Green Thumbs (All Thumbs) Wanted!

Calling gardeners and gardener-wannabes! Next Saturday, June 27, is Garden Beautification Day at John Gill. We invite students, parents, and neighbors to help us make the garden a welcoming place with vegetables and native plants.

Tasks include weeding, amending soil, planting seeds and seedlings. If you are new to gardening, there will be experienced gardeners to guide you. We will also have pizza to keep us fueled! 

Where: Garden @ John Gill Elementary (park on Myrtle between Jefferson and Harrison)
When: Saturday, June 27, 10am-2pm  (pizza provided)
Contact: Cesar,  (650) 444-6560

See you there!

Searching for a Teacher Aide

The 2015-2016 school year is about to start! We are in search of a talented and dedicated Mandarin speaking teaching aide to work with the teachers in our Kindergarten and first grade classrooms. Pass this on to anyone you think might be interested!

Candidates should apply directly through edjoin.org. The job posting should be up by early next week.

New After School MI Program at John Gill

We had been talking about it for a while, but it really is happening! In collaboration with REACH, an existing after school program, John Gill will offer an on-campus, Mandarin immersion option starting this fall 2015.

The Mandarin immersion option, called REACH-MI, is open to any John Gill student. The program aims to assist children in exploring, creating, and making friends in a language-rich environment.  Through a mixture of guided activities and free play, children will learn and practice Mandarin naturally.  Children will also have time to complete their homework and receive help (if suggested by their classroom teacher). 

REACH-MI will provide a project-based, hands-on, Social Emotional Learning (SEL) - focused curriculum that will complement the John Gill MI classroom curriculum.  Children will engage in activities led by a classroom teaching aide, a leader from REACH and 3 specialty teachers (e.g. music and kung-fu), all mandarin-speaking.  Parent volunteers are also welcome to come lead a fun activity of your choice!

Below are some basics on the program. For more detail see REACH-MI Curriculum and REACH-MI FAQ.

Schedule: Follows the John Gill academic calendar and schedule. 8/24/2015 - 6/9/2016 for this coming school year, and starts every school day at school dismissal until 6pm.

Cost: $325/month, paid separately to REACH ($125) to cover the general REACH program cost and to PlayThrive ($200) to cover the MI portion of the curriculum, material and staff.
 
Registration: Fill out the REACH application form specifying the Mandarin Immersion (REACH-MI) program along with:

• Check to REACH: $125 (1 month of tuition) which covers program cost until end of September 2015 plus June 2016 (2 weeks free!).
• Check to PlayThrive: $200 (1 month of tuition) which covers program cost until end of September 2015 plus June 2016  (2 weeks free!)

Deadline to register is Wednesday, July 15.  There is a registration session at John Gill MUB on 7/15 at 5:30pm where you can learn more about REACH-MI’s daily operations, enrichment classes, and the auto-pay process. If you cannot make it to the 7/15 registration session, you can also mail in your registration. Please see the REACH-MI FAQ for details on mailing.

See you after school! 

MI Transitional Kindergarten still a possibility!

For all the 4 and half year olds out there, the school district just notified us that Transitional Kindergarten may still be a possibility for 2015-2016!  

Depending upon how many confirmations for enrollment are received, the school may create a Transitional Kindergarten/Kindergarten combo mixed grades class and/or a Kindergarten/1st Grade combo mixed grades class. 

There are a limited number of spots still available in the program. Please visit the Redwood City School District Schools of Choice page for registration information. 

Incoming students and interested families are invited to attend the John Gill Open House on Thursday, May 28, starting at 6pm. Classrooms will be open to tour along with current teachers and students presenting their classwork. As of now, Mandarin Immersion Program teachers will not yet be available to meet at the open house. However, incoming students will have an opportunity to see classrooms and meet their future classmates and schoolmates!

Curriculum Update and Sample Texts

Dr. Danni Tsai (Superintendent of Spark Charter School and former Educational Services Coordinator of San Mateo County) has been working with Redwood City School District since the start of the program on developing the MI@JG curriculum. She kindly met with parents on April 17, 2015 to provide an update on teacher hiring, curriculum development, along with samples of instructional materials. Listen to an audio recording (Part 1 9MB, Part 2 32 MB) of the meeting.

