January Newsletter 2015 - 2016 From the Principal Dear School Community, We have completed a successful and challenging first half of the school year for 2015-2016. When we started this school year, we knew that the freshly opened Middle School needed more space to realise its Open Space Concept (please check on our website) than we had available. Finally, last week construction on our building began. We look forward to the opening of this new and beautiful Middle School. It is our hope that the new building and its surrounding grounds will renew our perceptive on space and lead to the development of more inquiry-based learning environments.
Deutsche Schule Kobe – European School 3-2-8 Koyochonaka Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-0032 Japan Tel.: 078-857-9777・Fax: 078 857- 9775・http://www.dskobe.org/・mail@dskobe.org
I am also happy to announce we have decided on a second caterer for our lunch service. With Max Mito's "Planet Bagels" we can provide lunch up to 5 days a week and keep the current caterer, who serves healthy and traditional Japanese lunches on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
At the very end of January we had a special evening event at our school. Movie Night & Evening Cafe provided our students the opportunity to meet in the evening and enjoy the thrill of cinema with popcorn, all while parents enjoyed togetherness and connecting with others at the cafe. It was a really good school community event with our wonderful family-like atmosphere. Many thanks to the PTA for organizing!
Best wishes Gerhard Lebherz
Deutsche Schule Kobe – European School 3-2-8 Koyochonaka Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-0032 Japan Tel.: 078-857-9777・Fax: 078 857- 9775・http://www.dskobe.org/・mail@dskobe.org
Events - January Assembly
The first Assembly in year 2016 was hosted by Grade 4. The students presented their postal service project with an impressive presentation. Please check out the presentation video and the following learner profile awards.
Deutsche Schule Kobe – European School 3-2-8 Koyochonaka Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-0032 Japan Tel.: 078-857-9777・Fax: 078 857- 9775・http://www.dskobe.org/・mail@dskobe.org
Events - January Assembly
Deutsche Schule Kobe – European School 3-2-8 Koyochonaka Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-0032 Japan Tel.: 078-857-9777・Fax: 078 857- 9775・http://www.dskobe.org/・mail@dskobe.org
Early Years Our whole year unit, “Sharing the Planet” includes the line of inquiry, “What plants give us.” One of the most widely used (and eaten!) plants in Japan is the rice crop. Today one student’s parents came to school with a special kind of rice and tools to make the Japanese treat “mochi.” Mochi is made by steaming this special rice, pounding it, and turning it into a sticky paste-like dough. Our kind class parents helped us do us that! They also provided kinako powder to top the mochi with and sweet red beans to fill them. This was a great investigation into how people can use plants for food. Not only did the kids enjoy making the mochi, they loved eating them too! There were even risk-takers who’d never tried mochi before and became big fans!
Deutsche Schule Kobe – European School 3-2-8 Koyochonaka Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-0032 Japan Tel.: 078-857-9777・Fax: 078 857- 9775・http://www.dskobe.org/・mail@dskobe.org
Pre School
Preschool was introduced to Chinese New Year starting off with a very fun game of Dragon Tag. In Language they listened to a story about a small girl and her family to learn how Chinese New Year is typically celebrated. From there Preschool quickly started making their own educated conclusions and questions such as ‘Why do you eat oranges for Chinese New Year?’ ‘Why do you get red envelopes?’ started pouring in.
Deutsche Schule Kobe – European School 3-2-8 Koyochonaka Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-0032 Japan Tel.: 078-857-9777・Fax: 078 857- 9775・http://www.dskobe.org/・mail@dskobe.org
Grade 1 Towards the end of the unit on our learning journeys we revisited what we had learned about learning. In contrast to the beginning of the unit where most students felt that everything that they learned took place at school with teachers being the main source of new information, they could now recognize that they could learn outside of school and on their own, with some help from parents and teachers. When asked why they still needed to come to school, they came up with the following answers:
Deutsche Schule Kobe – European School 3-2-8 Koyochonaka Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-0032 Japan Tel.: 078-857-9777・Fax: 078 857- 9775・http://www.dskobe.org/・mail@dskobe.org
Grade 2
Grade 2 students are learning the term ‘pitch’. They used listening skill and reproduce low, medium and high pitches using the hand bells.
Deutsche Schule Kobe – European School 3-2-8 Koyochonaka Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-0032 Japan Tel.: 078-857-9777・Fax: 078 857- 9775・http://www.dskobe.org/・mail@dskobe.org
Grade 3 As a starter for 2016, students tried calligraphy. Some chose one Chinese character of their name, some chose their favorite word, they all were so proud of their work. To write beautiful letters, they had to concentrate on what they were writing. They practiced how to make neat tome(a stop), hane(a hook) and harai(release) over and over again. Two lessons of calligraphy were never enough for them and they showed a little disappointed faces when they finished the calligraphy class. Maybe they can try again next new year!
Deutsche Schule Kobe – European School 3-2-8 Koyochonaka Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-0032 Japan Tel.: 078-857-9777・Fax: 078 857- 9775・http://www.dskobe.org/・mail@dskobe.org
Grade 4
The students in grade 3 and 4 are currently running a postal service at the school. This is part of their inquiry into how goods and services are exchanged, as well as learning about different ethical issues common within businesses through the managing of this service.
Deutsche Schule Kobe – European School 3-2-8 Koyochonaka Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-0032 Japan Tel.: 078-857-9777・Fax: 078 857- 9775・http://www.dskobe.org/・mail@dskobe.org
Grade 5 We looked around the class room full with a pictures of a crisis happening now. I was really shocked when I saw a man being attacked for nothing but his religion. We thought of a word popped up in my head. I learned that most people in world was poor. I want to help them by donating something. I want to find out other ways to help them too. -Ryusei
Deutsche Schule Kobe – European School 3-2-8 Koyochonaka Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-0032 Japan Tel.: 078-857-9777・Fax: 078 857- 9775・http://www.dskobe.org/・mail@dskobe.org
Grade 6 & 7
Inspired by this, the Middle Years students have embarked on an ambitious project to make taiko for the children at Deutsche Schule Kobe. In the next two months, the Middle Years students will begin the building portion of an ambitious taiko building project for Design.
Deutsche Schule Kobe – European School 3-2-8 Koyochonaka Higashinada-ku, Kobe 658-0032 Japan Tel.: 078-857-9777・Fax: 078 857- 9775・http://www.dskobe.org/・mail@dskobe.org