​What I am excited about this week…
 
Band Concert! On 12 December, all our band students will be performing during our All Bands Concert. Please plan to join us in the Tiyende Pamodzi Theater at 18:30 for this great musical event.
 
Grade 4 Holiday Sale! The Grade 4 students have been studying entrepreneurship. As a culminating project, they have created products to sell at their annual holiday sale. This will be held from 09:00-13:00 on the field next to the Palm Pavilion. Half of their proceeds will go to charity. Please drop by to purchase some fun products and tasty treats and to help these students learn about running a business.
 
Holiday Craft Market! You won’t want to miss the PTA’s annual Holiday Craft Market in the Palm Pavilion on Friday, 13 December from 12:00-14:30. This event is not a fundraiser for PTA. Instead it is part of our community outreach program and is organized as a community service. We are up to 17 vendors - 75% of which are NGOs. We have some awesome vendors booked including LsK Collective, InHouse Design Studio with their newly completed "Visit Zambia" poster series, Silver Tulip, Savanna Chocolates, Wild Arts Metal Works, APTERS, Chikumbuso and many, many more. We will be collecting gently used and new toys, backpacks, children's books and cash/food donations to support children in our broader community. Santa will make an appearance, we will have a holiday selfie booth, cookie decorating, free gift wrapping and a chocolate fountain. We are always looking for parent volunteers willing to lend a hand and could use help at our free gift-wrapping station, or selling items at our PTA table. Please email pta@aislusaka.org if you would like to help. 
 
Open Board Meeting on 16 December! The Board of Directors will be holding an Open Board Meeting on 16 December at 18:00 in the Palm Pavilion. It is open to all AISL parents. Please come along to meet the board and learn about exciting developments at the school.  
 
PTA Meetings on 18 December! The last PTA meetings of the semester will be held on 18 December at 07:30 and 18:00 at the Palm Pavilion. The agenda is the same for both meetings so please join us at whichever time is more convenient for you.
 
Last Day of School is 20 December – Noon Dismissal! School will close at noon on 20 December after our annual End-of-Semester Celebration Assembly. Classes will resume on Wednesday, 22 January. The main office will be closed between Christmas and New Year’. Since many administrative staff members take their annual leave during the school holiday, please understand that staffing across the school will be very limited. I hope that you are able to get away for some rest and relaxation with loved ones during the break and that your 2020 gets off to a great start!
 
ISSEA Band and Choir Hosting! From 20-22 February, AISL will be hosting the ISSEA Band and Choir Festival. This is a great honor for us and a wonderful opportunity to show off our impressive music program. This is the largest ISSEA event in terms of participants and will stretch our hosting abilities to their limits. To support this great event, please consider hosting two or more visiting students at your home. We will need all the help we can get. You may have already seen a separate email request from the Activities Department.  Please contact them to volunteer or to ask questions. Thank you for considering hosting some of our ISSEA guests.
 
 
 

We celebrated Computer Science Education Week in the library across this week. The theme of this year’s Computer Science Education Week is #CSforGood- which centers around an exploration of the ways that computer science can be used to create a “more equitable and sustainable world” (CSforGood).  Many students created short videos they posted to a closed video-sharing platform called Flipgrid in answer to these questions:

• Can you think of any problems in your own life that could be solved or helped using computer science?
• What’s a recent example you’ve seen where technology was used to help solve a pressing problem somewhere in the world?
• Do you think there are ways to use computer science in addressing big issues like healthcare, access to clean water, or poverty?​

Students also used their creativity and problem-solving skills to explore a wide range of hands-on activities, including coding, using modular robotics cubes called Cubelets, designing with 3Doodlers, building radios with Snap Circuit Pro, and more!

Umoya Middle School Band Festival in Maputo, Mozambique
​

Last week, twelve of our amazing Grade 7 and 8 Band students traveled to Maputo, Mozambique, to take part in the third annual Umoya Middle School Band Festival. 

The Umoya Middle School Band Festival is designed to give Grade 7-8 Band students the opportunity to develop their musical and collaborative skills as they work, rehearse, and perform engaging concert band repertoire in a non-competitive and supportive environment.  "Umoya" is the Zulu word for “spirit” or “soul” as well as “wind instruments” and represents the spirit of togetherness of this kind of music festival.

