WINS Newsletter | Term 2

World International School Torino

WINS Newsletter SY 21/22 | Term 2

This Issue

EY....................................................pg. 2 PYP.................................................pg. 4 MYP&DP.......................................pg. 9 Whole School Initiatives...........pg. 14

Term 2 at WINS Dear families, With the second term, the school year is in full swing and we are now approaching the last months of school, which will mark a special milestone for WINS, as we will have our first DP graduating students.

During these last months, our students successfully carried out the programs of the various subjects, but they also had the opportunity to participate in various initiatives to develop their IB Learner profile attributes and reflect on topical issues.

This was also the time to introduce our Students Ambassadors to the community: Emanuel Rinaldi (Kindergarten), Giorgia Garavelli (MYP student), Arina Basbayeva (MYP student) and Niki Eminefendic (MYP student). You will find some information about them on the pages of this newsletter.

Another important event was the presentation of our Athletes and the launch of our AFEC program, with the special participation of two professional athletes who shared their extraordinary daily challenges with our students.

In addition to fun moments as Carnival, the students never stopped working hard and achieved a great result: on World Maths Day, WINS was the first school in Italy in 7 categories out of 10, and second in the remaining 3.

Last but not least, I take this opportunity to thank all the teachers and families who have been cooperating with our school in initiatives aimed at supporting the Ukrainian refugees. Every little action can give relief and bring a smile to those who are suffering in these difficult times.

Best regards, Giulia Mazzocchi School Manager

Sustainability

Throughout the second term at WINS, there has been a constant undercurrent of interest and action for sustainable living in our community. Due to the difficult circumstances of the pandemic, we were forced to carry out a lot of the teaching from home and with important social regulations, and therefore had fewer opportunities to organise schoolwide events in the interest of sustainability.

Nevertheless, sustainability remained a constant focus in all of our classes. PYP students studied and are currently carrying out incredibly interesting units that can help us to understand our impact on the envireonment and the world around us. Many of these are features in the pages of this newsletter.

School-wide there has been a strong focus on reusing our resources and being more mindful about the objects that we would normally throw away without much thought.

Let's continue to have these important conversations throughout the community and continue to make changes that can positively impact our environment and our future!

EY: Nursery-PreK 'Animals All Around Us' Unit

Land or Water?

The Nursery-PreK students have been working hard learning and exploring about all kinds of different animals.

They had lots of great ideas about the animals they already knew: what they look like, and where they live.

Through play, they have learned about the impressive memory of elephants, trying their best to train their own memory to be like elephants!

With all of this new knowledge and new skills they worked on sorting land and water animals.

What do we know?

'Sunrise and Sunset' Unit

Elephant Memory

In Italian, the students have been learning about the difference between day and night. When can we see the sun? When can we see the moon?

EY: Kindergarten Field Trip to Botanical Gardens As part of the unit on 'Plants' the Kindergarten class had the wonderful opportunity to go visit the local botanical gardens. It was a wonderful way for the students to connect with nature and explore the things they had been learning about in class.

Storytime In Italian, the 'Storytime' unit focused on a few of the best-known stories. For Goldilocks and the Three Bears, the students learned how to put the events in the right order. For Jack and the Beanstalk, they built the magic plant with all the characters, sharing ideas about where they should go in the scene.

Passports to travel the world!

Let's travel! The students made their own passports to travel to school all over the world, even making their own personal plane to fly away in. Where should we go next?

PYP G3 Market

Lattolandia: G1-2

As part of their summative assessment for the Market unit, Grade 3 organized their own market for their parents and the students of PYP. The Grade 3 students created all the decorations, designed their products, and raised a whopping 322 euros for charity!

Also as part of this unit, the Grade 2 students went on an exciting field trip to Lattolandia where they were able to meet lots of animals and even try their hand at cheese making!

