Issue 05/2009March 26, 2009

Our calendars say it’s spring, but the weather continues to be very much like winter.

This works out very well for our Ski Campers, who leave for the Austrian slopes this weekend. We wish for lots of sun and fresh powder for all our skiiers and snowboard-ers.

March has been a month jam-packed with math fun: students of all ages enjoyed the World Math Day, Pi Day and Kanga-roo Competition events.

As we near the end of the month, the Elementary School Literacy Day will

prove to offer fun read-ing and writing activities prepared by our own ES teachers. Students in Elementary, Middle and High School are prepar-ing science projects and demonstrations to present at the end of the month Science Fair.

The annual Central and Eastern European Schools Association (CEESA) conference was held in Bucharest, Ro-mania last weekend and was attended by several of our teachers. Four of our Elementary teachers presented workshops, and all participants came back loaded with great

ideas to share with our whole staff. Our teachers continue to work with the ES and MS students in preparing their portfolios, which the children will be presenting to parents on the evening of April 22.

With so much happening, we’ll all be looking for-ward to a restful Spring Break soon...

Sue Mleczko, Deputy Director, Head of

Early Years and Elementary

In this issue

Little Acorns to the rescue

Grade 2 and shapes

Chess Tournament

Grade 5 & buddies

Travel with Social Studies

Grade 2 and shapes

Chess Tournament

News from Music

Spanish

Classifieds

ISKVOICEThe Bi-Monthly International School of Krakow Newsletter

The International School of Krakow - ul. sw. Floriana 57 - Lusina - 30-698 Krakow - Poland - www.iskonline.org

coming upMarch 27 Literacy Day

March 28 - April 4 Ski Camp

April 12 - 17 Spring Break

April 22 Parent-Teacher meeting & portfolio evening

April 28 Science Fair

Spring is just around the corner ... just not quite here yet...

Page 2

Little Acorns to the rescue!!!Many exciting things have hap-pened since you last heard from the little Acorns.

Ms. Ania Niton, the nursery teacher, organized a trip to the local fire station and invited the preschoolers to come along. What a great idea!

We were very fortunate to have had a beautiful, sunny day on our side. Chief firefighter Tom greeted us in front of the huge, red ga-rage doors of the station. One of the trucks had just left on an emergency call but there was still plenty for us to see and do.

First, we watched the firefighters practice drill routines, while they checked their equipment. We learned that although all fire sta-

tions are equipped to fight fires, they each have their individual specialties. The station we visited is trained to aid in water and road catastrophes. Firefighter Tom showed us the tools that may be used to help rescue people from an automobile accident.

Admiring the massive trucks and their interiors was not our only attraction. We were able to do some hands-on firefighter train-ing! Firefighter Tom showed us how to properly hold a hose and spray water. We tried on the big, heavy helmets and rode up the fire truck ladder. Some of us went up quite high and were not afraid. Even our teachers decided to enjoy the view from a firefighter’s perspective.

Before our departure from the station, firefighter Tom had one more surprise for us. He ran up the stairs quickly and reappeared suddenly sliding down the fire pole. We were so impressed that he gave us an encore per-formance and even ordered the other firefighters to give us a follow-up demonstration, due to our outbursts of joyful clapping and cheering.

We had a very enjoyable day.

If you stop by the school to visit, you may find us practicing fire safety during outdoor recess.

Our teachers have noticed us playing “fire drills,” during which we evacuate from our new wood-en playhouse.

Also, come and have a look at the hand-made, work-of-art fire truck that the nursery kids built.

Anna Watson Preschool Teacher

Our Field Trip to the Fire Station

Page 3

Students in grade 2 are really enjoying their new unit in Math on 3-D and 2-D Shapes.

We have been learning about all different shapes and patterns.

Students have been making their own creative figures with the pattern blocks. We have also made pictures with our tangrams.

Students have learned about line segments, parallel lines, and quadrangles.

We invite everyone to stop by to check out our geometric patterns & shapes museum!

We are also very anxious to start our next unit on multiplication!

Ms. Kuzniar & Super 2nd Graders

Shapes, Shapes, & More Shapes

Chess tournament 2009As you may know, the ISK Chess tournament kicked off a few weeks back and has been going on during lunch and recess time.

