New Programs for After School
2010-11

 

Chinese

Beginning Mandarin Chinese for K-1st graders 

Wednesday 3:30-4:30 pm

Instructor:  Chia-Chia Wang

Here is a wonderful opportunity for your child to learn a tonal language that is so different from Western languages, it helps to create new pathways in their brain! We will be learning Chinese through singing songs, action and movements, playing games, drawing and crafting, and writing Chinese characters as well. Ms. Wang is a native speaker experienced in teaching language immersion class to young children. She also teaches middle school Mandarin class. 

 *Returning students from last year will be work within a more advance curriculum.

 Beginning Mandarin Chinese for 2nd-5th graders

Thursday 3:45-4:45 pm

Instructor:  Chia-Chia Wang

Come to learn an ancient language that 1/5 of world population speaks! This Chinese class will be both informative and fun filled activities. This class is designed in a way to assist your child to develop a love for the Chinese language and culture. Ms. Wang is a native speaker experienced in teaching language immersion class to young children. She also teaches middle school Mandarin class.   

  *Returning students from last year will be work within a more advance curriculum.

Chess

 Instructors: Tyler Britton & Curtis Moore

Chess4Life is happy to be returning to the French-American School with Coaches Tyler Britton and Curtis Moore again. Our plan for this season includes helping returning students progress further in their chess skills as well as evaluating and integrating new students. For the first 10 weeks semester, expect the following:

• First week, evaluation of students, intro to semester material, practice games
• Following 8 weeks - focus on one primary theme each week - endgames, tactics, planning, and opening principles - with each class including at least 30 minutes for students to put into practice what they are learning through playing practice/challenge games with coaches observing and helping students learn from those games
• 10th week - review of what has been learned this semester

Parents - the main vision behind Chess4Life is "Teaching Life Skills Through Chess". What we mean by this is that students who participate in learning chess have been shown to increase their critical thinking skills, learn important life skills/character qualities such as perseverance, concentration, thinking ahead, losing is NOT failure but part of the learning process, visualization, teamwork, planning, decision making, and math skills among other benefits. Through chess, we believe in preparing students to succeed in life.

Background info on Chess4Life:

For 8 years Chess4life has been offering chess instructional programs in Washington state schools. With 35 coaches teaching in over 80 schools Chess4life has a broad range of experience and talent to benefit students. Chess4Life instructors work closely under the guidance of National Chess Master Elliott Neff. All instructors follow the coaching methods that were developed by Elliott over the past 18 years in training multiple students and teams to both state and national titles including most recently the 2010 National K-3 Championship Team. Chess4Life coaches continue to develop and hone their chess coaching skills with personal guidance from Elliott. The Chess4Life Chess Center in Bellevue provides additional training and competition opportunities.  

After School Swim

Instructor: SJCC

Your child can expand their swim skills and overall fitness with the after-school swim program at the Stroum Jewish Community Center. Our certified lifeguards will pick your child up from FASPS 30 minutes before their lesson time. After their lesson our lifeguards will return them to FASPS if he or she has not been picked up from the JCC.

The SJCC swim program is based on the Red Cross Learn-to-Swim curriculum. Our instructors are trained to customize their classes to fit each student’s individual needs with low student/teacher ratios and a shallow wading section for beginners to feel comfortable in the water. The following are the varying levels of lessons we offer based on your child’s swimming ability:

Grades K - 5

Youth Beginner

In Youth Beginner, swimmers will learn water entry and exit, water safety rules,

submersion, kicking skills, skills on front, skills on back, breathe control skills, alternative positions, changing position and direction, and water and personal safety skills.

Youth Intermediate

In Youth Intermediate, swimmers will learn safety skills, water entry skills, lifejacket skills, kicking skills, skills on front, skills on back, treading water and changing positions, deep water skills, open turns with push off, all strokes, and combined skills.

