Newsletter November 29 - International School Leuven

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November 29
WELCOME
What a busy two weeks we’ve had here at ISL! First of all I am pleased to see everyone is back in good
health after winter got a hold of some of us last week.
There was no ISL-newsletter last week since I was attending the ECIS-conference in Amsterdam. The
European Council of International Schools is a collaborative global network promoting and supporting
the ideals and best practices of international education. It was a great opportunity to learn about this
organisation and to see if ISL could/should be a part of it, now or in the future. There were some
interesting educational workshops and I attended some great lectures. It was also exciting to meet so
many people from international schools from all over the world.
Yesterday I visited the International School of Ghent and I am very excited to tell you that from now
on ISG and ISL will work more closely together. ISG is in their second year of operation and has more or
less the same set-up as our school. In February the complete ISL-team will visit ISG. Both teacher
teams will sit together and exchange experiences and share new ideas for the classroom. In May the
ISG-team will then visit ISL for a follow-up session. Our PTA president is also looking for ways both PTAgroups could work together. Doesn’t this sound great?
Earlier today I attended a meeting of international primary school leaders at BSB, Tervuren. This is a
new group that wants to bring primary school leaders together to discuss several topics regarding
international primary education in Belgium.
As you can see, the International School of Leuven is slowly starting to claim its place in the world of
international schools!
Now, while I was doing all this…, teachers and students at ISL were working extremely hard and
learning all kinds of new and exciting things!
WHAT’S BEEN GOING ON?
Let me guide you through some of the learning that has been going on in the different groups this past
week:
Pre-Primary group (Miss Lydia):
Pre-primary had a nice week learning about puppet theatres, patterns and the letter N. The
Puppet Theatre is almost complete! We made a backdrop as a class, and Miss Kaatje stitched
all of the pieces in place. Dank je wel, Miss K! We made necklaces and a holiday collage
inspired by The Nutcracker. Some of the children call the music “Tchaikovsky” because we
learned about the composer through the video series Little Einsteins, an animated television
series created by Disney for pre-school age children. Each episode is written around a famous
work of art and piece of classical music. The children LOVED it!
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IPC and Nutcracker related Little Einstein episodes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoS8GNxZqOY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2KO6SZRiVs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T7DcEXBqH4
Next week our letter of the week will be the Letter I. We will continue working with shapes,
patterns and the numbers 1-10.
In preparation for our field trip to Mechelen on December 12 th, our story of the week will be
"Peter and the Wolf” and we will listen to the musical piece written by Sergei Prokofiev for
our music of the week.
Wednesday, December 4th will be our last colour day of the year. We will end with the colour
ORANGE. Please encourage your child to wear orange on that day.
Awesome ideas for learning at home:
Eat: ice cream!
Look for the letter I, the colour orange, numbers and shapes everywhere!
Group 1 (Miss Miriam and Miss Cathy):
“Is it durable?” “Is it buoyant?” “How absorbent is it?”
There has been some interesting vocabulary this week as Group 1 took on the role of young
Scientists!
Continuing with the theme of ‘Toys’ and in particular, designing a young child’s bath toy, pupils
have been exploring materials and their properties.
Firstly, they concentrated on identifying the different materials used in toy design now and in
the past.
Then, after carefully considering how to test the materials, they went on to conduct their own
experiments, recording and evaluating the results. Although leaving a slightly ‘soggy’ (another
new word) classroom, great fun was had by all!
The next Science task involved sorting toys into toys we ‘push’, toys we ‘pull’ and toys we
‘push and pull’. We considered the ‘force’ involved in moving these objects and what would
happen in the absence of this force.
Moving on to Technology, pupils have started to consider the design of everyday products
around us. They have been evaluating board game design and considering how important it is to
consider who you are designing for.
Literacy this week has been focused around writing the beginning of a story and understanding
Character in more depth. Considering how the questions ‘What is their appearance like?’ and
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‘What characteristics do they have’ are different, pupils have been analysing the characters in
‘Toy Story’ and their Reading Tree books. Pupils are also continuing to look at speech and
ordering events in a story and, of course, working on expanding their vocabulary and spelling.
