23th January 2015

Dear ISHCMC Community,

I hope that you have all had an enjoyable break. It’s wonderful to see everyone refreshed and energized ready for this new semester.

Next Wednesday, 28th January at 9 am there will be a fire drill at ISHCMC with a difference. We regularly rehearse fire drills at the School to ensure that in the event of a fire everyone knows how to calmly leave the buildings and gather together as a school. We are also required by regulation on an annual basis, to do a drill with the local fire authorities and police. Therefore next Wednesday this will take place. The authorities will place a ‘smoke bomb’ on the roof of the Design Technology/Art building to make the exercise a little more realistic. The fire brigade will also attend and they will then put the ‘fire’ out with their fire truck hoses and also using the water mains at the School.

The Tet holiday is just around the corner, and we have received reports of theft in the surrounding areas and on the main highway. This is a friendly reminder to everyone to take care and be extra vigilant during this time.

Also, congratulations to Mr and Mrs Peterson that married during the holiday break. Students joined in the celebrations by sending cards full of well wishes that were decorated on their door as a surprise for when they returned home.

To assist with traffic flow around the School, I encourage all parents to consider ‘carpooling’ or using the school bus services. If we could reduce the number of cars traveling to and from ISHCMC by 30 or 40 cars it would make a big difference to the traffic flow. I would be grateful also if parents could ask their drivers to be patient and thoughtful when driving to or from the School. One incident where a driver blocks the flow of traffic can mean congestion and long delays elsewhere.

Primary NewsExploration through non-traditional methods We started off the new Semester by learning through play. With no predestined outcome, students are free to make their own explorations and connections. We have learned already that there are many ways in which to make a line and many materials to use to make that line.

We began by reading the classic children’s book “Harold and the Purple Crayon” by Crockett Johnson. We agreed that crayons were very good at making lines, as were markers, pencils, and colored pencils.

We then tried to make lines using other, non-traditional materials, including yarn, pipe cleaners, Q-Tips, paper towel rolls, plastic straws, chop sticks, Styrofoam pieces and bundles of raffia. By themselves, they don’t work, but if first dipped in paint, it is possible to create lines using those materials. Some materials worked better than others, so after discussing which items to use, students created a drawing using paint and found objects.

We will combine all of these discoveries in a large-scale, collaborative piece. We started out by painting a one large sheet of paper per table of 3-5 children, covering up all of the white but being careful to not mix colors. The final step will be to use our non-traditional items to create lines and images in black paint.

To Be Continued!

Deborah PaulPYP Art Teacher

Sharing the Planet

We welcomed the new semester with a fantastic guest speaker, a parent of ISHCMC, Ms Sarika Hussey. She helped our unit, Sharing the Planet, come alive with her experience of working with the UN. We kicked off with an exercise to get a partner to move. Which way worked better-words of negotiation or pushing?

She shared the goals of the 2015 target of reducing poverty, disease, improving equality and the environment to name a few. It was pleasing to learn that Vietnam was making the most progress of many countries. She closed, by sharing what we can do even now as students. There were 4 things we can do:

1) Learn the facts through education2) Start with our own families3) Take action4) Sustain our environment

Germaine SerbetGrade 3 Teacher

Primary Production Performance

Welcome to this year’s Primary Production! You will meet a power-obsessed principal, an intelligent new student, and many more diverse and quirky characters along the way. Prepare yourself for a magnificent show, full of unexpected twists and turns along the way. Don’t miss it!

Emma ShadwellGrade 4

Students from Grades 2 – 5 have been rehearsing since October, running lines, learning songs, and getting ready for this year’s fabulous Primary Production, ‘A Lesson Learned’. Get your tickets from the Admissions Office now! Performances are on Wednesday 4th February and Friday 6th February at 6.30pm, with a special matinee performance at 1pm on Thursday 5thFebruary. Tickets are priced at 50,000 VND for a child and 100,000 VND for an adult. Buy now to avoid disappointment!

During the interval, healthy snacks and Winewill be provided by ISHCMC Booster Club

Grade 5 Outdoor Education Trips

secoNdary News

sPorts News

MYP Personal Project

Students in Grade 10 complete a Personal Project over the course of 8 months, requiring them to harness their Approaches to Learning skills in order to complete a product of their choosing. On Thursday, students brought in their finished Personal Project products. This marks the end of the product creation stage and research process. Students now embark on creating a report which details the steps they took to create the product, the skills they developed in order to do so, and the challenges they had to overcome along the way.

The Personal Project Fair – a showcase of all the products, process journals and completed reports – takes place on Tuesday March 17th. All members of the school community will be invited to view the products and find out how students went about creating their final piece. More details on that event nearer the time.

Stingray Fundraiser

It was great to have such a ‘sweet’ fundraiser. The smiles on the students’ faces were priceless, when they were enjoying their treats. Thank you for your support and congratulations to those that won a raffle prize!

Basketball

Last weekend on the 17th and 18th both A teams for Basketball left to play basketball at SSIS in their own time at the North South Cup. There were teams present that includes ISHCMC, SSIS, UNIS and a local team from HCMC. Each team played at least 2 games on Saturday and then at least two more on Sunday. Our team may not be that great this year, but over the course of the tournament we started to work much better as a team and by the end of the tournament we only lost to the APAC UNIS team by only 3 points (31-28) which is a major improvement from the day before in which we lost (38-18) to UNIS as well. Our team is showing a lot of promise and I hope by the time MRISA shows up we will be able to place in the top 3 and I really believe that by that time we will be a very strong team to compete against.

Kyle O’DoreGrade 10

UPcomiNG eVeNts

SAVE THE DATEThursday, Feb 12th, 2015

7:00 to 9:00 pm, MPR

Specific strategies and advice for living a healthy life in Vietnam plus leave the event with 10 top tips to apply straight away

“10 minutes of mindfulness each day, improves not only

mood and stress levels but also improves deep cognitive

processing efficiency (IQ)”Joshua Aronson

Psychologist atNew York University

Rashmi Bismark, Mindfulness

Joann Tran, Nutrition Guidance in Vietnam

Dr. Jonathan, Sleep

Justin Parkes, Fitness in Vietnam

Food, wine and soft drinks will also be served.Families in attendance will receive a goody bag and handouts of the subjects covered.

ISHCMC on the Couch covers Balanced Living in Vietnam