Please view below video for warm welcome from Ms. Leia Kraeuter, Elementary School Principal.

LUNCH

• KG-Grade 5 students now can have classroom delivery from school cafeteria. Please refer to Cafeteria page for more details.

• Students can also bring lunch from home.

• Student can fill up their reusable water bottles in the drinking water fountains around school.

SCHOOL SUPPLIES

All school supplies, books, pencils and pens in the elementary are provided by the school. Students may be required to bring their own headphones. Students may bring their own pencil case, tablet, if they choose to. Students will be provided with a school e-mail, online storage, as well as a host of other online subscriptions that are in place to support their learning.

For parent communication

Parent teacher communication in the Elementary (KG - grade 5) is via Seesaw, which is a student e-portfolio. Elementary parents can also expect to receive direct emails from teachers, and an elementary weekly newsletter. 

For classroom and home learning

At GAA we have a wide range of technology platforms and applications that we use to support the needs of our students and their families. 

• Seesaw (K-5) is our digital portfolio that allows students and teachers to share a snapshot of the learning that is taking place at school.  Activities can also be created and shared with the students to work on when they are at home. Here is the link to website, dedicated to explaining to parents what Seesaw is: https://web.seesaw.me/families 

• Google Classroom (4-5) is a blended learning platform that is used across the school but in elementary it is more commonly used by the upper elementary students.  It helps to streamline the sharing of information, activities and documentation between the students and their teachers. 

• Learning A-Z Raz-Plus (K-5), Lexia (K-5) and Achieve3000 (4-5) are literacy platforms that provide our students with support for their reading, comprehension and literacy skills.

• BrainPOP (2-5) and BrainPOP Jr (K-2) are educational websites that provide many animated movies to help students develop their understanding of many different topics in all different subject areas (Math, English, Science, Social Studies, Technology, etc).

We also have a host of other website subscriptions and applications that are used by various classes and teachers to support the learning both in and out of the classroom, some of those include Zearn, Epic, Zorbits, Starfall, Nearpod, Generation Genius, CritterCoin, Padlet, Teach Your Monster, among many others. 

ClassLink

In order to allow both students and parents easily access all of these amazing resources and accounts without needing to remember all of the login information, we use ClassLink (K-5) which is a platform that is used to securely store all login information and create a simple single sign on access – this means that you do not need to remember all of the login information – usernames, passwords, etc for each site or resource, you will simply need to sign in to your ClassLink Launchpad and access everything through there. 

In education, the term standards-based refers to systems of instruction, assessment, grading, and academic reporting that are based on students demonstrating understanding or mastery of the knowledge and skills they are expected to learn as they progress through their education. These knowledge and skills are known as standards - concise, written descriptions of what students are expected to know and be able to do at a specific stage of their education. In schools that use standards-based approaches the standards determine the goals of a lesson or course. Teachers then determine how and what to teach students so they achieve the learning expectations described in the standards. At GAA, curriculum standards are defined for each course and specifically indicate what the student is expected to learn and demonstrate on assessments.

Throughout each course, the completed assessments help the teacher provide feedback and learning targets as well as track progress toward proficiency of each curriculum standard. When assessments target multiple curriculum standards, a proficiency level is determined for each one. Our proficiency levels are:

• Mastery

• Proficient

• Developing

• Emerging.

Please watch below video to help you understand Standard Based Grading: