September2012

= Welcome to the September Addition to the MYP Newsletter! =

Important Dates: October 13: WIS Family Celebration of Wroclaw International School's 10 year anniversary October 29-November 2: Fall Break

Green School Information: Where: Gdansk When: 10 June - 14 June 2013 Approximate Cost: 1200 - 1500 zloty Stay tuned we will send out more information soon regarding a deposit

= World Studies =

MYP 1
 We learned longitude and latitude and what people make is all human characteristics. Interesting thing for me was relative location. It was hard to find a place using relative location. --Ho Jung

We have been studying about longitude and latitude, absolute and relative location, and the human and natural characteristics of places. Finding different countries using longitude and latitude was interesting and we learned very much about Earth. It was interesting because I found new facts that I didn’t know. --Seung Myeon

MYP 2


We have been studying the Roman Empire, for example, the system of Roman government. Julius Caesar died and after he died the Roman government changed its system of politics and military. --Chiharu

This unit we have been talking about Ancient Rome in many ways, like emperors, Julius Caesar, and Ancient Rome government and their culture. The story of Julius Caesar is interesting because there is so many topics that it is related to. But I would like to go on to the Cleopatra topic because I like Egyptian things hehe... --Andrea

MYP 3
In world studies we have been learning about The First World War. So far we have learnt about the World war in Europe. I learnt that the assassination by a group of people from Serbia of the archduke of Austria-Hungary was the thing that started the war because, because of that Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and Russia was an ally of Serbia so if Austria fought Serbia, Russia would fight Austria. Germany was Austria’s ally so if Russia fought Austria then Germany would fight Russia. France and Great Britain were allies with Russia so if Germany fought Russia then France and Great Britain would fight Germany. I also learnt that Germany had the best and strongest army. The thing that I found interesting was the trenches because of the way they did it like if they wanted to attack, then they first sent bombs to the other trench to distract the people and then they go out and run as fast as they can to the other trench to try to take their machine guns.That is why I found this interesting because it was really hard to do that and they it was hard to gain ground with trenches and it was different from how they fought before. --Hania

We have been learning and going to learn more about World War 1. Our unit question is, “Was War inevitable in 1914?”. We are trying to answer this question. We learnt that the WW1, began because of the death of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. I found only 1 thing interesting is that the World War 1, started because of Archduke’s death. The Serbian Nationalists (The black hands) came to Austria- Hungary and planned to kill the Archduke. The main thing was that the Serbians did not like Austria-Hungary, because they were being ruled by Austria-Hungary. The reason I found this interesting is that, just because of a death of a guy and being killed by a Nationalist of Serbia. I think that this war was pointless, cause there was no reason for them to have a war. Only Austria-Hungary and Serbia had a point to war, but the other allies of these countries had no point to fight with each other. --Shivangi

MYP 5
 In World Studies, we have been studying Brazil, the country we are representing in the Model UN in Warsaw this year, and the topic of our committee, which in my case is health problems in the Roma community. We have also been looking at what we will be required to know during the Model UN, and what we need to prepare before we attend it. I found the fact that Brazil has a good economy but is a developing country interesting. It has a GDP of $2.324 trillion, and is the 8th highest in the world. --Ola

During our Model UN unit, we've been studying about Brazil and our respective committees. We researched Brazil's position in the world and how it helps the UN. We also researched our topics in our committees to get a better idea of what we would need to know for when we go to Warsaw's Model UN. I found Brazil's GDP really interesting because it was really high. Although my first thoughts of the country weren't that high, Brazil's economy was actually a very developed country. It was also really interesting seeing Brazil being so successful when there are a lot of people who live in slums. --Minhae

Language A

MYP 1

In Language A, we revised the writing process. First we planned, wrote and then revised our summer vacation recount. At the end we will edit and publish it. Our first unit was about reading and we had to catch the reading bug! (Ho Jun)

We read and wrote poems about what makes a good book, then we discussed interesting books and shared our favourite parts. The thing I enjoyed the most was reading books. At first I didn’t like reading English books, but now I like it very much. (Seung Myeon)



You've been caught!

