March2014

=IMPORTANT DATES:= =BASKETBALL AWARDS NIGHT: TUESDAY, APRIL 1 (17:30-18:15, Zielinskiego Theater)= =EASTER HOLIDAY: THURSDAY, APRIL 17 (HALF DAY) - FRIDAY, APRIL 25= = = =MYP SCIENCE:= ==MYP 1/2: Students just completed labs demonstrating their knowledge on the periodic table. MYP 1 will be moving forward with a unit on the solar system and MYP 2 will be moving forward with diversity of life. In picture below you can see one of the students labs testing the reactions of different substances on chicken bones.==



==MYP 3: Here the students can be seen conducting different experiments about light. One group decided to see how lasers bend with different mirrors, while the other two groups choose to see how different liquids affect the intensity of light. Moreover, the students conducted an experiment about how to find the focus point on a concave mirror.==





MYP 4/5: Here the students can be seen demonstrating basic thermodynamics with a hot air balloon made from candles and a trash bag.






Mathematics

MYP 1

Jaqueline In this unit we learned about different angles. For example a right angle is exactly 90 degrees. I really liked this unit because it wasn't to hard for me and I enjoyed doing the different activities about angles. I also like the final task to do a video with a group about angles.

Sae Rim This unit was about angles. It was shortest unit but I liked it. There are many types of angles, for example, acute, right, obtuse, straight, reflect, revolution. Also, I get to know how to get complementary angle.etc. So it’s related with algebra, and I have to make video by using vocabularies that are related with this unit. Also I think we will learn more about angle in MYP2 or 3. :)

Amelia In this unit we did angles which i like. I like it because it was easy and i remember a lot of it. I would want to do it again because it was easy. I learned a lot like the name of the angles like acute angle which is a angle which is less than 90 degrees. I really want to do it again it was sososossososossoosososososososoososososos easy :) and we also have a really good teacher so it was even more easier.

Jun Soo Actually I knew all of thing. Because I learn that in Korea. So I understood very well. But sometimes the question was quite hard to figure it out. But I all understood.

Otto: This unit I learned how to count angles. It was quite interesting. I learned not so much because I do these problems at home. Still it was interesting to know the right names for the angles. I also liked doing algebra it was quite fun. I learned how to solve patterns easier.

MYP 3

Kristian In this unit we worked on 2D and 3D shapes and how to measure them. It was as usual hard to remember some things at the beginning but later on I started to get the hang of it. I didn’t think it was useful until I understood it. Overall It was not as bad as I expected.

Jure In this unit geometry and measurements I learned many new things like how to calculate surface area, volume, angles, parallel, perimeter of different shapes. It was really fun. At first i didn’t know how to do it but after a time i learned and it became pretty easy. I enjoyed this unit.

Hyoungjun In these units, Geometry and Measurement, I learned how to know if 2 or more shapes are the same or not. I really liked this unit because it wasn’t hard and I got to help other students so I had time to revise. I hope I do well in the test and work harder in the next unit.

Dhaya In this unit, I learned about corresponding, alternate and co-interior angles. Later I learned how to find the areas of parallelograms, trapezoids, rhombuses and circles. I also learned how to find the circumference of a circle and surface areas. This unit inspired me to learn some digits of pi. 3.141592653589793238462643... I also learned how to get the volumes of different prisms and polyhedrons. This was a very interesting unit. It was brief, but it was rich in content. There really isn’t much to improve this unit.

Yeon Soo Actually I knew all of thing. Because I learn that in Korea. So I understood very well. But sometimes the question was quite hard to figure it out. But I all understood.

Robert In the beginning i was bad i did not understand anything but then i figured out the formula then i found it easy to do it. Overall i think i did poor on this unit.

Liina In this unit we, learned about volume, surface area and perimeters. We learned how to calculate these from Cylinders, Pyramids, Prisms, Cones. It wasn’t really easy for me, because I didn’t really remember the formulas for them. And I also got mixed up by them.

David: New: calculating areas were new to me. Easy: calculating the area for some of the shapes. Hard: This unit was not that hard. I enjoyed it a lot. Boring: I think it wasn't to boring i always had something to do. Fun: It was ok it wasn’t a class i wanted to look forward to but it was better than some other classes Overall: overall i think i learned a lot of things in this short period of time. i had fun while i was working and always had something to do.

Chiharu: In this unit, we learned how to calculate the volume and surface area of Prisms, Pyramids, Cones, and Cylinders. For me it was really easy, because it was easy to remember the formulas, and we used that formulas all the time. I want to try some complicated one next time, to improve my knowledge.

MYP 4

Jimin In math lessons, we’ve been learning ‘Number and Indies’. I really like this unit even though I was struggling at the beginning of the unit with memorizing all the properties of index. But as we did many exercises of indices, I memorized all the properties also, I could manage to improve solving some complicated questions because I was also confused sometimes with many hard questions but I tried to practice step by step so I think I could manage to improve. During this unit, we learnt quite many things in short period like significant figures, scientific notation and recurring/ terminating decimals by solving an investigation. We are still working on some more exercises now. On this Friday, we will take the test and today we all solved the chapter review to prepare for our test. I will try to study more to improve my mistakes on question.

