Newsletter 04.10.2024

Written on 04 October 2024

This school week is not even over yet, because tomorrow, Saturday, 5 October 2024, our cultural school festival will take place from 3 pm to 7 pm under the motto ‘Made in Germany’.

Under this year's motto ‘Made in Germany’, the students have been exploring various topics relating to Germany. There are creative activities for children, exciting exhibitions and captivating performances. German specialities will be served, while a parents' café and public viewing of the Bundesliga will take place in the Swiss Club. A brass band will provide lively music and invite you to dance to German and Ghanaian classics. The event offers a wonderful opportunity to experience culture, build bridges and have fun together. Please invite your friends and acquaintances so that good ‘Vibes - made in Germany’ can spread throughout Accra.

The annual general meeting of the German International School will take place on Tuesday, 8 October 2024 from 6 pm to 8 pm. Further documents were sent out today.

On Wednesday, 9 October 2024, we will be hosting an all-day event as part of the AHK's ‘German Days’. This in cooperation with the Sparkassenstiftung and ‘Faces of football e.V.’. Former German national footballer Petra Landers (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petra_Landers ) has dedicated her social project to promoting girls' football in Africa: http://facesoffootball.org/ A total of 30 girls aged 7-12 will take part in the workshop. Football meets the world of finance - Sparkassenstiftung is supporting this project and its employees are providing information and inspiration on the subject of money/saving/etc. In addition to some pupils from our school, representatives from our partner NGO Universal wonderful street academy and our neighbouring school in Nima, the Youngsters, will also be taking part.

Fun & Run 4 Street Children - Sponsored run in cooperation with Chance for Children

GISA has been cooperating with the non-profit organisation for street children ‘Chance for Children’  for almost nine years. As part of GISA's social activities, we are jointly organising a Fun & Run 4 Street Children event at the school. It will take place on Saturday 26 October 2024. We are organising a children's sponsored run for the day and hope that you and your children will take part. Further details will be announced later in October.

Last Saturday, 28 September, we held our first teen club from 2 to 5 pm. The children had great fun making waffles and milkshakes, playing FIFA and Wii and were introduced to the world of electronic music with a DJ session. Next time we're going skydiving and bowling at Bliss, we've got a lot of fun ahead of us!

On Wednesday, our students enjoyed a one-hour workshop on inclusion and participation. The team led by Björn Nass visited us for the second time under the title ‘Football in your Life Parasport Days Ghana’.

On the Day of German Unity, Mirka Huth, Ramona Klaes and Rainer Kropp-Kurta, a small delegation from the German International School Accra, visited the new location of the Universal Wonderful Street Academy in Old Ningo.

Our intern Touali Koré offers tutoring in maths, German and English in grades 1-7. She is at DISA until August 2025.

Kindergarten and Nursery:

This week in the nursery we have been working intensively with the topic Germany. We played a Germany memory game, made German flags, kneaded our own bread and then baked it! It was great fun and also strengthened our fine motor skills, creativity and concentration! We rounded off the German week with a super tasty German breakfast! We all filled our bellies to the brim!

In keeping with our ‘gummy bears’ theme, we started our gummy bear factory this week in kindergarten. Using pipettes, we carefully filled our mixture of juice and gelatine into the moulds and took the finished gummy bears out of the fridge a few hours later. They are ready to be tasted at the German Days! We also used our study time this week to prepare for the German Days. We have been busy folding, gluing and colouring gummy bear bags. We also continued to rehearse for our performance on Saturday. In English Club, the children have been working on phonics this week. The beginners looked at the letters A-D, named matching words and then read a book and answered questions about it. The more advanced children learnt the letters A-F, named and matched words to them and then played a phonics memory game. On Friday it was time for our big dress rehearsal. We eagerly took to the stage and gave it our all. We are already looking forward to finally being able to present our song to you tomorrow!

