Impressions of Potsdam

Or perhaps the title should be ‘Impressionists of Potsdam’?

On March 18th, the year 1-3 kids from Rubin class took a trip to Potsdam’s beautiful Barberini Museum (shown above), where they were treated to a personal tour of its incredible collection of Impressionist art.

The children learned all about this important painting movement while looking at works by some of the world’s most famous artists.

In the photo above, the children are admiring a canvas by Paul Signac, a painter who used tiny dots of colour – a technique known as pointillism – to create luminous, light-filled pictures.

Perhaps the museum guide also mentioned the fact that the painting was purchased in 2019 for a record price of £17 million pounds… or about 21 million euros!

Later, the children had time to get creative themselves and put their new knowledge of colour theory into practice by drawing pictures in warm and cool shades.

With so much artistic talent, perhaps one day their paintings will be in a museum, too!

New! Wie kann ich die Zeitung auf Deutsch lesen?

THE FOX

Today Freya will show us how to draw a fox.

First you have to sketch the fox then you have to take the colours (yellow, dark red, red, orange, dark yellow) then you have to draw out the fox with yellow, red and orange.

After that, get black and draw out the ears, then when you have the colouring finished you start to colour the background. The colours of the background are black, green, yellow, grey. And if you want you can add stuff like a tree or a moon or even leaves – your decision!

By Freya and Aurelia.

Let me show you where I’m from: Neuilly-sur-Seine, France

This time we had a special guest in the newspaper, Mademoiselle Kuiters, who is helping in the school with the classes Aquamarin and Turmalin.

She is from Neuilly-sur-Seine, a town near Paris. She will show us her school, where she lived, where she learned how to swim, where she used to buy things and also the cinema near her house! It is a very beautiful place so please watch!!

⤵️⤵️⤵️

What’s behind the door?

Some doors are definitely more interesting than others. Are they locked and, if so, why? Are there signs on them warning us not to enter? Do they look spooky? Or are they really cute, with roses growing around them?

The kids in Mr Brennan’s English class were asked to draw a door that everyone would want to know more about. The next step was to write a connected story – one you could read by literally opening the door and entering a different world.

All of the children had wonderful ideas, ranging from elf kingdoms and secret gardens to a portal leading to another world. And some of the stories were very philosophical indeed, questioning reality and the decisions we take in our everyday lives.

Here are the door drawings, and a few of the stories that go with them. Knock knock … who’s there?

Read Kiame’s story

Elflantic

After many years there was a war between mermaids and elves on water and land. There was a lot of blood, even on the door.

Behind the door is the world of the elves. The elves won the war because they found out that the mermaids can’t live without water.

The elf world is just like a dream, they have cotton candy and a lot of happiness. But! – if you touch the blood it can mean death. Yet the elves are happy and eat their cotton candy.

Read Ruben’s story

One day I came to a door. I don’t know how I came to this door, but I opened it and walked through it.

What I saw behind the door was black. I continued walking, and I started to become afraid. As time passed I became more and more scared. I wanted to go out, but there was no way to get out!

I heard a voice, it said, ‘Why are you afraid?’. I didn’t say anything.

‘Here is nothing that can make you afraid’. I thought over these words and then I said, ‘I am afraid because there is nothing’, and then I woke up.

Read Sophie’s story

When you open the door…

… you see a beautiful garden with many flowers and a waterfall. Look! There are unicorns walking around and one is coming up to you! ‘Hi, I am Zoe, nice to meet you!’, she said, with a nice voice. ‘How are you and where are you from?’

Oh wow, that’s a very curious unicorn! ‘First of all, nice to meet you, can you show me around?’ you ask the unicorn. ‘Of course I can, follow me!’

You walk to the waterfall. ‘This is our main waterfall, when something is important we go here and talk’. Zoe walks to a small house and you follow her. ‘This is where the fairies live, do you want to see them?’ You say excitedly, ‘Sure!’

You follow Zoe inside the small house and hear a voice asking, ‘Who is this?’ Zoe happily says, ‘We’ve got a new visitor!’. You smile and a small voice says, ‘Welcome here, I’m Ashley, and I’m sorry you can’t meet the other fairies, they are sleeping right now…’

Read Eden’s story

Behind this door there is an unknown world with demons, so DO NOT ENTER if you are not planning to die.

Behind this door at the end of this world there is a magic sword that would save this terrible destroyed world.

To enter this world you must find the magic key… good luck! (P.S: Knock the door knocker for a clue).

Read Aurelia’s story

Behind this door you can see four kinds of worlds.

The first one is called ‘Money doesn’t exist’, it is a wonderful place where you can do anything you want without paying.

The second world is called ‘Animals are our friends’. It is an animal-friendly world where everybody is happy.

The third world is called ‘Wisher’, it is a world of wishes, you have infinite wishes and everything and everyone is happy.

And the fourth world: it could be called hell or heaven; we don’t know. Anyway, it could end up good for you or it could end up bad – well, not really bad, but deadly for you! Think about it. Good luck!

A message from – and to – the Ukraine

Two weeks ago in our English class, we were getting ready to chat online with kids from a school in Kharkiv, Ukraine. The idea was to practice our English skills together, as well as find out more about each other’s cultures, countries and lives.

In preparation for the event I had spoken several times to their teacher, Anna, a warm, caring person who sent me lots of information about her school and students.

In addition, the children themselves sent videos in which they spoke enthusiastically about their hobbies, families, hopes and dreams. They filmed themselves at home, showing me some of their favourite toys and possessions. They were all wonderful kids.

For some reason, however, we just couldn’t get the Zoom connection to work. Of course everyone was disappointed, so Anna and I arranged another attempt.

But that never happened; a few days later Anna wrote me a short note with the words: ‘Everything has changed’.

As the troops and tanks invaded Ukraine, we continued to write to each other. She explained that the schools had closed. She told me how unbelievable the situation seemed, like living through a bad dream. And then she sent me a message which she asked me to share:

Hi Mike. Thank you for your support!

Most of my students (from all my 7 classes) are in Kharkiv. We are all with our families. We support each other. My daughter is 6 years old. And sometimes she is stronger than me. I’m so afraid of her and her mental health…

Each day is worse and worse. … . This night was so hard. We didn’t sleep. In the morning we saw 2 missiles (or shells, I don’t know how to say it in English) in front of our block of flats…

When you talk to other people, tell them that we are Ukrainians and we live in our country! We aren’t attacking anyone! We are only defending ourselves! …

We are ordinary people! We are like you! We are Europeans!

The decision to publish these words wasn’t easy. Our newspaper is usually full of happy, positive stories; war, on the other hand, is a terrible thing.

However, millions of people in the world are against what is happening in the Ukraine, and doing everything they can to stop it.

I’ve also been able to tell Anna that several of the kids from IMS attended the huge Peace March in Berlin, and that the money raised by 4-6 during their Christmas fair has just been donated to an organisation helping Ukrainian refugees.

These are small but important actions, and I’m therefore sharing Anna’s courageous words, just as she wanted. Hopefully, at least a few people will read them here and share them further.

“Establishing lasting peace is the work of education” – Maria Montessori