Grade 2 was joined by the Grade 1 students on this field trip, who have just started their unit on 'Animal and Plant Survival'. They are loving learning about their physical features, how they adapt to their natural habitat, and how important they are in our lives. On the field trip, they also made cheese out of the milk we get from cows - it was eye opening and so much fun!

G2 'States of Matter' Unit At the start of term 2, The Grade 2 students started learning about the different states of matter, carrying out lots of fun, hands-on experiments in the classroom.

They investigated the different properties of materials.

For example, is paper strong enough to build a tower?

PYP PHE

Second term in PE was a busy time.

Transition and Grade 1 started their Swimming blocks after doing a great job collecting their lifesavers point. They showed they were able to be safe and listen carefully to instructions so they earned their ticket to the swimming classes.

EY is working on general body coordination in the gym and soon is starting a very exciting unit that will involve a lot of thinking and use of their senses.

Grade 2 crushed performing arts unit, and learned how to move and internalize Rhythm. They also learned how to jump rope in many unusual ways.

Grade 3 and 4 students have been practicing ball games: handball, basketball, 4 bases, terminator, and dodgeball.

Warm days are here now, and we are looking forward to move outside for some open air physical education. Great job everyone!

G5 Poetry Unit

This term, Grade 5 students, in cooperation with Writer's Workshop, have been studying Italian poetry, including Dante.

The students have been learning about the structure of a poem, metrical patters and the use of figurative language.

In addition, they have memorised and analyzed some of the most famous Italian poems and they have written creative and original poems.

The students were extremely proud of their poems, presenting them alongside their research work on Giacomo Leopardi and the analysis of his poem L’Infinito. In preparation for the presentation, children carried out an extensive and meticulous work by collecting all the relevant information related to the Italian poet.

As a result of this project, all the children developed their research, organizational and speaking skills.

G1 'Light and Sound' Unit In term 2, Grade 1 has been learning about Light and Sound.

They explored their properties, sources, and how to communicate with them. Communicating with sound may be easy, but they had to really rack their brains to think of ways to communicate using light.

PYP Transition: 'Forces' Unit At the beginning of term 2, the Transition class started their unit about 'Forces'. They learned about the types of forces that we see all around us: push, pull, roll, and slide. Putting their developing knowledge to work, the Beaver class performed lots of interesting experiments in the classroom, and investigating how forces work in the real world.

G2 'Maps' Unit

Grade 2 have recently started a new unit all about maps! They have been looking at all different kinds of maps, learning about what they can tell us about the world we live in, and finding out how to read the special language that cartographers use. Ready for a trip around the world?

G5 'Energy' Unit During Term 2, the fifth graders explored the world of energy through a variety of labs and hands-on activities. The class learned about how energy is transferred between objects when they collide, and how and why things speed up and slow down. Students built models to investigate the relationship between energy and speed, height, and heat and analyzed the data they collected to draw conclusions.

As a team challenge, the fifth graders created their own Rube Goldberg machine out of recycled materials. The goal was to turn on a flashlight (which they also made themselves) with a marble that goes through several energy transfers. All the teams created innovative Rube Goldberg machines that managed to turn on the flashlights. Great work, fantastic fifth grade!

PYP Corso Chieti Market: G3

Transition: 'Celebrations' Unit

As part of their summative assessment for the Market unit, Grade 3 went on a field trip to the Corso Chieti market where they were able to use their money counting and budgeting skills to make purchases.

In the weeks leading up to the Lunar New Year, Transition started to learn more about this celebration: its history, its symbols, and its contemporary customs. During online learning, the Beavers made their own lanterns, and back at school they worked hard on their own dragon masks, as well as learning the story of the Lunar Calendar. Happy Year of the Tiger!

In Italian class, to prepare for carnival, the students made their very own masks to wear to the parade.

In addition to the school-wide Italian carnival party, the Transition class had the wonderful opportunity to hold a special Brazilian carnival party. The Beavers celebrated with traditional music and games, as well as tasting delicious Brazilian treats.

Filling the Beaver class with decorations, the students had an amazing time learning more about some of the cultures in our wonderful community.