Primary school:

This week, our students in class 1/2 engaged in a fun and creative activity: zigzag picture story writing! They created a unique story that connected each image. After completing their stories, the children had the opportunity to share their creations with the class. This boosted their confidence and appreciation for each other's creativity. Encourage your child to share their zigzag story with you at home! The year one students are making amazing progress in their reading and writing in German. Their motivation is exceptional and the quality of their work is impeccable, because they focus on using their best handwriting. The millipedes continued to work on number decomposition in the form of worksheets and with the help of the shaking boxes. The letter box in class gets filled every week and the letters are getting more and more elaborate. On Fridays there is always a letter in your child's bag, because the letter box gets emptied after our "Klassenrat", where we reflect on the week with gratitude, apologies and sometimes criticism to solve whatever needs to be solved.

Another short week comes to an end. In German we have continued to work on verbs in year 4. Year 3 have been consolidating spelling and our German learners have been doing special vocabulary work with flashcards, spelling words and introducing grammatical gender with the song ‘der, die, das’. In maths we wrote a mock paper and now we have a good idea of what the paper will look like. This week in English, our students had a lot of fun presenting their self-written stories! They followed the structure of a story, including introduction, development, problem, solution and ending. This collaborative activity encouraged them to appreciate each other's creativity and improve their storytelling skills. The English group with Laura Lützeler also finalised their story and prepared to present it to the other English group next week. Encourage your child to discuss their story with you at home! The water in the LaPalmHotel pool is slowly getting warmer again and we were able to dive and swim with joy. Our ethics games are slowly being finalised and next week we will be able to play them all, further strengthening our class community. On Wednesday we had a workshop on inclusive communication - we learnt some signs, played an interactive rock-paper-scissors game and listened to a fairy tale and worked together in teams. That was a great change of pace. Today was our last project time before the German Days tomorrow. We also did the dress rehearsal and are already excited to present our results from the project time to you all tomorrow.

Secondary school:

The week was characterised by workshops and preparations for the big event on Saturday. In English this week, our students immersed themselves in the fascinating world of figurative language! They learnt about different types, including metaphors, idioms and personification, and how these devices enhance writing. The children worked in groups to discover and share many examples of figurative language. This group activity encouraged teamwork and creativity while deepening their understanding of how figurative language brings stories to life. Encourage your child to find examples of figurative language at home too! For the past few weeks, our intern Lennard has been teaching the Tuesday German lesson and the progression has been completed with creative tall tales. Thank you very much, Lennard! In History, the pupils learnt about the Etruscan influence on the formation of the Roman Empire and in Geography, the home-made map of Europe is growing. The workshop on Wednesday focussed on inclusion in sport. The exercises were fun and a big thank you to David, who did a very good job as interpreter. See you on Saturday.

Two class tests were written in year 7 this week. These were in the main subjects of maths and German. In addition to the class tests, we also had a visit from the Bundesliga on Wednesday. Some representatives of the Bundesliga told us something about ‘Inclusion in sport’. In history, we created a creative and informative wall newspaper about Roman history, and in geography, the seventh-graders learnt about different types of volcanoes. On Thursday, we were all allowed to sleep longer as it was German Unity Day and we had the day off school. On Friday, we did our final preparations for the German Days on Saturday. You can look forward to great projects, beautiful performances, exciting products and great people. See you tomorrow at GISA!

 

Outlook:

Sat., 05.10.2024                         School festival ‘Made in Germany’ as part of the ‘German Days’ of the AHK

Sun., 06.10.2024                        5 pm *Gizo Gizo: A Tale from the Zongo Lagoon* at the University of Ghana (voluntary offer, Registration deadline has already passed)

Tue, 08.10.2024                         6 pm - 8 pm: AGM

Wed., 09.10.2024                      Faces of Football: Football workshop for girls with former national football player Petra Landers in cooperation with Sparkassenstiftung

Mon, 14.10.2024 - Fri, 18.10.2024
Fri, 18.10.2024                           Autumn holidays

Mon, 21.10.2024                       First day of school after the autumn holidays (according to plan)

Sat, 26.10.2024                        Fun & Run 4 Street Children - sponsored run in cooperation with Chance for Children