Moshi Campus News – 7 May 2016

Our U10s and U12s Rugby and Netball teams will be competing at ISM Arusha Campus this Wednesday, 11th May for the Inter-schools primary tournament. Coach Sullivan, Ms Esnath and Coach Sabini will be accompanying the students. The bus will leave at 07.30 and return by 15.00. Please ensure your child is wearing their green leopards T-shirt. If they have not got one yet they can be purchased at 8000Tsh from reception. We wish our primary Leopards all the best.
The primary Netball team will be having an extra practice this Monday, therefore all Netballers have been invited to miss their regular club and attend a special coaching session with Coach Sullivan on Monday 2-3pm. Tuesday primary Netball continues as normal. This is just the beginning of a few inter-school events.

The ISM netball under 19 girls have started their netball season this semester. So far we have won 28-9 against St Jude’s, and 25-7 against SCIS. We narrowly lost against Orkeeswa 7-10 and we hope that next weekend we shall be in the finals. The girls have played tremendously and I am very proud of them. Coach Maria

Arusha Gymkhana Club will be conducting a 2 day junior Tennis Tournament sponsored by Eddy Husslage, member of Arusha Gymkhana Club and Secretary of the Tennis Section. The Tournament is on Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th May, each day at 9am to 6pm. Age categories are 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8 and 6 Boys and Girls, only singles. Players are asked to report as follows:

9:00 am- Age 10 & 12

10:00 am – Age 6 & 8

12:00 am – Age 14 – 18 If you are interested in taking your child to Arusha to participate in this tournament or would like further details please contact Nicolaus Leringa no. 0754 250097 or 0685 250097.

This Friday, 13th May, our M3, M4 and M5 students will be presenting drama performances which they have been working on since the beginning of this quarter. M3 will show skills and techniques of stage combat and safety rules during the stage fight. M4 and M5 will be showing a variety of short plays (between 5-15 minutes) of varied themes and genres. The performances will take place in Karibu Hall from 7pm. The students will be charging an entry fee of TSh 2000/- and money received will be used to support various community projects they are undertaking. Tickets will be available at the door.
M1 and M2 will be performing their plays during the Arts Assembly on Monday, 23rd May in Karibu Hall. The M1s are working on Pandora’s Box (a musical rendition of the Greek Myth) while M2s are working on Zanni Zanni (a simplified version of Italian comedy; Comedia del’Arte) and Magic drama. These are purely for educational purposes and the works have been conceived and prepared by the students as part of the units they are studying in drama. The plays are focusing on drama skills including planning, casting, blocking, rehearsing and performance. Students are also exploring technical theatre including the use of sound effects, lighting and costumes.

You are all welcome for these shows.

Next weekend a group of students from both campuses will be climbing to the summit of Little Meru, the lower of Mt Meru’s two peaks. This will be our final Outdoor Pursuits trip of this school year and we wish the whole group well.
It has been an extraordinary school year for OP with fourteen different trips organised on Mt Kilimanjaro and Mt Meru as well as to Marangu, the Pare Mountains, the Usambaras, Ngorongoro and Hanang. A total of 271 students have joined these trips (this figure includes some students counted more than once who have been on multiple trips) so far. Congratulations to all the students who have taken part, to the many teachers who have accompanied and led trips, and especially to our OP staff, Isaac and Salim, who have undertaken all the organisation and guided all the groups.

Four of our incoming D1 class who will be joining either Moshi or Arusha Campus in August have won awards to join the Yale Young African Scholarship (YYAS) programme in Rwanda in July. Congratulations to Ezra, Butogwa, Peter and Evelyn who faced a great deal of competition for the 100 scholarships awarded for students from all of the Sub Sahara African countries. They are pictured here with Mercy, Catherine and Mugwe – our other 3 incoming scholarship students.
Besides recently completing their quite lengthy applications for the YYAS program, all 6 of the incoming ISM scholarship students have also spent their past 2 weeks at TanSAO successfully undergoing an English writing course and a pre-ACT preparation programme.

We are hoping to organise a careers morning on Thursday, 2nd June for our M5 and D1 students.
The objective behind this workshop is to give our students an opportunity to hear from guest speakers about their career journey. Our students aren’t all aware of the many opportunities and types of jobs available to them in the future and it would be helpful for them to hear how the speakers progressed through their career paths, including what they studied at university, applying for jobs, changing jobs etc. If you would be willing to give up some time between 7.35-10.00 on Thursday, 2 June, we would be delighted to welcome you to join the panel. We are hoping for a wide range of careers. Please email if you would be willing to talk to our students and answer their questions.

On Wednesday, students baked crêpes during the French club. For many of them this was a new experience and they learnt how to flip the pancakes, while others are already experts in that area! They had a lot of fun baking and eating! This was the last “compulsory” session for the M5 as from next week CAS is on a voluntary basis during their two weeks of exams. We wish them bonne chance. A bientôt!

