MS eNews – Thursday, February 19, 2015
Updated MS Calendar of upcoming events for the next four weeks:
Friday, February 20
- ISB Holiday
Fri – Sun, February 20 – 22
- ISB Activity Free Weekend
Tuesday, February 24
- No Technology Day for Grade 7
Tuesday, March 3
- Early Dismissal at 1:00pm
Wednesday, March 4
- Maka Bucha Day (No School)
Thursday, March 5
- MS PTA Parent Meeting at 11:00am – location to be announced
Friday, March 6
- MS Alternate Dress Day
- Last day of Trimester 2 classes for Grade 6
Saturday, March 7
- U11 – 15 BISAC Track and Field at ISB
Monday, March 9
- First day of Trimester 3 classes for Grade 6
Wednesday, March 11
- MS March Music Assembly at 1:00pm in the Chevron Theatre
Thursday – Friday, March 12 – 13
- MS Parent-Teacher Conferences (no classes)
Friday – Saturday, March 13 – 14
- Cancelled: MS GIN Conference
Monday, March 16
- ISB Holiday (No School)
Tuesday, March 17
- Grade 8 HS Transition Parent Meeting at 6:30pm
Thursday – Sunday, March 19 – 22
- MS SEA Mixed Choir/Orchestra (moved from March 12 – 15)
Tuesday, March 24
- Grade 6 & 7 Student Meeting re: Grade 7 & 8 program and registration info 1:25 – 2:05pm in the CCT
- Grade 6 & 7 Parent Meeting re: Grade 7 & 8 program and registration info 6:30 – 8:00pm in the Chevron
Wednesday, March 25
- Grade 5 Student Meeting re: Grade 6 program and registration info 1:15 – 2:00pm in the CCT
- Grade 5 Parent Meeting re: Grade 6 program and registration info 6:30 – 8:00pm in the Chevron
Upcoming MS Parent-Teacher Conferences
Dear Parents,
Our MS Parent-Teacher Conferences are coming up on Thursday and Friday, March 12 and 13 in place of classes those days. When and how to schedule your conference appointments? A special MS eNews will be emailed out late afternoon of Tuesday, March 3rd with information on how to schedule your appointments. You will be able to schedule your appointments online via the online scheduler we use, anytime between 5:00pm on Tuesday, March 3rd to 2:00pm on Wednesday, March 11th.
Please click here for more information about the format of the conferences and what to expect.
MS Principal Forum – 2nd Semester
Do you have a question or idea involving the Middle School that you would like addressed by the principal? The MS Principal Forum is your vehicle. It addresses subjects of wide interest to parents and presents them to the principal for consideration. Our goals include sharing information and ideas, improving mutual understanding and working together with the principal and his administration group.
From now until March 1st, we are accepting questions and ideas. Please submit any issue directly to a forum team member (see below) or to the forum’s email at mscoord@isb.ac.th. Please include your contact information when you submit to us, so we can clarify any questions we might have. However, we will not reveal your personal information to the administration!
The forum team will then meet to review and discuss all issues. The MS Coordinators will present those to the principal for his responses. The principal will report out to the MS Community in an open meeting on March 19th. The time and location will be announced via MS eNews.
Grade 6 Team Members
Shiney Aravindakshan: girishiney@yahoo.com
Ginger Duval: ginduval@gmail.com
Grade 7 Team Members
Rie Atagi: rieatagi@hotmail.com
Jill Edison: jilledison@yahoo.com
Rosalina Hernandez: rosalina@entouch.net
Maria Van Zant: mvanzant@hotmail.com
Grade 8 Team Members:
Henrietta Bullinger: hbullinger@gmail.com
Chintana (Aor) Blumenthal: aor.chintana@yahoo.com
Hyemin Lee: hyeminlim@gmail.com
Would your child like to play Water Polo?
ISB is starting a new sport. U15 water polo is co-ed so boys and girls will participate together. Any MS student with decent swimming skills can try out. Starts Tuesday at 3:15pm in old pool.
For more questions, please contact Kerry Dyke kerryd@isb.ac.th
For Grade 7 Parents
Dear Parents,
As our grade wide community service contribution, every year the Grade 7 classes sponsor several students from the R-35 School in Khao Lak. We sponsor the students through the After the Wave foundation. This year we also plan to use some of the money raised to improve the learning and living conditions of children at the Border Police School in Ratchaburi, visited during our recent grade trip.
