ISM Newsletter Lower Campus

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The International School of Moscow | Issue 2

Lower

Campus

Newsletter

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DecemberDear Parents & Students,

Christmas is my favourite time of year. To have the honour and privilege of working with children at Christmas makes it even better. To be working with children from over fifty different nationalities at The International School of Moscow at Christmas is: ?As good at it gets?.

I have just returned from the Year 4 Krylatskaya Lower Campus production of ?The Keymaster?. It was absolutely superb. The children?s diction, pronunciation and singing was as good as you will see anywhere in the world. In one hour, I was enthralled, educated and entertained. It was, quite simply: ?As good as it gets?.

In fact, only last Friday, at our Christmas assembly at Rosinka Upper Campus, our students not only managed to convince none other than the legend that is ?The Grinch? that Christmas is great but they also managed to encourage him to dance to his favourite Christmas songs! Only at The International School of Moscow?

At the beginning of this term, our Creative Arts Department requested that we move our Secondary production of ?Oliver Twist? to the 450 seater Dom Kulturny Rublevo Theatre. Considering some previous Secondary productions have played to audiences of less than 100 in the old Krylatskaya Upper Campus Gym, my immediate reaction was that to play to a combined audience of 900 over two nights may be rather ambitious. This morning I heard that both nights were officially ?sell outs?. Once again, our community has surpassed our expectations and embraced this exciting new theatrical opportunity: ?As good as it gets?. Watch out London?s West End and New York?s Broadway, here comes ISM!

This term has flown by. Thank you very much indeed to everyone in our community for continuing to make The International School of Moscow ?as good as it gets?.

I wish you all a happy holiday, a Merry Christmas and a magical and prosperous 2016. I look forward to seeing you all again, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed again on Monday January 11th.

Very Best Wishes,

Paul KeachHeadteacher


Newsletter

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DecemberDear Parents,

The past half term has seen many inspiring performances around ISM Lower Campus.

In sport, inspiration abounded in the pool at our Swimming Galas and Splash Days. To see so many children proudly demonstrating skills they?d worked hard to develop in lessons was a real treat. Whether we marvel at the dedication that has honed confidence and skill, or admire the bravery of the most nervous participants, there are wonderful moments everywhere at such events. Even the smallest and shyest competitors can inspire us all just by giving it their best shot!

In the performing arts, we can also find moments of inspiration. Each Friday assembly seems to show a new class of confident young public speakers, actors and musicians, finding their voice and expressing themselves. Meanwhile Year 4 thrilled us with their outstanding musical production, ?The Keymaster?. The message of ?The Keymaster? was that we make history every day, and we have the power to take responsibility for the shape of our futures. What a valuable and pertinent message for all of us!

Finally, we can draw comfort and cheer from our ISM community?s response to the Christmas and New Year season. Already this year, I have been thrilled to see us come together in a positive spirit for a wide range of events. Thus, it was no surprise to see parents and children of all ages work together so enthusiastically to share Giving Tree gifts with some of Moscow?s orphaned children. It?s one small but important way that we can show our children they have the power to make their community a better place, starting today.

Whatever holidays you celebrate at this time of year, I wish you happiness and cheer!

Kind Regards,

Justin Noack Head of Lower Campus


Newsletter

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Snowy Times In Nursery

Nursery

Winter is a dark and gloomy season? Nursery doesn't agree with that!

This is their best half term so far!! All the children are looking for-ward to coming to school everyday. Their teachers are very happy to see all the kids with their big smiles on their faces, ready to learn new things!

The best part of the day is outside play! Digging snow, sledging with their friends, building snow castles, making snowmen of all sizes, from tiny ones to enormous ones, some even have a real carrot for a nose.

Even the many layers of clothes don't stop them from having fun with their friends. They get ready super fast everyday. They are setting a good example for the rest of the school.

Our Nursery classroom has turned into the North Pole, with lots of fun activities. Their most favourite game is to pretend to be the arctic animals and scare their teachers.

