Moshi Campus News – 9 Dec 17

Let me start off by congratulating everyone involved in Bugsy Malone, as it really was a full school production.  While I know some people are relieved that it is over, and some are sad that it is finished, I suspect Mr Juma is already planning for next year.

This past week the OP trip from Ngorongoro returned and from everything I have heard it was a fantastic trip.  You can read more about it down below.  Information about next semester’s trips will be coming out soon.

On Tuesday morning we will have an Open House from 8:30 to 11:30 for prospective new students.  This will involve tours of campus and talks about various aspects of the IB programs.  If you know anyone who is interested please let them know.
Looking ahead to next semester, please note that boarding students should plan to arrive on campus Monday January 8th and classes for all students start Tuesday January 9th.

I hope that everyone enjoys the holiday break and takes the opportunity to get some rest.

Our school musical, Bugsy Malone, closed curtains on Friday 8th December with pomp, colour and vigour. This year’s musical performance saw the participation of students from across all levels of the school, from PYP, MYP and DP of both students and teachers. This collaboration and synergy that comes from such diverse groups as those found at ISM is what we celebrated on stage for those three days.

We appreciate the effort of all the people involved in the production. First and foremost, I would like to appreciate the cast that dedicated their time to learning the lines, the songs and the instruments. It was a proud display of the raw talent that exists in ISM Moshi. A special mention goes to Nandi Rieks who worked with the cast as director and Rajvir who informally worked alongside her as advisor and director. The two, both of D2, sacrificed a huge amount of time at such a busy time in their course. I also want to appreciate Miss Pantlin and Mr Immanuel of the Music department for putting together the singing and garage band. Mr Ian Horne’s artistic genius and Mr Jootna’s design talent gave us a beautiful set (without using any paint) and also the guns. There were also our gardeners and cleaners who responded swiftly, giving priority to the production. They put together the set within only two hours. I feel indebted to the PTA who responded to our SOS on costumes, within such a short time. They combed everywhere to ensure that the cast had costumes (and snacks). This note of appreciation would be incomplete if I didn’t recognise the effort of Ms Kate Schermbrucker and her primary team, for administrative logistics and coordinating the primary children. Last but not least many thanks to the parents who dropped and picked up the children and also doubled as the audience. Thank you one and all.

If you have any views which could help improve future productions, drop me an email on georgejuma@ed.ismoshi.com.

George Juma

For Secondary students, conference will be on the last school day of the semester Friday December 15th starting at 10:40 in K-Hall.  These will continue until about 12:30pm.  For students in M1 to D1 their reports will be issued the day before through ManageBac.

For Primary students, conferences will be on Thursday December 14th and you will receive a letter concerning these soon.  The reports for Primary students will be released in ManageBac Wednesday December 13th.

If you have problems with your ManageBac login, please contact Grace to get this sorted out.

This week in D1 Biology, students (see photo) collected data in a practical investigation into the process of osmosis by using potatoes and salt water with the aim of identifying the isotonic solution relative to the potato. Each group performed multiple trials with various concentrations of salt and will use this data to write a written lab report that will require the use of graphing software to plot a graph with error bars.
The D2 students finished their Theory of Knowledge (TOK) presentations this week and the TOK Essay (https://www.theoryofknowledge.net/tok-essay/) draft will be submitted on Monday.

Rick Fitzpatrick

The KCMC pediatric department has been undergoing a little re-decoration with a baobab mural done by ISM and KCMC volunteers.  In an effort to try to increase the cheerfulness of the ward during this holiday period, they ask for donations of any unused decorations.  These can be handed in to Ms Kate over the next week.

First off, I express my gratitude to the parents who sacrificed time to bring the students for rehearsals, donated props and/or attended the shows of Bugsy Malone.

