Moshi Campus News – 2 June 2013

Dear Parents,

Last week our Student Council had a successful Spirit Week, eight members of the OP group reached Uhuru Peak on Kilimanjaro, our M5 students experienced their week of Work Experience, and the M4s raised money for Hope Orphanage in both a bake sale and a film night. Next week is even busier with a Moshi Open Day on Wednesday, a special assembly to appreciate primary children’s parents on Monday, the P6 to M1 transition days on Monday and Tuesday, the M5 Ceremony on Friday and ACT tests on Saturday.

A reminder that our special Parents’ Appreciation Assembly will be held in Room 6 at 7.35am on Monday 3rd June. All our primary classes will be presenting an item.

On Wednesday, 5th June from 8am we will be welcoming anybody who wants to come and see the Moshi Campus. There will be an introduction to the campus at 8am followed by a tour of classrooms and school facilities. This will be an ideal opportunity for any families who live in Moshi to just come and see what we are doing. Please encourage your friends to come and see lessons being taught and to find out more about ISM. It is expected that the Open Day will finish by about 10:15am.

Our M5 students are coming to the end of their IB Middle Years Programme and we mark that transition with a special ceremony for them in Karibu Hall on Friday, 7th June at 2:30pm. All parents and students are welcome to join us for this ceremony. It will be followed by refreshments on the lawn to which the families of the M5 students are invited.

There are no activities or other arrangements for M5 students after their Ceremony. Hence M5 students will receive their school reports on Thursday, 6th June, and will then be expected to leave school with their families after the ceremony on Friday afternoon. We look forward to welcoming most of them back in August when they join the much larger D1 class to start their IB diploma programme.

On Monday 3rd June, the students from P6 will have a day of MYP induction during which they will be introduced to the MYP. This year, my successor Ms Reily will lead this workshop as she will be the one in contact with the students next academic year. The sessions will last for 2 days: Monday from 8am to 2pm when they will be engaged in activities and a variety of exercises aimed at promoting their awareness of the new programme they will be starting next year. On Tuesday, they will be buddied with an M1 student and they will be spending the morning in class. This session will end at 12:35 and they will continue with their PYP schedule.

All students in EC to M4 and in D1 will finish school on Friday, 14th June. Reports will be issued the day before on Thursday, 13th June. On Friday morning there will be a full school assembly at which we will make some presentations and will also say farewell to our leaving teachers. This will be followed by secondary parent-teacher meetings in Karibu Hall from 10:35am to 12 noon. Students will be free to leave school after 10:15am. Please do not withdraw your children earlier than this as early departures cause much disruption to our end of term plans.

ISM is now tweeting regularly on Twitter. Follow us on www.twitter.com/uwcea. If you are a Twitter user, it is simple to follow @uwcea. If you have never used Twitter before, set up an account and give it a try!

On Saturday, 8th June, we will again be holding ACT tests in school, which are required by some students for US university admission.

Students must register for tests a minimum of 5 weeks before the test. Those students who wish to register for the next ACT test on September 21st, will need to do so very soon after returning to school in August.

Photos of our D2 Graduation Ceremony are now on the school website at www.uwcea.org/grad. Or if you want to download a full set of large size photos, these can be downloaded from Dropbox by going to www.uwcea.org/gradpics.

“There is no place like home” – that was one of the many favourable D2 graduate exit comments I received before the graduation last weekend. Parents of DP students will get a sense of the caring community sense at ISM when you visit. Two of the three class of 2012 ISM DP graduates who are on full scholarships in the USA dropped by for last Saturday’s graduation. Both commented how well-prepared they are (one is at Harvard and the other at Duke) for the work they must do now at university thanks to their ISM IB DP education.