G2 Father's Day Cards In Italian Language Acquisition class at the end of the term, Grade 2 made beautifully thoughtful cards for the Italian Father's Day.

PYP WINS Olympics:

Science Fair

March at WINS was Sports Month, and the Sports Committee organised a series of incredible activities for PYP students: the WINS Olympics.

Starting from the 11th of March, the PYP held the opening ceremony, in which the students dressed in their House colours and paraded around the school to launch the month of activities.

The next Friday was the Olympic Day, in which the students competed in four different disciplines to earn points for their Houses. From the young learners in Transition to the upper PYP in Grade 5, all students had an incredible time getting into the sporting spirit for some friendly competition.

The final Friday of the month was our closing ceremony, in which the four Houses challenged each other to a dance battle for the entire PYP to see. It was a month of truly wonderful and engaging events. Well done everyone!

At the end of January, PYP students had the opportunity to hold their very own Science Fair! This event was a chance for students to tackle their own science questions, thinking creatively to create experiments that could answer them. With the collaboration of their families and friends, many students across all grades from Grade 1 to Grade 5 chose to participate.

The project invited students to follow the scientific method, starting from an idea or topic they were curious about, to creating a hypothesis and carrying out their experiment, and finally reflecting about what they had learned as a result of this.

Students did an amazing job coming up with all sorts of interesting and complex experiments to showcase to the entire school. Despite the difficult circumstances given the lockdown restrictions at the time of the event, it was wonderful to see students participating from home and sending in their entries for the rest of the school to view via video. Congratulations to all the aspiring scientists!

MYP & DP Language Acquisition Grade 6 have explored the different types of families that are in our world. We have discussed about accepting people for who they are without judging them or treating them differently.

Visual Arts Grade 7 created on Artsteps a virtual exhibition of their artworks inspired by Giuseppe Arcimboldo: https://www.artsteps.com/view/620645184e3c51e197bb9b58 Grade 8 also completed an exhibition about impressionism and postimpressionism, in which they creatd impressive works. https://www.artsteps.com/view/61fa6377b542236926739502

Grade 7 has considered the well-known topic of Recycling. Having students from different cultures has allowed us to learn new practices for recycling which can be useful in our own lives. We had a guest speaker, Marianna from the Artistic Lyceum in Biella, who showed students her kimono made from recycled masks during the 2020 Lockdown.

Grade 8 have looked in detail at Human Rights and analyzed them through practical examples. We have talked about how different cultures promote Human Rights and how others do not. We had a guest speaker, Dott. Costanzo Bellando, President of NutriAid, who talked with students about human rights and answered questions regarding the situation in Madagascar and Ethiopia, comparing the lifestyles of those people with ours. Dott. Bellando also donated some beautiful photographs for students to create an exposition for raising awareness.

In addition, the Grade 8 class created a display for one of the school boards focusing on Dante.

Grade 6 completed an interdisciplinary Unit about tessellations, working at the same time on arts and maths. The combination of the two subjects resulted in beautifully complex artworks displayed for the entire school.

All the MYP students also worked on a coloring book to raise funds for the WINS foundation: here is a sneak peek. Stay tuned for the completed work!

MYP & DP 'Just Look Up' Project During the second term in Italian Language and Literature, all classes started an important project named “Just Look Up”, about some of the most important topics of our time: empathy, environment and safety. The conversations revolve around two challenging and rarely asked questions: “What is wrong with our world?” and “What can we do about it?”. Our aim is to get informed, reflect critically and then act.

The focus of our discussions and activities ranged from mindfulness and mental health to digital wellbeing, from climate change to nutrition, from kindness among people to civil rights. This on-going work is part of the broad goal of global citizenship and lifelong learning.

Autogestione: G10 It is worth mentioning a specific project that emerged during Grade 10’s first unit and finally came to life during the second term. The idea was inspired by the book we read and required students to take ownership of their learning by teaching their classmates about a topic or subject of their interest.

