Moshi Campus News – 25 May 2014

Tonight, Sunday 25th May at 6:30 pm ISM will welcome 44 undergraduate students from the acclaimed “Glee Club” (ie Singing Group) from the University of Pennsylvania (www.dolphin.upenn.edu/gleeclub/).
We are looking forward to a fabulous evening of tremendously beautiful entertainment in Karibu Hall listening to lovely sounds of this singing group. Do not miss it! There will be refreshments at the intermission.

This event will serve as a donation-only fund-raiser for our ISM DP scholarship programme (www.uwcea.org/admissions/scholarships/).

A group of students and teachers is now preparing for their assault on Uhuru Peak which will take place this week from 28th May to 1st June. We wish them all well.

As Ms Totty Aris will be accompanying this trip, she will not be available in school from Wednesday to Sunday this week.

IELTS: About half of our D1 class took the IELTS English Language test on 10th May. Results are now available to these candidates at https://ielts.britishcouncil.org/CheckResults.aspx.
TOEFL Paper-based Test: The US test of English Language will be held in school next Saturday, 31st May. Although registrations have officially closed, we will still be able to accept any late registrations – late entrants should see Keiron White as soon as possible.
SAT & ACT Tests will take place in school on 7th and 14th June respectively. Regular registrations have now closed, but late registrations are still possible on payment of an additional fee.

On Sunday, 1st June, Yale University, Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania will be presenting at the Golden Tulip Hotel in Dar es Salaam – unfortunately they are unable to visit northern Tanzania on this occasion. If you would like to learn more about these three prestigious universities, you are welcome to attend at 3pm. A flier for the event is attached here.

Next Saturday, 31st May, we will be hosting a junior basketball tournament here on the Moshi Campus with both boys and girls teams coming from the Moshi and Arusha areas. Please come out and cheer our Leopards teams.

Our M4 class is undertaking a community service project to provide clothes to children at the Msamaria Centre. If you have any children’s clothing that is no longer needed or if your children are tired of wearing, please help by donating these. Donations can be accepted (in bags please) at the music room until Friday, 30th May. Donations of toys are also very welcome.

I hope all parents saw our earlier email concerning Dengue Fever. We still have a number of “Parakito” mosquito-repellant bracelets (www.uwcea.org/parakito) for sale at TSh 32,000/- or $20 each, available from reception in school.

There will be some special arrangements for M5 students at the end of this quarter. As the M5 students are completing the MYP programme in ISM, we will hold a special ceremony on Friday, 13th June to mark this transition in their education. All parents are warmly invited to the event when we will recognise each student individually. The ceremony will be followed by a tea and refreshments here in school. And then we will look forward to seeing almost all of the students back in ISM for the diploma programme in August.
M5 students will be expected to leave school with their parents on Friday, 13th June. There are no classes or activities for M5 students in the following week.

All other students will finish school on Friday, 20th June.

Most of our M3 students will be joining M4 in August and will need to make a couple of choices in their academic programmes of study: 1. M4 students have to choose only TWO of the three arts programmes available: Drama, Music or Visual Arts. 2. There is a choice of languages between French as a foreign language, or Swahili language and literature, taught to fluent Swahili speakers. Ms Farrell has already sent a letter regarding these choices to the parents of all M3 students. If you have not received this or not yet replied, please contact her on

The ISM Brownie Guides are running a “good as new” sale on Saturday June 7th from 10.00 am to 1.00pm in Karibu Hall. If you are leaving Moshi this year, this is an ideal opportunity for you to sell items you do not wish to take with you. Tables will cost TSh 15,000/- and need to be paid for in advance by Wednesday June 4th in the main school office to secure a place.
All proceeds from the sale of tables will be divided between brownie funds and children in need of cleft palette operations. There will also be a chance for you to donate clothes, shoes, toys and books for ‘Treasures of Africa’ Children’s Home that P3/4 made a link with during their last unit of inquiry. You can support this event by buying a table to sell your goods or by coming to buy from the stalls. Refreshments will be on sale throughout the morning. Please see Annalee Horton if you have any questions about this event.

