coming up

There is so much coming up that we could not list it all

here !

Please have a look at the web calendar http://www.iskonline.

org/?c=calendar

Issue 09/2009May 14, 2009

There is just so much going on at ISK these days!

On April 22nd, ISK held its first ever Portfolio Evening in the elementary and middle schools. Instead of teach-ers briefing parents on their children’s progress in school, students took charge and informed parents themselves using a portfolio filled with samples of their work. While some parents preferred the traditional parent-teacher conference, for the most part, parents were very supportive of the new, experimental form of student-led conference, which allowed students to take more responsibility for their learning!

The results for Songquest came back on April 28th. Accolades went to Jessica Lis and Jayne Christie for Best Overall Performance, to Gabriella for best Raw Talent, to Martha Ryrko for Best Vocal Quality, to Daniel Ansari and Sol Hallam for Best Presenta-tion, to Maisy Hallam for Most Convincing Performance, and

to Elisabeth Suret, Kaat Lam-brecht and Mathilde Gstalder for Most Promising Newcom-ers!

On April 28th, ISK celebrated the Science Fair. Students from grades elementary to high school presented Sci-ence Fair projects to one an-other in a full-day event. See 11th grader Jacob Edworthy’s article on the Science Fair for more!

In academics, high school students completed a week of arduous AP© (Advanced Placement) Exams from Wednesday, May 6th to Fri-day, May 15th. Six ISK high school students took seven different AP Exams in AP Art History, AP Calculus, AP Biol-ogy, AP English Literature and Composition, AP Physics and AP Studio Art Drawing & 2D Design.

The students worked hard all year and we’re hoping for high grades of 3s, 4s and 5s!

What’s coming up at ISK?

Coming up we’ve got some awesome events! In sports we’ve got a football competi-tion for grades 3 through 9 at J & J Sport Center in Skotniki, Krakow and a swimming com-petition for the same grades on the 26th of this month at Osrodek Rekreacyjno-Spor-towy in Zabierzow.

Many trips out of Krakow will be taking place this month as well. Grades 3 through 6 will be doing Spring Camp in Raba Nizna from May 28th to May 31st while high school students in Spanish and Stu-dio Art classes will be depart-ing for Barcelona, Spain for a joint Spanish-Art trip this May 19th to the 23rd.

In academics, students are getting ready for the big Final Exams in middle school and high school, which begin the first week of June.

And, on the 28th of this month, ISK high school stu-dents in AP Art Studio and Pre-AP Art Studio will be

In this issueSomething Fishy

Grade 2 news

Spanish

Grade 5 news

Science Fair

Head in the stars

Carmina in Camelot

Social Studies

Classifieds

ISKVOICEThe Bi-Monthly International School of Krakow Newsletter

ISK dances with the stars!

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

displaying their works of art here at ISK.

This year Ms. Lidert’s AP Art Studio students submit-ted some truly spectacular drawings and 2D designs in their art portfolios.

Stay tuned for the par-ticulars because you won’t want to miss out on this!

Matt Mazzeo Head of High School

Page 2

It turns out they were away on a field trip to the Aquarium on ul. Sebastiana in Krakow!

Nursery and Preschool left at 11:00 am and took a big bus into town. After a few little Acorns successfully battled with their bus phobia, they sang songs while seated in the back rows.

Once at the Aquarium the children were divided into two groups with a special tour guide. They saw many famil-iar fish (such as a clownfish resembling Nemo and a blue tang resembling Dora), looked at fossils and the remains of a prehistoric rhinoceros. The highlight of the trip was be-ing able to touch a live snake and a spiky lizard. The children were enthusiastic and with the

exception of dropping a small ball of styrofoam into the large fish tank, they all stayed out of trouble.

The staff at the aquarium must have enjoyed us there because they blew up 26 balloons as a goodbye present! The Acorns marched toward the city “planty” waving their orange and blue balloons and then sat down on the benches to a well-deserved snack. The ride back to school was a quiet one with many happy, but sleepy children. I think it’s fair to say - the Acorns had an eventful day!

Ms. Anna Preschool Teacher

Little Acorns disappeared on Thursday, May 7th 2009.

Something Fishy is going on !

Page 3

Spanish performances !Our young students of Spanish are learning to describe people and their clothes!

RUBIO, MORENO, PELIRROJO! Ask them and they will tell you which one you are! We are also thinking of ideas for the LANGUAGE DAY on Monday June 15th.