D1 students continue to forge onward with their studies. Biology students enjoyed an “Energy Content of Foods” fascinating lab in which several groundnuts were burned over a Bunsen burner and then the burning nut heated water in a test tube and the measurement of that was undertaken using a computer program. You would be impressed at the interesting lab experiments our students conduct in Biology, Physics and Chemistry as part of the required coursework. D1 Geography students will make a morning-long trip into Moshi to conduct fieldwork related to the topic of urbanization. Today several D1 Geography students gave an informative and well-prepared class presentation on congestion management actions in London as part of their study of urbanization. D1 History are deeply engaged in their research on their focused historical research investigation of a topic of choice that will form their coursework that constitutes about a quarter of their grade. All D1 full diploma students are diligently organizing their Extended Essay presentation to their peers slated for June 10th and you would assist the process by reviewing before June 9th your child’s progress to date on the Extended Essay.

May I again remind parents to please make the trip to Moshi, if at all possible, for the parent-teacher meeting on Friday June 14th?

May I also request that no DP parent remove their child early as we have a full program of educational activities for your child until June 14th? Moreover, it is frustrating for us educators who organise curricular programs and we get disappointed when parents opt to remove their children (or allow the children to convince them to!) early.

This is a reminder that we start our 2013-2014 academic year on Monday August 12th. Boarders should be back on August 11th. A number of students who did poorly on end of D1 exams (and an email will go out next week directly from me to each family where this is the case) about the schedule for retake exams on Thursday August 8th, Friday August 9th and Saturday August 10th.

The critical thinking approach taught in the ISM DP prepares students for the real world and, I think, to gain employment. NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman outlines another aspect of the job search process and this is worth reading: www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/opinion/friedman-how-to-get-a-job.html.

Feel free to write with any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Rick Fitzpatrick – (Diploma Coordinator)

As we near the end of the academic year, our small community of middle school students are becoming busier.

Our M5 students are completing their work experience and they will be back in school on Monday. The feedback I received from the various places where they were working were positive and they have given a good impression of our school. I hope that they took advantage of this unique opportunity and that this experience will enable them decide on what they would like to do in future.

M5 ceremony – An invitation card has been sent to all our M5 parents for the M5 ceremony on Friday 7th June. This is a very special day for our students and I hope all parents will make an effort to come and support their youngsters. After the official ceremony, there will be refreshments and snacks outside the Karibu hall when we can all meet and socialise before we say good bye to our M5 students. All M5 students will leave on that day.

M4 students are very busy getting their Personal project on the roll; many of them have come to meet me already and they are on track with what they want to do. I would like parents and boarding parents to encourage the students to come and meet me so that we can finalise their topic before the end of the term.

All students will receive their reports on June 13th (except M5 who will receive them on June 6th). These are full reports and the grades are year grades as they show what the student has achieved this academic year. On Friday 14th there will be our final assembly followed by parents teachers conferences where you can meet the teachers to discuss your child’s progress. We look forward to see as many parents as possible.

As we start another busy week, I leave you with this quote:
“It’s not the alarm, but the dream that wakes me up everyday” (Anonymous)

An excellent week to all!!!
Jaimala Quinlan (MYP Coordinator)

Two weeks left, how time has flown this last quarter!
Afternoon Clubs
This will be the last week for afternoon clubs as we begin to wrap things up for this school year. I’d like to thank the ISM staff and parents who’ve run clubs for our students in the afternoons. You’ve all done a sterling job and your sacrifices and hard work are greatly appreciated. If you are interested in offering any clubs in the new school year, please see Mrs Aris.

M1 Transition
Our P6 students will be transitioning into the MYP on the 3rd and 4th June.

Moving Up Day
On Tuesday, 4th June our primary students will move into the next grade level for an hour to see what it is like.

New Class for Primary
Next school year sees an extra class in primary. This will be a P2/3 class and Miss Kacey will be the teacher. Miss Nina will be the P1/2 teacher, Miss Annalee will take EC, Miss Jann will take P3/4 and Mr Scott will take P5/6. This means that next year’s P2 and P3 students will be divided between Miss Nina, Miss Kacey and Miss Jann.