Grade 9 students were also involved for a total of 9 lessons.

It has been an opportunity for everyone to focus on their interests, voice their opinions, practice their organising skills - among others, learn how to plan a lesson and experience teaching to peers. I would like to thank all those who were involved, particularly the teachers who helped out and of course the students who volunteered to be teachers for a day.

MYP & DP Spanish

WINS Gems:

Grade 8 studied the most famous Spanish and LatinAmerican painters and then they recreated some of their works and presented them to the class, explaining what they wanted to express. They also wrote the biography of their favorite painter, and created comics about their childhood using the imperfect tense.

Grade 10 made posters about the risks and dangers they may find on the internet and how to avoid them, as they studied communication, the use of internet, and social media.

Grade 11 did online reviews of the novel Campos de Fresas by Jordi Sierra, which they had read in class.

They did it as booktubers and posted them in a Padlet so that their classmates could see them and comment on them. We have future influencers in that group, they made really good videos!

Grade 12 studied Spanish cinema and in groups they created the story-board for a scene of Todo sobre mi madre by Pedro Almodóvar, with their own dialogues related to a different cinematic genre like comedy, drama, horror or historical. Then they had to dub the same scene with the new dialogues. It was fantastic!

On March 22nd our third WINS GEMS event took place. All teams competed against each other in various team-building activities and at the end, there was a final dodgeball game. This time, Topaz scored the most points, but more Wins Gems events are to come.

MYP & DP Athletes Program:

German: G10

On Tuesday, 22 March our WINS Sports Month Event took place. First, we presented our Athletes Program and then our student-athletes introduced themselves, their sport and their successes. It was a super interesting GEMS day with our Athletes program students who shared their experiences with sport.We also had two exceptional guest speakers who shared with us the challenges and rewards of pursuing a sports career: Roberto Graziano, goalkeeper, national team wheelchair hockey player Ihab Chibani. Open Water Swimmer, Open Water National Champion Swimtheisland, Open Water Championship.

They told us about how to overcome difficulties of everyday life when training for world class competitions, and how to see things from a different perspective. Mr. Chibani also joined the extracurricular swimming class and shared his knowledge with our swimmers.

Wer kann am besten...?

In the unit about relationships, the German students of class 10 learnt the new grammatical structure of the comparative.

At the end of our unit, we organised a competition in order to combine grammar with fun activities. The students created various little challenges to find out who can jump the highest, stack coins the fastest, balance a broom... What a fun way to consolidate our learning!

MYP & DP Afternoon Clubs

Warhammer Club

Every week our MYP students are involved in cocurricular activities aimed at developing interdisciplinary skills and enriching their education path.

This term we launched a Warhammer Club, where students can put their creativity and critical thinking to practice as they assemble and paint miniatures and learn how to use strategies to plan fantasy battles. It has been inspiring to see how committed, well behaved and collaborative students have been, especially the young ones.

Model United Nations club

During the MUN club, students have been working on public speaking, especially focusing on the effective use of voice and body language.

Students started to visualise their speaking using different 'voice colours', each corresponding to a different tone. Through this visualisation, students were able to select the appropriate voice for the message they wanted to send.

The development of public speaking skills is essential in the IB context, given the importance of group work and presentations in the upper MYP and DP.

Whole School Initiatives School-wide EAL Program:

Language Month

Our EAL students are working well and practicing speaking and becoming more confident in English. Both MYP and PYP students are taking part in lessons on a weekly basis. Students work on different materials according to their abilities and necessities.

February was our Language Month, with February 21st being International Mother Tongue Day. The whole school was involved in a variety of activities involving language. On the 21st, our language teachers celebrated together with the students the multilingualism at WINS. In the PYP, students and teachers were involved in the creation of a video showcasing all the different languages spoken in our school.

Cambridge Exam Preparation: Many students are engaged in preparing for Cambridge exams during the months of April (A2, B1 and B2) and May (Young Learners). These exams are important for language acquisition and development as well as being recognized internationally.

