Moshi Campus News – 17 May 2015

Our D2 Graduation Ceremony will be held next Saturday, 23rd May. This is a major event in the school’s annual calendar and, this year, we are very proud to welcome Dr Siva Kumari, the Director-General of the International Baccalaureate, to present our graduation address. Dr Kumari will also be spending time in school on Friday, 22nd May to meet a wide range of students from Primary through to Middle Years and Diploma students.
Other events also surround our Graduation Ceremony. On Friday evening we have invited all graduating students, their families and the teaching staff to a dinner at AMEG Hotel. After the ceremony on Saturday, all participants will be enjoying a special tea in the Director’s garden on campus. We look forward to this coming weekend with much anticipation.

Muffins for Mums and Dads A celebration of our care-givers and guardians! Parents and care-givers are invited to our primary assembly on Monday, 18th May at 7:40am.
Primary Sports Tournaments We have two teams going to events this week. Touch Rugby team will be going to Usa River to Kennedy House on Tuesday, 19th May, they should be back at school at 1pm (earlier than mentioned in the letter). Our P1/2 Football team is going to St Constantine’s in Arusha on Thursday, 21st May.
We wish our ISM Leopards all the best!

   

On the weekend of 9th-10th May, three ISM tennis players travelled to Arusha to play and represent the school in the Gymkhana Club inter-schools competition. All three played several matches and were up against some strong competition as the standard was high. The ISM team played well and finished in third place, bringing home another trophy for the cabinet. Nikoli Emmanuel reached the final in the U14 group, finishing as runner up. Congratulations to Joshua Buck, Nikoli Emmanuel and Jay Shah-Bebbington for their combined team effort.

One of the tennis coaches from Arusha will be offering a 4 week tennis clinic, here at ISM on Saturdays (May 23 and 30, June 6 and 13). The cost is TSh 60,000/- for the 4 weeks and must be paid in full on the first day; in order to be eligible to play.
The schedule is as follows:

• 9:00-10:00am – 9-12 year olds
• 10:00-11:00am – 5-8 year olds
• 11:00am-12:00pm – 13-18 year olds
• 2:00pm-4:00pm – adults

We wish all the best to our swimming team representing International School Moshi at Isamilo International School in Mwanza this weekend.

Our IB Diploma music classes are quickly coming to an end for this academic year. Our two D2 students are preparing for their Listening Paper, the last assessment to complete in their course, on Friday, May 22. They are to be commended for all their hard work over the course of these two years and we wish them the best of luck on their exam! The D1 students have just completed a unit on traditional music of the Americas and have started looking at their final unit of Western Art Music, which centers on the Contemporary Period. They will be listening to and discussing music of composers such as Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Aaron Copland, Charles Ives, George Gershwin, and more. In the midst of all this, they will also have their year-end exam, which is an assessment that is exactly like a portion of the listening paper they will have to complete at this time next year. As well, they continue to do work on their Musical Links Investigation, which is an external assessment where students critically analyze and compare two pieces of music of their choice. I am looking forward to completing this paper with them next year and continuing to work with them on preparations for their exam. Miss Susan Kellerman

Last weekend on 9th & 10th May, the only Moshi birding group, called the ‘Moshi Mousebirds’ registered to join the first big Arusha Birding Day of 24-hour bird spotting in a radius surrounding both big mountains as well as the Rift Valley including Manyara National Park. 2 PYP students from ISM joined the Moshi group as well as two parents. Willem & Donyo were the youngest birders of 120 individuals. The Moshi Mousebirds came 13th of 20 teams and registered 163 bird species in 24 hours. As their birding prof. Phil Stouffer commented: “200 is in reach when Donyo and Willem get a handle on voices for some sneaky birds (and when we find a firefinch and mannikin). Even so, we hung with some folks who do this for a living, so well done!”.