We also learned to write a book response in which we write a summary, what we think will happen next and why we like or don’t like what we read. My favourite part was reading the story //Feeding the Dog// by Susan Price. It was a really interesting story. And of course I liked reading and writing poems! (Dhaya)

MYP 2

We started our first unit and it is called Creative Writing. At the beginning of the unit we learned about the ingredients of a good story. From that I learned that there are many ingredients of a plot. Next we focused on setting. We went outside two times and saw how different weather can affect the setting and atmosphere. Also we looked at pictures and wrote the setting of a story using the five senses. (Hyoung Jun)

I enjoyed being outside and describing what we thought of it (the setting) because I like thinking and then writing what I feel and see. And I think going outside in different weather is perfect to describe what I see. I also learned how to do summaries of different stories that Mrs. Craig had shared with us. Also how to do connections with stories that we had read and connect them with other stories or things that happened to us. (Andrea)

I’ve learned how to make a good summary and how to use the five senses in the stories and the setting we made. (Kristian)

This unit is a nice unit. I like it a lot because we get to invent many stories. We also had to read short stories. I didn’t like it because they weren’t that short, but it’s a good way to get us reading! (Victoria)

MYP 3

Our first unit is The Media – Marketing. In this unit we learned so far about the process of marketing. We learned the steps you take when you want to sell a product. Then we learned about logos and what makes them good and memorable. When we were learning about logos, we had a few lessons with Miss Kalina who used to study about logos. It was interesting to learn about logos from Miss Kalina because I learned a lot of stuff that I didn’t know before and some stuff even surprised me like KFC made more money for just changing the logo a little. After that we started learning about slogans and what makes them motivate you to buy the product but we didn’t fully finish learning about that yet. After, we are going to learn about advertising. (Hannah)

We had two lessons with Miss Kalina. She taught about many things. For example we learned about the symbolic meanings of colours and we discussed what were good and bad logos. (Ji Min)

I liked making logos because it helped me understand how to make a good logo and how to improve my presentation skills. (Seoung Woo)

I learned that it’s very hard to make one good logo and logos combine a lot of meaning. (Hyun Kwon)

The thing I’ve learned is that a logo should be clear, simple, represent the product and catch the viewer’s eye. I think our last three weeks of school were fun and interesting to learn because I learned new things and it will help me in life. (Oliver)

The thing that most interested me was slogans for products because there were many types of slogans. Some were funny. Some were in different languages and some used incorrect grammar. I liked ‘It’s finger lickin’ good’ most because it sounds like this company produces such good food, you want to lick your fingers when you eat. (Seung Hwan)

I’ve enjoyed learning about the process of marketing a product because I didn’t know that it was very difficult, but now I know. It was interesting to learn about the slogans because they seem to be talking directly to us and that’s what makes us go and buy the product. (Shivangi)

MYP 5

Our first unit in Language a class was //Genres of Literature//. During this unit we discussed about several different genres of fiction We selected genres that each of us wanted to present and started researching. The purpose of the presentation was to give classmates a brief introduction about each of the genres and to practice our presentation skills. .. Overall during the unit, I’ve learned the better way of presenting and writing organized essays with plans beforehand. Not only presenting my powerpoint, but listening to others was interesting (Ji Won)

After the presentations, we read two short stories in one of the genres presented: ghost stories. With these stories we learned or reviewed how to analyse a text and how to write an essay in the correct format. I think in this unit I have learned how to write a good essay and I think that I really improved my presentation skills a lot. (Unna)

After the presentations, we practiced commentary writing and writing our thoughts on paper. This was very challenging because I had a hard time writing my opinions and I had to be very detailed with my answers. I enjoyed the commentary practice because it was something I hadn’t done before and I was practicing something I knew would be useful in my future. (Minhae)

I enjoyed doing research into the horror genre because I enjoy reading books of this genre and I learned some new tips on how to write better in this genre. (Ola)

=MATHEMATICS=

MYP 1


My favorite part in the Unit Whole Numbers is making our own number systems. I think all the number systems are interesting. I did like presenting how to use the Babylonian system to the boys. I did not like learning about the Roman System because I am familiar with it and I think it is confusing. I think math will be fun! (Dhaya)

I like math class, it’s fun. I like to work alone. I think we should watch more videos about math. I learned some new things like Babylonian System and Modern Chinese System. (Areez)

In Math we ‘ve been learning about Whole Numbers. We were learning ancient number systems. It was fun and it was very fun to learn about creating our own number system. The boaring activity was about Roman system turning them into Arabic Number System. (Ho Jung)

In grade 6 math I learned about Chinese, Roman, Babylonian and Egyption number systems. We also made our own but it was too hard so I like our number system. (Seung Myeon)

MYP 2
I learnt more about the shapes. Also how to move shapes into different places. We also studied about the Mystic Roses. I liked this Unit because we got to do cool questions about Mystic Roses and I liked it a lot. (Victoria)

I learnt about polygons, their names and their number of diagonals. I had to find out the formula for mystic roses and make advertisement about them. (Jakob)

In this unit of math we learned about 2d/3d shapes. We had a lot of activities but the best one was the Mystic Roses. (Kristian)