M5
Personal Project
The M5 students will come home in December with feedback on their PP reports. The second draft of the reports are due on January 15 while final reports will be handed in on January 23, 2018. These reports must be accompanied by the Process Journals and evidence of completed product or outcome. The grades for the PP will then be submitted to the IB. We request parents to help students remain conscious of this important examination even as they celebrate the holidays.

ePortfolio
The M5 students are already working on the examination oriented units in Language Acquisition (English, French), Arts (Drama, Music, Visual Arts), Design, Physical and Health Education (PHE). Students are on the research phase in most of these units and some of the assessments will be completed as soon as January 2018.

David Ochieng

We are coming to the end of the second quarter, and wish to remind parents that school will close on Friday, 15th December. We expect that most boarding students will be leaving that day.  Kindly let us know if your child will need school transport to and from the airport on these dates. Information about travel can be sent to the child’s boarding parent and to the Head of Boarding on rosemarybango@ed.ismoshi.com. We offer free transport to and from the Moshi and Kilimanjaro International Airports and the local bus terminal on the scheduled closing and opening dates.

Today some boarding students are traveling to Arusha on a trip to the big Christmas fair.  On Wednesday, we have the end of quarter special boarding dinner.

Rosemary Bango

On Friday 1st December, seven students from M3-M5 set off for the Ngorongoro Level 4 OP trip. After stopping at Arusha to collect six students from the Arusha campus, we continued the journey, arriving at the view point for the Ngorongoro crater in the afternoon. That night we camped by a Masai village, and began our hike the following day. Saturday’s hiking included a trip into the Empakaai Crater which was filled with flamingos. We had supper round the campfire under a full moon and then headed to bed. On Sunday we were up bright and early for day two of hiking, this day was to be the most challenging with 16km to cover. We hiked past many bomas and into an acacia forest. We arrived at camp well ahead of the donkeys, which were carrying our extra supplies, and we had plenty of time to admire the beautiful surroundings. The last day we slid our way down the volcanic sand which covers the ground near the Ol Doinyo Lengai vocano. Our speedy group arrived at the campsite in time for lunch and then had the afternoon to relax and enjoy the campsite. Tuesday’s drive back consisted of 4 hours off-road, a bumpy journey made worthwhile by seeing giraffes, zebras and wilderbeast en route. Staff and students are very grateful to Mr Foya and Mr Salimu for making it such an enjoyable trip.

HOME OF THE LEOPARDS

Throughout the semester our student athletes have shown great skill and pride.  As the semester winds down, please find below the first season teams’ rankings:

• U19 Boys Football  5th place
• U19 Girls Football  2nd place
• U15 Boys Basketball  2nd place
• U15 Girls Basketball  6th place

We also have the overall results from the Athletics Meet held at ISMAC in November, where the ISM team finished in 4th place.

The successes will be celebrated at the Closing Assembly on Friday December 15th.

One note for the new season and semester, students are strongly encouraged to continue with the teams that they are currently playing on, as those teams will continue to practice and play games in the new year.

As the season and year progress please keep up with all the info, news, and sports reports by reading the Moshi Campus News.

Go Leopards

Scott Hibbard

I have to send a huge CONGRATULATIONS to all the children on their three wonderful performances; singing in the Bugsy Malone Musical this week. I thought they did an outstanding job; after months of practice. I was really proud them. Well done also to the Primary Bugsy Malone Dance Company for providing the dancing for the show. This was all under the guidance of our wonderful music teacher Mary Pantlin who put an enormous amount of energy into the production. Well done and thank you!

I must also mention the Makerspace Club which helped to create all the realistic guns and rifles which were such important props in this story about New York gangsters. This was under the guidance of Anil Jootna – our Secondary Design Teacher. Asante sana!

Finally an enormous THANK YOU to our wonderfully supportive parents. We so appreciate the way you all bought the t-shirts, brought and collected your children from rehearsals and came to watch the show (many of you came to all three performances). Lots of you also helped with the PTA work going on behind the scenes. We could not have done it without you.