Youth Advanced

In Youth Advanced, swimmers will increase their swimming distance from 25 yards to 50 yards and will learn advanced deep water skills, surface dives in deep water, turns & strokes, and combined skills

Pottery

Pottery - Ceramics - Mosaics

 
Mold, shape, glaze, scratch and attach! The children will have fun and creatively work with clay in a variety of applications. They will employ several hand-building techniques including pinching pots, making coils, rolling slabs, using found objects in nature and more! They will also use various clay tools including sculpting tools and texture mats. Also new this year is mosaic work! The students will make their own tiles, glue and grout them into a beautiful piece of art work. Class is designed for students to hand-build a project one week and glazes it the following week. This gives the students variety and a project to take home every other week! If a student is absent on the day that a project is created, they will receive a tile the following week on which to paint. If a student is absent on the day the project gets glazed, he/she can glaze it the next glaze day.

Week 1 & 2 Pinch Pot Monsters: In preparation for Halloween, students will turn a pinch pot into a monster. Techniques used include making a pinch pot, using the score & slip technique to attach eyes, crazy hair & teeth. Students will recognize the various types of low fire under-glazes used and proper glaze application.

Week 3 & 4 Jack-O-Lantern: Another Halloween favorite...students will essentially carve a clay pumpkin and embellish with a hand-built witch hat. Students will also blend glazes to create shadow.

Week 5 & 6 Leaf Candle Holder: Celebrating fall & utilizing the beautiful fall leaves, students will trace real leaves in slab rolls. They will apply a simple technique to roll consistently even slabs without a slab roller. Students will paint a "glaze wash" on the ceramic leaves to enhance the beauty of the leaf structure.

Week 7 & 8 Picture Frame: Students will make picture frames from rolled slabs. They will utilize several techniques to decorate them including using texture mats, clay tools, and scoring & slipping to attach embellishments; great idea for a hand-made holiday gift. 

Week 9 & 10 Holiday/Winter Ornaments: Similar to making cut out holiday cookies, students will make cut out holiday ornaments. They will again utilize the slab rolling technique, but also use texture mats to impress various designs in the clay. Other clay tools will be used to create designs. The importance of proper glaze coverage and order of glaze color application will be demonstrated.

Week 11 & 12 Coil Bowls: Students will correctly make coils and demonstrate the proper way to construct a coil bowl - building on the previous layers while expanding outward. Students will work with color opposites in the glaze application alternating between the 2 colors on each coil.

Weeks 13, 14 & 15 Mosaics: Students will design a mosaic project by first drawing a design on paper. Then they will reproduce the picture with clay tiles. Students will glue them onto a prepared tile surface. Finally students will grout in between the tiles

Science
Science On Wheels
Science After School Series

 

Pacific Science Center's Science After School is where kids and science connect in eye-opening, hands-on hours of exploration! From physics to forensics and animals to engineering, your young scientists will experiment with everything from roller coasters to rockets and insects to fingerprints. Each series consists of six 1-hour lessons, built on Washington State Grade Level Expectations and designed to enrich after school time with fun, innovative experiments right at your facility. There's whole series of sensational science awaiting your students! See some of the series listed below.

K-2nd Series

Storybook Science (New for Fall 2010)

Share the mystery and wonder of science as it springs from the pages of a book! Use microscopes and magnifiers to discover the miniature world of insects. Compare your teeth to the fangs of a grizzly bear! Then explore sound waves while making your own musical instrument, float boats, and create a rainbow of color.  Each lesson in this series opens with a children’s book to spark student curiosity and prepare them to learn about these topics and more!   

Ooze and Ahs

Discover your inner master chemist during Ooze and Ahs. Experiment with strange concoctions like Oobleck and Slime and find out what matter has to do with it. Put on your safety goggles and get ready to measure, pour and mix your way through some extraordinary reactions.

Give Me Five!

Experience your fabulous five senses to the max! Get up close and personal with science as you sniff, taste, feel, hear and see your experiments using safe, everyday materials. During Give Me Five! you will build your own musical instrument, dazzle your eyes with illusions, and test your own sense of taste and smell. Come along with us and sense the world on a new level!