Save the date. If you are leaving Moshi this summer or would just like to have a good clear out of your belongings then this is the event for you. The brownies will be holding a garage sale in Karibu Hall on Saturday, June 4th from 10am until 12.30pm.
To book a table for this event, please pay TSh 20,000/- at Reception in school.

Graduation Dinner: Additional tickets are on sale at Reception for D2 family members who wish to attend the 6:30pm Fri May 20th graduation dinner. Deadline for purchase – Monday May 16th.

Graduation: An ISM photographer will take photos of all graduates during the May 21st graduation ceremony and these photos will be available.

Karibu Hall Decoration: D2 parents/family are needed to help with the annual Karibu Hall Graduation decorating work as from 8am ’til noon on Friday May 20th. Please participate in this annual fun event.

D2 students must complete a ‘Leavers’ Form’ after returning all ISM books. Please remind your son/daughter in the DP to do so.

The first of the three-week IB official May exam period is now completed.

DP parents are encouraged to use ManageBac as all now have access to this.
Key dates:

Wednesday May 11th at 11am – D2 graduation meeting/rehearsal

Friday May 20th – D2 exams end/ Karibu Hall Decorating (morning) for all D2 family / Grad Dinner at AMEG Lodge in Moshi

Saturday May 21st – Graduation (2:00 arrival for 2:30pm sharp start) followed by a reception with music/snacks/huge, tasty chocolate Graduation Cake in the Director’s Garden

Monday, May 23rd through Tuesday, May 31st – End of D1 Year Exams

Saturday, May 28th – TOEFL tests for D1

Sunday, June 5 – Thursday, June 9: D1 ESS trip to Pangani

Tuesday, June 7 – Thursday, June 9: D1 Physics/Chemistry/Biology Field Study

Saturday, June 11th – ACT tests for D1

Monday June 13th – Wed June 15th – Special Theory of Knowledge/Extended Essay Days for D1 students

Thursday June 16th – Final D1 reports published

Friday June 17th Last day of school, whole school assembly & Parent-Teacher conferences

Tuesday August 9th – First day of school for the 2016-2017 Academic Year
Rick Fitzpatrick, DP Coordinator

Congratulations to all the primary children who said thank you to their Mums and Dads at last week’s assembly.

Unit of Inquiry The field trip to The Cultural Heritage Centre in Arusha will be on Tuesday May 17th. I will send the permission slips home with a more detailed letter on Monday. The Arusha EC class is looking forward to seeing us all for lunch and playtime. We will aim to be back at school by 2.45pm.
Next week we will construct 3D models using clay and recycled materials. The children will also experiment with crayons, pastels and chalk. We watched an amazing sand artist on a youtube video so the children will be using sand to make art. Everyday we look at a piece of artwork and talk about how it makes us feel and what we think the artist is trying to express. Please consider coming to class to talk about art. Many thanks to Gelske for talking about her painting this week. She also brought in some beautiful illustrated books and the children came to realize that artists paint pictures for books too!
Literacy

Writing/talking about the weekend

Writing/talking about paintings through a thinking routine

Making a class book

Developing fine motor skills through a range of hands on activities
Numeracy

Concept of taking away. Using number songs and rhymes to take away 1.

Problem solving involving taking away

Continue with shape posters and sorting shapes

Graphing favourite colour
Swimming is now finished for this academic year. PE will be on Monday and Friday for everyone. Please make sure your child has PE shoes on these days as we are playing football and other ball games.

Information for Parents Thank you for coming to our Muffins for Mums and Dads assembly. The children were very excited to share their song.
Just as a reminder, we have changed our Friday swim day to a Friday PE day. Please make sure to send trainers each Monday and Friday.
Thanks to Mama Kairi for coming in this week to do a craft with the class and share about a special Japanese holiday. To support our current unit, I was hoping children could bring in a piece of art from home or a picture of a piece of art. The assignment is in the homework packet this week. Your help with this is appreciated.
Language focus for the week It was exciting to start writing our stories last week. It is great for me to see how much the children have developed. This week we are typing our stories and preparing them for publication.
Maths focus for the week We will dive further into addition and subtraction this week. We will continue to use manipulatives, but we will also work on memorizing some key facts.
Unit of Inquiry This week we will focus on visual art. We will do several projects involving the different elements of art, like line, form, color, and shape. As you visit our room this week, be on the lookout for new art work.
What to bring to school: A hat for playtime and a healthful snack.
Timetable: Monday: Wear proper clothes and shoes for P.E. Tuesday: Bring your library bag. Friday: Wear proper clothes and shoes for P.E.