Early Childhood Preview

Unit of Inquiry
This week we will finish off our sound patterns using percussion instruments and each group will perform them to the rest of the class. We will also experiment more with sounds that we make with our bodies and make up more rhythmic patterns. A few groups still have to investigate which shaker is the loudest and which is the quietest. We will also work on vibrations carried on from last week.

Literacy
All the children will revise the letter sound q. In art we will make crowns for Quarrelsome Queen. This will also fit with our pattern unit in maths as the children will make a repeating pattern on their crowns.

EC2 – Word building activities with short e sound focus. Also make words with all short vowel sounds, a,e,i,o,u.
EC2 – Play sight word bingo
EC2 – Draw and write about the weekend
EC1 – Practise making name using magnetic letters and think about the sounds that make up our names. Writing names if ready to attempt this.
EC1 – Draw a picture of the weekend.

Maths
EC2 will be encouraged to collect and record data for a graph about favourite sounds using their own methods (carried over from last week)
EC1 will make a group graph.
Number work will continue at individual levels.

Next week we will have our end of year party on Thursday. Please see a note coming home on Monday for further details.

P1/2 Preview

General Information
2 weeks to go!
Monday-Primary assembly first thing, 7.35. All parents and carers are welcome.
Tuesday-Moving up day. All Primary children will spend an hour in their new class.

Homework Packs
Homework packs are now finished. Thank you parents for all your support. Reading books will be issued on Monday and Thursday. No reading books will be issued in the final week so we can collect and sort them.

Class Café
As part of the summative assessment for our unit called ‘Teamwork’, we will run a class café. It will probably be at the end of day Thursday and Friday. More details will follow.

Language focus for the week
Writing:
Recount of the weekend. Using the language of time. (First…Then I…Next I…Later…At the end). Using adjectives, (amazing, fantastic, wonderful, scary, huge…) This will be an assessed, unaided piece of writing for some children.
Continue Shape Poems.
Write a class book about the different jobs people do around school. (Linked to UOI)
Write recipes and menus for our class café!
Handwriting: Revise all patterns and handwriting families. Some children are joining letters together.

Phonics:
1. Introduce ng as in sing.
2. Introduce ar as in star.
3. Ending le as in middle

Maths focus for the week
Mental skills will focus on doubles, near doubles and counting on and back. Quick recall of addition and subtraction facts to 10/20. Adding and subtracting 10.
Last week we had great fun measuring in litres, grams, centimetres and metres. To follow up this learning and to make connections at home, look in your food cupboard and fridge to observe labels showing measures. Example: Coffee tin = 250g, Nido = 900g.
All children will learn about mental calculation strategies. We will add 9 and 11 by using our knowledge of adding 10. We will use known number facts to add and subtract numbers. Such as 10-8=2 so 20-8 =12. Children will also find the difference between numbers. Some children will work with numbers higher in the number system.

Unit of Inquiry
Teamwork: In a workplace people share responsibility towards a common purpose.
Central Idea:
Lines of Inquiry:
1. Importance of working as an effective team.
2. Individual roles and responsibilities.
3. How systems are organised.
We will write and type sentences about the roles of different staff around the school. We will plan our class café and consider the different roles people will play.

Art – Papier mâché plates (we will paint them!)

What to bring to school:
A hat for playtime and a healthy snack. (No hat, no play!)

Timetable:
Monday
New reading books
Tuesday
Library
PE
Thursday
New reading books issued
Friday
PE

P3/4 Preview

Week 9. Two weeks to go!
Thank you to everyone for making such a fantastic effort with dressing up for “Spirit Week” last week. It was a lot of fun and culminated in our class theme day last Friday. The children all looked great in their kangas.