Topics Covered in Audio Recording of April 15, 2015 meeting:
- Teacher training
- Sample monthly themes covered in Kindergarten and 1st grade
- Sample texts, literature, math/science/language activities
- Non-native speaking student/family support

Below are a few of the sample instructional material Dr. Tsai showed us. Please note that although some materials shown contain traditional Chinese characters and/or zhuyin (a system of phonetic notation using symbols), the MI@JG program will be teaching simplified characters and pinyin (phonetic system using a Latin alphabet). All materials, except for the supplemental workbook, were acquired from a publisher in Taiwan. Additional materials, available free of charge online from China, may also be used to supplement instruction.

Living Mandarin 生活华语 Language Text

Sample page of Living Mandarin ~3rd grade

Page from supplemental workbook for K/1st

Sample math text

Mandarin 华语 Language Text for ~3rd grade

Sample page from Mandarin 华语

Sample Instructional Materials

 
Living Mandarin 生活华语 is a text available free of charge along with posters and a CD for each student to take home.

The sample page shows a story on the left page and pictographic origin of characters on the right page.

 

In the supplemental workbook, characters are taught using scaffolding instruction: students first color in outlines of character strokes, then practice tracing characters, and finally writing the character in a blank box.

 
In addition to the math text shown here, the school district is considering purchasing enVisionMATH from Pearson in Chinese.

 
Mandarin 华语 Language Text comes recommended by Dr. Tsai for higher grades because the sentences sound more "native" (more likely to be spoken by native speakers, as opposed to being translated from English).


Not shown here, but was passed around in the meeting, was a sample of Little Golden Books and a catalog of familiar American storybooks translated into Chinese that students can read in class or purchase through a catalog. Better Chinese also publishes many popular storybooks.

Story/craft time on Sun. 2/8 讲故事 做手工

Please join us for Mandarin story/craft time at the downtown Redwood City library, on Sunday 2/8 at 3pm.  All ages are welcome, but the target audience will be 4-6 year olds.  This will be a good opportunity for the future Redwood City Mandarin Immersion families to meet each other.  If you miss it this time, don't fret -- there will be another one on Sunday 3/1.

Wrapping up Registration & Teacher Hiring Underway

An update from the school district:

As of mid-December, 2014, there is sufficient enrollment to guarantee that the Mandarin Immersion program will go forward next year.  Redwood City School District is committed to launching the MI program in 2015. 

Currently, there are still slots available for both in-district and out-of-district families.  The district will form as many as two kindergarten and two first grade classes, plus a transitional kindergarten class, if enough students enroll to fill classes.  

Put John Gill/Mandarin Immersion as your School of Choice: Selection #1 before January 9 to ensure that your child is in the lottery.

For updated, complete step-by-step instructions see the MI Registration Guide for Fall of 2015.

With the registration period wrapping up soon, the school district has commenced the process of interviewing teachers for the 2015 2016 academic year. The MIIRWC Parents Group is helping with the process, and we are expecting teachers to be hired by February in time for training and preparation for the start of school in the fall.

Please join us at one of the following events to learn more and meet other families:

Saturday, Jan 3 
9AM to 12PM
Meet up & Play Date
Home Depot Kids Workshop: Learn How to Build a Mini Sled  
1125 Old County Rd 
San Carlos, CA 94070

Sunday, Jan 4
2PM to 5PM
Meet up & Play Date
Downtown Library
1044 Middlefield Road
Redwood City, CA

photo by Nate Graham

Wednesday, Jan 7
8:30AM to 9:30AM
John Gill School Tour
555 Ave Del Ora
Redwood City, CA 94062
Program Overview + Q&A

For the latest on Mandarin Immersion @ John Gill (program info, curriculum, campus photos, etc.) please take a look at the About the School page. 

Thanks to all for an exciting and productive year! We wish you and your family a very happy holidays and new year!