the subjects to paint. I am proud of how well they are working together

with their partners.

by Todd Knouse

NMIS Students Doing Great Things in Their Community!

If you have a picture and story you would like to share about your child doing something really cool, please share it with us! We will publish it in our weekly

newsletter. Send submissions to nmis.knouse@gmail.com.

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These updates are provided by the respective committee’s chairperson. Consider joining a committee by writing to the chairperson. It’s a great way to get involved

and add to your child’s educational environment.

Cara Morris caram99@gmail.com & Kate Cunningham nmkatecunningham@gmail.com

Thank you to our most recent anonymous book donors. We love getting more

books!

Our book review contest is underway and Viboras currently are tied with Osos! We look forward to seeing the reviews from your kiddos and finding out which clan writes the most book reviews. The review forms are attached in English and

Spanish. Are you looking to get started on your volunteer hours for the year? Do you want

to spend time with your student during the day? We need your help staffing the library. Our library is totally run by volunteers who do everything from

reshelving books when they have a free minute to helping students during their class visits on Thursdays and Fridays. We have other work too if you are interested. Please contact our committee chairs for information.

The NMIS library now has a webpage you can check out books from, right from

nmis.org! Just go to nmis.org, click on For Students and Parents >> Library >> Click on the link and the Researcher.

Denette Varley dsaiz77@hotmail.com

No update.

Christel Reynolds christel@christelclearskin.com

No update.

Crystal Spain teamspain505@gmail.com No update.

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Erika Lucero slowskies@msn.com No update

Parisa Wright & Brenda Vigil nmis.events@gmail.com

This year NMIS has been entered into the State of New Mexico 17th Annual Spanish Poetry Contest, Poesia eres tu.

The event is organized by the Spanish Resource Center in Albuquerque, Latin American and Iberian Institute at the University of New Mexico, and the National

Hispanic Cultural Center. Open to native and non-native Spanish speakers in public, private , and charter schools in the State of New Mexico, the participants are "tasked with learning, memorizing, and dramatizing Spanish poetry."

On Friday March 17, 2017 we will hold a school wide poetry competition and select

the first place participant from each grade, grades 1st through 5th grade to compete then on Friday April 21, 2017 at 9:00 a.m. at the National Hispanic Cultural Center here in Albuquerque, at the state wide competition.

Attached are the guidelines for selecting poems as well as the judging criteria. Please read through this carefully.

This is an amazing opportunity for our school and its amazing students to present themselves and create awareness in the community of our schools presence. It is also

an amazing opportunity for our students to practice stage presence, increase their knowledge and appreciation of the Spanish language and culture, and practice their Spanish!

We are excited for this challenge and opportunity and would love to have as many

participants as we can !!! This should be a fun, exciting learning opportunity for our children!

If your child is interested in participating, please send me an email with your child's name, grade, title of the poem selected, source from which the poem was obtained, and Author of the poem. This information will be needed during

competition.

If you have any questions feel free to ask! Monica Kozlowski monicakozlowski@yahoo.com Special Events Committee

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Parisa Wright parisa.wright7@gmail.com

To purchase uniform tops (shirts, sweaters, jackets), visit www.customoutfitters.com/NMIS

To purchase uniform bottoms (pants, shorts, skorts), review Family Handbook pages

23-26 for accepted bottoms and where you can buy them.

Jenny Dillow jenny_dillow@yahoo.com To order a lunch for delivery to NMIS for your child, go to: http://rhubarbandelliott.h1.hotlunchonline.net/

Still looking for lunch duty help every-other Tuesday!! Come join our awesome team as well as spending time with your kiddos! Contact Jenny at jenny_dillow@yahoo.com or text at 505-917-0018.

Anna Martinez mrsmtz@gmail.com Where's your family from? We're such a wonderfully diverse school, and we'd like to

include a map in the yearbook that shows it. Parents, please take a moment to tell us what city you are from (and country, if outside the U.S.). Email mrsmtz@gmail.com or

text 505-850-0793. We can always use pics for the yearbook! Upload them to the NMIS Yearbook

Dropbox at https://www.dropbox.com/request/960fqdjQS3XKx0NdTy5f or email to mrsmtz@gmail.com.

Bridget Chaves, chair & Shonesha Rogers vice-chair: nmis.enrichment@gmail.com

No update.

The next SAC meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, January 25 at 6:00 here at NMIS.

SAC Members for 2016-2017

Kindergarten Andrea Sewell adjoterra@gmail.com First Grade Shonesha Rogers shonesha.rogers@gmail.com Second Grade Stacey Adams stacey.smaphotography@gmail.com Third Grade Mark Brooke nmis.mbrooke@gmail.com Fourth Grade Gary Newell by_coincidence@yahoo.com Fifth Grade Sarah Baca sarahrbaca@gmail.com

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The NM International School Foundation is an independent 501(c)(3) organization that is dedicated to fundraising for the benefit of NMIS. This is an integral arm to the

mission of the school. Contact the president of the Foundation’s Board of Directors to join this effort. Please visit www.nmisf.org for more information.

NMIS Foundation Board of Directors vacant President Carrie Swartz Vice President cswartz@nmisf.org Dan Hill Vice President dhill@nmisf.org Brenda Vigil Secretary bvigil@nmisf.org Brian Verardo Treasurer bverardo@nmisf.org Laureen Lerch Member llerch@nmisf.org vacant Member

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New Mexico International School is a

candidate school for the Primary Years

Programme. The school is pursing authorization as an IB World School. These

are schools that share a common philosophy

– a commitment to high quality, challenging,

international education that New Mexico

International School believes is important for our students. Only schools authorized by the

IB Organization can offer any of its three

academic programmes: The Primary Years’

Programme (PYP), the Middle Years’

Programme (MYP), or the Diploma

Programme (in addition to the IB Career-related certificate). Candidate status gives no

guarantee that authorization will be

granted. For further information about the

IB and its programmes, visit

http://www.ibo.org.

Monday, January 23 – Friday, January 27: National School Choice Week

Wednesday, January 25 – SAC meeting 6:00

Thursday, January 26: GC Town Hall Meeting 6:00

Monday, January 30: 100th Day of School Celebration

Friday, February 10: Intent to Re-enroll for 2017-2018 due

Monday February 13 & Tuesday, February 14: Progress Monitoring Assessments These are assessments for children receiving Tier 2 academic interventions in Cycle C to monitor growth.

Friday, February 17: End of Winter Trimester

Friday, February 17: Offer of Admission for new siblings due

Friday, February 17: End of Intervention Cycle C

Monday, February 20: No School – Presidents’ Day

Tuesday, February 21 – Friday, March 17: Logramos Testing Window This is the annual Spanish language achievement test given to all students K-5. Testing schedule varies by teacher.

Tuesday, February 21: Beginning of Intervention Cycle D

Thursday, February 23 & Friday February 24: No School- Parent Conferences.

Thursday, February 23: GC Meeting 5:00pm

Monday, February 27: No School – Teacher PD Day

Wednesday, March 1: Open Enrollment for 2017-2018 Begins

Thursday, March 2: Prospective Parent Night #1 6:00pm

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9780 Coors Blvd. NW

(505)890-WINE

www.nickyvs.com