News for Parents

What was going on in the U6 area on Monday? No sign of the children. Pirates, princesses, bears and dinosaurs cavorted in the groups. That can only mean one thing: it’s carnival season in Germany and it’s a very special time of year for children.
You slip into other people’s roles and enjoy the hustle and bustle to the fullest. When else are you allowed to throw confetti around and wear creative costumes? A celebration of Carnival, Fastnacht or Mardi Gras is therefore almost mandatory – and of course this also applies to Researchers and Discoverers. Great carnival games, balloons and of course exciting costumes, celebrating together was a great pleasure for everyone involved and a nice change from everyday life. 
The carnival party, allowing the children to slip into new roles and playing with the costumes, encourages self-confidence and imagination and of course the “fifth season” is just a lot of fun. The focus of the celebrations were familiar games and activities such as the trip to Jerusalem, which put a smile on the faces of all the children.
There are many regional differences in the carnival celebrations in Germany: Carnival or Fasching? Hey or Alaaf? However, everyone agrees on one point: the festive season includes pastries made from yeast dough, fried in fat and filled with jam. Whether donuts, pancakes or donuts, the sweet delicacy is simply part of the foolish time. And the Researchers and Discoverers could also enjoy the sugary yeast balls on Monday.

Young children are naturally curious. The educators are therefore usually bombarded by numerous questions about how things work and why they happen. Young learners are naturally curious about the world around them. This natural curiosity drives them to explore and investigate, and it is the most important reason they learn.
I was even happier this week in the U6 area that FNU (formerly science lessons) can finally be offered weekly again. That’s why things got underway in House G on Monday: The explorers marveled at the effect of heat and cold on the very simple example of how water can change.
Science is an extension of the child’s everyday world. Science encourages and teaches children to discover and wonder about everything in the world around them. As children experiment and talk about what they are doing and what they have discovered, they expand their oral expression in a fun way. Having to experiment and record their investigations gives children an understanding of their world.
The U6 area is looking forward to many more great experiments and is happy to be able to firmly integrate FNU back into the curriculum.

For a long time, there has been an offer at the IGS that has unfortunately died out somewhat due to the pandemic – every Tuesday, interested colleagues met on campus for teacher sports. In the future, we would like to renew interest in college sports within the college, especially for the many new young members of the college. Because the same applies to teachers as to all professional groups: only those who are healthy and well-balanced can achieve outstanding performance in their profession. That is why teacher sport is so important. As part of this interest in renewing teacher sport times together, some colleagues created a survey in order to determine the levels of interest amongst the collegium in offering football, volleyball, yoga etc. for the teachers again.

The first week of the year of the cat is behind us. It was great to see how the children stormed the schoolyard waving happily and occupied the group rooms on the first morning. However, some small news awaited them. The U6 area had grown during the break. The educator Jennifer Ottofülling is now supporting Ms. Schoechert with the resourceful Researchers. But the clever Researchers have also grown. In addition to Tim Hoppe and Yen Nhi Nguyen, who have been supporting us for 12 months as part of a voluntary service, the U6 area is happy about the additional help of two other interns – Wiard Schmidt, who supports the pre-school building for 4 weeks as part of his teacher training, and Simon Jungbluth, who actively helps in the kindergarten.
The first week flew by! The focus was on Spring and, as is the case in the calendar, the next public holiday is not far away either: Carnival is just around the corner.

We wish all students, parents, colleagues and friends of our school a wonderful Tet Festival, many beautiful moments with family and friends and Happy New Year to all of us!

Goodbye Tiger, Hello Cat!
Thursday and Friday were also celebrated in the IGS on the occasion of the Tet festival. There were numerous colorful activities by the students for the students. It started with an impressive lion dance and a funny Tet play as well as music from the primary school. The next day, for the first time, the student representatives officially spoke to the school community and thanked the whole IGS for all the beautiful moments in the first half of the year. 
Corona is finally forgotten and school is blooming again!
In addition, Kevin (9th grade) and Julian (6th grade) played an impressive piece by Vivaldi and the principal also addressed the students with warm Tet greetings.

It’s been raining cats and rabbits over the past 2 weeks as we’ve been busy in the art room preparing for the Tet celebrations. We’ve been making masks, costumes, puppets and decorations. Our biggest and most exciting challenge was designing a triptych of cats to put on display as a mural to celebrate the new year. Classes 3, 4, 5 and 9 have worked together to create these spray-painted artworks, working well as teams to design and paint their canvases. Chúc mừng năm mới!

