Newsletter 08.11.2024
An extremely eventful week, both globally and at our school, is drawing to a close.
On Thursday, November 7th, we celebrated our traditional Lantern Parade for St. Martin at the German International School Accra. Children, parents, and teachers gathered from 4:00 PM going for coffee and cake to remember the legend of St. Martin with colorful lanterns and cheerful Saint Martin songs. For the singing, we all received strong and heartfelt support from the singer Souly Bird. After the kindergarten presented the legend and students from the German as a Foreign Language (DaF) and English groups explained it in their respective foreign languages, we gathered for the procession in front of the DISA's inside gates. The last lanterns were lit, and the hobby horses were saddled. Then the gates opened: The Lantern Parade started at 5:30 PM, with people of all ages walking—on foot, in strollers, or riding hobby horses—through the surrounding streets, creating a warm and festive atmosphere. At the end, our Martina and our Martins, wearing capes, distributed the coveted "Weckmänner" (St. Martin’s pastries), which were enjoyed together and symbolized unity and sharing within our community.
At the same time, a dinner was held at the Swiss Club in honour of the doctors, nurses and helpers, hosted by the AHK and GIZ. During this week, the doctors operated on numerous children with heart defects at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital. They did this on a voluntary basis in response to a call from the Gerald Asamoah Foundation. Gerald Asamoah presented Mirna Adjami Lüdin, Chairperson of the Board, with a defibrillator in recognition of the growing cooperation. Many thanks also go to the dedicated parents of our school, who provided the helpers from Duisburg Hospital with coffee and cake throughout the week.
Two DISA interns, Touali Koré and Lena Prosser, are currently expanding their experience with cooperation partner Universal Wonderful Street Academy at their new location in Old Ningo. Together, they have developed a project on plastic waste and how to avoid it and are putting it into practice with the primary school students. Next week, two more interns will pick up the thread.
Reading aloud together and immersing yourself in stories, discovering foreign worlds and empathizing with other people - reading aloud is fun and lays the foundation for a successful future and an understanding relationship between children. For this reason, next Friday, November 15, “Read Aloud Day” will be celebrated throughout Germany under the motto “Reading aloud creates a future” - and we at DISA will of course participate too! Three special events are planned for this day:
1st/2nd period: After an interactive introduction starting at 8:10 am, the children will come together in their age groups (Kindergarten, Grade 1/2, Grade 3/4, Grades 5-7): Books in German or English will be read aloud and other exciting activities related to reading and stories are planned. If you, dear parents, would like to participate as a reader, please contact your child's class teacher.
3rd/4th period: Now it's getting exciting for the pupils in grades 5-7, because we are taking part in the “Reading Competition for German Schools Abroad”! Over the past few weeks, the children have practiced reading aloud expressively and have chosen the best reader in their class. The three class winners will now read aloud in front of their classmates and a jury - the school winner can then take part in the international finals next year.
5th period: We are delighted to welcome children's book author Christina Groth to our school for an interactive reading for children in grades 1-4. Ms. Groth is bringing her new book “Mopping!”, the second book in her children's book series “Carlo von Catwig”, which shows the adventures and challenges of a stray cat in a dog hotel. By the way, the idea for this book series is based on a true story... but we won't reveal any more today!
Download PDF Infos Mopping German only
This winter holiday, we are offering your child the unique opportunity to immerse themselves in a world of wonder at the ‘School of Magic’ winter camp! From 16 to 20 December, children aged 1-12 are invited to spend a week full of magical activities, creative fun, a swimming day and magical secrets. The camp runs from 8am to 2pm each day and lunch is included for school children.
Please note that only school children need to register, while for our kindergarten and preschool children the camp is already included in their regular calendar. However, they will need to pay for lunch from the North Ridge Café.
Our Administrative Assistant Agnithur Amponsah Boateng will be making a career change on 1 December 2024, which we very much regret: "I am getting ready to start the next chapter of my journey and am excited to see what the future holds. It has been a great experience working with the GISA community and I feel fortunate to work with the great team here at GISA. Every moment has contributed to my growth and I leave with a wealth of knowledge and good memories."
Kindergarten and nursery:
This week in the nursery was all about St Martin. We put together a great St Martin jigsaw puzzle and learnt more about the story.
We also had a lot of fun acting out the story ourselves. Then, of course, we also finished our lanterns for the lantern walk. They turned out really great!
