PRIMARY 6- EMPATHY, MIGRATION, AND REFUGEES

Primary 6 is in the midst of studying the Central

Idea, “Migration is a response to human challenges

and circumstances.” After studying the reasons,

both forced and unforced, that people are leaving

their homes in greater numbers today than at

nearly any time throughout history, Primary 6 has

been seeking to understand the refugee

experience.

We conducted a simulation game for 2 days in

order to help build an understanding of what life

as a refugee is often like. Simulations are an

effective way for students to learn about

something abstract, such as another’s experience,

because it is a smaller scale of reality. It is an

effective way to allow students to live and feel

what may otherwise seem like a remote

reality. After a mini-lesson on empathy, we went outside to conduct the simulation. The simulation took students through a common refugee experience - unexpectedly and chaotically fleeing home,

making difficult decisions on what to bring, living uncomfortably in temporary shelters while traveling, scarcity

within refugee camps, and integrating into a society when you are unfamiliar with the language and customs. While

the children enjoyed the dynamic and involved activities, we always brought came back together to discuss how

these experiences can teach us about empathy for those who live these realities everyday. We always knew that we

would be safe and that the game would end. The greatest understanding that our students reached was that others

are not as lucky. The question that we will take on over the next couple of weeks is, “What can we do to help?”

3 February 2017 Newsletter for BIS Parents and Friends. No: 21/ 2016-17

HELPING HAND

As tragedy struck on the morning of

January 17, Kyrgyzstan was grieving the

loss of those involved in the plane crash in

Dacha-Suu village. This was one of the

worst events in the country’s short history,

and the entire BIS community felt its

impact. As the day moved on, the school

began to collect money, food, and clothing

to help those in Dacha-Suu that had lost

loved ones, their homes, and their

community members. Over the next

several days, BIS raised more than 48,000

Som, 80kg of clothing and blankets, and

60kg of food. What a wonderful display of

compassion and generosity. As the

International Baccalaureate emphasizes

‘Empathy’ and ‘Caring’ as two of its Learner Profile traits, such a display from the community reiterated why these

profile traits are so important in our students’ education. From our winter clothing drive in term 1, to the outpour of

help for the Dacha-Suu families, BIS continues to convey the ‘community school’ values it was founded on. A warm

thank you to those who donated.

BASKETBALL FRIENDLY

The basketball season continued this week as the Taigans played QSI-Bishkek on Thursday afternoon. There were 3

games, including boy Varsity and Junior Varsity and girls Junior Varsity.

Upcoming games: February 9 at Oxford (Boys only); February 16-18 Tien Shan Mountain Classic at QSI with schools

from Bishkek and Almaty.

CREATIVITY, ACTIVITY, SERVICE (CAS)

Creativity, activity, service (CAS) is one of the three essential elements that every student must complete as part of

the Diploma Program (DP). Studied throughout the Diploma Program, CAS involves students in a range of activities

alongside their academic studies. It is not formally assessed. However, students reflect on their CAS experiences as

part of the DP, and provide evidence of achieving the eight learning outcomes for CAS.

The three strands of CAS, which are often interwoven with particular activities, are characterized as follows:

Creativity – arts, and other experiences that involve creative thinking.

Activity – physical exertion contributing to a healthy lifestyle, complementing academic work elsewhere in

the DP.

Service – an unpaid and voluntary exchange that has a learning benefit for the student. The rights, dignity

and autonomy of all those involved are respected.

In order to demonstrate these concepts, students are required to undertake a CAS Project. The project challenges

students to:

show initiative

demonstrate perseverance

develop skills such as collaboration, problem solving and decision making.

There are several CAS projects underway at the

moment. However, we are choosing to

highlight the Arabic Language course that is

currently being offered by Adam Al

Dzhukhmani. Adam’s fluency in Arabic and his

outgoing personality have created a great

language course that our students have

enthusiastically joined.

Adam’s Arabic class is currently held once a

week and has 3 students. Two of the students

are just starting out and are enjoying the

nuances of learning a new language. The other

student has lived in Jordan and studied Arabic

while attending school there. Adam helps him

familiarize himself with the language and

extend it further.

LUNCH MENU

The lunch menu for February 5– February 9 is here: Menu

Form Teachers and our Chef are responsible for adjusting this menu to avoid any foods your child cannot eat,

according to the information provided to us by you.

YOU CAN EAT SCHOOL FOOD AGAIN!

If any parents would like to try the lunch menu at school you can do this from 6 – 17 February to allow you to choose

any lunch from the full 2 week menu. You need to sign up here and you will need to be at school on the day you

book at 13.00 to buy a lunch ticket from the cashier for 100 Som and then go to eat lunch in the main café. Sign up is

limited to maximum 10 parents every day and you must be signed up at least one day in advance so the kitchen has

enough food. After eating lunch with us, please complete the very brief feedback form here.