The children are doing their best at the moment, because they know that Christmas is coming soon and they have to be good boys and girls to get presents from Santa Claus.

And we think they will get them!

By Anna Ivanova


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The Great Outdoors!

Einstein states that ?Play is the highest form of research?. Well, Reception have a thriving time researching the outdoors every day! Each area of the curriculum can be accessed outside of the classroom. All the children need is some space, a few props and a little imagination.

Reception play outside every day and have especially enjoyed the recent snow flurry. They have been digging with spades, writing with sticks and building castles. They are always so ex-cited to talk about any changes in weather. Lately it is how snow is cold water and if it gets any colder it becomes ice.

What a surprise they had when they saw animal footprints we had laid out for them! Excitedly, they got to work investigating and discussing what animal it could be. From frogs hiding in the leaves, to a duck inside the sand pit, a bear behind the tree to a human under the toys, the children were delighted and completely unaware of all the positional language learning they had been sharing with each other.

On a clear Autumn afternoon, they even acted out the story of ?We are Going on a Bear Hunt? by Michael Rosen. Each child helped say the story out loud as they followed the trail and sensory activities laid out for them; grass, a river, mud, a snowstorm and a forest. The finale was a big ?cave? where a bear was hiding and they had to go all the way back through the obstacles in order to reach home.

We are looking forward to more snow this winter so that our adventures in The Great Outdoors may continue!

By Ruth Greenwood


Reception

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Celebrat ions!

Year 1

This half term, Year 1 have been looking at different celebra-tions around the world. What amazing Celebrations we have looked at!

The children enjoyed acting out the Rama and Sita story from Diwali; they made and played with dreidels when learning about Hanukkah and they learnt all about being thankful when being told the history of Thanksgiving, just to name a few. One of our many highlights however has been looking at the Dutch celebration, Sinterklaas. We were lucky enough to have some Dutch parents volunteer to a do a workshop with all of Year 1. Not only did they dress up as Sinterklaas and Zwarte Pete, but

they helped the children to make hats, they practiced throwing presents into the chimney and every student was even given a certificate to say what great helpers they had been to Sinterk-laas that day!

This was followed by an exciting art lesson where we had a gingerbread house making competition. Parents joined in, to help the teams and Mr Noack and Mr Coburn were invited to judge the best house!

By Gracie Lawrence


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A Showcase of Talent !

Year 2


This second half term has been extremely busy for Year 2. As well as our normal curriculum lessons, the Year 2 classes have been practising and performing three very different themed assemblies for the school and parents; and what a showcase of talent it was!

2A kicked off the Autumn class assemblies with a cooperation of sound! The whole class worked together, playing different in-struments, to form an orchestra and produce some wonderful music. The children skilfully played a number of different instru-ments, from cellos and violins to drums and recorders. Some children had only been learning these instruments for 8 weeks! 2A taught us all about the importance of cooperation and working together, not just when playing in an orchestra.

Next up we had 2B, with a very different assembly but with an equally important message! Year 2 have been learning all about fables in Literacy; these stories have important messages in them to help people in their lives. 2B told us the fables of The Tortoise and The Hare, The Crow and The Pitcher and The Lion and The Mouse. The assembly ended with a very catchy song about fables!

Last but definitely not least, we had 2C?s scientific assembly, which was out of this world! Aliens landed at ISM! On their planet they don?t have gravity or other forces so 2C taught them all about push and pull forces through some very catchy songs and raps. The school met Sir Isaac Newton in this assembly and he taught us all about how he discovered gravity. Mr Noack even made a cameo appearance to help the aliens when they first landed!

Year 2 would like to thank the musical talents of Mr Vermaak and the ICT skills of Mr Chapman, for helping to bring our assemblies to life, and of course to the all of the parents who came to watch! Now we can start getting excited for the Year 2 production next term!