SAVE THE DATE!
On Saturday, June 13th the brownies are holding a garage sale in Karibu Hall from 10am til 12.30pm. If you are leaving Moshi this year, this is an ideal opportunity to sell unwanted items. Tables will cost TSh 20,000 and should be paid for in advance in the school office. Please note: The date of this Garage Sale has been changed to avoid conflict with the Kili Fair on 6th June.

Dear parents of primary boarders, In the coming weeks we will explore issues around the theme “my body changes”. The aim is to inform the children about normal body changes that occur in all pre-adolescent children in a fun, informative, and safe environment. Students will engage with age-appropriate picture books and take part in role-plays and guided discussions around this theme. I am confident this will prove to be valuable for the continued healthy and positive growth of our children. I kindly thank you for your support. Please do feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns. Randeep

Although the school organises celebrations for the D2 graduation, the students have usually additionally opted to arrange their own private parties off-campus. These are likely to be on 23rd May after the official ceremony. These student-organised parties are not school events and we cannot, as a school, take responsibility for them. Invariably, there is alcohol available at these parties and minimal, if any, adult supervision. We are concerned about the inevitable, and potentially serious risks that arise from these situations, particularly for many of the younger students who frequently receive invitations to attend and we have endeavoured to deal with such issues from an educational point of view in our Life Skills lessons. We also need to be especially confident that parents are aware of the nature of these events, and are happy with their own children’s involvement. We would therefore offer the following requests and guidelines.
For parents of boarders: Boarders staying in school that weekend will NOT be allowed to attend any unsupervised parties. If boarders do want to attend, they can only do so if their parents agree and they have been taken out of the school’s care by staying with another family for the weekend. Even if you have already indicated on the Parental Consent form that your child may sign out to friends at weekends, we would like to further confirm that it is acceptable on this particular weekend. If you have children intending to sign out for this weekend, could you please contact us with that confirmation? You may contact either the boarding parent or Mrs Bango on by whatever means is most convenient (telephone, letter, email or fax). Boarders will be expected to remain in school for the weekend if we have not heard from you before MONDAY, MAY 18th.
We would also suggest on this occasion, that you contact the host family directly to discuss what you feel would be appropriate arrangements, curfew etc for your children on the evening of the party.
For parents offering to host boarders: Boarders signing out on these weekends will need to sign out for the whole weekend from the Friday afternoon until midday on the Sunday, although they may of course attend the Graduation Ceremony if invited. We would suggest that before you take on the responsibility for the guest students over this period, you are confident of their own parent’s expectations in terms of curfew, supervision etc.
We do not in any way wish to curtail the students’ opportunity for well-deserved celebration on these occasions, but we are concerned for their safety and their parents’ full consent and understanding.

The second week of IB D2 exams went well. ISM’s faculty worked diligently to maintain a quiet and orderly environment in the tuition block area and thus facilitating exam-takers in this critical assessment period.
The excitement among D2 students is brewing in the lead up to the upcoming Graduation Weekend. All members of the D2 class of 2015 met briefly to practice their Class Song entitled ‘Time of our Lives’ by Tyron Wells (which they will all sing together near the end of the Graduation Ceremony). Get in the mood for your son or daughter’s celebratory weekend and watch/listen to that class song at: www.uwcea.org/dip91. The graduation ceremony is also particularly significant this year given that the keynote speaker will be Dr. Siva Kumari, IB Director-General (www.uwcea.org/dip90 and https://twitter.com/siva_kumari) We are looking forward to many D2 parents joining us from 8:30am to 2:00pm +/- for the fun, collaborative work on this coming Friday May 22nd when we transform Karibu Hall into a splendid venue for Saturday afternoon’s graduation. If you are a D2 parent, please arrange your ticket, if possible, to join us for this annual enjoyable effort. Thank you very much for all the graduation decoration prep work that Silvia and Fons Nijenhuis (parents of D2 student Milou) have done.