For the past three years we have raised money through a Digital Technology Challenge and it has been so successful, for learning and for fundraising, that we are repeating the challenge.
On Tuesday February 24th, beginning at 6:30 am, every student in Grade 7 is going to attempt to go without using electronic communication devices for 24 hours. They will not be required to use any technology during the school day. Later that week we will have a Socratic Seminar about the impact of electronic devices on learning and on their lives in general.
Please help sponsor our students as they take the 24-hour Digital Technology Challenge on February 24th. If each student raises 200 baht we will be able to continue our sponsorship of the same children 7th graders have sponsored for the last 4 years. If we raise more we will be able to help improve conditions at the Border Police School. We see this as a good learning opportunity for our students and a good way for them to give of themselves as we fund-raise for others.
We want our students to be as honest as possible about how many hours they can survive without cell phones, video games, the internet, television and music etc. Our seminar will address the ways in which being digitally wired can cause multiple distractions. We believe that talking about our technology use (and abuse) will help us make better decisions about how to manage our time and our ability to communicate.
Two of ISB’s 3 major exit outcomes involve community service and giving to others. Experience shows when we are giving up something to help others, be it time or effort, then the lesson is stronger and more meaning is attached to the giving.
We thank you in advance for your support.
Team 7
(For information about After the Wave and the school in Khao Lak, please click here).
Grade 8 HS course registration parent information session
By Mr. Rogers
philr@isb.ac.th
On Tuesday 17th March at 6:30pm in the MPB the HS will be hosting a grade 8, parent information session about the on-line registration process for High School courses for next year. All grade 8 parents are welcome to attend. The week before, students from Grade 8 will receive similar information and have the opportunity to ask our Grade 9 Counselor, Mr. Kevin Davy any questions.
FIRST LEGO League World Class Challenge Robotics Tournament
By Mr. Zambrano
miguelz@isb.ac.th
Dear MS Parents,
Last Friday, Feb 13, 2015, a team of ISB students attended the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) World Class Challenge Robotics Tournament hosted by Thailand’s FLL Partner company called GAMMACO. This event took place at Nakhon Pathom Rajabhat University. The “Pantorz” Team participated with 9 children and two adult coaches (Mr. Zambrano and Mr. McGovern).
The Challenge had three parts: Project, Robot Design, and Robot Game. This season the project was based on World Class. What is the future of learning? ISB students had to develop a solution to a problem they had identified and find a better or more innovative way to help someone learn. Their FLL WORLD CLASS Question was “How could we improve the way that someone learns how to make friends in a new environment?”. As international students, the team felt this was a very important question to answer as they move a lot and receive little training to adapt to new places, environments, etc. Their solution contemplated the use of a Virtual International Playground (VIP), a safe virtual environment to make mistakes and be safe while taking risks to make friends and practice social skills. There is no “command Z” or Undo in real life, so VIP can be a place to re-visit your sims and keep trying! Unfortunately the projector at the university was not working well, so students had to present using the laptop, which made it hard for the judges to appreciate their solution.
In the Robot Game students built and programmed their autonomous robot to score points on a themed playing field and explained their robot design to judges. This is one of the highlights of the competition as two teams compete against each other to score the most points. ISB students managed to complete various missions in the 2.5 minute rounds. For the Robot Design, the team had 5 minutes to present and explain all the functions and attachments in their robot followed by questions from the judges.
Overall, it was a great day. We arrived back at ISB around 6:00 PM all tired but happy. We don’t know the results yet but feel that great learning took place and many ideas have inspired the team for next year’s competition.
Please, congratulate the following students for taking part in this amazing experience.
- Muhammad Irfan Akbar
- Asad Ali
- Misha Z. Gagnidze
- Santi Kimpara
- Brian Daniel Lewis
- Benjamin M. Maston
- Aman Jwalant Parikh
- Napat Sriworakun
- Anika Prakasen
Here are the links to some videos and photos of the event.
Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/isbmiddleschool/sets/72157650448912389/
Getting Ready for the Robot Game – video: https://youtu.be/gn3i5DGu0l0
Robot Game – video: https://youtu.be/nJlfgPu227I
Project presentation – video: https://youtu.be/r-E7l2rGDEk
For more information, visit https://www.firstlegoleague.org/challenge/2014fllworldclass
MATHCOUNTS
By Dr. Regis
troyr@isb.ac.th
On February 5 – 10, a group of ten Grade 8 students went to Vietnam for a MATHCOUNTS competition; an intense set of mathematical situations that students need to work through, some with a calculator, some without, some in groups, most individual, and all in timed settings. It was a great competition and our students represented ISB well.