So far we know that Grades 2, 3 and 4 will perform a song about a HAIRY SPIDER and a short theatre play about JUAN who was trying to learn how to be afraid. Grades 0 and 1 will perform a song about a friendly cockroach LA CUCARACHA!

Come and see us perform!

The older students of Span-ish visited the INSTITUTO CERVANTES on

April 23rd on Kanonicza street. It was the San Jordi holiday in Barce-lona and ladies were welcomed with a red rose and gentlemen received a book. What a welcome!

Instituto Cervantes is promoting the Spanish language and culture thoughout the world and we are very lucky to have one in Krakow.

They offer Spanish courses on site and online, Spanish exams called DELE and have a wonderful exten-sive library where you can borrow books, films and music CDs.

We highly recommend it to all our students

and all Spanish language lovers.

Below are some useful websites of Instituto Cervantes and other sites for learning Spanish:

Instituto Cervantes of Krakow: http://cracovia.cervantes.pl

Instituto Cervantes Spain offers an interactive website for learning Span-ish for children. http://cvc.cervantes.es/

Two other websites for learning Spanish: www.hello-world.com and www.studyspanish.com

And if you want to watch TV in Span-ish: www.rtve.es. I recommend going to “a la carta” where you can choose films and programs: www.rtve.es/alacarta/todos/temas/infantiles.html

This is all from our little Spanish cor-ner. Hasta pronto!

Senora Lilianna

Order your Jamboree tickets !The orders are open for the ISK 2009 Summer Jamboree!

Fiesta Mexicana Sunday, 7 June from 13:00 to 17:00.

There will be grilled food, drinks, dessert, games, a piñata, inflatables, a raffle, a book swap, and performances by the SongQuest finalists and the After School of Rock!

If you haven’t received the form, please mail pta@iskonline.org who will gladly send you one!

Page 4

Science is in the air!All students in the Elementary, Middle and High School prepared exhibits for our first ever Science Fair. Highlights of the Elementary projects included some very well-designed posters outlining the scientific process.

Students showed documentary photos and artifacts. Many of the Elementary students had live demonstrations; very popular were experiments involving soaking eggs in different damaging liquids.

Middle Schoolers caught the attention of all of us with their eye-opening exhibits involving volcanoes, magnets and tape worms. Have you ever heard a Science song? Middle schoolers sang the “Marsupial Song” for us. The High Schoolers had a captive audience when performing their chemistry experiements. They were impressive role models for all our future scientists!

Sue Mlecko

Page 5

What a joy it was to see the whole school come together during the science fair. We could tell that everyone appreciated the hard work that was put into making this year’s sci-ence fair successful.

Several projects that stood out the most were the Bottle Rocket, the Dissection of an Eye and the Rotten Eggs.

During the Bottle Rocket experiment Beth, Kayleigh, and Marcel made a rocket out of a 7 gallon jug. They pumped air into the jug creat-ing pressure, resulting in the rocket shooting into the sky once it reached its critical level. In our opinion, this experiment was by far the most exciting.

It was great to see the variety of experiments and how surprisingly easy they were to com-

prehend. Every contestant had their own way of presenting.

Even though many of the projects were op-posite, the students did a great job of not only sharing about their topic, but also about including their audience. In several of the pre-sentations like the Long Jump, the Magnetic Cars, and the Van De Graaff the audience was able to be a part of the presentation.

We also enjoyed how some of the projects were conducted indoors and others outdoors. This helped the students not get bored with either setting. We believe ISK has a lot of talented students and several future scientists. Keep it up, ISK!!!

Jacob Edworthy and Greg Smolianinov

Science fair photo album

Page 8

If you saw a big silver balloon on our school field last Friday, it wasn’t a space station: it was a trav-eling planetarium that made a stop at ISK.

All students from Elementary through High School crawled inside for a presentation by a local as-tronomy expert.

Students and teachers viewed projections of our solar system, the Milky Way and constellations from Greek mythology.

This was a unique experience: being able to see the stars in the middle of the day.

Sue Mleczko

ISK Deputy Director Head of Early Years and Elementary School

Traveling Planetarium

Page 9

It has been a very interesting 4th quarter for 2nd Grade. Stu-dents have been very eager to

learn multiplication.

We are multiplying everything!