Ms Jann has had to take bereavement leave. We wish her a safe journey and look forward to her return which should be on 9th June. In the meantime we are doing our best to cover her classes with our teaching staff. Due to this absence the P3/4 assembly that was due to take place on June 2 will be postponed until further notice.
Assembly Our next whole school assembly will be on June 9th which will be a performance assembly; an opportunity for the dance clubs at school to share what they have been doing.
Head lice Please keep checking your child’s hair for head lice. Students with head lice should wear their hair up if long, or wear a headband to keep it away from other children.
Primary Clubs – outdoors With the rainy season continuing we often have to make a last minute judgment regarding the outdoor clubs. When it is pouring with rain we will bring the students into Karibu Hall if it is available, otherwise we will put on some board games for them to play in a classroom. Matt, our student teacher is taking over the Tuesday Primary Sports and will support our CAS students with structured sports games.
Due to Miss Jann’s absence, Primary Club Gymnastics will be cancelled for the next 2 weeks. All students are welcome to join Tennis or Music Fun club instead.
Thank you also to Nick Reynolds, our parent volunteer who tirelessly continues to coach the primary mixed footballers every Thursday. Totty Aris Deputy Head of Campus

Our field trip to the Cultural Heritage Centre was a great success last week. The children worked in small groups to find various art pieces, focusing on what different art mediums were used for each piece of artwork and also their own thoughts about the pieces. In general the children respected and appreciated the wonderful artwork. After the visit to the Cultural Heritage Centre we went to the Arusha campus to visit the EC children and spent a fabulous time playing in their outdoor play area. We had a picnic lunch before returning to school; 8 children fell asleep on the bus after an exhausting but wonderful field trip!!
Unit of Inquiry We will continue to work with a variety of art media to produce art pieces. Due to the rain last week we didn’t finish our splatter painting (it was a little messy inside the classroom!!!!) or make pictures using a ball rolled down the slide. Let’s hope for sunshine this week. We are also still reflecting on the field trip, which will be part of our literacy work this week.
Language

• New children will be introduced to the short vowel sound u made by Uppy Umbrella
• EC1 children will revise the sounds introduced so far.
• EC2 children will produce an unaided piece of writing about the weekend.

Unit of Inquiry – Art Theme – How we express ourselves Central Idea – There are different ways to express our ideas and feelings. Lines of Inquiry: 1. There are many types of artists.       Elements of art and design. 2. Expression through the arts. 3. Art appreciation. We are learning about the elements of art and design: line, shape, colour, value, texture, form and space. We painted a colour wheel with primary and secondary colours. We have been finding out about warm and cold colours and created some pieces of art work. Next we will learn about complementary colours. We will also explore shape designs.
Language focus for the week Write a recount of the weekend. Children will be encouraged to use the language of time. (First, Next, Then, After that, The next day…) Sentence and word level work will also focus on descriptive language. Write a colour poem. Handwriting: Patterns, own name, numerals and spelling patterns. We will also continue to work on capital letters. Some P2 children will learn to join letters together. Phonics – Group 1: Long vowel sounds, oa as in soap.       Group 2: adding er and est to words (dark, darker, darkest)
Maths focus for the week Mental skills will focus on counting on and back from any number. Quick recall of addition facts of 10 and 20. Link addition and subtraction facts. Doubles, near doubles and halving. Identify multiples of 2, 5 and 10. All children will continue to learn about addition and subtraction. Add 3 and 4 numbers together. Link +/- facts. Tell simple + and – stories. Add 10 and multiples of 10. Add 9/19.
What to bring to school: Everyday: A hat for playtime, a healthy snack, water bottle and reading folder.
Timetable: Monday New reading books and homework packets including spelling lists will be issued. PE (wear your house T shirt and shorts and trainers) Tuesday PE (wear your house T shirt and shorts and trainers) Thursday Library (Bring library books in your special library bag to return and then choose new ones) New class reading books will be issued. Friday Spelling Test