Design Time

Start thinking about tinkering and join us in Design Time! Use pulleys, levers and other simple machines to design and build structures and inventions. How slowly can you make a marble fall?   How far can you catapult something? Put the engineer inside of you to work and start designing!

Amazing Animals

Check out Amazing Animals! Investigate the beasts and bugs from our fossilized past, living present, and even create your own specially adapted “futuristic” animal. Do you want to meet live insects, go hunting for fossils, and examine real animal skulls?      You can—all in Amazing Animals.

 

Yoga

Instructor:  Marchella Yokoyama

Purna Yoga for Kids

Mondays 3:30-4:30pm (1st-2nd grade)

Each class will have a particular focus or theme so that the children can learn a wide variety of yoga postures (standing poses, inversions, twists or backbends). There will be stories that pertain to the yoga poses, games and time for kids to create their own poses and stories. By the end of the session, students will have a library of poses they have learned and a new confidence in their own body and intuition. In each pose there is a particular alignment that allows for the body’s energy to run smoothly, strengthening overall health. Within each category of postures there are many benefits: strength, flexibility, calmness, confidence, mental clarity, focus, and feeling the joy of being alive - just to name a few! Yoga is not magic - the practices came from an ancient tradition where the natural energetics of the body was taught through yoga postures (asana), breath (pranayama) and concentration (meditation). The children will learn all of these aspects of yoga in a kid-friendly way to give them tools to maintain a healthy and balanced life as they grow up. Here is an example of a class: We begin with a technique that centers the mind and then warm up the body through Sun Salutations (a flowing sequence of poses). After this, children learn about the story of the Warrior Poses, which helps us understand that strength comes from within, from knowing who you truly are. The children then do these Warrior poses and play a game. Class ends with quiet time where students lie down quietly, focus on their breath and rest their bodies. Come and join this fun-filled yoga class that creates joy, strength and flexibility in all aspects of children’s lives.   

Purna Yoga for Kids

Tuesdays 3:30-4:30pm (3rd, 4th, & 5th grades)

 Each class will have a particular focus so that the children can get comfortable with each type of pose (standing poses, inversions, twists or backbends). In this class we will focus on the alignment and actions of each pose to build awareness, strength and flexibility in the body and mind. In each pose there is a particular alignment that allows for the body’s energy to run smoothly, strengthening overall health. Each category of poses helps to calm, strengthen or create flexibility in the body. Yoga is not magic - the practices came from an ancient tradition where the natural energetics of the body was taught through yoga postures (asana), breath (pranayama) and concentration (meditation). The children will learn all of these aspects of yoga in a kid-friendly way to give them tools to maintain a healthy and balanced life as they grow up. This class not only helps young students unwind after the school day, but begins to teach them that building a relationship with oneself is an important aspect of life. In a non-competitive setting, we will journey through a beautiful exploration of body, mind and spirit. Come and join us for a fun and loving class!    

Purna Yoga for Kids

Wednesday 3:45-4:30pm (PK)

At such a young age, it is important to foster a balance between flexibility and strength; this sets kids up to maintain a healthy, vibrant body and mind throughout childhood!  Yoga is a tool that helps children maintain and cultivate this flexibility and strength in the body through “play.” Children will learn traditional yoga postures, stories about where the poses came from and learn to have fun while moving their body.  Students will experiment with the many ways to express themselves as they are guided from animal poses to warrior poses to poses that are found in nature.  All of the learning is taught through song, dance, stories and imagination. At this age, kids are creating a foundation in the body and mind is essential for the growth and health of the rest of their life.  Yoga helps them understand that the body has many different feelings and by guiding them to the heart, which is the home of love, joy and inner strength, it helps them access confidence too. Come and have your child build a happy and healthy body through yoga! ‘Purna’ means ‘whole’ and this class can truly help nurture the whole child – body, mind and that wonderfully playful spirit!