Unit Of Inquiry Many thanks to Rishi, Seema and Camilla for coming in to talk about how light is used in their celebrations last week. The children thoroughly enjoyed the visits and we really appreciated the opportunity to make connections to our unit of inquiry by finding out through first hand experience how light is used in religious festivals and traditions.
We will tune into ‘sound as an essential resource’ this week by finding out what children already know about sound. We will look at the central idea and decide what each part means. Please help by sending any objects to school that make a sound. We have made fantastic use of all the lights you sent in and they really helped develop the inquiry through all our hands on experiments and investigations. We are hoping for the same amazing selection for the ‘sound’ part of our unit.
Literacy Our stories this week will all have a ‘sound’ focus. If you have any stories you enjoy reading at home with your child that have a ‘sounds’ theme or actually make sounds as you read we would love to read them at school. ‘Peace at last’ by Jill Murphy is a very good example of a great story for this unit. We will also be focusing on non-fiction books about sound. Now that the end of the school year is approaching we will be working on individual assessments and portfolio pieces. EC1 will be introduced to the sound K and EC2 will spend a little more time on long and short vowel sounds.
Numeracy We will be working on end of year assessments and portfolio pieces.
A few notices

• We hope to see you all at the special assembly on Monday morning.
• Please remember that on Tuesday and Friday your child should have PE shoes on. Crocs are not suitable for PE, particularly on muddy days. We do use the field and hard court for PE and the children need to be able to run around easily and safely. Many thanks

Information for Parents We are hoping to see all parents and care givers at our Muffins for Mums and Dads on Monday at 7:40 in Karibu Hall. As the program will start at 7:40, you may want to arrive at 7:30 to make sure you don’t miss anything. After our time in Karibu Hall, please follow our class back to our classroom. The children would like to give you a gift they have made for you.
We’re going camping! Since all of the older classes get to go camping, we are go-ing to do it too. We will be staying on campus though, so it will be a nice way to ease into a night away from home. More information will be coming, but please start talking about this exciting event with your child. We will start at 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 28; and the children will stay until the end of the school day at 12:35 on Friday.
Don’t forget that this Thursday we will be going to St. Constantine’s in Arusha for football. We will leave right away at 7:45 a.m., but we will not be back on campus until 2:30 p.m. Please prepare to collect your child then. Also, please remember that your child will not be able to eat in the dining hall that day. You will need to send a snack and lunch along with your child.
Literacy Focus for the Week We will work on writing reports this week. This sounds complex, but even at the P1/2 level, we can start to write about what we have learned. We will also continue to read in our reading groups.
Maths Focus for the Week This week we will focus on learning about symmetry. The Group 2 children will also learn some simple division.
Unit of Inquiry We will continue to learn about community helpers, and we will study what makes good teams and workers successful.
What to Bring to School Children need a hat for playtime and a healthful snack every day.
Timetable Monday: Library (return your books) Wednesday: PE (please send proper shoes and house shirt) Thursday: Football trip (please send proper shoes, a blue or green shirt – depending on which team your child is on, a water bottle, a snack, and a lunch) Friday: Show and Tell

Last week in P3 we have been continuing with telling the time in Maths, but we moved onto months of the year and solving problems using calendars. In English we have been reading for information to help us with our Unit of Inquiry, and have been learning to explain the water cycle using both diagrams and spoken/written words. Our UOI and IT times have also been used to find out facts and answers to the children’s many questions! Also, we have been interested in reading recent news stories about natural resources and human management (or mismanagement!) of them. The students have been presenting their findings to each other. Meanwhile, in PE, the children have been enjoying learning how to play Netball and Tag Rugby.
We have been fortunate enough to have two guest speakers so far this unit. We thank Williams’ mum for speaking to us about the Amazon Rainforest and her research work on the various monkey species there, and Dominics’ dad for speaking to us about the issue of recent human activity causing the “Sixth Extinction”. Thank you!
Next week we start at on Monday at 7:35 by singing and dancing to a pop-song in Karibu Hall as part of Muffins for Mums and Dads – we look forward to seeing you there and hope you enjoy it. In mathematics we will be moving onto look at graphs and charts. The children will be exploring the various ways that data can be collected and represented. In English we will be explaining our observations in experiments linked to water, and will be continuing to read and understand news articles connected to the unit. In UOI the students will become more focused in their research, choosing one resource to concentrate on. They will be using their new data-handling skills and the community’s actions and opinions to collect their own findings.
I will not be teaching any lessons on Tuesday as I will be taking some of the P3-6 students to play Tag-Rugby at Kennedy House. However, I will plan and resource their lessons which will be conducted by Ms Kacey.
What to bring to school Hat , Water-bottle , Communication book (every day please).
Timetable Monday: PE. Homework will be set. Muffins for Mum and Dads. Tuesday: Tag Rugby at Kennedy House. Thursday: PE and Library. Friday: Spelling and mini-multiplication test. Homework due in.

