Dear friends of the Stella School!
Everything is in a spirit of optimism – you can feel that spring is almost here!
A lot is happening at the school: from autumn onwards, a 5th grade Secondary School will start in Vienna – earlier than we had thought. The reason for this is that some older siblings of our current children would like to transfer to Stella after the fourth grade. We have compiled the exact information for you here.
In the summer term, a Latin preparation course for the new 5th graders and an English preparation course for the new 1st graders will start. You can find more information about the Latin course here (German).
The leadership programme “Leader in Me” in the secondary school is gaining momentum, the children are becoming more independent and are taking on more and more responsibility. Our teachers and parents are also taking part in the various further training courses: Leadership, CLIL training, etc. And the children love to experiment and try out new things.
Recently, we have also started celebrating a weekly Holy Mass in the Kubus, which anyone who is interested can attend. A nice aspect to deepen the school community in this way as well.
The construction work on the Donauplatte is progressing rapidly.
On Friday, 10 March 2023 at 18:00, another information evening will take place in Seebenstein: In autumn, in addition to the kindergarten and primary school, the middle school will also start with a 1st and 2nd grade! You can find the invitation to the information evening here (German).
We hope you enjoy reading the newsletter!
Yours sincerely
Heidi Burkhart & the Stella International School Team
Contents
After-school care and Kindergarten
The highlight of carnival is the annual carnival party in the kindergarten. Days before, the children excitedly talked about their costumes and looked forward to the day. There was extensive celebrating, dancing, playing and of course eating. And as a surprise for the children, the “Kasperl” (Punch and Judy) also came to visit.
After the exciting carnival hustle and bustle, things calmed down on Ash Wednesday. Dr. Spalek visited the children and explained the meaning of Ash Wednesday. All the children who wanted to were also allowed to receive the ash cross. The start of Lent and the preparation for Easter have begun.
Primary school
A Stella dad has once again provided us with cut mouldings from his carpentry workshop this month. There will be great workpieces again! 🙂
In February the 2nd term started and the reading buddies of the 1st and 2nd classes met for reading. They became friends with each other and read to each other, so we are already looking forward to next week when we will meet again.
Of course, the carnival party could not be missed this year. Here is a selection of the artwork and disguises.
On Ash Wednesday, we celebrated the celebration of the Ashtray Cross together in class 2A. Those who wanted to received a ash cross drawn on their forehead. In class we ate bread with butter and cress as a symbol at the beginning of Lent.
The students presented their final book reports and the corresponding reading scrolls. The children worked on the content of the book in writing and creatively. And the results are impressive!
We are very thankful to be able to use the gym of the VS Vorgartenstraße. We love to set up lots of equipment and climb everywhere.
And for a few weeks now, the children have been able to make music with Orff instruments. This was made possible by some generous donations – thank you very much!
Unfortunately, we don’t have any photos of them yet this month, so here are the product photos of the purchased instruments. We hope to be able to provide you with some more pictures of our primary school children making music next month!
Secondary school
At the end of January we went to the Vienna Ice Skating Club. Professor Anna Sellner is a real ice skating pro and gave the children a workshop. She taught them how to turn and how to go over. 😊
In physics lessons, the 2nd grade learned about states of matter. The pupils separated salt from water with the help of their own experimental set-up using agraffes and tea lights.
Of course, they also wrote a scientific protocol for this. These scientific protocols will soon be exhibited in a selected collection in the school.
In mid-February, the 2nd grade of the Stella Gymnasium went to the Technical Museum as part of the subject Technical Work.
We had a guided tour of the so-called “Tech Lab”. Here there are 3D printers, laser cutters and many other great devices where you can create designs on the PC and have them implemented for free. Afterwards, the students were given a sheet of paper with questions about the museum, which they had to answer in half an hour.
The class was so enthusiastic about the field trip that some of the students met there again the next day on their own initiative to continue experimenting.
The students experimented with their fingers and stamping ink, using the pen to make fun and creative figures from the prints.
Watercolor experiment: In this unit, the students tried out various experiments with watercolor. For example, watercolor was combined with baking soda, salt or citric acid. The students were quite amazed by the chemical reactions and the results.
Optical Illusions: In this unit, students tried to illustrate optical illusions on paper themselves.
