Another Smashing Success for ABC Students and Staff-DVA 2021

It was with a sense of great community pride that we launched the first-ever live-streamed ABC Digital Video Awards Ceremony known as DVA 2021 last evening. This provided a wonderful opportunity to highlight the best of ABC student filmmaking, in the secondary school. It was with no doubt a moment of great pride and triumph for everyone involved, from the animators and actors to the directors, producers, and staff members. 

Do have a look at the short video below which highlights the nominees, winning producers, and their videos. 

All of the nominees are to be congratulated for the hard work and dedication that lead them to be nominated for DVA 2021! Winning individuals and teams can derive an extra amount of satisfaction in knowing that they came out at the top of their respective categories.  

The DVA Committee will arrange for in-school deliveries of trophies and awards for the upcoming weeks, for both X and Y cohorts. Special arrangements will be made for O Cohort participants. More on that later.

 We will also create a special photo gallery for all of our DVA Nominees and Winners to help mark this special landmark for them, one which they can look back on over the years with a sense of joy and pride in their work as part of the ABC learning community.

Also, check out the live stream video of the event below and the  DVA Website if you would like to know more about this exciting event and the work that leads up to it. 

                                                                   Click to View

 

DVA 2021 (Digital Video Awards) -Update

The much anticipated ABC Secondary School DVA will take place this week. Do come out to the virtual event and support all of the wonderful student creativity that has taken place this school year. 

We will be using the ABC Bull Dogs Livestream for the event. Please use this link to access it or go to the DVA Website to access it from there. 

We look forward to seeing you all at DVA 2021. 

#ItsGreat2BABC!

 

Secondary Book Week-Announcement 2!

The LRC Team would like to thank everyone who participated in Book Week 2021 and made it the amazing event it was. You may remember from our earlier post that this year's Book Week was very unique in that it was planned and organised as a collaborative project between IB school libraries and local organisations in El Salvador.  You can read more about that here or scroll down to the previous post.

It is now time to report on some of the highlights which arose from the participation strand.

Calligram Competition

The LRC team would like to congratulate Nadine Salume in 7th grade for taking part in and winning the Book Week Calligram Competition with her rendition in the representation of the Hunger Games Novel, which she designed using text arranged to depict an image.  Well done Nadine for your hard work on this initiative!  We look forward to your participation in future activities as well. 

9th Grade Assembly

We also have a winner from 9th grade Michael Romero for leading with student responses during the Book Week Assembly. Well done and a huge thank you to Michael for sharing his ideas with staff members and students during assembly.

Creative Writing Exhibition 

Catalina Portillo in 11th grade won the Creative Writing Exhibition piece for her video submission in which she reads to us from her piece entitled Omaha Beach, which focuses on the power of courage. We would like to thank Catalina as well as all of the participants in this challenge for their exemplary written pieces. We look forward to more creative works from these students and would like to encourage them and others to continue sharing their literary endeavors with us. 

You can view all the submissions here.

(Please be aware that some of the student content is only accessible with ABC login credentials)

Finally, Challenge #3

Read 2 Books per Month, is a student initiative being run by Juan Santos and Sofia Tapias, which as the name states, is a challenge to read 2 or more books each month. This initiative will continue to run until the end of the school year.  Do please consider taking part.

Secondary Book Week Week 2021 Update!

 

This week was Book Week in Secondary and what a wonderful Book Week it was. This was the second year we have held it completely online. This year, however, was a very different Book Week Experience from last year's event. This year, our librarians teamed up with librarians from the other IB schools in El Salvador,  the Internacional Book Shop, and various authors from around the country to plan a variety of powerful activities.  The LRC Team put together a Book Week website to which they added collections of challenges, video sessions, and book fair links.  

LRC Challenges were provided for students and in some cases by students as was the case of the Read 2 Books per Month challenge.  Additional activities included the Calligram and Creative Writing Exhibition challenges.  A prize will be awarded to the top submission in each category.

During Book Week, students in 6th,7th, 9th, and 12th-grade students took part in a variety of activities. 

6th and 7th Grade participated in reading workshops with Salvadoran author Milena Calderón, which focused on the book, La Calabiuza. The students were enthralled with the activity which included a dynamic reading by Milena. This was one of the learning opportunities provided by. GREMISAL. 