There is so much to do as families and schools prepare for the most wonderful time of the Vietnamese year. The U6 area also used Tết as a theme for two weeks of lessons and classroom activities. In kindergarten and preschool, everyone, including teachers and students, were busy preparing for the “Spring Festival” as the Tết draws near every year. In each group, teachers and children worked together to decorate their rooms, make bánh chưng, and prepare artistic works for the festival that help the children experience the real atmosphere of the tết. 
A special highlight was a trip to the flower market, where all the children could examine different flowers and plants for decorating houses on the occasion of Tết, e.g. peach blossoms, apricot blossoms and kumquats. What better way to learn about the Spring Festival than being surrounded by colorful flowers? 
It became more and more colourful in the groups. Homemade cats were hung up, Li Xi were folded, and fruit sculptures were carved. On Thursday, the children in the U6 area were even able to marvel at a lion dance that the students in the higher classes had rehearsed especially for this occasion.
With a colorful Ao Dai show and a traditional tea ceremony, all “Researchers” and “Discoverers” were finally released on Friday for vacation.

German-Vietnamese Children’s Books
The Horami publishing house from Berlin has set itself the goal of placing the focus of its publications on Asian culture. German-Vietnamese children’s books especially, are not found very often in Germany, which is why the Horami publishing house stands out with its works. 
On Monday we were fortunate that Bao-Tram Thai, the Co-CEO of Horami Publishing, was able to visit our school to give a reading in the elementary school and preschool. The children listened intently to the stories of “Armstrong”, the mouse who explored the moon.
We hope that there will be another reading soon!

Charity in times of Globalization
The non-profit association ACO Charity from Munich is committed to social projects in Asia, especially in Vietnam. Concerts, food stands and other events are planned in order to collect donations. These flow into a children’s center in South Vietnam or into a training program for young people in North Vietnam. The exchange in North Vietnam in particular can take place on an equal footing: the members of the association teach them English and receive Vietnamese lessons in return.
The Loc Nguyen, board member of ACO Charity, was at the IGS on Wednesday to give a talk to our IB students and our Class 10s. During this lecture and subsequent discussion, the students had the opportunity to think about a social project that they could do within the CAS module in the IB. :The Loc Nguyen was able to provide helpful tips.

he winter holidays are only just over and the next big celebration is just around the corner: TET!
The festival is an occasion for families, friends and relatives to meet again. And the anticipation of the festival is also clearly noticeable in the U6 area. The whole week has been busy with handicrafts, singing and reading.
The week kicked off with a story about the mythological race that created the Vietnamese zodiac. The cat in House G was therefore examined more closely. After all, this year’s TET Fest heralds the Year of the Cat. In addition, the group rooms were decorated with home-made Hoa Mai flowers and Li Xi was folded for the festival.
More exciting highlights are also on the program for the coming week to usher in the Year of the Cat, full of happiness, prosperity and goodness.

Various German GIB schools in Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia have joined forces to work on the 3rd edition of the GIB Global News. This is a magazine filled with contributions from students around the world. Individuals from the 9th grade have been working on this magazine since the Autumn of last year.
What is exciting about this year’s edition, is that our IGS met online with the German School in Manila and a school in Berlin to discuss clichés people generally have about Germans. This exchange has been uploaded as a podcast.
Have a listen!
Link to the magazine (page 73 QR code to the podcast): https://issuu.com/deutscheschulebarranquilla/docs/gib_global_news_iii_final

Dear students, dear parents, dear friends of our school!
We wish you all the best for the upcoming holidays and the start of the new year 2023! After our impressive Christmas market with its wide range of offers, everyone is finally ready for Christmas holidays. Thank you to everyone who took part in the performances and to the many, many helpers without whom we would not have been able to hold the Christmas market in this form.
We look forward to seeing you again in the new year when school starts again on Thursday 5th January 2023.
Incidentally, it won’t be long before the Tet holidays begin with the handing over of the half-year reports on January 20, 2023 when school finishes on Friday at 2:30 p.m.
Warm greetings from the entire IGS team – Merry Christmas!

During the previous week, the school grounds were lovingly converted into a magical Christmas world by the entire team and our students. Days beforehand, delicious smells emanated from all corners of the school grounds: mountains of different biscuits and other pastries were baked, punch and mulled wine were cooked, and other decorations were cut, glued and made – and of course our choirs and bands rehearsed Christmas carols for weeks.
St. Nicholas also visited us on December 6th and distributed his presents. On the 3rd weekend in Advent, the IGS felt like one of the most pre-Christmas places in Southeast Asia, at least in Ho Chi Minh City!
The Christmas market was a great success, which was only made possible by the excellent cooperation of the entire IGS team and all the parents and friends who helped.
We are already looking forward to our next Christmas market on December 9, 2023!
Link to the photo gallery

This week, students who are completing German dual vocational training in the commercial sector in Hong Kong visited our IB students. The program included an information event for our guests on the opportunities and challenges of dual vocational training, as well as a joint lesson in epistemology (TOK) on the subject of Christmas.
Part of the visit was also a tour of our school campus which had been decorated for Christmas, a visit to our U6 area and an insight into working with the 3D printer in our Nawi laboratory. The day offered students and teachers from both institutions many opportunities to get to know each other personally, which was actively used during lunch and football games.
We are happy we had this opportunity for career orientation and intercultural exchange for our students and wish our guests from Hong Kong a good time in HCMC!