By The Year 2 Team

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Wonderful Weather

Year 3


This term Year 3 have been learning all about weather. We have studied many interesting topics; such as how torna-does are created, the effects of floods and how to stay safe during severe weather. We have measured the weather in Moscow and predicted future weather based on our find-ings. All of our work has been put together into our own e-books which each child has created on iPads. One of our most exciting activities was creating our own weather re-ports. We began by researching what the weather is like during different seasons in the UK and chose a particular season to report on. We then studied examples of weather forecasts and the interesting language used by the re-porters. We carefully wrote our own weather reports and practised speaking them out loud. Then we learned how to use a Green Screen App and placed a map onto the green screen which we then used while filming our reports. The children thoroughly enjoyed creating their reports.

We can?t wait for our exciting new topic next term: Mighty Mountains!

By the Year 3 team

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?The Keymaster?

Year 4


The West of Moscow came to a standstill on Wednesday evening as friends and family came together to watch the final performance of Year Four's The Keymaster.

The anticipation had been building for the past couple of months as people began to wonder if it could live up to the wonderful performances this group of children have pro-duced year after year. All doubts were cast aside once the lights had dimmed and the children appeared on stage. The audience were treated to a true spectacle as they were taken on a fascinating journey through time to look at some key events in history. The songs were sang delightfully, the acting was superb, leaving the audience thoroughly en-thralled. The children all looked fantastic in their costumes and their props looked like they had been plucked straight from history. Well done to the children, parents and teach-ing staff who all worked together to produce a memorable performance.

By the Year 4 team

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Studying Russian fables

Russian


?A crawfish, a swan and a spike?

?A crawfish, a swan and a spike?, ?the cart is still there today? («??????, ??? ? ? ???», «? ??? ? ?? ?? ???») ? every grown up Russian knows that these phrases refer to ineffective teamwork. They are lines from a fable by Ivan Andreyevich Krylov. Many lines from his fables became well known proverbs.

Russian Year 3 Advanced Group 1 recently studied fables by Ivan Krylov. We read two fables and fo-cused on «? ??????? ? ? ??????» (?A dragonfly and an ant?).

The class role-played the fable in groups of three or four. This task challenged the students in many ways.

Firstly, the fables were written in the language spoken 200 years ago (time when Pushkin lived)! Secondly,

the children had to be both directors and actors: they first decided in groups who would take which role (the Dragonfly, the Author or the Ant) and then pre-pared for reading the fable with expression. After that everyone learnt their lines by heart and the groups performed once again in front of the others.

The children enjoyed working in groups and watching each others? role plays. And all the groups? work by no means could be described as a Crawfish, a Swan and a Spike?s work. If you still don't quite understand what this saying means you know who to ask for ex-planation now!

By the Russian Language team

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Amazing Assembl ies

Music


During the month of October and November we have had sev-eral wonderful assemblies. Each Year group had the opportunity to perform on an instrument and singing during their assembly.

I would like to share with you a class assembly that was all about ?cooperation? but done with musical instruments, singing and movement. Here are some excerpts taken from that assembly.

Violins and cellos are nice, and so are recorders. And drums are pretty swell, too. But if you are looking for class? . then the guitar is the instrument for you.

My good friend here thinks that the guitar has class. But he?s let one thing slip his mind. There is nothing so lovely or beautiful as when violins play together.

Melodies sound so sweet when they are played on the mellow cellos.

Owning a Stradivarius is actually quite precarious and let me tell you honey, they cost a lot of money.

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Music


Excuse me folks, but when do I get to make my statement? With a shake and a rattle and a snare roll. There?s no discus-sion, percussion helps you keep the beat. Cha cha cha boom chick crash tingeling

Recorders, flutes, piccolos and bassoons, the wonderful sound that they produce will glorify any room!

Well parents, teachers, and children, I think you?ll all agree that cooperation has won!It shows we can work as one!

By Mr Vic Vermaak

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Krylatskaya Street 12 Krylatskoe

Moscow121552

+7 (499) 922 44 00 [email protected]

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ISM Newsletter Lower Campus