Travelling through space and time... AD 900

During the previous IPC-unit ‘Weather and climate’, Upper Primary pupils made many connections between their ongoing learning and the world around them. They are now more aware of how their behaviour, habits and attitude affect the world around them – as well as the people around them. They know that everybody has the responsibility for his or her actions. They understand that choices they make affect others.

The Big Clean Up was a successful Exit Point for that unit. Fully prepared with garbage sticks, gloves and garbage bags from Ivago, pupils were ready to make a difference here in Ghent. Passers-by gave Upper Primary pupils a thumbs up or supporting comments.

Before this Exit Point, pupils had spent a lot of time programming, creating their own online quizzes using Scratch, and it was fantastic to see how they helped each other through this activity. There was a lot of frustration involved in this activity, some pupils even, by mistake, pressed the wrong button and deleted a lot of work – but they were supportive and resilient and they helped each other through the challenges.

Science is great fun! Before the Easter holidays, pupils visited International School Leuven to participate in this year’s Battle of the Scientists. Upper Primary also had lots of visitors during these weeks. Scientists from Wetenschap op stap came and showed pupils how to extract and investigate DNA from bananas! Pupils got to try out exciting experiments and were inspired to learn more. Dental Hygienist students from Artevelde Hogeschool came here to give pupils a workshop on how to take care of their teeth. Pupils understood that our Healthy Habits and our Water Only rule here at ISG actually is a good thing for their teeth and their health.

Pupils have enjoyed Word Adventure Week - where the focus was on reading lots of different books, listening to others reading books to you, reading to others, reading poetry, writing poetry and learning poetry by heart. Books are amazing!

Pupils have said goodbye to Miss Hilde after her traineeship in Upper Primary. What a great teacher trainee she was! It was a sad moment, but we are looking forward to Miss Hilde visiting us here at ISG!

Pupils have celebrated birthdays - Happy Birthday, Yumiri, Rita and Jood!

Our new IPC-unit is called ‘AD 900’ and it has taken us back in time. Pupils are now learning more about lost civilisations and they are impressed with the artefacts we can still see today. The first civilisation they visit is the Maya people and pupils already know about the lost city-states, the hierarchy in the Maya society and lots of fun extra information. Did you, for example, know that the Mayas pricked naughty children with a cactus? Or that they thought that cross-eyed people were the most beautiful people? There are so many fun things to learn! Now, pupils will look into the cool way of writing and counting that the intelligent Maya people came up with. And there are still other civilisations to visit before the Exit Point, so even though the summer holiday is coming closer, there are still a lot of things for us to research and learn more about. Our Personal Goal in April and May is Enquiry – and pupils really get to use their enquiring minds during this IPC-unit.

Now we are preparing for the International Festival here at ISG, and after that, we will continue continue learning about glyphs and symbols and art and… Learning is fun here at ISG!