Next week is as follows:

Monday:

• No homework will be set this week (only reading)
• 7pm sign up deadline for Primary Clubs (See the Google Form)

Tuesday:

• Final day of Primary Clubs

Wednesday:

• P1 – P6 Children go home at 1.05pm (no clubs)
• P3 – P6 Pool Party: 3.30 – 5.30pm (have you bought your ticket?)
• Primary reports will be published on ManageBac

Thursday:

• No lessons. Children remain at home.
• Parent-Teacher Conferences (your exact conference time will be sent home shortly)

Friday:

• Quarter 3 ends at 10.15am. (Please inform the school if your child will be leaving earlier than this for any reason)

Have a wonderful holiday
Kate Schermbrucker

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“A gruffalo? What’s a gruffalo?”
“A gruffalo! Why, didn’t you know?….”
Come and ask us and we will tell you. We have been busy creating skits based on “The Gruffalo” by Julia Donaldson. The children loved the book! They are reflecting and evaluating their skits, whether to move forward and share them with others or create new skits later next semester.

This week, the children inquired into shadow art. They reviewed their knowledge of how to create silhouettes and decided to extend their learning, looking at how to create cats, dogs and deer with their hands.

In maths, the children worked on very challenging subtraction calculations involving missing numbers, ?-8=9. It is not easy changing form one operation to another for they had to solve it and check if it was correct. We will complete the semester still looking at this.

We will be reviewing the sounds we have learned this coming week.

Mboka Mwasongwe

This week the children have been busy writing their opinion pieces. We used the OREO writing chart (Opinion, Reasons, Examples and Opinion again). We reviewed a lot of the math concepts that have been taught this semester. The children have enjoyed talking about their family history and produced wonderful family portraits.

Next week we will be selecting and organizing work samples for our portfolios. We will be writing reflections from the work chosen. The children have written persuasive letters to me regarding doing certain activities this week. These letters ranged from art, movie to IT time. The children will be carrying out these actives.

The week ahead:

• Monday: Reading homework only this week.
• Tuesday: Library and PE – Please return any library books; Last day for clubs
• Wednesday: For P3, Wednesday pool party (tickets only) 3:30 – 5:30 / No clubs
• Thursday: Parent Teacher Conferences. No classes for children / No clubs
• Friday:  10:15 dismissal

Have wonderful weekend 
Clare Hibbard

I was so impressed this week with the children’s performance and even more so with their ability to sit quietly on stage for such a length of time! The performances got better and better as the week went on.

This week we celebrated ‘the Hour of Code’ with schools around the world which is a opportunity to introduce the students to computer programming. In relationship to our forces unit, the students designed and built a machine this week that uses force to make it work. We will continue on this project next week where the students will present their product to the class. In math we are looked at coordinates and direction skills and will return to weight and measurement next week.

Julie Bowen

The children have done an amazing job singing and dancing in Bugsy Malone. The excitement from the production has carried over into the classroom and there has been an atmosphere of celebration all week. Our main focus for our Unit of Inquiry has been digital citizenship and behaving responsibly online. We have discussed what personal information should be shared or not shared online and have considered ways of devising strong passwords. We will continue with this work next week and will role play scenarios and talk about the responsible way to behave. In maths we will work on problem solving strategies. There will be no homework as it is the final week of school but reading and typing practice are always beneficial.

The week ahead:

• Wednesday – Pool party 3:30 pm. Buy tickets in advance.
• Thursday – Parent teacher conferences. Please return the slip to indicate your preferred appointment time.
• Friday – PYP children may leave at 10:15 am after the end of quarter assembly.

Deborah Mills

The P6s did a great job as they shared their creativity in the Primary Gathering.  They also have been working exceptionally well as a class, supporting each other, collaborating in small groups and managing their time well.

In the coming week, we will be zooming into traditions, culture, language, religions, food and all aspects of diversity. The students will have a chance to learn more about different groups of people from around the world. We will explore different signs used in various languages and find out how numbers are written differently.

Students are encouraged to bring in photos for their migration stories as these will be part of their Summative Assessment.

Notices:

• Monday- Kindly send back the responses for Parent/ Teacher conferences
• Wednesday: Pool party from 3:30p.m.
• Thursday: Homework is due
• Friday: End of quarter assembly, parents are welcome. School ends at 10 a.m.

Cathy Wambua