ple, their eagerness to learn from others and grow, to ac-quire knowledge.

Our EIS Village is a concen-tration of this and I really enjoy contributing to our young student’s growth and witnessing them gaining confidence day after day.‘Caring but firm, creative and hardworking’, this is what people often say about me. What they would say also is that I am a strong be-liever that ‘learning should be fun’, especially for the

CAMPUS DEVELOPMENT

I had the opportunity to move to Vietnam and join the EIS team in 2012, after a decade of living and teach-ing in several countries, in-cluding most recently Sin-gapore. Since then, I have been enjoying teaching in Kindergarten 1 and working in such a friendly, pleasant and exciting environment.

Every day, I am impressed by the energy and enthusi-asm for development that you can feel in HCMC, in the city itself and in its peo-

Snap Shotlittle ones for whom moti-vation for learning comes mostly from curiosity and a fun atmosphere.

My colleagues and I strive to create the most welcoming environment in the class-room and in our teaching style, to make sure that the children come to school with a smile and leave with an even bigger one. The EIS campus and curriculum is an ideal environment to en-able this.

by

Joyce EikelbergEarly Years teacher

ments underway and completed during the next two school years. In addition to that, we are currently looking into an adjacent property to accommodate an assembly and multi-purpose hall, further advanced science labs and additional classrooms.

Before presenting the further campus development plans, we want to reflect on how far we have already come since moving the school to Thao Dien. It was just two years ago that our school consisted of a mere three villas, squeezed together between forbidding walls, hidden on a quiet street. Many of those walls have since come down and a full scale campus has emerged, featuring eleven buildings for a ca-pacity of 450 students by 2015. With the help of Korn architects, we designed the campus as an educational vil-lage, providing all EIS students with a welcoming, engaging and challenging environment for learning, where students really can “spread their wings to soar”. The acclaimed firm of Korn Architects is aiding us now with a major upgrade of both our academic and sports facilities. These will include: • Large, open classrooms with more space for Music and

Art• School-within-a-school villas for Early Years and Junior

Primary, with their own facilities and playgrounds and separate entrance on Ngo Quang Huy Street

• An expanded library, situated in its own villa• New indoor and outdoor playgrounds and sportfields• A 25 meter swimming pool for on-site swimming classes

We eagerly look forward to getting these campus develop-

www.eishcmc.com The Village 2014 | June - Issue III

VillageEducating Global Citizens

The

To discover where the crawly creatures live, the teachers took the children on a bug adventure in the schoolyard to see what they could find. They were very excited to find beetles, snails, ants, butterflies and spiders. Most of the children were very proud to show their teachers what they had found, while some of them preferred to sit quietly and observe the creatures. They enjoyed using magnifying glasses to watch how ants crawled in a line along the twigs of a tree and now they understand that some crea-tures move quickly, slowly and that some can fly.

- Ms. Joyce Eikelberg- Ms. Edhita Agustin- Ms. Eva Pfister

Little Explorers

While some adults find in-sects and bugs annoying or even creepy, most children find them fascinating and exciting.

This month, our “Little Ex-plorers” have been very busy learning, discovering and investigating the bugs and crawly creatures living around us.

They discovered how they look, how they move and where they live through books, videos, role-play and exploration around our school. The children loved singing action songs like “Incy Wincy Spider” and “The Very Hungry Cater-pillar” as well as watching various short films and vid-eos related to the Unit of Inquiry.

‘Vincent’s art work is com-plex, often taking on multi-ple perspectives within the same piece. He regularly includes his ‘characters’; little men, who jump from scene to scene in Vincent’s mind as he translates men-tal imagery and commits his work to the page’.

In Focus

A Bug Adventure

Vincent VoigtGrade 2 student

The students really enjoy hands on, practical learn-ing experiences. During our Grade 1Unit of Inquiry about natural forces, they had the opportunity to carry out many investigations about the effects of forces. We made paper spinners to test gravity against air pres-sure and observed that hav-ing spinning wings slowed down the fall to the ground. Students used magnets to move metal objects and filings around and gained an understanding of how strong a magnetic pull can be. We learned that floating or sinking is not just to do with weight. As when we discovered that an orange floats when the skin is on and sinks when it has been peeled. The students were principled during the exper-

Primary Point

iments and realised the im-portance of fair testing when making comparisons.

The children delighted in creative activities and en-joyed expressing their ideas using a variety of materials and processes throughout the year. They demonstrated the ability to appreciate the work of famous artists. All students were able to make amazing images to rep-resent their response to Van Gogh’s sunflowers. The stu-dents designed their own 3D fish, making excellent use of paint and pattern, during our Sharing the Planet Unit of Inquiry. The Under the Sea habitat came alive in the display of their work.

Learning is Fun in Grade 1

Secondary SpotRecently, we have been studying Algebra and Ge-ometry. We have been ex-tending our Mathematical language, notation and techniques when translat-ing problems into equations which we then solve.

Substitution and evaluation are other techniques which we apply when working with formulae and equations. In particular, we have been focusing on alternate and corresponding angles, tri-angles and quadrilaterals. This is preparing us for our future study of trigonometry. Grade 8 and Grade 9 were lucky enough to hear about Applicatons in Mathematics when we attended a lecture presented by an Australian engineer.

Pi Day on 14th March was enjoyed by all Secondary Mathematics classes. Al-though we are not specif-ically studying the circle, pi is probably the only irra-tional number that we are familar with at this stage so we celebrated by eating apple pies, chocolate pies and lemon pies while we worked on tasks associated with 3.142... Mental arith-metic is another activity which we approach through games and competions. Last year one of Mrs. Camp-bell’s Grade 8 students was FOURTH in the WORLD in an online mental arithmetic competition, so she is aim-ing even higher with us!

- Ms. Elspeth Campbell

STEM CornerScience Technology Engineering Mathematics

The Village 2014 | June - Issue III

but they also had to think and reflect on how the classes connected together to make a completed video. When asked what they had learned in the collaborative proj-ect, Trung said, “I have learned how to animate a rig using Blender. A rig is like a person or a thing that you can move and animate, a body structure. I enjoyed learning how to be patient.”

Another Grade 6 student, Ju Ri, also commented, “I learned LMMS, rhythms, melody, beat and putting music and video together. It was hard, and not always fun, but I felt strong and that I could do it. It gave me confidence.”

- Ms. Maddy Banahene

This term, the Grade 6 Music and Technology classes joined forces to create animated music videos. The joint venture was designed as a way for students to experience making all parts of a produced video and to discover all the jobs that make up many of the animated films in the world today.

Each student used the EIS School Song and Linux Multi-Media Studio to create an alternative melodic arrangement and music recording. At the same time, students developed a 3D character of themselves and animated it to perform a dance routine to go with their “School Song Remix.”

To be successful, students not only had to be knowledgeable about the different elements from the individual classes,

We wish all students, parents and teachers

16th June - 4th JulyEIS Summer Programme

1st AugustOrientation for whole faculty

4th AugustOrientation for new Staff

7th AugustOrientation for Parents and Students 11th AugustFirst School Day

19th AugustParent Information Evening

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