American International School of Bucharest

True story, we were surrounded by vampires.

Traditional Romanian felt mask used to ward off bad luck at new years.

Okay, the American International School of Bucharest just may have the best school mascot ever. Who wouldn’t want to be a Fighting Vampire?!

Sara holds court with some Kindergarten poets.

But, a boss mascot is not all the school has going for it. Librarians par excellence Stacey and John shepherded us through four fun and learning filled days where we worked with all ages (and by all ages I mean 4 year olds thru full-grown teachers.)

We started out with a couple of assemblies for the younger set – grades 1 thru 5 then a second with pre-K and Ks. Then we visited classrooms to share some writing frameworks. We were able to incorporate current lessons in the students PYP units with our teaching of writing elements and it turned out amazing.

A transportation refrain poem I wrote with a lot of help from some first graders.

AISB is really incorporating the whole PYP process  with heart and soul and it shows in the enthusiasm and can-do attitude of their students.

Later in the visit we were able to officially introduce lessons from our forthcoming Scholastic PD book – From Striving to Thriving for Writers (co-authored with Stephanie Harvey) showing the cover in public for the first time. The official announcement is still forthcoming – so consider this a little sneak preview for those who visit our blog.

After school PD where we revealed the cover of our new book for the first time.

We also did assemblies for the middle school and the high school – this is our favorite when we can dial in our presentations for specific grade levels – we love targeting an age range. We have different presentations, lower elementary, upper elementary, middle, high school and bar. You don’t want to mix those up.

Found poems with he fourth graders based on their PYP unit on weather events.

After a visit to the PTO store where we spent all our food allowance money on Vampire gear it was time to say goodbye and continue our Eastern Bloc tour. So it is off to Kazakhstan – but I think it is fair to say AISB has gotten under our skin – you might say it’s in our blood.

Door carving from the peasant village outdoor museum.

Yay Vampires!