MYP 3




On math we had a unit called Algebra. We learnt a lot about algebra like algebraic terms, algebraic techniques, how to expand, how to factorise and how to simplify algebraic equations and expressions. I really liked this unit because it was challenging but not too hard. I learnt a lot of stuff that will later help me in math. The thing I enjoyed the most in this unit was factorising because it was something that I didn’t know how to do before and it was good to learn it. The thing that I enjoyed the least was writing the report because it was really hard writing it on the computer because of the terms that we needed to do. (Hania)

In this unit I was learning about simplifying expressions and rules about exponents and I enjoyed when we were doing math games really enjoyed but when we were writing report it was so so so so annoying because I could write that in paper in like 3 minutes but it took 2 hours on computer because of many formulas that I had to insert. (Hyun Kwon)

The first unit was algebraic techniques. We didn’t finish this unit yet, but I will write what we have been learning about. We have been learning about factorising, simplify numbers and we have been learning about the exponent laws. I am interested in this unit. We will finish this unit on next week also we will have test on next Wednesday. I think this unit is interesting. (Jimin)

MYP 5
During the ‘Number and Measurement Review’ Unit, I learned about significant figures and consumer arithmetic. We also learned about surds and how we calculate surds related questions. I liked the way we learned (practicing it with computers and solving questions). (Jiwon)

In our first unit, we learned about surds, powers, scientific notation and significant numbers, and many other things. I had some problems with surds and calculating, but overall, this unit wasn’t that difficult. I think that scientific notation was the easiest to learn. I liked working together and on the computers the most. (Ola)


 * Physical Education **
 * MYP 1 and 2: Project Adventure Unit **

In MYP 1 and 2 we played the game called "Birds Nest." It was very fun one person was talking but not able to look at the person who wears the blindfold. Three other people was showing where to go but cannot talk and the person who should not see the blindfolded person can talk and give speaking directions to them. When i had a blindfold on it was very scary because i felt like some how gym got more smaller and then i will bump soon.

-by Ho Jung, MYP 1 student

The goal of the activity, blind march was to walk around the school blindfolded and safely. There were two types of players to this game, the first is the leaders who are leading all the blindfolded people using sounds with no verbal commands and the others are the ones who are blindfolded. The blind kids are in a vertical line everyone holds the one long piece of rope. In this activity I was blindfolded. It is a scary experience. To be honest, I always was nervous near the stairs. It makes me feel better if my friends are the closest people near me because it feels like they are there for me. This activity shows you how important trust can be and it also helps you use your senses that are not so active when you see things clearly.

-by Dhaya, MYP 1 student

We had to do a fun activity with all our class (MYP1 & MYP2) called Trust Lean. First we had to choose a partner. Then this person has to be as straight as a board and her/his arms have to be touching her/his shoulders. Another person has to be balanced with one leg behind her/ his body and other leg in front of her/him, so that he/she will do balance and will be easier to catch the person. Her/His hands have to be in front of her/him to not let the person fall down. Safety is very important in this activity, if you are behind the person who is letting her/his self fall down, in you depends her/his safety. Once they are ready to start the activity, the person who is falling down have to say I'm ready to fall down, are you ready to catch me? so the person behind have to say I am ready to catch you then Falling and finally the person behind says Fall the way, and then the person has to be brave and believe in the person behind hae to catch her/him. When it was my turn to fall down I was really scared, is that time that you feel that you are way to heavy and nobody can resist your weight so they are just gonna let you fall down, but you have to be brave and you have no choice but to believe in the person behind. But when you are the person behind it's most stressful and difficult, yeah you are not gonna be the person who can fall down, but in you depends her/his safety, and if you don't catch her/him it will be your fault. So I think is a good experience but, I am scared of it and it's not an activity that I will wanto to do everyday in P.E.class.

-by Andrea, MYP 2 student

If you would like to learn more about the MYP 1 and 2 Project Adventure unit and see some videos from some of the activities please click on the link below:

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


 * MYP 3 and 5: Frisbee Unit **

This unit on PE we have been doing frisbee. How you play golf frisbee is that you have a place where you throw it from and your foot can’t cross the line when you throw. Then you need to throw the frisbee to the pole and the frisbe need to hit the pole and then you got it. If you can’t hit the pole on one throw, you countine playing and throw the frisbee for the same pole if you hit it you count how many throws you did and that your point for that round. If you play with many players the farthest frisbee from the pole throws first. I liked it because I learned how golf frisbee works and it is a very intresting game

-Oliver Stania, MYP 3 student

In the first unit of the year, we (the MYP3-5) were learning a mixture of golf and throwing a frisbee, also called Frisbee Golf. In this game we have a specific target that we have to hit with the frisbee while using the least amount of throws as possible. But this game isn't so easy. Because we are throwing not hitting we have to think of the wind,the distance and should you be a risk-taker or do it for sure by using one more turn. This is what I tried to do while we played; I tried to use the wind, e.g. when it was blowing hard to the left, I tried to throw my frisbee a little more to the right so the wind would carry it. I also was a risk-taker at some parts of the course but at the same time I tried to be smart; I decided that I will throw quite long throw, so it would have been easier for the frisbee to hit the target but it also might've gotten over board. This was when I thought that there was a wall about 5 meters away from the target so it didn't really matter whether I went over board or not. I really liked this unit and it was really inspiring for me.