Grade 1 pupils have been looking at shapes in Maths recently. They have been learning to
recognise different shapes based on the number and type of sides and corners they have and
the vocabulary associated with each. Grade 2 pupils have been looking at more complex shapes
and the lines of symmetry found in each shape. Both year groups have also been working on
‘counting back’ (subtraction or ‘take away’) at different levels. Grade 3 has been working on
multiplication and division. We focused on finding and recognising unit fractions, as well as on
the concept of halving and doubling.
Think Tank answer for previous week:
What country does Lego come from?
Answer:
LEGO Toy Bricks were first introduced in 1958. The company that makes the
famous, little, plastic, interlocking bricks known as LEGO started as a small
shop in Denmark.
Last week’s question and answer:Where is the biggest toyshop in the world?
Answer:
The biggest toy store in the world is Hamleys toy store in
London. It is housed in a seven storied building and all the
floors are packed with amazing games and toys. The store
was started in 1760 and is filled with the finest toys in the
world.
This week’s question:In which country was Chess first played?
Good Luck!
UPCOMING ACTIVITIES:
MONDAY DECEMBER 2:
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PRE-PRIMARY will go on a short visit to BLUUB, a
creative, temporary ‘space’ in Leuven!
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FRIDAY DECEMBER 6:
SINTERKLAAS is coming to ISL!
THURSDAY DECEMBER 12:
FIELDTRIP TO MECHELEN
Pre-Primary will attend a performance of “Peter and the
Wolf” by ‘De Maan’ while Group 1
will visit the toy-museum. Both activities blend in
perfectly with their IPC-units of work!
FRIDAY DECEMBER 13:
TERBANK SCHOOL CHRISTMAS HAPPENING
(come and buy a Christmas tree or visit the little
Christmas market)
WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 18:
ISL END OF TERM HOLIDAY PERFORMANCE for parents
(starts at 10.30h. and is followed by a little get
together/details to follow!)
THURSDAY DECEMBER 19:
LAST DAY OF TERM
DUTCH
Dutch classes have been rather dynamic the past two weeks!
Our Pre-Primary students crafted Sinterklaas en Piet finger puppets and filled Sinterklaas' bag with
some of their favourite toys. Several of the children included presents for their siblings and their
parents :-)
The students are becoming familiar with some popular Sinterklaas songs, and are learning new
vocabulary by doing so. Just yesterday, one of our students was singing one of the songs on the
playground when a Terbank student walked up to Ms Kaatje and enthusiastically said "... can speak
Dutch!".
These are the two songs our students chose as their favourites:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhw7xNyHKJU
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNSkeJtTcSE
The first song is a "welcome Sinterklaas" song, the second one a "goodbye Sinterklaas" song. Both are
traditional songs, but modernised by the band VOF de Kunst. Ms. Kaatje was able to enjoy witnessing
some excellent dance moves performed by our Pre-Primary students the past days.
All students enjoyed crafting a paper version of Sinterklaas' steamboat. A seperate note with some
additional information was sent home with your child today.
Group 1 wrote a letter to Sinterklaas. Working together with the whole class, they did a wonderful job
writing the letter in Dutch! We posted the letter in the mail box close to our school and hope that
Sinterklaas finds some time to write back to us and answer our questions.
VOLUNTEERS
It is great to see the ‘ISL-community’ grow day by day. A special thanks today to all our volunteers and
interns whol have been coming in the last months to assist and help us! So a big thank you to: Ranjana,
Anna, Dandi, Anya, Mary, Rosie and Mandy!
PTA
Our PTA-president went down to Poverello here in Leuven to discuss the idea of our ISL-community
reaching out to them. Poverello is an organization that provides hot meals and food packages for
families and those in need. You will reveice an email from Ellen telling you more about it. It sounds
like our help will be much appreciated!
ATTENTION
The deadline for ordering books from the Scholastic International School Book Club is next week
Wednesday! You can order great books at great prices and by doing so you help the school to build its
own library!
CONTACT
If you have any questions or suggestions, please come in and talk to us or send us a message. Your
feedback is highly appreciated!
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AND TO END…
enjoy some happy moments of the past week!
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Have a fun weekend!
Best wishes
Bart De Roeck
Headmaster ISL
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