This is what our learning in class will look like this week:
UOI – “Water, Water Everywhere”
Central Idea: Our planet has limited resources that are unevenly distributed.
Lines of Inquiry: – Finite and infinite resources
– Distribution and availability of clean water
– How human activity has affected the availability of usable water
– The effects of not having access to clean water
– Our responsibility for water conservation
We will look at man’s impact on our limited water resources and the effects of not having clean water. We will also be having a guest speaker in on Thursday to tell us all about the “SolarBag”, a simple, safe and effective way to purify water.

Writing – Expressive language. We will finish writing our imaginative or true stories about water.
Spelling Groups 1) 3 and 4 letter high frequency words (e.g. not, with)
2) words containing -ow, and ea- and words ending in -ail (e.g. brown, east, nail),
3) words that contain the soft g + y (e.g. gym, energy),
4) words where the “y” is changed to an “i” before other endings (e.g. beautiful, easily, happiness)

Language/grammar – We will be using this week as a catch-up week to finish off bits and pieces of work and update our portfolios.
Cursive writing – Nelson script. Using the full range of letters and joins as well as the break letters.

Maths – P3 and P4 – Data collection. Carroll diagrams (2 categories P3/4 categories P4). Recording, reading and interpreting the data. Reading a thermometer. Positive and negative numbers. Catch-up work and portfolios.
Tables and basic facts

REMINDERS:
Every day: Hats and polo shirts/t- shirts
      Zip bags, spelling note books, reading books and reading logs.
      Healthy snack for break time. Lunch if necessary.

MONDAY
Primary Assembly 7.35 – Muffins for Mom and Donuts for Dad in the P5/6 classroom. Each class will be performing an item.
Homework – spelling, reading, language and Maths.
P.E. – wear house t-shirts, shorts and trainers. We will continue with orienteering, so students will need suitable attire and trainers, as we will be running around the school grounds.
THURSDAY
Library – bring book bags and books – No bag, no books. Overdue books incur a fine.
P.E. – bring swimming gear. We swim at the warmest time of the day. I invariably get in the pool with the children and the temperature of the water is still very pleasant.
FRIDAY
Spelling test
Homework due in

Looking forward to another great week together.
Miss Jann

P5 Preview

This past week P5 students have been joining the P6 students to increase their knowledge about our different body systems. The end result will be a short presentation where they’ll share what they have learnt. They have been making notes throughout the week, practising note-taking skills.

Maths
We’ll be diving into area and perimeter and will learn the differences between them and how to calculate them. We’ll practise solving word problems around area and perimeter.

Language
We’ll continue to work on our healthy lifestyle diaries and practise skimming and scanning to get information from books about body systems for our presentations. Students will be given spelling words on Monday to do with body systems which they will be tested on on Friday.

UOI
After exploring body systems and preparing for a presentation, we’ll be spending time on how to make healthy choices regarding food and what is it about junk food that makes it junk and have no nutritional value at all.

Visual Arts
What can be hiding inside a magic mountain? We’ll let our imaginations run wild.

P6 Preview

With just two weeks until the end of the semester, an exhibition and an enjoyable weekend in Dar recently concluded, it is clear that the children are getting very tired. Last weekend, all those who came thoroughly enjoyed the sports tournament and the Sunday trip to the water park and the Spur restaurant. The week since has been spent reviewing a maths assessment and several aspects of the subject covered this semester. We have also been revisiting out Healthy Choices Unit with a selection of educational science videos.

UOI – Healthy Choices
Central Idea: Our health is affected by the choices we make
This week we will look at more in depth and informative videos which look inside the human body at the functions and processes at work there. The children will learn more about nutrition, respiration, skin, bone, germs, the brain and the circulatory system.

Reading, Writing and Drama
This week the children will write some formal explanation texts featuring parts of the body and describe the processes at work and the knowledge they have thus far accrued.

Maths
Having spent this last week reviewing a previous maths assessment and many aspects of maths covered this semester we will take a look at probability but also conduct a second maths assessment to review understanding.

P.E. – Swimming remains on Thursday and outdoor ball sports will be on Friday.

Library – is on Tuesday. Please remind the children to bring back books for exchange/renewal.