The past week was one full of creativity in the P2/3 classroom. We began a poetry unit by looking at some of the poems of Roald Dahl and Shel Silverstein. In art we painted camouflage pictures of animals to go explore our unit of inquiry on adaptation. Lastly, we began writing words to a song in groups during language arts. Next week we will be continuing with a lot of the projects that we started working on this week. Here’s a look at our upcoming week:
Maths This week we will continue to work on subtraction using regrouping. We are learning about regrouping using the “stealing” method. Every day we also work on our mental math skills by playing games like “sheriff” and working on counting backwards by 1s, 2s, and 5s. As a whole the class is quite strong in maths and enthusiastic about it as well.
Unit of Inquiry We spent the last week looking at Plants and what they need to survive. Next week we will look at an overview of what habitats animals live in and how they adapt to those environments. We will also make a Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting plants and animals. In IT, students have been exploring several educational games about adaptation including one where they can create their own animals by using different parts of existing animals to see if they would survive in certain habitats. We will expand on this next week by having them create a new animal and writing about what adaptations they have that allow them to survive in their chosen environment.
Language Arts As stated above, we have begun studying poetry this week in class. We read and have been reciting a poem by Shel Silverstein called, “Recipe for a Hippopatamus Sandwich”. Next week we will look at different kinds of poems such as list poems and “I See” poems. Students will be asked to write poems of their own in both a group setting as well as individually. So far we have been really enjoying working on rhyming and the class has already improved significantly this week in their rhyming skills. Please practice with them at home!!!
Weekly Reminders: Sunday: University of Pennsylvania “Glee Club” performance in Karibu Hall at 6:30PM. No entry fee but donations are greatly appreciated. Monday: Library, please bring books in and homework is given out. Wednesday: PE, please bring a hat, sunscreen, and appropriate footwear!! Thursday: PE, again please bring a hat, sunscreen, and appropriate footwear! Turn in reading records and books are swapped out. Friday: Spelling test and turn homework in.
Have a great weekend!!

I received sad news towards the end of last week that my dear, old mom, who was almost 98, had passed away. At the time of writing this weekly preview, I am awaiting confirmation of travel plans to fly to Sydney, Australia to be with my brothers and farewell this great lady. I expect to be out of the classroom until 9th June, and arrangements for class teaching while I am away are being made.
Last week we said goodbye to Elouan. He has been a unique and interesting little character and member of our class and one whom we are not likely to forget in a hurry! We wish Elouan and his family well in their new home and school.
This is what our learning will look like this week: UOI Unit 6 – Children’s Rights Central Idea: Children are a unique part of our society who have specific rights. Lines of Inquiry: The role of children in society         Rights and responsibilities of children         The application of children’s rights in other parts of the world We will continue discussing what life is like for children in many parts of the world, comparing it to our own, discussing similarities and differences and becoming aware, that we are fortunate to have all our needs taken care of, whereas so many others are not. We will read stories about the lives of children who find themselves in different situations and we will look at pictures of different situations and discuss if we think the children’s rights are being met. We will look at the logos of the United Nations and UNICEF and write up some information about what these organisations do.
Maths – Both Maths groups will be working together and learning about area and perimeter – what these concepts mean and how we work them out.

The photo shows some of my children enjoying their ice cream sundaes which was part of our “times tables” challenge. Every time they got a times table correct, they earned something in an ice cream sundae and at the end of 12 weeks we made our sundaes accordingly.
Language – Persuasive writing on views on topics pertaining to children’s rights. The language of advertising. Reading comprehension exercises. Spelling – Group 1: blocking magic y – words that end in y but have a double consonant e.g. shabby, silly Group 2: soft g as in danger or gentle Group 3: The long e sound made by -ie or -ei e.g. thief, receive
Reminders Every day: School t-shirts or polo shirts, zip bags (reading book, reading log, spelling book all need to come to school, a healthy snack for break time). Monday: Due to unforeseen circumstances there will be no homework sheets this week, but the children will still receive spelling and reading homework and can also continue to practise and learn times tables and basic addition and subtraction facts up to 20. Wednesday: P.E. – Cooperative games. Wear house t-shirts and shorts or tights. Long hair tied up. Thursday: Library bags and books for exchange/renewal. Friday: Spelling test Swimming – remember costumes, towels, goggles (if you wear them) etc…
Confident that I am leaving the children in good hands and looking forward to being back in class again, Miss Jann

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