Sweet Celebrations in the LRC: Cookie Fun for 4th & 5th Grade! 🍪

Over the past two weeks, the LRC  cooking area has turned into a joyful, flour-dusted hub of creativity and celebration as our 4th and 5th grade students visited on separate days for a very special treat — cookie baking! 

This hands-on activity was a well-earned reward from our wonderful primary librarians, recognizing the students’ efforts, enthusiasm and great behaviour throughout the year.

The kids, led by Miss Gaby and members of the LRC, scrubbed their hands and took their places at our rolling maker trollies, which were temporarily repositioned in the cooking area. Rolling Trollies are such useful additions to any makerspace.  The kids got a tad messy as they dove hands-first into cooking dough prep, and they loved every moment of it. 

 From mixing the dough to adding their favourite toppings, every step was filled with laughter and teamwork. 

Of course, the best part was enjoying the warm, delicious cookies they made with their own hands!It was a fantastic way to wrap up a year of learning, reading, and growing together. 

A huge thanks goes out to the LRC and Jubilee teams for organizing such a memorable event.

📸 Want to see more smiles and sprinkles? 

Click here to view our Flickr gallery of the cookie-baking fun!

Celebrating Student Creativity: Highlights from the 15th Annual ABC DVA 2025!

The screens lit up and the creativity flowed on Thursday, 29th, 2025, as ABC School proudly hosted our 15th annual Digital Video Awards (DVA)! This milestone event is a cornerstone of our school calendar, dedicated to celebrating and spotlighting the incredible excellence in student digital video work from across our primary and secondary schools.

For fifteen years, the DVA has provided a platform for our talented students to showcase their skills in filmmaking, animation, storytelling, and technical production. This year was no exception, with students from both primary and secondary levels submitting an impressive array of projects.

The competition was fierce as students vied for recognition in a wide range of categories, including:

• Best Animation

• Best English/Design IDU

• Best Advertisement

• Best Short Film

• Best Documentary

• Best Minecraft Walkthrough

• Best Director

• Movie of the Year

The DVA committee would like to extend our sincerest congratulations to all of the students who were nominated for an award this year. The standard of entries was incredibly high, and simply making it onto the nomination list is a testament to your hard work, creativity, and skill. Everyone who was nominated is truly a winner!

The top prizes for many categories were decided by enthusiastic voting from the ABC community, highlighting the videos that resonated most with our audience.

Two special awards, however, were the final picks of the ABC Committee: the VHS Best Director Award—named in honour of Victor Hugo Salazar, an outstanding ex-student and director—celebrating exceptional directorial vision, and the award for Best Minecraft Walkthrough, recognizing creative and engaging gameplay footage.

Congratulations again to all the nominated students and to the talented winners who took home the top honours! Your dedication to crafting compelling digital stories is inspiring

The 15th Annual ABC DVA was a fantastic celebration of student talent and creativity. We are immensely proud of all the participants and look forward to seeing the amazing digital video projects our students will create next year for the 16th DVA!

A big thank you goes out to Profe Alvin Silva for being such a wonderful MC and Profe Rodrigo Alfaro for producing the show.

Please take a moment to view the images from the event.

 

Back Post-STEAM Fest 2025

 Now that our blog has been reinstated, we would like to take a moment to travel back to February when we celebrated STEAM Fest 2025.

This celebration of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths was a huge success once again.  

We were honoured to share the celebration with many other internal as well as external members of the community, some of who joined us from Highlands, Maquilishuat, and AmunShea schools in addition to special guests from Game Changer and Creativo 3d. We also had quite a few judges join us on the day; some were ABC teachers, and others were external professionals working in the area of STEAM.

67 school teams of up to 6 students each took part on the day but also spent several months in advance researching and developing their projects. Of those teams, 112 ABC secondary school students took part.

Mateo Guzman, from 10th grade, designed a fantastic. official logo for this year's STEAM Fest and was honoured during the event for his work as a graphic artist. 

1st place for the best STEAM Fest project overall was awarded to Julián Betancourt Rivas and Juan Ángel Valiente Castillo for their Landslide Susceptibility project, in which they developed an AI system to analyze different sets of data which could be visualized as a map presenting the susceptibility of land in El Salvador to landslides.

During STEAM Fest 2025, we had the opportunity to run another exciting hackathon in which the Maquilisuat, Highlands and ABC took place. 

The Hackathon was won by ABC Students: Arthur Falkenstein, Howard Tianji, Fabioloa Echeverria and Javier Huezo. They were followed closely by the Maquilisuat in 2nd place and Highlands in 3rd place.  A big well done to all the teams that worked so arduously to solve the problem that was presented in the given time. 

While all the thank yous went out in February when the event took place, the STEAM Team would again like to thank all involved, including the LRC, Design, Science and Maintenance teams for all the hard work they put in, in making this event a huge success once again.

Thank You!

The Blog is Back-ABC Book Week Edition!

The LRC blog is back after a short hiatus, and we want to start off by sharing all the exciting activities that took place during our Whole School Book Week!

by Jennifer Garcia LRC Coordinator

Preparations for Book Week 2025 began in November of 2024. These were led by the whole school Book Week Committee, composed of teachers and librarians from both primary and secondary schools. This committee set out to build on the successes of Book Week 2024 and, in doing so, found ways to increase its reach across the school through a multitude of activities and events. 

Some of the many highlights of this event were the visits by Silvia Pira, the author of Crush, who spoke to the 6th-grade students, and Alberto Pocasangre, the author of Nahual Blanco, who spoke to the 7th-grade students. 

The 11th grade had the opportunity to meet with  Alex Hernandez, a Royal Academia author and Manlio Argueta, author of UN DÍA EN LA VIDA, which the 11s are currently reading in Spanish lessons. This powerful event was followed up by a cocktail for all involved.

