Moshi Campus News – 4 Nov 17

Around our campus at the moment there seems to be an unending buzz of activity.  This week started with a health living assembly which was joined with the Primary Sports Day on Wednesday (Congratulations to Kibo) and the Farmers’ Market on Friday. Mixed in with this was a cross-campus staff meeting on Tuesday and our UWC visit to end the week.  All of this was topped off by the Halloween events for Primary and Secondary.

Of course, while all of this is going on, life in the classroom does not stop.  This is very true for the D2 students.  It is at this time of the year that the internal assessment part of their courses is at the forefront.  With critical assignments across so many of their courses due, skills of time management and organization are put to the test.  In the MYP, our M5 students are just about to start looking at the assessment units in their ePortfolio subjects while they continue studying the various concepts and content required for their on-screen assessment courses.  And in the Primary, students are working on their second Unit of Inquiry which they will be finishing in about two weeks.

This mix of study and play must work well for the students as you see many cheerful face as you walk around.

Next weekend Anna Marsden, Rosemary Bango and I will be in Dar es Salaam at the Sea Cliff Hotel for two events.  On Friday evening at 6:30pm we will be hosting alumni and parents in a social evening allowing our community in Dar the opportunity to meet Anna.

On Saturday at 10am we will be hosting an informational session for prospective students.  If you know anyone that may be interested, please let them know.

Many thanks to the ISM community who came together to ensure our PYP children had a wonderful time on Friday afternoon. There are too many people to name individually but particular thanks are due to the parents and teachers who decorated a trunk, donated candy and baked treats. Ms. Tahera and the kitchen staff provided a lovely Halloween supper and some CAS students helped to ensure the serving of the meal ran smoothly. Owain Evans acted as MC and provided music and cartoons. The PYP Teaching Assistants decorated the breezeway in readiness for the costume parade. Everyone worked hard and worked as a team and the result was a fun and successful event for the children.

Haunted hospitals, public executions, panic rooms, scavenger hunts and a psychic was the start of the secondary Halloween experience.  They followed this up with a scary movie just in case the first part was not enough.  From the screams and laughter, it would appear that a good time was had by all. 

Thank you to all the parents, teachers and other volunteers in our community that went through so much trouble to make sure this was a great night.  Special thanks must go to Christine Brandsma, without whose enthusiasm the Secondary Halloween event would not be possible, and also to the KCMC volunteers who gave up their time to entertain our students.

Students in D2 are presenting their Theory of Knowledge (TOK) presentations which will continue until all are completed later this month.  Students in D1 TOK  are using discussions and other methods to better understand the building block concepts of TOK, such as the Ways of Knowing and Areas of Knowledge.

Upcoming:

• Following months of work, D2s will submit their extended essay final version on November 6th.
• The next six weeks include many D2 coursework deadlines.  Frequent parent contact/support would be invaluable.
• Consider a visit to Moshi and see your child competing in ISM’s wonderful Sports Weekend (Nov 24-26) with schools from around Tanzania and an expected 600+ students.

Weblinks:
On teens and stress (to share with your son/daughter in the DP) – https://bit.ly/2zcOIQ9

Rick Fitzpatrick

OP Trips
Some students came back on Tuesday evening after a successful trip to Mt. Hanang. Another set of students left today for Mandara. They are expected back on Sunday evening.

M5
The M5 units from IB for ePortfolio assessments in English Language Acquisition, French Language Acquisition, Design, Physical and Health Education and Arts (Drama, Music and Visual Arts) have been released. Teachers are planning them while at the same time introducing them to students. The assessments from these units may start in or before mid-January 2018.

At the same time, the Personal Project Draft 1 reports are with the teachers. We expect Draft 2 and final reports in early January 2018. This will culminate in the PP exhibition in February.

Managebac and Grades
We request parents/guardians to keep monitoring grades as posted on Managebac and feel free to set appointments to discuss any issues arising therefrom with respective teachers.

HOME OF THE LEOPARDS

This past Monday our U15 Girls Basketball and U19 Girls Football travelled to SCIS for NTAA games, it was great to see how much the girls’ basketball team improved even though they lost a close game 7-15 while the girls football won 2-1. Next up will be U15 Basketball and U19 Football NTAA Games on November 4th.

Please find below upcoming events.

• November 8th U19 Football NTAA Games vs St Jude’s
• November 11th NTAA Secondary School Athletics Meet at ISMAC
• November 18th U15 Basketball and U19 Football NTAA Games
• November 24, 25, 26th 17th Annual Secondary School Sports Weekend.

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

Congratulations to all the primary children who took part in the inter-house athletics Sports Day, with such enthusiasm on Wednesday. There was a wonderful atmosphere of camaraderie. We added up all of the totals from the field and track events (P1 – P6) and the final results are:

• 1st place:   Kibo (329 points)
• 2nd place:   Meru (281 points)
• 3rd place:   Mawenzi (264 points)

Well done also to our U11 boys and U11 girls who went to play football at Kennedy House last weekend.

Congratulations to Sahil (boys U10 runner up) and Eunice (U10 girls runner up) for doing so well in the tennis gymkhana in Arusha last weekend.

We wish good luck to the U11 rounders team who are playing at St Constantine’s School this weekend.

