YCIS-SV Community Connection

May 23, 2025

Dear YCIS Community,

As we approach the final weeks of the school year, our campus is filled with excitement and gratitude. Thank you for your incredible support and participation throughout the year—especially in our recent fundraising efforts. While we are still working toward our overall goal, your contributions have made a significant difference, and we invite you to continue supporting us in any way you can.

Some things that the Annual Fund has supported or will support:

- ECE playground enhancements, such as new rubber surface, landscaping, play areas

- Portable AC at K8 campus

- Other facilities improvements

- Expanded professional development opportunities

You can donate directly to the school here (Link)

Every gift counts!! Whether it’s $10 or $1,000, your participation helps build the culture that makes YCIS special.

In addition to financial support, your voice matters greatly. On Tuesday, we will send out our annual Parent Survey. Your feedback and suggestions are essential as we reflect on this year and plan for continued growth and improvement. We truly appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts with us.

Next week, we are also honored to welcome back Mr. Martin Scott, YCIS-SV Board Chair and YCYW Education Director, for his second campus visit this school year. He will be with us over the next two weeks, and we are excited to celebrate the end of the year together as a community.

Please be sure to take part in the many exciting class-based, campus-wide, and whole-school events coming up. Let’s make these final weeks of the school year meaningful, memorable, and full of joy!

Yearbook Update!

If you ordered a yearbook for your child, they will receive them the first week of June.

We also ordered a handful of softcovers and a couple of hardcovers extra if you’d like to purchase one from the office please contact Mrs. Cristy cristinag@sv.ycef.com We only have a very small amount so first come first serve. We will reserve the copies for you and distribute them to the student's who ordered upon arrival.

Softcover: $44

Hardcover $52

EXACT Cash or check made out to "YCIS"

Click to see a sneak peek of the Yearbook 🤭

Early Childhood Education (ECE)

Galaxy Class Explores Lemon Volcanoes!

The TK Galaxy class transformed into junior scientists, embarking on an exciting exploration of lemon volcanoes! With eager hands and curious minds, each child had the opportunity to carefully cut open a lemon, creating a natural crater for the eruption. Then came the magic: spoonfuls of baking soda were added, followed by drops of vibrant, colorful watercolor paints. Squeals of delight filled the air as the citric acid from the lemons reacted with the baking soda, causing foamy, colorful "lava" to fizz and bubble over the sides of their zesty volcanoes. It was a hands-on lesson in chemical reactions, color mixing, and pure fun!

Elementary (Kindergarten - 4th Grade)

Exploring Ocean Habitats

Our first graders recently enjoyed a hands-on science experience during their field trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where they explored the questions, such as What is a habitat? and What do living things need to survive? With guidance from the aquarium instructor and a thoughtfully designed curriculum, students sparked their curiosity and began investigations. While observing animals, students considered the basic needs for survival—such as food, water, and oxygen—and explored how adaptations play a role. They discovered that adaptations that help animals survive in specific habitats.

This field trip powerfully supported students’ learning by connecting classroom concepts to real-world experiences. Through interactive activities, students deepened their understanding of ocean life and the idea that both plants and animals use their external parts to survive, grow, and meet their needs. The focus on survival traits and how living things adapt to their environments helped bring the science of growth and change to life in a fun and meaningful way.

Bringing Chinese to Life Through Skits

Chinese learning is always designed to be fun and immersive, with a strong focus on culture, communication skills, and creativity. Teachers often uses skits as a way for students to showcase both their language abilities and their creative expression. These performances are a highlight of our Share Our Learning day. This year, students in 1st through 3rd grade will take the stage to perform their skits. Each performance is thoughtfully connected to what students have been learning in the classroom, allowing them to apply their language skills in meaningful, real-life contexts while building confidence and teamwork. We warmly welcome all parents to join us and celebrate the students’ hard work, creativity, and growth in Chinese language learning!

Bug Lab

The kindergarten classrooms had an exciting visit from the SaveNature Bug Lab, where students engaged in a hands-on learning experience with live insects, including a Darkling Beetle, Madagascar Hissing Cockroach, Eastern Lubber Grasshopper, Giant Thorny Phasmid, and Spiny Leaf Insect. This visit tied directly to their unit on how living things sustain life, as students learned about decomposers and the important role these insects play in ecosystems. The educator highlighted each insect’s unique structures, adaptations, and survival techniques such as camouflage and bright coloring. Students observed the insects up close and even had the chance to gently touch some of them, sparking curiosity, thoughtful questions, and a deeper understanding of the natural world.

3rd Grade Entrepreneurs Launch Their Businesses

As part of their unit on how entrepreneurial thinking leads to change, the 3rd graders launched their own businesses in a hands-on classroom marketplace. They were introduced to basic economic concepts such as goods, producers, consumers, wants, needs, revenue, expenses, and profit. Each team created a business plan for a product they could make at school using materials purchased with “classroom currency.” They filled out expense sheets, tracked costs, and calculated their account balances before production. After purchasing supplies, students were given time to build their products, set up shop, and advertise. Kindergarteners were invited to visit the marketplace as customers, each receiving $5 in play money— aligning with their math unit on money. The 3rd-grade teams competed to earn the highest profit and later reflected on what strategies were successful and what could be improved.

Chick Watch in 1st Grade!

It’s been a joyful few weeks in the 1st grade classrooms as students watched the miracle of life unfold—baby chicks have hatched! After patiently tracking the incubation process, the long-awaited chicks finally emerged and are now happily settled into the 1A and 1B classrooms. This experience ties into their unit on growth and change, giving students a chance to see a life cycle in action.

Middle School (5th- 7th Grade)

Our 5th grade students recently had an exciting and enriching experience at the Chabot Space and Science Center. During their visit, they explored real-life astronaut stories, attended a planetarium show that emphasized the importance of ongoing space research, and enjoyed a live science demonstration. A highlight of the trip was a hands-on workshop where the students learned about rover technology and applied their knowledge by designing and constructing their own models to safely land a water balloon from a designated height. This engaging field trip brought classroom learning to life and sparked curiosity about space exploration.

YALP (Yew Chung Art & Language Program)

There are so many exciting activities happening in YALP every day and our students take great pride in sharing them with you.

In Kinder, Chris created a beautiful craft featuring a lotus and pond to represent the ancient Chinese poem 江南, Tracy crafted a turtle model and illustrated its life cycle in Chinese on the shell. Ian has been deeply engaged in learning the classic poem 山村咏怀 showing great focus as he write it out. Charlotte was captivated by the idiom story 孟母三迁 and eager to is eager to learn how to write it in Chinese.

In grade1, students explored how aerodynamics and air resistance affect flight by designing balloon-powered flyers and testing how far they could travel. They also had some friendly competition with the always-popular kangaroo races during outdoor time.

Our upper-grade students dove into more advanced science experiments and fine arts projects, combining creativity and critical thinking in every activity.

It is incredibly rewarding for our teachers to see the curiosity, joy, and progress of our students across all age groups!