News for Parents

The first candle on the traditional Advent wreath was lit on Sunday. This also launched the U6 section into the pre-Christmas season. Before Santa Claus finally squeezes through the much too narrow chimney on December 24th, however, there are still so many activities, traditions and customs to celebrate around this, the best time of the year. This of course also includes a properly-packed advent calendar.
At the end of November, the U6 section created its very own Advent calendar and filled it with plenty of exciting Christmas activities. There is singing, handicrafts, baking, and theater. There is dancing, reading, and poetry. There is a little door every day, and, at the very end, out pops Santa Claus.

Along with the whole of Germany, last Friday we celebrated a special Reading Day entitled “Friendship and Solidarity”!
Our students were able to take advantage of various reading challenges in different languages as well as implement their own reading activities for younger students. Our library team took this opportunity to present some ideas on online lending, including plans to launch our own Audio-Bibliothek (specially designed for U6 – elementary students) coming soon!
We want to thank all the students who took part, from the quiz designers to the audio actors, from the presenters to the translators – thank you for your help!

Along with the whole of Germany, last Friday we celebrated a special Reading Day entitled “Friendship and Solidarity”!
Our students were able to take advantage of various reading challenges in different languages as well as implement their own reading activities for younger students. Our library team took this opportunity to present some ideas on online lending, including plans to launch our own Audio-Bibliothek (specially designed for U6 – elementary students) coming soon!
We want to thank all the students who took part, from the quiz designers to the audio actors, from the presenters to the translators – thank you for your help!

What do teachers actually do on pedagogical days at school? These took place at the IGS on November 12th and 15th, 2021. During this non-teaching period, the school staff worked on planning and organising larger topics for which there is usually simply too little time in everyday school life. In addition to the planning of various project days (Awareness Week, IJSO, IB project day, Reading Day), class and specialist conferences were held to promote joint educational activities.
In the post pedagogical days reflection, school staff judged the school-wide planning time as extremely productive and profitable for the rest of the school year

“What’s this I hear? Another IB Day? Aw come on! It was so much fun last year!”

Every year the IB teachers spend a lot of time and energy designing activities aimed at creating awareness for the International Baccalaureate for grades 7 and up. The IB is the key which opens the great big locks on most universities world wide. It’s one of our school’s most important warranties for a future education for our students.
Although the IB day will be online this year, it will consist of a number of innovative, exciting and thought-provoking activities which will lead us in our quest to determine the elusive, the perfect, the ideal IGS Learner!

Over this last term, Grade 9 have been learning about the major art movements from the 20th century- all through a series of self portraits! Starting with portrait studies inspired by the art movement called Realism, they are moving though weirder, more modern and more abstract styles as they study the timeline.
We wanted to take a moment to share some of the fantastic work they have been producing at home – good job gang!

Our online St Martin celebrations went digital this year! Students from Klasse 3 & 4 came together to transcribe a photo of a traditional St Martins walk from Stuttgart that happened over 55 years ago! Each student took a segment of the photo and through digital painting techniques brought their ideas, marks, and patterns to each square.
The result is a colourful patchwork of styles that hopefully brings our community together – just like the traditional holiday itself.

Parades, lanterns, colored lights in the dark, alarm clocks, fire, a hot cup of punch in the cold, a soldier’s coat shared, a beggar and the feeling of community – all these thoughts arise in us when we think of St. Martin’s Day (also known as Martinmas). In order to make Sankt Martin something very special this year too, the teachers organized a virtual Martin parade together with the U6 area.
On Tuesday evening, the entire staff met and moved across the campus to the Martinsfeuer (St. Martin’s fire) with self-made lanterns accompanied by singing and guitars. Afterwards there was a performance of the story of St. Martin in the warm light of the fire, and a joint conclusion of the festival in which everyone sang the song of St. Martin accompanied by the piano.

In order to be able to share the culinary highlights of St. Martin’s Day with the families at home, teachers from the U6 area met on Wednesday for a joint online baking session with their parents. The sweetest variations of the traditional ‘wake-up men’ and St. Martin’s geese were created.
St. Martin’s Day is also about the idea of “togetherness”, of being there for one another. With these thoughts in mind, the entire U6 area started the day on Martinstag with a common morning circle. As a surprise, the colleagues disguised themselves and re-enacted the story of St. Martin, who shared his coat with a freezing beggar.
The digital lantern parade was finally shown to the learners on St. Martin’s Day via zoom.

When the St. Martin’s bonfires crackle in Germany, the children parade the streets with their colorful, hand-made lanterns. We are pleased that making lanterns with our U6 fathers has been integrated into the annual plan as a fixed tradition.
In order for this beautiful tradition to be realized this year, the U6 section prepared handicraft packages that the parents were able to pick up in advance. Together with the kindergarten teachers they crafted the lanterns during a cozy online meeting. Wonderful unique pieces were created and the anticipation for the small, virtual St-Martins-Festival in the U6 section is steadily increasing!

On the first parent-teacher day of the academic year, the parents had the opportunity to talk to the class and subject teachers individually about their children regarding their school performance, their behavior and other school-related topics. The purpose of the parents’ day is to provide the opportunity for parents to ask for information and get an overview of the development of their child. Of course, if necessary, further meetings could be arranged or parents could get tips on how they can optimally support their child at home.