Our student musicians worked together with like-minded, hard-working students from AISJ, AISJ-Pretoria, and our fantastic host school, AISM, to rehearse music that resulted in an incredible concert on Saturday evening.

Students worked with the renowned South African conductor Etienne Macloen and were coached by Tubist Danel Macloen, percussionist Bradley Lithgow, and Band teachers from the participating schools who shared their knowledge and expertise with the students. Special Thanks to our hosts Nancy Teskey and Lee Clagnaz at the American International School of Mozambique for pulling out all the stops and making it a wonderful experience for everyone involved.

Last Friday 6 December, the Kindergarten students showcased their learning in a Performing Arts Showcase. They adapted the story of 'Stone Soup' to highlight how our journeys around the world to different places are so much better when we are kind and share with the people we encounter along the way. Through acting, dance and singing the students demonstrated that we can build a community wherever we are through our kind actions and words. Well done Kindergarten students!

Leopards swimmers namely Jack and Jade crushed it along with a small traveling team of Zambian swimmers that competed in
Kenya for CANA Zone 3 championships! 
You made us proud to call you both our own on that regional stage. 
Coming away with a wealth of experience that will take you far in your journey as competitive swimmers! Keep working smart,
​whilst growing into the champions you know you are meant to be! We’d be remiss if we didn’t congratulate you both on bagging all those medals for yourselves and your team!  Take a bow too, for all the National Age Group Records that you broke!
Once again congratulations on All your efforts!

Dear AISL Community 

AISL will be hosting ISSEA Band & Choir  February 19th - February 23rd 2020 .
Visiting students will come from other international schools from around our region and we will need AISL host families to open their homes to host these students.
The students will arrive Wednesday 19th February and depart Sunday 23rd February 2020.
AISL has had the privilege of sending students to different parts of the world and have been graciously hosted by families of ISSEA schools. It is now our privilege to reciprocate and open our homes to visiting ISSEA students.
Any AISL family qualifies as a host family.
We are looking for host families to extend our warmest AISL welcome to house the 150 (approx.) visiting students .
Host Expectations:

•  Each host family must provide a safe, supportive and comfortable living environment. Host families will provide a clean sleeping space (camping cot, sleeping bag, sofa, bed, etc.) and breakfast. 
• Evening meals may be required occasionally. All lunches are covered.
•  Host families are asked to provide transportation after the program finishes in the evenings. 
•  All communication and emails must come from a parent or guardian

 Please fill out the form via the link below:
ISSEA Band & Choir 2020
Once you have committed to hosting, you will receive more details on times and dates.
Please contact Paula Phiri if you have any further questions at: isseahosting@aislusaka.org

Thanks for your support!

Regards

Mark Hoffman
Sports & Activities Director

All parents are welcome to the first open Board of Directors meeting of the year, which will occur on 16 December at 18:00 in the Palm Pavilion. Please come meet the board members and learn about their work.

Since the beginning of the year a number of Primary students have been walking the track before school to get exercise, chat with friends and to start the day in a healthy way. Nora and Noa from 5NC have analysed the data collected from the track walkers and have written the  report below.
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Students have been running around the primary field every morning. We have been keeping track of how many laps each student or adult completed. The adults ran 218 laps. The average amount of laps per person is 72 laps. Grade one ran 158 laps. The person who ran the most laps was Bryce who ran 104 laps, which is four times the average. Grade 2 ran 491 laps in total. The average amount of laps per person was 25.8 laps. The student who did the most laps was Caitlin. She ran 88 laps. Grade 3 ran 921 laps - this is the most laps per grade! Well done, Grade Three. The person who ran the longest distance was Milo. He ran 162 laps. Grade 4 ran 350 laps. The student who ran the longest distance was Aurielle who ran 59 laps, three times the average amount. Grade 5 ran 258 laps. The average amount of laps per person is 19.8 laps. The person who ran most was Rayna with 75 laps and Coralie who had the second most laps. 

In total, our school ran 609 km which is roughly the travel distance to Hwange National Park. We think that Rayna, Coralie and Aurielle show a great example of why you should come to school early and run some laps. Caitlin, Bryce, and Milo all have parents that work at this school so they come early too. In conclusion, the students at our school have been doing a great job at being committed and doing something that helps them stay physically active.