PE and Science pages have been updated.

Check out the Science and PHE pages which have been updated with a lot of photo's demonstrating what your children have been doing.
They have been busy, busy, busy!

Below is a picture of Ms Kim's homeroom who won the dance challenge during SEW.
Part of their prize included a HR snack party which was catered by Ms Maholtz and Mrs Pearse.

Students of the Month for September

Congratulations to 2 students for receiving the honor of being voted as Students of the Month for September.

Eugene Kim:

This student is earnest and always puts forward his best effort. If he is unsure he seeks out someone to ask, and also shows good problem solving by trying to work things out for himself. He asks really good questions in class demonstrating he is a thinker, and other students also benefit from his inquiring mind. He is an excellent communicator both verbally and through his writing. Despite many things being new, he is doing a great job of making connections, and is willing to work with a wide variety of students. He is very accepting of and open-minded towards other students and has earned the respect of his peers quickly. Other students speak about him as a kind and giving person. Teachers see him as being positive, a risk taker, organised and enthusiastic. This student has made an excellent transition into the TCIS community through his diligent efforts.

Christy Zo:

This student quietly and consistently contributes enormously to TCIS.  She is always willing to help her peers, regardless of language, background or gender.  She is a great ‘teacher’ to others by being kind, unflustered and empathetic. She shows creative thinking in her work, challenging herself to think differently about activities, resulting in work that is innovative, interesting and well thought out. An example of this was during the project of ‘My School Life’ in Mandarin, where she took great efforts in designing the animated slideshows, which made her presentation meaningful learning material for all of her peers. She demonstrates many IB Learner traits from caring for her fellow students, to being principled through her integrity in modelling the “right” thing to do, to being open-minded in her willingness to accept all others despite differences. There is also balance in her life as she also participates fully in intramurals after school. She always ‘has a go’ with a no-fuss attitude, and thus enjoyed the recent soccer season. 

Thirteen!

Here is a recent post from Michael Grose- a leading parenting expert talking about "thirteen".

This is a very interesting for us parents of thirteen year olds.

"Thirteen is a notoriously difficult age - it's an age of regression."

 This is not to excuse abusive or uncooperative behaviour but it does provide some context.

You can’t pick and choose

Many teenagers at this age like to distance themselves from their families. Not quite teenagers in the real sense of the term and no longer children they are stuck in the middle of two stages. It can be ‘Struggletown’ for many parents.

It’s common for kids in this age group to want to operate outside of the family with some things, but not with others. Teenagers need to be cut some latitude and not be expected to do the same things as they did when kids. We do need to adjust. But for important stuff such as treating siblings respectfully and turning up for family mealtimes then they need to be expected to come to the party. They can’t opt out of reasonable family obligations; nor can they cooperate on their terms only.

Co-operation is two-way

Sometimes young people need to be reminded of the tenuous nature of cooperation by a parent temporarily withdrawing their assistance for a child around things they value such as being driven to places; having meals cooked; even having clothes washed.

If you withdraw your cooperation in such a manner you need to be very careful how you do this as it can easily be interpreted as a play for power. It needs to be done calmly and methodically so that your young person understands that ‘they can’t pick and choose when to cooperate’. In effect, cooperation is an all or nothing thing so let them experience your non-cooperation for a time. Think this through very carefully. You may need to outlast 
your young person to make a point, so do it at a time when you feel strong.

‘I can use your help’

One way of working with children and young people (and adults) who directly challenge you or the status quo is to get them working for you rather than against you. In effect, you acknowledge that they are older and that you could really use their help to look out for and after their siblings.

I used this method during a parenting course when anyone would continually challenge me. "Jenny, you've got strong views about... Can you share them with everyone, because I think you've something valuable to say?" It rarely failed, as we all like to feel important!

You build your skills with the outliers

The outliers in any group- those that sit on the fringes- will always test you out personally and also test your parenting skills. You have to throw out the playbook that used to work and look for different strategies to bring the outliers in from the cold. Whatever method you use I think it’s essential that you don’t allow kids to operate outside the family rules and norms for too long. It becomes tiresome for you and destructive for family life as well.

This comes from the Happy Kids Newsletter I subscribe to from parenting ideas.com.au

Here is the link if you would like to subscribe yourself:

http://www.parentingideas.com.au/newsletter/archive/HK_582.html?utm_source=MailingList-HappyKids&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Happy+Kids+583

Girls Soccer Jamboree at KIS on September 12

Here are some pictures from Mr McDougall of the girls soccer Jamboree at KIS on September 12.

Go LADY Dragons!

Spiritual Emphasis Week= SEW= Fun, music, activities, worship

SEW was a great success this year.
Our speaker Travis Whittaker was amazing, as was the band Truslow.
When all is finished with SEW and we go back to normal school, what does our spirituality look like on a day to day basis.
Do we exhibit kindness on a daily basis?
Dow e offer to help without being asked?
Dow we control what we say about others?
Do we look around and see what's happening right in front of us.
In chapel this week Mr Larry challenged us to find ways to serve each other through simple acts of kindness to share the load and share our burdens.

Meet The Teacher Night

Thank you to all of the parents who came to Meet The Teacher Night last night.

It was a pleasure to see so many of you again and to meet new parents.

I hope you have been able to connect to the Gr 8 blog site through coming.

This was my final slide for parents who came to my presentation.

I hope you can get connected to Schoology to help support your child in their learning and to be informed of important matter at TCIS.

Our theme for this year in Grade 8 is:

"More than Myself"

We will be exploring what that means to us through homeroom time this year, and getting involved in service and action in the community.

Homeroom time

In our first homeroom of the year, we welcomed our new students, and played some games to get to know our new homeroom teachers and each other!

Welcome to Mr Ferguson, Ms Sue Kyung Kim, Ms Esther Kim, Mrs Crystal Godsiff and Mrs Christie Gordon

Next Homeroom is on August 25th and we will break into groups...

Students will be looking at some interesting and thought provoking questions

How would you answer and justify your answer?