The 9th grade students had the opportunity to meet with Roger Lindo, who is the author of  EL PERRO EN LA NIEBLA, and grade 8th got to learn more about theatre in El Salvador through a presentation by Roberto Salomon (Teatro Poma)- "TEATRO EN EL SALVADOR: UNA MIRADA HISTÓRICA".

The ABC Arts Department hosted the PLAY "LA PERRERA" by the Rosa Mosqueta theatre group for the 6th grade students, with a few grade 7 and 8 Arts faculty students mixed in.

This year's Book Fair was a great success, with a record number of vendors, students and parents in attendance in the PAC. 

A great variety of high-quality books were offered by the many different vendors. Even the ABC had a book stand, which focused on selling the anthologies of short stories written by our wonderful ABC Students.  

• Tales on the Road: Stories that Surprise for 7-10 Year Olds. 
• Paper Chrysalides: Stories that Soar for 11-14 Year Olds.

Do please contact Mario Villalobos in the primary library or Judith Mendez in the LRC if you are interested in purchasing a copy.

A special thanks goes out to the wonderful book vendors who spent most of the week at the ABC: The LRC and Jubilee Libraries, Steps, Grelisal and AEIOU, Frikiland, Lovaimex, Clasicos Roxsil, Liliana Marti, Expresso Bibliografiico, Editorial El Salvador, Chicos y Imagen, Distribuidora Educativa Yanira Sounds, Tia Li, Internacional Libros y Regalos, La Ceiba.

The LRC ran two competitions during the week: the LRC Digital Book Competition and the Guess What the Teachers Are Reading Competition.

A special shout-out goes to Isabel Urias for winning the Book Week 2025 Logo competition for her creative vision in producing a logo that really encapsulated this year's Motto, From Reader to Character, Read your Way.

On Friday, we saw the return of the Dress Up as Your Favourite Character day, with a special spin on Heroes! 

We would like to take this opportunity to say a special thanks to everyone involved in making this year's Book Week a great success.  This would not have been possible without the hard work in preparing and running the event by the school libraries, maintenance teams and teaching staff.  

While everyone's efforts are greatly appreciated, a special thanks goes out to Mrs. Judith de Mendez (LRC Head Librarian), Mr, Mario Villalobos (Jubilee Librarian), Mrs, Monica Urbina (Sec. Head of Spanish) and Mrs. Edda Padilla (Primary Language Coordinator) for the many extra hours put in on planning for success and achieving with magnificence. 

WRO El Salvador 2024!

Last Saturday the  2024 Salvadoran National Robotics Olympiad, part of the World Robot Olympiad (WRO), took place at the Academia Británica Cuscatleca. The theme for this year was Earth Allies.

Video Source: World Robotic Olympiad

This event was the largest WRO competition El Salvador has seen, featuring over 100 teams of students from various schools nationwide. Events like WRO empower students to showcase their creativity, innovation, teamwork, and technical skills.  Students who took part showcased their solutions to local and global issues through robot construction, programming design, and scientific proposals, demonstrating the potential of Salvadoran youth in STEM fields.

The competition was divided into three main categories: Robo Mission, Future Innovators, and Future Engineers and further subcategories based on age. 

Seven teams emerge victorious, earning the right to represent El Salvador in the WRO international finals in Turkey. Of these two are ABC Robotics teams. Please refer to the images below. 

Image Source:https://www.facebook.com/wroelsalvador/?locale=es_LA

Please go to our Flickr Album to view more images of the day.

 

Video Game Development for Learning-6th grade to Prepa

This was the final activity for our 2nd Design unit, in which the 6th-grade students were paired up with a Prepa student who they interviewed about their learning and likes. 

They then went on to research, plan and develop a digital learning game for their Prepa clients. 

This week the 6th-grade students have been hosting the prepa students who are beta-testing the games that were developed specifically for each of them. 

DESIGN 2024 by Hilda Gómez

Celebrating Creativity: The Success of the Annual ABC Digital Video Awards

Last evening the ABC hosted its 14th annual Digital Video Awards. The DVA is a celebration showcase of  the exceptional talents and creativity of our student community. From second to twelfth grade, students demonstrated their creativity, skills and knowledge of digital video production,  through classroom assignments and independent projects. This is an annual whole-school event, in which the ABC Students and staff contribute in determining the winning teams through community voting.

This year's event was a true testament to the artistic spirit and talent of our young filmmakers and celebrated the hard work and engagement of our students and underscored the importance of the role of digital media in the world around us. Through video production, the DVA nominees demonstrated their ability to tell stories, convey messages, and engage audiences through the power of digital video through a broad array of videos, reflecting a diverse range of themes, genres, and techniques. From thought-provoking documentaries to imaginative animations and compelling narratives, the quality of the submissions was impressive. 

We are immensely proud of our students' achievements and the dedication they have shown throughout the school year. Their work not only reflects their individual talents but also the support and guidance provided by our dedicated teachers and staff. The awards ceremony was a celebration of this collective effort, showcasing the best videos our student community has produced. 

This post wouldn't be complete if it didn't include recognition of the amazing Design/LRC team, and the maintenance team who helped to transform a stark examination hall into a vibrant immersive theatre experience over two afternoons and return it to examination hall status right after the event. A big thank you is due Mr. Pike our wonderful MC for the evening and Javier our sound and lighting expert for is expertise and dedication and in running the AV for the event.

 Event photos and highlights from the event can be found on our Flickr account. We invite you to explore  the photos from the event which can be found on our Flickr album for the event and join us in celebrating the artistic achievements of our students. The success of this year’s ABC Digital Video Awards reaffirms the ABC's commitment to fostering creativity and innovation, and we look forward to seeing even more exceptional work in the years to come.