Hania In this unit we have been learning about Number and Indices. We learnt a lot on this unit. We learnt about all the index laws, square roots and fractions to do with terminating and recurring. This was a very short unit so all we did was things out of the textbook and one investigation on terminating and recurring decimals and how to convert them to fractions and how to do them in simplest form. What we also learnt was about significant numbers and about scientific notation, however I already knew about this before so this wasn’t hard for me. Especially at the beginning, this unit was really hard for me because I didn’t understand how to do anything. However after some time I started remembering the formulas and understanding how to simplify expressions and solve equations. I really liked this unit because I like this kind of maths and I think this unit will be really useful for me in the future when I continue learning mathematics.

Oliver This month on math we have been having a unit on number and indices. We have been learning about raising a number in index form to a power. We learned about this a week and I felt that I understood it well. We also got to know all the index laws. We also learned about how to do scientific notation. I think this unit was short and it could be longer.

Shivangi Our unit in maths right now is Numbers and Indices. This unit has almost come to the end. In this unit we learnt about terminating and recurring decimals, we also learnt about simplifying some equations related to the indices and we also learnt about significant figures and solved some equations for significant figures. In this unit I enjoyed learning about terminating and recurring decimals because I got to learn how to recognise if a number is recurring or terminating by looking at their prime factors.

MYP 5

Jessica In this unit I have done different equations and parabolas. First I studied how to do quadratic equations. I learned when these have no solutions, and 1 or 2 solutions and of course calculate x₁ and x₂. After a few lesson practising this we changed to study how to calculate simultaneous equations with two methods, substitution and elimination. First I had to just do only substitution or elimination, after I had to know which method I should use. Everything of these method felt easy after practising and I kind of understand all of them. Last I had to study about quadratic inequalities. It’s really difficult for me because I never did anything similar like this in Finland. I think this area of this unit will be the most difficult to learn and I need time to understand it.

Alexander During this unit we studied the ways of solving the Quadratic equations, linear equations, inequalities, and simultaneous equations. I can certainly see that my knowledge of that area of mathematics has expanded quite a lot, and gave me a whole new viewpoint on the subject. The knowledge that I acquired during this unit will be very helpful in the future as it is quite universal, and useful. I could use some more practice solving those equations, to further improve my understanding of them, but except for that I think I did quite well during this unit.

=Language A=


 * The MYP** 1 students are well on the way to completing their autobiographies, with one more piece of writing to work on next week. This week, we’ve also been looking using interesting synonyms to make our writing more engaging. In the pictures, the students are making wall displays to help us remember new vocabulary. Students from left to right: Hyoung Jun, Jaqueline, Amelia, Saerim and Junsoo

The MYP 2 students have now finished their children’s stories and are working on the illustrations in their Art class with Mr. Bridges. We will be starting the new unit next week. In the picture, the students are working on combining their drawings and their text. Students from left to right: Peter, Jasper and Simphiwe.




 * The MYP 3** students have finished reading the novel ‘The Outsiders’ and are now working on their personal narratives. They need to write about an even/experience that was of significance to them and helped to influence who they are today. We looked at some student models and analysed how the writer’s made their stories engaging.


 * The MYP 4/5** students have now finished their poetry unit. They had a commentary writing test last week. In the test, they had to write about one of the poems we had studied in class. Then on Monday they had an unseen poetry test in which they had apply what they had learned in the unit, to analyse poems they had not seen before.

Book Week Last week, we celebrated Book Week at WIS. The idea being Book week is to celebrate reading and try to motivate ourselves and others to read more. One great way to do this is to tell people about the great books we have read and share our reading experiences. All the students at Z campus wrote about 2 of their favourite books and we created a ‘Great Reads’ wall, shown in the picture below.

Also, attached to my wikipage, is a book week page where you can find a selection of 'audiobooks'. All the teachers recorded themselves reading an extract from a favourite teen novel, in the hope of encouraging students to borrow the book and read the rest of it. All students in MYP have also been assigned the task of choosing an extract from a favourite novel and record themselves reading it. These 'audiobooks' will then be uploaded to the wiki and we will build up a library of audiobooks that student can access in the months to come. If any parents wish to participate, that would be great - you can even choose a book in your own language as it would also be great to promote mother tongue learning by having books in a variety of languages. Here is the link to the page: http://wisla.wikispaces.com/BOOK+WEEK The page was created by Hyoung Jun in MYP 3 and he kindly helped to upload all the audio files. ** Middle School Physical Education ** The MYP 1 and 2 students just recently finished their Rhythms and Dance Unit. For their summative assessment task they were split into groups of 3 and had to collaborate and compose their own creative dance. If you would like to see the dances then please go to the following link which will take you to the MYP 1 and 2 PE wiki page:

http://wis-pe.wikispaces.com/6th+and+7th+Grade

The MYP 3-5 students just completed their Badminton Unit. The focus of the unit was on tactics used in doubles play. The culminating activity was a round robin doubles tournament, where students had to choose which tactics to use and change them when necessary against a specific opponent. Congratulations to the top 3 teams:

1st Place- Hyoung Jun and Alex

2nd Place- Jure and Yeonsoo

3rd Place- Jessica and Kristian