Our highest finisher was 3 points off of the championship round and two other students were one point behind that! The championship round takes the top 10 students and challenges them one-VS-one with the winner moving on for speed and accuracy. Last year we were nowhere close to the top 10, so this is a big improvement! Not bad for a field of 108 competitors!
As for the team competition, we placed our top team in the top 10, taking the final spot there. Team two was ranked 18 and team three (mixed with two ISB and two other school students) was ranked 23 out of the 27 teams.
Finally, we did have three students take medals from the Mathematics Scavenger Hunt round which was a team competition, mixed across all schools, and with a time limit to find the 13 math clues, solve them correctly, and turn them in the fastest (speed was the tiebreaker). Please click here to see some pictures of the team and the medal winners.
If you see any of these students, please congratulate them for representing ISB so well at the MATHCOUNTS.
• Emily Park
• Rebecca Heo
• Pinn Chirathivat
• Sora Kanosue
• Tee Monsereenusorn
• Guy Thampakkul
• JJ Siritantikorn
• Walter Guo
• Rafa Romasanta
• Steven Papps
Repeat Announcement: Cafeteria News – New Lunch Rules for HS/MS at the Caf!
Effective Monday Feb 23.
For students to continue to enjoy the Cafeteria for lunch, they will either need their actual, topped up card or cash. We will no longer accept a verbal note of the card number. This method creates a lot of confusion when the snack and lunch items are booked from the account at a later date and time than the actual purchase. Further, many cards are not topped up, leaving the Cafeteria with lunches unpaid for several days or even weeks sometimes, until the account has been topped up again. IF your children forget their card and do not have cash, the HS and MS offices have cards that can be borrowed by the students for Cafeteria purchases that day.
Best Wishes
Michelle Mueller Ihrig – Contract Manager
889 Thai CC Tower, 30th Floor, Unit 307
South Sathorn Rd, Sathorn,
Yannawa, Bangkok 10120
Tel : +66 02-963-5800 ext. 77289
Mobile: +66 (0) 82-322-7531 | Email: cafeteria@isb.ac.th
Repeat Announcement: Middle School Art Exhibit
You are cordially invited to visit the Middle School Art Exhibit being held in the Main Library from Monday, 16 February to Thursday, 26 February.
The creative work of middle school artists features moody watercolor paintings and expressive photographs, though-provoking mixed media, and beguiling ceramics. Bring your smartphone, iPad or tablet to access the augmented reality portion of the exhibit. Click on the following two links to see the posters: Poster 1 and Poster 2
Looking ahead, the next and final Middle School Art Exhibit will be held in the Chevron Theatre Foyer from 27 April to 7 May.
Repeat Announcement: eNewsletter Guidelines
ISB eNewsletters provide a valuable avenue for communication within the ISB parent community. Please see our eNewsletter guidelines below.
Submitting an announcement for publication
ISB accepts announcements from ISB families and ISB staff for potential publication in our eNewsletters. The announcements are generally intended to highlight events that occur at ISB and/or highlight information about ISB.
What to include in the announcement
• A title for your announcement
• An email contact for further information
• An image or photo (optional)
Where to submit your announcement
4publish@isb.ac.th is for announcements of interest to the entire ISB community.
tinaratr@isb.ac.th is for Elementary School (ES) announcements of interest to ES families.
maurilib@isb.ac.th is for Middle School (MS) announcements of interest to MS families.
vijitl@isb.ac.th is for High School (HS) announcements of interest to HS families.
Your announcement will be submitted to the appropriate Principal and/or to our Marketing Director for review. ISB reserves the right to determine which announcements will and will not be published, and to edit announcements that are approved for publication.
Frequency of eNewsletter mailings
The ISB eNewsletter that is for the entire community is sent out on Thursdays. Announcements for potential publication in this newsletter must be received by noon on Thursdays.
The ES, MS, and HS eNewsletters are sent out on Fridays. Announcements for potential publication in these newsletters must be received by noon on Fridays.
by Tony Arnold
anthonya@isb.ac.th