The boarders are all settled at school and are back into the routine of work for the quarter. We had our first boarding and food council meetings this week after dinner on Tuesday.  These meetings are an opportunity for representatives of each house to have discussions and input on issues that concern them.

We had activities to mark Halloween around campus on Friday. Primary had their trunk-or-treat in the afternoon, and the secondary boarders visited the haunted houses in the evening. The older students then watched a movie in Rafiki Hall.

Apart from these, other activities have been planned to keep the boarders entertained for the whole weekend.  There was a town trip on Friday afternoon, board games, a pool party, a disco, hide and seek and football.

Rosemary Bango

The children are now going further into their units of inquiry.  They may have questions they wish to ask, they might be making useful connections or they may feel like carrying out PYP Actions, i.e. positive initiatives to help their community or the environment. Do try to pick up on any ideas for Action and please aid the children to carry these out. Please also let their class teacher know so that s/he can celebrate their ideas and efforts.

It was lovely to see so many parents enjoying various events with their children this week, i.e. the Healthy Living Assembly, Primary Sports Day, Halloween and Primary Gathering. Thanks for helping to support these community celebrations.

Reminder: Children still have time to enter the Healthy Living Week poster competition. They should submit an original A4 design reminding members of the community to wash their hands after using the toilet. They should write their name and class on the back and then give the poster to me on Monday (the deadline). The winning posters will then be colour copied and put up around school.

Kate Schermbrucker

We’ve had a lovely week down here in EC. The children were great risk takers during our Sports Day. As well as our own set of games, we had the chance to try out the javelin, high jump and long jump. I’m not sure who enjoyed it more… me or the kids! Thanks to all the parents who did make it along to support us. If you couldn’t make it this year we really hope to see you next time. 

Our vertical garden is starting out with four slightly different set-ups. This is providing opportunities to begin to understand the concept of experimentation and to work with various designs to find solutions to hands-on problems.

We are looking at animals for our unit of inquiry work. Many of our children seem to have experienced riding a camel here in Tanzania. We discussed the adaptations we see in camels for their life in the desert. Next week we will further explore various animals and their habitats.

Owain Evans

Dear Parents,

Healthy living week has made the children inquire into where we can get healthy food to eat. As a class, we decided to grow seeds. We have planted bean seeds in cotton wool to see how seeds germinate and next week, we will plant tomato plants in soil and begin a diary of how tomatoes grow. Thank you for sending in various planters for us to use.

The children have been eager to start on their animal projects. Thank you for working with them to kick start their research. This coming week, we will be using most of our time to complete this work.

In Maths, we started working on our 3D shapes. We learned about vertices, edges and faces. The children will continue to discover more about these next week.

Phase 2: short vowel sound i
Phase 3: long vowel sound i
Show & Tell: Niall and Rhea

Mboka Mwasongwe

This week was full of community building experiences. The children had a wonderful time participating in Primary Sports Day and enjoying the sweet treats at the Trunk and Treat.

The children were extremely mindful last week of what they ate and having a good balance between work and play. This will continue throughout the school year.

This week the children were thinking about and discuss their ideas for unit two summative assessment. We will also be continuing to explore other artist styles and designs.

The children will be finishing off their non-fiction books and choosing a topic or skill to teach someone. The children will be focusing on “does their writing make sense and spelling high frequency words correctly”.

During reading the children will be encouraged to re-read to check for understanding.

In Math we will work on fact families and understanding how to solve math word problems.

Monday: Homework.
Tuesday: Library and PE
Thursday: swimming
Friday: Homework due in. P2/3 present at the Primary Gathering

Have a restful weekend
Clare Hibbard

This has been a crazy, exciting week. I was really impressed with all the students’ effort as they showed their commitment to good health by taking part in Sports Day. We have had a lot of heightened emotion in the classroom as we were excited about Trunk or Treat, Sports Day and our assembly presentation. The kids impressed everyone with their version of the book ‘Click Clack Moo’ by Doreen Cronin. We even added Greek masks into it and talked about the history of the theater during our Unit discussions.

We did not have time to do our Math Olympics this week and will be working with coach Eli on this during PE next week. We are just completing our stop motion animation Greek myths and will be putting it all together next week.

Julie Bowen

We have an exciting week ahead of us! The children have carried out some activities in preparation for our camp, making suggestions as to what they would like to do and listing those things that they are excited about and anxious about. We will reflect on the camp experience when we return from West Kilimanjaro and hopefully the children will discover that very little of what they were worried about actually came to pass and that when problems did arise they had the inner resources to deal with them. We will check out equipment from the OP store on Monday and will learn how to put up the tents.

At camp the children will further their inquiry into the use of natural resources but they will also develop stronger relationships with their peers. We will carry out practical activities such as washing up dishes and putting up tents and the children will become more confident and independent.

On our return we will complete follow up activities based on the camp and will continue to work on our information books.

Deborah Mills

All the students have worked very well towards writing their essays on natural resources. They have also been keen to take action towards conserving resources around us, such as electricity and water.

In the coming week for the camp we will be looking at how the natural resources are used at Simba Farm as well as how the 3Rs (Reuse, reduce, recycle) are applied. In Math the students were able to make connections with the distances used during the Sports Day. They will continue to practice conversion of liters, meters and weight.

The trip leaves on Tuesday November 7th and returns on Wednesday November 8th.

Cathy Wambua