We have started to discuss what it means to divide. We were also very fortunate to learn about the planets, stars, and other celestial objects in the universe when we went to the traveling planetarium.

The students learned what

black holes are and that there are stars BIGGER THAN OUR SUN!

It has definitely been a great year in 2nd grade and we’re ready for 3rd!

Violetta Kuzniar

What is “Carmina”?

Carmina Burana is a famous work for orchestra and chorus, written by the German composer, Carl Orff, during the 2nd World War. There are several well-known themes which have been used as dramatic, scene-setting music in films, television and adverts.

What is “Camelot”?

Camelot is the legendary castle of King Arthur, where he ruled with his wife, Guinevere, support-ed by his Knights of the Round Table. Other famous characters from this story include Merlin the Wizard, the knights Sir Lancelot and Sir Galahad, and the mysteri-ous Lady of the Lake.

So why “Carmina in Camelot”?

Carl Orff was a leading figure in music education, and devised a

system of introducing children to music which is used world-wide. He said, ““Tell me, I forget…show me, I remember… involve me, I understand.” With this philosophy in mind, a school performance of his most famous work seems the best way to get to know it. The original text is difficult, written in medieval Latin and German, but the music lends itself to the he-roic story of King Arthur and his knights. So, with a little artistic licence, we have come up with a blend of the two: Carmina in Camelot.

Please come to our performance

at ISK, 6.30 pm - Wednesday May 27,

where grades 1-8 will reveal the adventures at Camelot Castle and introduce you to the wonder-ful music of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana!

Sarah Wadiak Music Teacher

ISK proudly present

Carmina in Camelot The story of King Arthur retold through the

music of Carmina Burana, by Carl Orff

When: Wednesday May 27, 18.30

Where: ISK

Who: Grades 1-8

All welcome!

Planets, Multiplication & Chocolate

Music news - Carmina in Camelot

Social studies travel in time and space!Grade Six World History

The Grade Six class have just completed their studies of Ancient Rome.

Although we wanted to fly to Rome for a firsthand experience this year, we unfortu-nately could not so we made the best out of it by travelling with the textbook in class.

We learned all about the Roman leaders and emperors, from Caesar to Diocletian and we now know why the empire fell. It was interesting to imagine a city of a million people that existed two thousand years ago, complete with roads, restau-rants and pollution.

We also researched the rise of Christianity and the role the new religion played in shaping the Eastern and Western Empires with the Roman Catholic and Or-thodox Churches.

Currently, we are finding out about the life and times of Theodora and Justinian as rulers of the Byzantine Empire.

Mr Zink

Grade Seven World Geography

Grade Seven now have all the skills required to plan a vacation for their friends and families.

After over a month of scouring internet web resources for the best deals to flights all over the world, the class came up with their ultimate dream vacations.

Students chose adventure trips that focused on snowboarding in Chile and Argentina or surfing trips to Australia and Hawaii.

Others went on culinary holidays to Japan and tropical islands in the Pacific.

Some students chose to visit friends and family in their home countries.

Virtual tourism has been a rewarding experi-ence for all of us.

Page 10

Page 11

Metamorphosis in Grade 5No, it’s not the students who are changing, but we have visitors going through some major changes.

Grade 5 has 10 tadpoles, which are in the pro-cess of becoming frogs.

After studying about the life cycles of frogs the Grade 5 students believe some of our tadpoles to be in the 5th or 6th week of life.

Some are a little further along though, as they have begun to sprout legs. Other classes have been coming to visit the tadpoles and see first-hand this amazing life process.

We hope to be releas-ing 10 healthy young frogs into the forest near the school to live happy lives near ISK.

The other metamor-phosis the Grade 5 students are studying

is the many changes in Poland throughout its history.

Pairs are studying the major events in Polish history from 966 to the present. This is part of a project that is being worked on in Social Studies, Language Arts, IT, and Native Lan-guage.

Each pair has been given a specific time period and will produce a newspaper and video news report that will cover the important people, places, and happenings of that era.

The newspapers and news reports will then be combined into one newspaper detailing all of Poland’s history and one video news report do-ing the same.

It will be an exciting end to an exciting year in Grade 5!

Brett Elkei Grade 5 Teacher

Donate to Jamboree !!!Could you or your company make a small dona-

tion to the Summer Jamboree raffle?

If so, please e-mail pta@iskonline.org to let Teresa know.

Thanks!

Classifieds & Announcements

Page 12

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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.

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