During the course of their specialist courses, the students in class 3 have not only intensively observed the weather in the past few weeks, built measuring instruments and learned how clouds and thunderstorms arise, but also designed their own weather maps and made appropriate presentations – just the way you want it done on television.
“That was a lot of fun. I felt like a real moderator, ”Charlie said proudly of his presentation. Meanwhile Andy thinks: “Maybe I would like to become a meteorologist one day. There you can observe and calculate a lot in the sky.”

Things have been getting a little spooky this week in Villa B! Klasse 3 had a masked sing-along with Mr Armes and then joined Klasse 4 to design some sinister snacks for the holidays. After we enjoyed some ghost chocolate, powerful lollipops and x-ray doughnuts klasse 5 took part in an improvised skeleton challenge with materials found around the house.
Happy trick or treating everyone!

Chocolate
We were given the task in Music class to write the same advert script for an imaginary product in three different languages, namely English, German and Vietnamese. These scripts were then shared within the group and each person recorded themselves in one of the three languages by matching the pace of the background music created by the group. These recordings and the background music were then edited collaboratively and presented to the class and our music teacher.

Anna, Adrian and Minh
listen to:   Schokolade      So-co-la     Chocolate

Coffee
We rewrote the script twice and re-recorded the voiceover so that it could fit. Phu, Khoi and Luong voiced the advertisements in different languages. Thanks to Khoi and An, we were able to use some awesome music to go along with the advert. The final edit of the advertisement was done by Phu and Khoi, so that the music and the voiceovers fitted together, making it sound nicer.

Phu, Khoi, Luong and An
listen to:   Kaffee    Ca-phe   Coffee

This week, the students of Grade 7 and Grade 8 had the opportunity to participate in one of the school’s library activities which was called “Trivia Competition”. This activity tested students’ knowledge by answering questions in both English and German on different topics such as Science, Nature, History, Geography, Entertainment, Sports, Technology and especially, Halloween.
The students had a lot of fun competing with their classmates during the contest!

We would like to congratulate the two winners Tran Chi Dan and Tran Thuong Van on winning the Trivia rounds and thank all the participants who joined and made this interesting contest successful.
We are looking forward to seeing all of you at the next library activity.

Stay tuned!

It’s that time of the year again – the week of witches, ghosts and vampires has begun. The researchers and discoverers couldn’t get out of the horror either. We celebrated Halloween with the children with many gruesome activities.
The Fearless and Daring Explorers proudly presented their Halloween costumes, made ghostly masks, immersed themselves in the world of the children’s book The Little Witch, and became successful ghost hunters through a spooky memory game.

And also for the Clever and Resourceful Researchers, Halloween week was a great opportunity to slip into their costumes and provide a proper scare. Ghosts, witches, gruesome songs, even hollowed-out pumpkins with carved scary faces and homemade bats: this week spookiness knew no bounds. In order to get to the bottom of the horror, the Clever and Resourceful Researchers even traveled to America and dared to visit a famous Halloween house.

Fun with Jump’ n Run!

Starting this week, the students of grades 1- 5 can slip into the role of a video game character and dive into different worlds of video games together with Mr. Tietz. Many athletic exercises must be mastered to pass all levels in games such as Roblox, Super Mario or Minecraft. We are looking forward to an abundance of challenges!

We’re happy to announce our new SV team this year! Voted in by our class reps: Herr Kehm, Ms Quynh Anh and Mr Wayman will be on hand to help our students with any ideas or projects they want to bring to the student council. Very soon the SV will come together to vote in the head representatives and discuss this year’s projects – we can’t wait!

In an interdisciplinary unit, students of Grade 9 dealt with the solving of linear systems of equations and the production of acidic and alkaline solutions as part of their Math and Chemistry lessons.
Firstly, linear systems of equations were set up in Math class, then solved, and finally the results were used to produce various acidic and alkaline solutions in Chemistry class. The changes in the pH value of a dilution series were investigated.

At the end of the project, the students could not only experience the application of newly learned mathematics in Chemistry lessons, but also enjoy the beautiful color wheel they had created.

Reduction of Screen Time 

The IGS students are currently in the fourth phase of home-based learning. As teachers, we are extremely proud of how hard-working and motivated our learning groups continue to be in accepting and mastering the challenges posed by distance learning.
The teachers at IGS are aware of the fact that the prolonged phase of distance learning brings with it certain challenges. For this reason, a steering group has been formed in the teaching staff which collects, organizes and evaluates already existing as well as new methods and tools in order to constantly develop our teaching methods, tools and approaches in the interests of the learners.
The aim of this new steering group is to develop methods for reducing screen time for the online teaching phase and to standardize and optimize the use of digital teaching elements. This is a long-term project which aims at ensuring the functional implementation of digital learning materials at the IGS which will extend beyond the distance learning phase.

A great surprise was waiting for the kindergarteners this week: lovingly assembled packages of books were ready to be picked up. In this pilot project, every kindergarten child was able to look forward to three books which the teachers had selected according to their interests and which the parents could pick up at IGS’ “Blue Gate.”
The offer of the “book surprise bag” will be extended to the preschool in the coming weeks and will then be available to all children of the U6 section.

Students of Class 9 & 10 participated in a debate on the topic “Should students be allowed to play video games during weekdays and during school terms?” organized on October 21, 2021 at IGS. The opposing teams put forward their arguments for and against the topic and thought carefully about aspects of addiction, physical/mental health issues and how games have an impact on critical problem-solving skills.
There was also a floor debate that followed in which the audience expressed their own opinions regarding the topic and reflected on the viewpoints addressed by the two teams.
The proposing team of Adrian, Khoi, Valeria and Minh won the debate. Well done!