Tessa Team of teachers and administrators.

A Very Tessa May

May 31, 2023/in Newsletter /by Tessa School

Celebrating our Wonderful Teachers

The school and Parent Organization had a whole week of activities and surprises planned to celebrate our educators on Teachers Appreciation Week. Their passion for teaching, their guidance, and their unwavering support shape the future of our students. We are proud to have such an amazing team of high-qualified educators who are committed to making a positive difference in the world!

¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

At Tessa, we joined in the festive spirit and celebrated this vibrant holiday! Some of our classes explored the rich culinary traditions by learning how to make delicious guacamole, while others created their own tasty tacos. Our Primary students also had the visit of clown. The creativity was overflowing with adorable arts and crafts projects that capture the essence of this special day.
We hope you had a memorable and festive Cinco de Mayo celebration!

Field Trip at the Farm

Our PK3 and PK4 classes went on a field trip to Queens County Farm Museum, as part of their unit “Sharing the Planet”. We had a blast petting the goats, pigs, and chickens and learning about their role in agriculture. The kids were able to make their own butter, which was a hit! We took a ride around the farm and saw the fields where the crops are grown. It was a fun and educational day that taught us all about the important jobs that animals have on the farm.

Visit from French Senator Cazebonne

We welcomed French Senator Samantha Cazebonne and her delegation to Tessa International School this week! We are proud to have presented them with our unique educational program that combines the International Baccalaureate (IB) program with the French Curriculum.
This visit was an opportunity for Senator Cazebonne to meet with parents and teachers, visit our premises, and discover our innovative and stimulating learning environment.
We are grateful to Senator Cazebonne and her delegation for their interest in our school and their continued support for quality education for young children.

End of Unit Celebration

To celebrate their unit on How We Organize Ourselves, our Primary classes teamed up and organized a play for the parents. The central idea was “Staying safe is a shared responsibility”, so they imagined role plays where to put in practice safety measures in different case scenarios. Students wrote the script and dialogue on their own, incorporating bilingual plays. They also decided on the costumes and set up of the room. We are very proud of all they achieved. They demonstrated great creativity and leadership skills, in autonomy.

Ecole des Loisirs

L’école des loisirs visited Tessa this month, and students from the French track enjoyed storytimes in French. It is one of the most important French-language publishers of children’s books. For over 50 years, they have published illustrated books, novels, and comic books that have gained international recognition for their creative qualities. L’école des loisirs is distributed worldwide.
They created the Max Book Club, offering subscribers 8 books a year.

A Very Tessa April

April 28, 2023/in Newsletter /by Tessa School

As the weather warms up and the first spring flowers bloom, we have many projects budding here at Tessa! Here is what we have been up to recently.

Earth Month

Throughout April, our classes emphasized the importance of our planet and environment. Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. At Tessa, we like to say that Earth Day is all year long. From composting food scraps, and making their own paper, to learning how to clean the ocean: have a sneak peek of some activities our students participated in to learn about and celebrate the environment. To celebrate this day with the community, Tessa participated in the Earth Day Fair (Main streets Pops), on April 23!

Easter Bunny

This month, we had a surprise guest! The Easter Bunny visited each classroom with her assistant, Ms. Kathleen, who distributed playdough eggs. The children got to ask questions, hug and dance with the Easter Bunny!💗

Visitors from NYU

On April 21, NYU’s director of teacher training programs for Mandarin and the director of teacher training programs in French visited Tessa. They talked with some of our staff and visited the school, they were very impressed by what they saw in the classrooms! We have made connections with NYU and Columbia and are working to create teacher intern programs for Tessa. This exciting venture will bring us staff, interns, and professional connections!

Vacation Care

During the April Break, the school stayed open for Vacation Care. Vacation Care is offered to Tessa’s parents when school is not in session for breaks such as Winter Break or Spring Break and more. Vacation Care is in English and runs from 8.30 AM to 6 PM. The day involves structured play, arts and crafts, story-time, outside play, free play, and lunch, and is designed to be fun for our students!