We started with a group of 14 El-ementary students and 6 Middle School students.

Well, it’s down to 2 in Elementary and 3 in Middle School.

In the Elementary division the final showdown will be between 3rd Grader Richard Sliwa and 4th Grader Wolf von Weiler. Wolf has his work cut out for him, as Rich-ard is undefeated thus far and Wolf has one loss. This means that Wolf will need to defeat Rich-ard twice in order to win. Either way, both deserve much con-gratulations for getting this far. Congratulations are also in order for Samuel Ortiz, who lost a close match to Wolf last week to finish in 3rd place.

In Middle School it comes down

to 6th Graders Michal Jablonski and Emmanuel de Bourmont and 8th Grader Beth Hobbs. Each has 1 loss so it is down to two final games. There will be a draw to see who plays each other on Thursday, with the championship game on Friday. Again, con-gratulations go out to all those students taking part.

Look for a full report of the finals in an upcoming edition of the newsletter!

Brett Elkei

Page 4

Busy times in Grade 5

In Social Studies the students just completed their Country Cubes.

They were studying their chosen countries, which covered the globe from Argentina to Bhutan, for the past few weeks and

presented the cubes to each other this week.

The next step will be to put together a trip to their country in which they visit at least 3 cities in 10 days. They will have a

budget and need to plan all things involved in the trip including airfare, hotels, sightseeing, etc.

The students are clearly very excited about this project.

Be sure to look for the Country Cubes hanging beneath the flags in the main entranceway.

For the past month or so Grade 5 has been working with a new group of buddies.

In addition to the Grade 0 buddies that we read with each Friday afternoon, we are now working with Grade 3 buddies by helping them with their weekly Spelling tests.

It’s the Grade 5 students’ chance to be the teacher as we go and give individual Spelling tests to each of the Grade 3 students.

Each Friday morning the Grade 5 students take a trip to the Grade 3 classroom and give the students their tests for the week’s Spelling generalization.

This is fun for both grades and gives all the students a chance to interact with one another.

Staying on the buddy theme in Grade 5, last week the class got a chance to work with the Grade 10 students in Science.

Ms. Marzec and her Grade 10 class came to visit the Grade 5 classroom and lead an experiment in which the Grade 5 students were looking at cells of onion plants under the microscopes.

Maisy really enjoyed this activity, as her brother is in Grade 10, and had this to say afterwards, “It was weird, but to learn something in school from your own brother. Especially when it is something we wouldn’t normally learn at this time”.

Brett Elkei Grade 5 Teacher

Page 5

Travel time with grades 6 & 7

Have you ever wanted your very own City-State in Ancient Greece?

Well the Grade Six World His-tory class knows a little of what it would be like!

They have had the opportunity to design their very own City-State, complete with Temples, Agoras, Homes and Walls for protection.

Students have been drafting blueprints for original designs

as part of their studies on the life and times of Ancient Greece.

We have also been learning a new language by study-ing Greek words that have survived to this day in pres-ent English. Word roots like phone, video, poly and mono all come from Ancient Greece.

This unit has also been a cross-curricular tour de force with English, Art and Math-ematics all joining to connect

Ancient Greece across the four curriculum.

In Mathematics, the students are learning about ratio, pro-portion and of course pi.

In Art, the students are looking at the roots of Classicism in Ancient Greece.

In English, they are reading Greek Mythology and writing their own myths.

It has been ‘all Greek’ for the Grade Six class this month!

by Jean-Pierre Mlodynia-Zink

The Grade Seven class are going on Vacation!

Dream Vacations in fact!

They have been given 4000 euros to plan a vacation from Krakow to at least three different countries and five different cities or towns.

One of the countries must be outside of Europe and they must stay at least three days in each of the five locations they visit.

The project asks students to prepare a travel itinerary, to find accommodations, and to pre-pare a budget.

The students also plan activities in each of the

places they are visiting, as well as researching local restaurants and deciding on their meals.

So far students are planning to span the globe with destinations like Alaska, Chile, China, Fiji, Bora Bora, Brasil, Thailand, Moroco along with many European stops along the way.