-by Unna, MYP 5 student

One of our assessments in the Frisbee unit was Ultimate Frisbee. In this game, we pass the frisbee around and our goal is to touch the wall to get points. This game is a lot of fun because there's a lot of teamwork and close calls that gives a nice adrenaline rush. You have to run a lot more than you think you do, but since you work as a team, you don't notice it that much. I think this game is good for all ages and the fact that it can be played both indoor and out (as long as there's good weather) makes it a game just for WIS.

-by Minhae, MYP 5 student

If you would like to learn more about the MYP 3 and 5 Frisbee unit and see some videos from some of the activities please click on the link below:

https://wis-pe.wikispaces.com/8th%2C+9th+and+10th+Grade


 * MYP Science News: **



Our unit is about the Scientific Method. I liked the experiment with the Bunsen Burner it was very fun and my favorite part in science was making the egg containers. (Ho Jung)
 * MYP1: **

We made rockets from paper and it was fun, and I am excited to do the egg drop. (Seung Myeon)

In science we learned about safety and the scientific method. We did experiments like "Does sugar affect water temperature?" My favorite activity was to make a container to not break an egg when thrown from a height. (Dhaya)



<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">We did a unit called Scientific Method. We had this unit last yer, but we started it to review. We did a lab called Heart rate and started doing a paper airplane in lab. (Hyoung Jun)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">MYP2: **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">I like science because its cool and kind of difficult. This unit we have done 3 things: remember all we have learned last yer, do an experiment on heart rate and and experiment with an airplane. (Andrea)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">This year in science we did a heart beating heart test. We saw how much the heart beats if we jog, run and walk. Also we did a paper airplane lab. We made airplanes out of paper and measured how far they flew. (Victoria)



<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">We have been making pancakes to see how does pancake area change with amount of milk. We also did Korean cookie and it didn't work because the sugar was too thick. (Hyun Kwan)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">MYP3: **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">This year we have started a unit called "Scientific Method." Each week we planned an experiment that we were going to do and say what we were going to measure and change. The experiments we did were: the cookie experiment, the pancake experiment and the paper airplane experiment. Some of them work well and some did not go so well. (Hania)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">This year we did one experiment. The experiment was about cooking pancakes and adding different amount of milk to it. The purpose of this experiment was to measure DV and IV. In the begging of school we did safety. Safety is very important in science classes. (Oliver)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">We made pancakes because we learnt about scientific method. I learnt how to write a scientific report clearly. We even learnt about the safety rules in a science lab. (Shivangi)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">The year we did some experiments. We made a pancake and we made some candy also. Our unit was about what is IV and DV. We also did an experiment about paper airplanes. (Seung Hwan)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">We cooked pancake because we should measure the pancake length and we learned about constant and control. We also cooked dalgona. We had a test about constant and control. (Ji Min)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">**MYP5:** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">I learned about the scientific method and how I should write a proper lab report. I think Mr. Bullock’s method of teaching was effective when he let us look at a professional lab report and find examples of how it fit under the basic format. This let us enjoy the lesson (as we could choose a report that interested us), but also learn something from it. My class also just started reviewing what we had learned about genetics last year to start our next unit, genetics. (Minhae)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">In Science, we have been reviewing the scientific method. We looked at how to structure a lab report, and we are conducting experiments and then making our own lab reports based on what we have learned so far. We are also starting a new unit, Genetics, so we are reviewing what we learned last year in the unit (Ola).

SRC Elections

On Wednesday 26th September the Elections for the positions of President, Vice-President and Treasurer were held. It was great to see that so many students want to play a more active role in the school community and are willing to be risk-takers. The Masters of ceremony for the assembly were Emmi and Unna.



There were two candidates for the position of President - Ji Won and Minhae



There were three candidates for the position of Vice-President - Kristian, Ola and Seung Hyung



There were three candidates for the position of Treasurer - Hyoung Min, Hyoung Jun and Seoung Woo



The students all gave very good speeches and the results were very close. However, I'm happy to announce that our SRC Executive committee members for the school year 2012-2013 are.....

Ji Won as President Ola as Vice-president Seoung Woo as Treasurer



Congratulations and good luck in your new roles!

In order to make the Student Council complete, each class now needs to elect a class representative. When this is done, the work begins! (Jill Craig, SRC Sponsor Teacher)