This week, our preparations for the St Martin's festival in the kindergarten went into the final round. We finished the last lanterns and continued to practise the St Martin's songs and our little St Martin's game.
During learning time this week, the children were able to explore drums in more detail, try them out and learn different rhythms. We also unpacked and repeated the number memory from last week. With different pumpkin faces, the children were able to recognise and find different shapes and notice differences in the faces.
In the ‘English Club’ this week, the beginners have been working interactively on the following topics using an eBook;
- at the beach
- things in the classroom
- this is a …
- where is the …?
The advanced children were given new worksheets and continued to work on phonics. They also learnt new words.
After our big St Martin's Day celebration on Thursday with the successful performance, we took things a little easier on Friday. The children were able to create colourful pastel pictures with finger paints and glitter, which now decorate our group rooms. We also spent a lot of free play time in the garden.
Primary school:
In class 1/2, St Martin's Day was a complete success and the children were very proud of their self-made lanterns.
Animal quizzes were created and solved in English lessons. In maths, they started working on the euro. The children will certainly want to talk about different currencies around the world at home. In Science, the children have completed their kites by folding and cutting the edges and attaching the sticks. Today the kites were flown and playfully explored how shapes change.
Class 3/4 had an exciting and wonderful week. In German in Class 4, adjectives were studied. We now know what "pudelnass" (soaking wet) and "wieselflink" (as quick as a weasel) mean. The German learners' special highlight this week was crafting horses, zebras, and unicorns for St. Martin and describing them in German. In the Tiger group (German support group), they worked with iPads on the Anton app. The Giraffe group continued reading the book Die wilden Hühner and worked on their individual tasks.
In maths, we reflected on our lessons and individual progress and solved St. Martin-themed tasks. Additionally, two groups (German with Benjamin Akrong and English with Laura Lützeler) practiced the St. Martin interview. In arts class, we finished our lanterns and made "Pustemonster" (blow monsters). A very special highlight was that, after an exhausting crawl session in swimming, we were treated to an ice cream.
Secondary school:
Firstly, I would like to describe a magical situation in the class council of year 5/6. Clementia Mayoga had started to tidy up with the class in the geography lesson. When Alex Bergfeld then joined them, they decided to clean the floor as a team in the following lesson, help each other sort their papers, scrub the blackboard clean, sort the bookshelf, look after the plants and much more. A wonderful picture and a sign that we have grown together as a class. To top it all off, David then invited both classes to his birthday party. David, thank you very much.
In Year 6, we are reading ‘The Brothers Lionheart’ and are all enthusiastic about the book. We immerse ourselves deeply and enjoy reading to each other and creating a reading diary. In HTW, the robot project is coming to an end. Here, too, the craftsmanship is now working really well. In IT, we are in the process of ‘researching’. We are questioning things and getting different opinions and theories so that we can compare them and recognise our own truths. In history, things got political this week, as the students focussed intensively on the presidential elections in the USA.
In maths, Patrick and Russell worked with learners on measuring angles and the different types of angles. Learners completed activities to grasp the concept and feedback was positive.
In German, physics and chemistry, the pupils had practical exercises on building a pinhole camera and identifying mixtures and solutions. This identification of mixtures helped the learners to understand the different forms of mixtures - homogeneous and heterogeneous mixtures.
Experiments such as this enabled learners to understand the concept of how light propagates and how images are inverted when using a pinhole camera. The concept of mixtures also helped learners understand homogeneous mixtures as a uniform or even composition and heterogeneous mixtures as a composition of different constituents.
In history, it became topical when looking at the elections in the USA, while in geography the journey took them to the Upper Rhine Graben and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
In their German lessons, the seventh-graders studied ballads, specifically Mr von Ribbeck. The main focus was on writing a summary. The topic of reportage was completed beforehand. In English, they looked at different types of sentences. The highlight of the week was St Martin's Day and sports lessons on Thursday.
Outlook:
Fri, 15.11.2024 Reading day/reading competitionSat, 23.11.2024 Christmas market
Thu, 05.12.2024 St Nicholas Day
Fri, 06.12.2024 Farmer's Day - no lessons
Fri, 13/12/2024 Last day of school before the Christmas holidays
Mon, 16/12/2024 -
Tue, 07.01.2025 Christmas holidays
Mon, 16/12/2024 - Fri, 20/12/2024
Fri, 20.12.2024 Holiday care
Wed., 08.01.2025 first school day after the Christmas holidays - according to plan
