Concordia Hanoi News FEBRUARY 2015

FEBRUARY 2015

CONCORDIA NEWS

2 UNITED NATIONS LEADERS

Our Concordia High School students are showing leadership in platforms all over the world. Take a look at what they have been up to in Shanghai last month...

3 CULTURE DAYS

Students in elementary have had a great big dose of culture lately both from their class-mates and from our Concordia host country of Vietnam. Check out what they learnt...

Visiting children’s book author, Margaret Read MacDonald, reads one of her 65+ books with Concordia students.

MS/ HS STUDENTS STEP UP TO LEAD

MODEL STUDENTS AT MODEL UNITED NATIONS (MUN)

The CISSMUN conference was a three-day simulation of the United Nations that took place on the campus of Concordia International School Shanghai. This year’s event saw over 600 delegates from around the world representing UN member states in 10 different forums. The theme of this year’s conference was The Challenge of Inequality, and many of the chosen topics addressed the widening global gaps between rich countries and poor countries, between rural and urban populations, and between those for whom security, nutrition, education and health care are taken for granted and those who are often denied the most basic human necessities.

The goal and mission of Model United Nations is to provide a venue in which students of diverse backgrounds can hone the skills of research, public speaking and negotiation while cultivating the virtues of active global citizenship and principle-centered leadership.

MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS LEAD

Students from our two sister schools, HKIS and Concordia Shanghai, joined with Concordia Hanoi to undergo a long weekend of fun, critical thinking, and even poverty simulations. The simulations, led by Cross Roads International, put students into the scenarios where their lives are poverty-stricken or their health is potentially terminal in one way or another. This kind of hands-on education that allows students to experience the situation and had an incredible effect on the students in helping them to empathize with those people they were

emulating.

Hopefully the service focus and things learnt at the conference will be shared back here in Hanoi in future service trips and events.

EXPERIENCING THE ETHNIC TRIBES OF VIETNAM

Fifty-four ethnic groups make up the beautifully diverse population of Vietnam. Mrs. Bloemberg’s grade 4 class had the wonderful opportunity to learn more about these different tribes by visiting the National Museum of Ethnology. Not only did they get to see colorful clothing and woven handcrafts made by these interesting groups of people, they also got to experience the home in which they live. On site at the museum there are to-scale houses that students were able to climb and explore. These homes were built by the actual people from each of the tribes the dwellings represent, so are a pretty good insight into what life might be like in the villages of rural Vietnam where these groups live.

“My favorite house was the very tall one where we had to climb the scary ladder to get to it!” -Thea

ES LEARNING ABOUT OTHER CULTURES

LEARNING ABOUT CULTURES IN GRADE 2

Ms. Brockberg Grade 2 students decided to dig deeper into the cultural make up our school and organized several lessons of learning about each other’s cultures. Not only did students themselves share but there were also great presentations given by parents and other members of the community in order to give students a better understand of the diversity that they go to school with every day.

CONCORDIA HAPPENINGS

GO CONCORDIA!Concordia High School Basketball fans got a treat this month as they were joined by parents from our sister schools, Concordia Shanghai and Hong Kong International School (HKIS), as their teams competed in the APEC basketball tournament here in Hanoi. Both HKIS boys and the Concordia Shanghai girls took home the championship trophies.

Grade 6 invited parents to join in on a public reading of their poetry work.

Mr. Lynch’s Grade 3 completes their Biography Unit in Literacy

and shares their work.

Preschool celebrates children’s author, Lucy Cousins, with a guest reader!

Making cards in Ms. Hurford’s ASA “Being Creative with Paper” class.

INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL , WEAR YOUR COUNTRY CLOTHING- FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6To help celebrate our international festival, make sure to wear something (national dress, country sports jersey, t-shirt from your country) that represents where you are from. All students and teachers are encouraged to dress up on Friday so make sure you are not left out!

CELEBRATE TET WITH THE CONCORDIA COMMUNITY- FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13The year of the goat is almost here and Concordia plans to celebrate in style! Come join us for a double-event of an All-School Assembly at 8:40am immediately followed by a Parent Coffee Morning Social (around (9:30am). Wear red and make sure you are ready to celebrate!

To share an event in the next newsletter, please contact Lia Garcia at [email protected]

FEBRUARY EVENTS:

HS Boys Basketball vs Wellspring/ HS Girls Basketball vs HIS

ASAs/ Grade 6 Leadership Speeches in Rm. 209

100TH DAY OF SCHOOL

MS Soccer vs HIS/ Girl Scouts at Concordia

CONCORDIA INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL

HS Boys Basketball vs St. Paul/ HS Girls Basketball vs BIS Vincom

ASAs

Cub Scouts at Concordia

MS Girls & Boys Soccer vs BIS Vincom

TET ASSEMBLY, followed by the PSO COFFEE SOCIAL

TET Holidays (16-23), back to Concordia on Tuesday, Feb. 24

ASAs

Cub Scouts at Concordia

ASAs

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