Grade 8's Short Films

 

During their English lessons, students in Grade 8 did a whole unit on Film. Either in groups or on their own, either in campus or in other parts of the world, the students developed concepts, wrote scripts, selected music and sound-effects, chose locations, filmed and edited eight amazing - and very different - short films.

You can watch all of the films in the Grade 8 Virtual Film Festival below:

Grade 6 "A Little Bit of Stomp" Performances

 

Grade 6 students have been combining story-telling and the creation of rhythms using everyday objects. It started out as a fairly simple musical project, but the students' imaginations,  creativity and desire to explore and experiment with costumes and props turned it into something bigger and better than the original plan!

Here's the Grade 6 Virtual Theatre showing, for one week only... "A Little Bit of Stomp"!

The Buffalo Trail Podcast - a CAS project

 

Grade 11 students Beamlak, Rylan and Isabelle, have been developing their Creativity, Activity and Service project in the form of a podcast. Through the Buffalo Trail Podcast, they are aiming to inspire curiosity, listen to and share different perspectives and increase the communication between different grade levels in the school.

You can listen to their podcast on Spotify:

 

You can listen to their podcast on iTunes:

 

... and we are also hosting the podcasts on the AISM Radio Soundcloud account!

AISM Radio · Buffalo Trail - Gerson and Jae Young

Research, our Librarian and a slice of the PIE!

For three days last week, our whole-school Librarian, Leah Ittner, Zoomed into the Grade 8 classes during PIE (Personalization, Intervention, Extension) time to introduce the learners to the library resources and databases that are available to them for their research. Reminding students that anyone can make a website, it is important to use the carefully curated databases to get reliable facts and information about topics. She also showed tools that can help learners cite their sources easily, translate texts into any language, and listen to articles in order to support with comprehension. 

"The students responded really well to Leah’s openness and general disposition. Many are thinking about reaching out to her for support because they thought she was so nice! It was a great kick-off to our research process" said Peter Hennigar, Grade 8 Science Teacher and Advisor.

Here are the Slides that Leah used in order to share this information with Grade 8 students.

How the Zebra got its stripes!

 

Grade 6 and Grade 10 collaborated to put together this brilliant performance of a traditional African tale and showed that performances can still be done in the middle of a pandemic - the production was staged completely outside, masked and socially distanced!

Even more impressive is the fact that the students were able to entertain physical audiences on campus, online audiences through a Facebook live stream and countless other audiences through this video of the whole thing. All sorts of collaboration was necessary in order to make it all happen, showing how powerful drama is as a way of bringing community together.

AISM Earth Day Buffalo Talks

On the 31st of March, we continued our series of Buffalo Talks. These talks are aimed at connecting people in our community with people in Maputo and beyond who are taking action and doing work that reflects our school's mission.

The 31st of March was Earth Day, so the focus was on environmental issues. An inspiring line-up was created and the programme was put together and hosted by our amazing Grade 11 Environmental Committee - Lara and Jana.

Larissa Sousa spoke about the Girls' Education Programme in Gorongoza National Park. Her talk starts here.

Olivier Hamerlynck spoke about the incredible Macaneta wetlands, just a short drive from AISM. His talk starts here.

Dorkhanay Paykhar spoke about the Circular Economy and the work she is doing with the African Circular Economy Network. Her talk starts here.

Grade 7 are Spoken Poets and Activists!

The current unit in 7th grade Integrated Arts is "Activism in the Arts". We're looking at some of the visual art, music and performance art that has come out of activist movements around the world. All students created a spoken word poem about a cause of their choosing. Spoken Word Poetry has become a popular performance art among young people especially as they share their voices to help change the world and show their own power for good.

Here are some examples of the spoken word poems that Grade 7 students have been producing.

Zara:

Ver no Vocaroo >>

Kate:

 

Francesca:

Raisa:

Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash

Powerful Poetry by Grade 9 Students

 

Grade 9 students have written, performed and produced videos for a variety of powerful, and personal, poems. These poems have been curated on the AISM Grade 9 Poetry Slam website. 

Click on the titles across the top of the webpage in order to access the pages for each individual poem, and don't forget to click "More" and scroll down the right-hand side of the webpage... there's more amazing poems there too!

Kindergarten's Urban Safaris!

 

During their Sharing the Planet unit of inquiry, Kindergarten students are learning about the living things that share our environment:

Central Idea: When we look closely and wonder, we learn appreciation and respect for living things in our environment.

Lines of Inquiry:

• The features and behaviours of living things
• How features and behaviour connects to where they live (habitats)
• Respect and appreciation for living things

While the AISM campus was closed, they were challenged to go on an "urban safari" around their homes to see what living things they could find. Then, they were asked to document what they saw and record their ideas and thoughts about the features and behaviours of living things in their environments.

Here are two of those urban safaris!

Many thanks to Arielle, Pedro and their families for sharing these wonderful explorations and documentation with us.

Photo by: Rikki Chan on Unsplash