Thanks to all those parents who were able to join us for the sharing assembly on Monday. This made for a positive start to the week and gave the students an opportunity to present in front of an audience. They could also show their appreciation for their parents, well as display the kind of work they have been achieving in class.
Last week the students completed their summative assessment tasks and demonstrated that they could all express themselves effectively through abstract art, mime or poetry. The students chose to be assessed using continuums which will be sent home shortly. They also chose the criteria for assessment – which gives them understanding and ownership and over the assessment process.
We have now started the tuning-in process for our final unit of the academic year. We are looking forward to investigating our ever changing world and will study issues on both a local and global scale.
P2/3 had their final swimming lesson last week now that the water is rather cool. From now on the Monday lesson will be a normal PE lesson. At the moment the children are learning netball skills which they are really enjoying. We are working on their throwing, catching and teamwork skills. Later we will learn about marking and shooting into the net. Please note that swimming clubs will continue as usual.
Unit of Inquiry: Transdisciplinary Theme: Sharing the planet Central Idea: Human survival is connected to understanding the continual changing nature of the earth. To help find out what the students already know and are interested in we will complete thinking routines such as See, Think, Wonder, Circle of Viewpoints and Zoom In.
Mathematics Focus: Temperature – measure, scale, freezing point and boiling point.
English Focus: Features of information books – contents, index, glossary, illustrations and tables and non-fiction.
What to bring to school every day: A hat, water bottle, a pair of indoor shoes and a healthy snack.
The Week Ahead: Monday: PE lesson | Homework will be set Tuesday: Library session Thursday: PE lesson Friday: Homework due in Kate Schermbrucker P2/3 Class Teacher and PYP Coordinator

The P4 students have been busy this week and the end of year excitement is escalating, week-by-week. The children did their Summative Assessment and have started the new unit of inquiry. We would like to thank the P4 mums and dads who made it for the special assembly this past Monday.
Language Arts – the students have done a great job writing instructions and reviewing the language used to sequence instructions. We are moving on to persuasive writing, which is connected to the new unit of inquiry. They will learn how to give reasons to support their views. The word study for the coming week will be on “gh”, “ph” and “f” which students will identify and practice in an authentic way in their writing and different texts they come across.
Maths – we have come to the end of learning about capacity and the students will move on to volume. They will look at the difference between the two words and explore different packages to find out how much they can hold. A different group of students will be reviewing the concept of time.
Unit of Inquiry – the students are inquiring into what rights, wants and needs are. They will also be looking at organizations and activist who are advocating for children’s rights and so far they have read about Malala Yousafzai and Kailesh Satyarthi who received a joint Nobel peace prize in 2014 towards their fight for education and freeing children from child labor.
Polite reminders: House shoes: Your child is encouraged to bring house shoes, which will be left in the class until the end of the quarter. Hats: It is important that your child continues to bring a hat to school, as sometimes it is sunny during playtime.

Information for Parents I have seen several examples lately of children taking action with their learning at home. If you notice that your child is doing something extra that is related to something that we are learning about in class, please email me and let me know. We have a special place in our room to display examples of students taking action and I don’t see what goes on at home! Thanks for supporting our learning.
Language focus for the week This week we will be finishing our biography essays. We will review the use of apostrophes and read some unit-related material to practice our skills. This unit will be a great time for us to practice our reading for information skills that we have been working on all year.
Maths focus for the week We have finished up our shape unit and will be moving into measurement. This week we will explore the concept of cubic meters by building a cubic meter in the corner of the classroom. We will use it for several estimating activities. We will also work together to try to answer the question of how much milk students at our school drink each week.
Unit of Inquiry We will focus our thinking on our new unit by completing several thinking routines. We will also watch a video about animals in East Africa to look for examples of how animals in our part of the world adapt to their environment.
What to bring to school: A hat for playtime and a healthful snack.
Timetable: Monday: PE (please wear house T-shirt and trainers) Thursday: Swimming (Please bring swim kit) Friday: Library (please return library books)

It has been lovely to see the students in P6 continuing with their inquiries with so much more confidence and independence this week. There has been increased focus on their lines of inquiry and a better understanding of how to plan ahead and manage time. Their ideas are beginning to snow-ball now; there is certainly lots to do and we are starting to count down the days to the final presentation evening.
We have had two assemblies this week in which we have shared our central ideas and lines of inquiry (in English and Swahili), as well as some of the information found during the last two weeks of inquiry. It has been a great way of sharing with the community what we are doing in the classroom. Our second Exhibition display is now up – please do visit and enjoy it!
Next week the P6 students will be beginning to sort out all the information they have gathered. I am expecting to see them creating their own written reports, graphs and pieces of art. I might also see them planning trips or actions, or realizing that they need to do more finding out. Two of the groups will be going on trips which they have organised.
On Friday, we will be visiting our sister-school in Arusha to watch the P6s there present their Exhibition. This should be really useful in showing the students what they will experience for themselves very soon. Please sign and return the trip forms for this by Wednesday.

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