Cheerful Celebrations and Academic Success in an International World

In the world around us some things will stay the same, but often we have to keep abreast of the changes that happens around us.  We need to learn about the environment and how to interact with it.  We also need to learn not only how to interact with people like us, but also those different to us.  We need to acknowledge that different people have different beliefs and different views. Therefore, they have different celebrations, some related to religions and others in recognition of people who did great things. With the ever-growing technology, the world has become a very ‘small’ place simplifying our global contact with people. To understand the world and its people, we need to be very aware and sensitive in how we operate within it.

Being an international school, our class researched and celebrated different events happening all over the world.  We researched and learnt that Hanukkah is a Jewish celebration and the candle that they light is called a menorah.  Kwanzaa is an annual celebration of African American culture celebrated from December 26th to January 1st.  The seven principles of Kwanzaa are unity, self-determination, responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith.  Lighting a kinara with seven candles, is part of the celebrations.

Christmas – we made guardian angels which we handed out to our parents and staff members at CISS, and we also made decorative Christmas balls.

Chinese New Year – we had fun making Dancing Dragons, Chinese Pellet Drums and retelling the story of Nian.  We incorporated shapes to build a dragon and using the information to create a pictograph and a bar graph.

St Patrick’s Day – we listened to the story of St Patrick, made Leprechaun puppets and faces and also grew ‘ey’ word beards.

On the academic side, we investigated the force of magnets and learnt how it is used in the real world.  We researched and learnt about natural disasters. We presented our research to the class and we could ask questions from the presenter. We also researched women in history and learned the valuable lesson that once you’ve put your mind to something and are determined to reach that goal, you can succeed.

We also learned about fractions and measurement of time (analog as well as 24-hour digital clocks).  We even learnt how to measure in millimeters, centimeters and meters.  We are forever estimating and counting!  Making groups of 2’s or 10’s really makes counting quicker and easier!  We discovered that repeating patterns has a ‘fancy’ name called tessellation. Wow, what fun!  We cannot stop!

“The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you.” – B.B. King