Information for Parents We hope that you are able to join us on Monday for the Muffins for Mums and Dads assembly. This week the students have worked on innovating our classroom. Children research classrooms in the IT lab and worked in groups to design a new layout for the furniture. We are testing a new design every few days and evaluating what worked and what didn’t. They are then given the opportunity to revise their plans before choosing a new design. So far it has been a fun and interesting experience!
Language focus for the week Our new writing project is a report about an innovator or inventor. Students chose their person or company this week and began researching them in IT. Students will work on a variety of writing and research skills to put the final project together. We are also working the learning profile traits by examining characters in books and determining which traits they have, using specific examples from the story to support our choices.
Maths focus for the week We continue our study of fractions by working with mixed numbers and improper fractions. Students will learn how to rename a fraction and work on adding and subtracting mixed numbers.
Unit of Inquiry This Friday our students are going to have an egg drop. Students will work in pairs to design and build a container that will protect an egg from breaking when it is dropped. Students will work on and test their designs throughout the week and we will have a drop on Friday using real eggs. We will be dropping the eggs at about 12:00 on Friday. Parents are welcome to come and watch.
What to bring to school: A hat for playtime and a healthful snack.
Timetable: Monday: Mums and Dads Assembly Tuesday: PE (wear trainers and house shirt) Thursday: Library (bring books)     PE (wear trainers and house shirt) Friday: Egg drop at 12:00

The students are enjoying our unit about the human body and how to make responsible choices to keep them healthy, safe and happy. They are naturally curious to know more about their bodies and feelings. Next week we will start to discuss the changes that they experiencing as they transition through puberty, i.e. as they turn from being a child into an adult. They may of course have questions for their parents; so please be ready for this sort of conversation.
This week the students enjoyed working in small groups and planning their own science experiment to do with heart rate. In their groups they had to work out the aims of the experiment, the equipment required, the process, some predictions, independent and dependent variables; then make observations, record data, form conclusion and write down ideas for further related tests. The students worked hard and enjoyed taking responsibility for the investigation themselves.
In maths the children have been working on several different investigations to do with the human body. They have been using skills learned throughout the year, including measuring length and angles precisely, working out different types of averages and recording data accurately and clearly.
In IT lessons (information technology) the children have been learning more about cyber safety and thinking about the digital footprint they are leaving. They have each created a visual display for the classroom showing that they must not give out, e.g. personal information, their phone number or address, their passwords, their full names, their school, etc., to people or companies they don’t know on the internet.
The children have also been working on their presentations for Monday’s celebration of their parents. Mums and Dads are invited to join us in Karibu Hall from 7.40 – 8.15am.
Unit: Transdisciplinary Theme: Who we are Central Idea: Our health is affected by the choices we make
Maths focus: Multiplying decimals
English focus: Writing a balanced argument. Reading information books.
Monday: Muffins for Mums and Donuts for Dads @ 7.40 – 8.15am in Karibu Hall | Homework will be set | Library session Wednesday: PE lesson Friday: Dr Siva Kumari – Director General of the IB visiting ISM | Homework due in | PE lesson
What to bring everyday: Please bring a bottle of water to keep on the desk. A healthy snack for break times. A hat for break times, lunchtimes and sport lessons. A change of shoes if it is muddy.

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