End of Unit

At Tessa, we encourage curiosity through hands-on activities, to spark the desire to learn and understand more about the world. PK3 parents were invited to their child’s end-of-unit celebration for “How the world works”. Through planets, dinosaurs, butterflies, and, of course, our little chicks, students fully understood the concept of the “cycle of life”, and all the transformations that species of our world can go through during their lifetime. The French PK3 class went back to the Jurassic times and held various activities related to archeology. The Mandarin PK3 students held a show about planets and solar systems, and fully mastered the duck dance! They even invited their parents on the dancefloor. Our Spanish PK3s organized games and crafts, in beautiful, themed decor. Including an exhibit on the different animals that they observed growing at Tessa. What was at one point an egg and caterpillars are now cute chicks and beautiful butterflies.

Conseil Consulaire des Bourses

Following our French Homologation, we participated in our first “Conseil consulaire des bourses AEFE”. Our founder met with representatives from the French government and from neighboring French schools, to discuss scholarships proposed by the French government.

Step Up week!

This week is the “step up” week at Tessa. Students will visit their future teachers in their future classes in the coming days. Step Up days are 45-minute sessions where students can experience their future classes and discover what they will be learning. They become time travelers, taking a trip into their 2023-24 school year

A Very Tessa January

February 3, 2023/in Newsletter /by Tessa School

2023 started off beautifully with many celebrations and learning opportunities. Here is what we have been up to at Tessa in January.

Lunar New Year

Celebrations are a big part of Tessa’s culture. And January has been very colorful thanks to the different activities and decors honoring the Lunar New Year. Some parents came to school to decorate, read stories or organize crafts for students. We also invited a special guest, who specializes in sugar painting, a form of traditional Chinese folk art. She demonstrated her art and created sugar animals for each student.

We also wanted to celebrate with our community at large. We organized a themed Open House, where Lina Liu Artists performed traditional acrobats. It really was a great morning!

Did you know? Lunar New Year VS Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year is only one festival under the umbrella term of Lunar New Year and refers to the celebration specific to Chinese culture. While Lunar New Year is widely celebrated by countries in Asia, Chinese New Year is only observed in China and celebrated by Chinese people. Read more here.

End of Unit Celebrations

Our PK4 parents were invited to Tessa to celebrate the End of Unit: How We Express Ourselves. These past few weeks, children studied how wonder within us can make us communicate in different ways. Where does wonder come from ? What are the different ways to communicate? What is the connection between wonder and feelings? Through these different ideas and questions, this unit facilitated a strong focus on Visual Arts, Performing Arts and Language.

A Unit of Inquiry in the IB provides schools with a curriculum framework of essential elements — the knowledge, concepts, skills, attitudes, and action that young students need to equip them for successful lives, both now and in the future. Learn more about End of Unit projects at Tessa on our blog.

Field Trips

January has been an eventful month, full of learning experiences. For their IB unit of inquiry study called “How We Express Ourselves”, our PreK3s worked on learning how colors and emotions can be expressed through art. They went on a field trip to Urban Arts in the Monroe Center and explored the color yellow. Our Primary students visited the Hoboken Public Library, and for their unit on “How We Express Ourselves Through Stories”, they also went to the New Jersey State Theatre. They enjoyed the play “The Ugly Duckling” by the UK based Tutti Frutti Prod.

Dental Hygiene at Tessa

The Bear Brook Pediatric Dentistry team came to Tessa to introduce students to dental hygiene and oral health. They reviewed healthy brushing routines and learned why they are important.

Dental hygiene is an essential lesson for preschool-aged children to learn in order to start good habits early. Through demonstration and a hands-on approach, we want to familiarize our students with appropriate ways to keep their teeth clean and healthy!

Registration is Open for Summer Camp and Afterschool Winter Semester!

We opened registration for our Summer Camp programs. Our Summer Camps are thoroughly enjoyable language immersion programs in the language of your choice – Spanish, French or Mandarin. With a new theme and adventure each week, take advantage of this perfect mix of fun academics and outdoor activities.

Who? Children ages 2 to 9

Where? Hoboken – Tessa International School

When? June 26th to August 25th 2023

Register by March 1st, 2023 and benefit from our Early Bird rates. Jumpstart your child’s future, engage them now! Learn more here.

A new semester also means new afterschool activities! At Tessa, we offer a wide range of afterschool activities, from soccer, to chess, to dance, to coding and more. Did you know? Our language activities are open to non-Tessa students. As part of our afterschool program, we propose French, Mandarin and Spanish classes. We also offer additional languages such as Russian and Hindi! Learn more here.

We hope you liked this glimpse of the life at Tessa. And there is so much more happening! If you would like to know our school better, we invite you to come visit us!