Some students are even planning to visit Cana-da!

We are joining forces with Mr. Lutley in English to create travel journals of our trip.

“ Grade Seven is going on Vacation! ”

Page 6

News from the music departmentThe first round of Songquest takes place this week.

We’ve had over 30 students sign up, so there should be some tuneful days ahead.

Winners of the 1st round will be announced next week.

They will go through to the 2nd round, which will be held during the week of April 6.

Good luck, everyone!

Sarah Wadiak

Fancy a night at the Opera ?New York’s Metropolitan Opera is broadcasting a series of live performances throughout the world. You can watch live matinee transmissions, direct from one of the best opera houses in the world, in Krakow at the Kijow cinema.

The show starts at 2pm in New York, which is 6pm in Krakow.

It’s a unique project which gives an in-depth view of the action on and off stage, with interviews, summaries and subtitles in English and Polish.

There are two performances left this season, and I particularly recommend the final performance for families; Rossini’s La Cenerentola (Cinderella) on May 9. It’s a long evening, so suitable for about g4-aged students and older.

Contact the cinema for tickets and book soon!

Page 7

Kafka in 1906

Students in the Level 2 Spanish class have been reading stories in Spanish to the ISK pre-schoolers!

Not only did students (Margaux, Jacob, Alexis, and Christine) have to practice their reading and pronunciation skills to impress our pre-school Spanish speakers (particularly Emilio and Sofía!), but they even had to accomplish their own translation of a picture book before reading it! ¡Buen trabajo!

The Level 1 Spanish class in the high school has the beginnings of a drama underway, to be performed sometime in May. All that I will say is that it takes place

in an elevator and there are some very strange characters involved! (Kuba, Jenni, and Antek!) They

have also mastered numbers to one million and are beginning research projects on different aspects of Spain.

The Level 1 middle school Spanish class (Carolina, Kelly, Klaudia and Frankie) has welcomed a new student, Yasmin, this term.

Students have been mastering how to use the present tense, how to describe themselves and others, and general vocabulary acquired through the songs and texts we encounter.

Lilianna Lutely & Paul Lucas

Spanish in Middle & High SchoolInteresting new vocabulary:

canturrear = to hum

vacilar = to vacillate

chapotear = to splash

recaudador de impuestos = tax collector

ascensor = evlevator

enojado = angry

amable = kind, nice

las llaves = the keys

unos sellos = some stamps

unas cartas = some letters

Olé

T-shirts available for purchaseIf you’d like to buy a t-shirt (or another one), PTA still has some. Here are the sizes and colors available:

Color / sizes 3/4 5/6 7/8 9/11 12/14 S M L XL XXL

Used gold 1

Red 2 2 2 3

Sky Blue 2 1 1 2

Sorbet 2 1 2

Navy 3 2 2

Black 1

Classifieds

Page 9

Apartments for rent

Cracow-Debniki-Praska Street

Located in a very quiet, secure and green residential area (near a park and the banks of the Vistula)

!5 minutes on foot / 5 minutes by car to the town center, easy access to the south of Cracow

2 apartments for rent in a traditional house

First apartment:

Apartment on the ground floor, 88 m

3 rooms, big kitchen, terrace with access to the garden, south exposition

Second apartment:

Apartment on the first floor, 118 m

4 rooms, big kitchen, terrace with view to the garden, south exposition

Contact:

Benedicte Rousseaux at the ISK

Or Tel: + 48 791 606 909

Mail: bpoplawski@interia.pl

To Let

A first-floor apartment located in an Art Deco tenement building in the Old Town, five minutes walk to Rynek Glowny and yet situated in a quiet location. Well laid out accommodation totalling 130m2 and consisting of four spacious rooms (each approximately 20m2), large dining room with a kitchen annex and balcony, utility room, bathroom, another WC and an entrance hall.

The apartment was completely renovated just over a year ago and benefits from all modern appliances. Due to its convenient location, the apartment can be used as family accommodation or as an office.

Available for rent fully furnished (if required) from 1 June at a price of 6500 PLN plus bills.

Please contact Mariola on 66 00 79 619 or 012 421 31 40