World Maths Day World Maths Day was all about fun, fast, and inclusive math challenges. Our students from Transition to Grade 10 competed against peers from across the globe. It was a great opportunity and a bit of friendly competition for our students. The final global results will be published on the 7th of April.

Whole School Initiatives Meeting with Doctor Noce: Vaccinations Vaccinations against Covid-19 have been recently opened to children aged 5-11. In order to help our families better understand what this all means, we organized an online meeting with the pediatrician Dott.ssa Silvia Noce in collaboration with JMedical Center.

During the meeting, Dott.ssa Noce provided some information about the anti-Covid vaccine in children, and answered questions from the parents connected.

Food Education with Elior In November we asked all MYP students to answer a survey aimed at measuring their liking of the winter menu. The survey was actually only filled out by a few students, but the results and comments were nevertheless sent to Elior Ristorazione, with the first aim of introducing some changes to the menu to meet their wishes more and more.

The survey also highlighted the need for a greater understanding of the criteria underlying the preparation of a menu and the functioning of a school canteen service, from the use of fresh and selected ingredients to the rules of hygiene and safety that guarantee a healthy, balanced and quality food proposal.

A workshop on the following topics was held with the staff and nutritionists of Elior Ristorazione: creating a balanced diet, the criteria behind a school menu, people and rules of operation of our school canteen, and health and safety rules in the school canteen.

In addition, in April, student will have the opportunities to attend workshops with professionals experienced in eating disorders.

The meetings will be organized by Elior Ristorazione in collaboration with the Never Give Up Onlus Association. Never Give Up is a non-profit organization of professionals born in 2014 with the mission of raising awareness, preventing, intercepting risk factors and treating Nutrition and Eating Disorders early, to prevent them from continuing to be the leading cause of death from disease among 12 and 25 years old.

Whole School Initiatives Christmas Present Collection

Collections for Ukraine

During the Christmas period we collected over 200 new gifts for children in Torino, via the Sant’Egidio organization, with people participating also from Biella and Sicily! These were greatly appreciated by families. Grade 8 LA looked after the organization.

Grade 6 wrote Christmas cards to residents in Eckling Grange Residential Home (UK) that were received with great joy.

The world is experiencing a sad new page of history.

The war in Ukraine is bringing people to their knees and destroying the lives of many families.

WINS is in contact with NutriAid, which is collecting: Funds to be sent to the Ukrainian Red Cross and Caritas Ukraine, which operate in Ukraine and in refugee centres Materials to be sent to the Nadiya association, already working in Ukraine to distribute essential goods to the population.

The "Nadiya" association is a cultural, apolitical, nonpartisan, non-profit association that operates as a mean of mediation between the Italian people and Ukrainian citizens on Italian territory. Given the current situation, the association is taking action to give concrete help to compatriots in Ukraine, especially in orphanages, hospitals and residential facilities for elderly people.

The WINS community collected around 370 items including nappies, wet wipes, baby foods, medical items and other materials. Thank you for all your generosity in donation via NutriAid for Ukraine. Our materials left in March in a van, together with other donations, for the Ukrainian frontier.

Grade 8 LA students were also able to help Dott.

Bellando, President of NutriAid, to load his car. This was a meaningful experience.

Food Collection This term, we are also continuing in supporting the organisation of Sant’Egidio with our food collection.

Grade 7 is looking after this aspect as its Action and Service in school project. Each month the class is selecting 3 products to be brought to school. For the month of March the products are: shampoo, biscuits and tomato sauce. The underlying idea is for all the school to take part bringing one product and showing how together we can do a lot.

Whole School Initiatives Carnival The week before the February break, the PYP celebrated Carnival with daily dressing up and a final day of activities for the students to enjoy. EY students had a day full of arts, crafts, and games in their wonderful costumes. In the MYP and DP, the students also participated in the Carnival Day parade, showing off their costumes to the entire school.