NEW STUDENT COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVES

As the new term is underway, a new student council body has been formed in the Primary School. This term’s class

representatives are:

- Primary 2: Ai Hashimoto, Anna Bogdanova, Kais Karim

- Primary 3: Knox Armstrong, Isabella Velez, Thomas Seaton

- Primary 4: Aaly Toksonbaev, Nicole Chandra, Pari Khushvakhtova Mokuo

- Primary 5: Ayan Alymov, Aijan Grant, Zakir Kalyev

- Primary 6: Harriet Habicht, Dauren Oberhuber, Azret Sultanov

This new council, under the guidance of Mr. Alex, will have their first meeting early next week. They are tasked with

preparing the School’s Valentines day event. This event is a great time every year for students to celebrate the

holiday and break up a rather long winter. We look forward to these new representatives taking initiatives across the

school and supporting the

PAMC FACEBOOK PAGE

The new PAMC Facebook page has been created as a means of connecting BIS parents. The objective of this group is

to build a community and have respectful and friendly communication among

the parents. The group will be private and will encompass the following:

Announce local events and classes that could be of interest to

parents and students

Buy and sell personal items

Any school and non-school relates fundraising

General parenting/support questions (i.e. Does anyone know of a

good orthopedic surgeon?)

Questions about the school that are after-hours (i.e. Schedule, what

is needed for classes?)

Requests for supplies

Questions about life in Kyrgyzstan

This group strongly encourages all languages, especially English, Kyrgyz, and

Russian. The group will only be open to past and current BIS parents, as well as School staff and administrators.

You can access the page, here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357595434609640

UPCOMING EVENTS

Tuesday 14th February: Valentine’s Day – organised by Student Council

Wednesday 22nd February: Science Fair

Thursday 23rd February: Homeland Defenders Day – no school

Wednesday 8th March: International Woman’s Day – no school

Mon 20th to Fri 24th March: Spring Break – no school

Monday 27th March: First Day of Third Term

Friday 31st March: Nooruz celebration at BIS

More information about all of these events will be sent to you later, or see http://www.bis.kg

KEEP IN TOUCH

If you have anything you want to discuss or suggestions for the school, please contact your Form Teacher and they

will either answer directly or pass the message on to the right person. Messages can be sent in English or Russian, or

in your own language. If you do not know the correct email address for the person you want to write to, please write

to info@bis.kg and our Reception will forward your email to the right person.

mmn

This week Preschool 1 was introduced to the transportation theme. We discussed how we get from one place to another on land, in the air and on water. We also learned to use traffic lights to stop and go. On Thursday we had a sorting vehicle activity; children were asked to sort such silly things like a banana, a

bucket, a chair in addition to a car, a bike, or an airplane. We also talked bridges and how they help us to cross rivers, roads and obstacles on the road. Children were involved in an experiment where

we tried to construct a stable bridge able to carry toy cars. For art we made hot air balloons, traffic lights and popsicle airplanes. The best part for us was

making transportation

snacks. We had fun making

traffic lights with the help of Nutella and M&Ms candies, airplane

bananas and cookie trains. By the end of the week we understood that there are various means of transportation, helping us to move from one place to another as well as travel from one country to another.

Preschool Newsletter No: 21 / 2016-17 3 February 2017

Preschool Discoveries

This week in Preschool 2, children were introduced to the ‘my pyramid’ food groups. The learning outcomes was for children to know the difference between food, non-food items, different groups of food and also nutrition in foods. Children were introduced to the vocabulary protein, grains and dairy and linked it to phonic sounds p for protein, g for grain and d for dairy. Children were made aware of which food is protein like beef, chicken, fish or nuts, grains are bread, pasta, oatmeal, cereal, and dairy is milk, yoghurt or cheese. We discussed the

foods we eat in the school cafeteria, the colours, taste and which food group the meal belonged to. Children had fun sorting food in the three categories. It was explained to children vitamins are substances we find in healthy food; in fruits and vegetables vitamins are related to their colour, for example red and orange fruits and vegetables are rich in vitamin C, green is for iron, blue, black, and purple are antioxidant. They understood the importance of eating all kinds of food to have a balanced diet. We saw a children's educational video and read a book on the importance of washing hands before touching food, why exercise is important and ways to keep healthy by choosing what we eat. It was great to see children washing their hands so carefully and eating healthy food in the school cafeteria.

In Preschool 3 this week we focused on the problems oceans are having due to human’s actions, thus we learned about global warming, pollution and greenhouse effect. Then we brainstormed ideas on how preschool 3 can help to protect the planet, we concluded that using bicycles and walking was better than using the car. We learned that if we have a lot of toys we don’t use, we can exchange them with other children to have different toys instead of buying new ones. We also learned to reduce litter by reusing and recycling, and children gave their ideas on how to use different objects that usually go directly to the trash bin. We learned that we need to use less plastic, for example when we go to the supermarket, and we saw a video of how does it feel for see animals to be trapped in a plastic bag. So don’t be surprised if your

children start telling you about recycling or bringing reusable bags to the supermarket. During music we learned that music is another language to communicate to others how we feel. In maths we learned that things can be sorted in different ways, thus the children organized themselves according to the numbers they had, to their size or the colour of their hair. In literacy we continued working with rhyming words. See you next week! The preschool team