Silvia Pira of GRELISAL took part por su participaciñon en el fomento de la lectura con el cuento sobre La muerte ella pertenece a la Red de escritores salvadoreños GREMISAL

GREMISAL(Gremial de Escritores de Literatura Infanto-Juvenil Salvadoreña ) is a group of Salvadoran writers, storytellers, and librarians who are involved in the promotion of Salvadoran children's literature within the country and abroad. 

The 9th Grade Book Week Assembly took place on Thursday, April 29th.

Ms. Valdez, one of our guest writers this week, who is also our wonderful head of 9th grade had this to say about the assembly. 

We finished another week of school by reaffirming the joy of reading and storytelling with our G9 students. The LRC put together some great activities and challenges for all ABC students to participate. Additionally, they were kind enough to organise a virtual storytelling for G9 with Salvadoran author Silvia Pira. As she dramatised her story "La Muerte", it was great to watch G9 students hanging on the edge of their seats and their reactions as the story progressed. Thank you once again LRC for allowing us this opportunity"(Margarita Valdez-Ho9th)

Thursday was a busy Book Week Day as the librarians, Spanish teachers, and grade 12 Spanish students participated in an online Book Day virtual discussion with 11th grade IB students at Faith Christian School in Paraguay. This was a wonderful success, punctuated by a variety of student-led questions, answers, and discussion which revolved around literature, IB experiences, and online learning during a pandemic. This virtual forum was a powerful experience for the students and teachers involved. 

We believe in providing our students with opportunities to engage in collaborative work which enables them to learn with and learn from others, share their own ideas and discuss global issues and concerns and share their experiences and learning in collaborative venues. Over the years we have engaged in a great many collaborative with students and teachers from other schools, all of which have not only impacted positively on learning but have made lasting memories and enduring connections for those involved. Virtual meetups provide an ideal platform for this vital work.

Ms. Granados, who is one of our Spanish teachers had this to say about the event in which she too played a major role.

"El conversatorio ha sido una muy buena experiencia, en cuanto al intercambio de conocimientos y vivencias en la materia de Español.

Fue gratificante tener ese contacto con alumnos de otro país y comprobar que, los alumnos de la ABC están dentro del perfil de aprendizaje del IB, los cuales se mostraron muy receptivos y, a la vez expresaron algunos consejos"(Ana Gladys Granados-Dept. Español-ABC).

Mention should also be made of the careful preparation, and engagement with this activity evident in the work that the LRC librarians,  the ABC Secondary Spanish team, as well as the students and teachers from both institutions who participated. We would like to say a special thank you to Cynthia Ruiz Diaz of FCS, and Judith Mendez who got the ball rolling and are largely responsible for the planning and implementation of this event.  

Finally, the LRC team would like to thank Ms. Rabanowitz, our head of Spanish, for all of the work she and her Spanish team did in helping to prepare for and participate in this activity. 

Bringing the Community Together Through Shared Events

There has been a lot going on this year, often in the background in ICT and at the LRC. It is now the time of the year when we get to showcase some of that work.

Here are some of the highlights for the next two weeks: 

 

1.  Earth Day is this Thursday so we have included a few different activities on our website for the students to take part in this week or over the weekend with their families. 

2. DVA Voting will begin this Wednesday morning and close on Sunday April 25th 6pm. Emails will go out to staff and students tomorrow morning which contain the voting form. The form(which is closed until tomorrow morning) can also be accessed via the DVA Website. *Only members of the school community will be able to log in, view the videos and vote. 

We have included a short teaser for DVA which highlights certain aspects of each nominated video, which is viewable by anyone with the link.

A Look Ahead:

3. Next week is Book Week , but here is a sneak peak at what is going on behind the scenes. This is a special Book Week that has been put together by the member schools of the Salvadoran IB Schools group and several local organisations. We will be sharing the site with the ABC 

community, this Friday. The site itself contains an array of activities for students abnd staff to take part in over the course of the week. 

During Book Week, we are also running live online sessions with certain grades through the KS3 HoYs in addition to setting up a discussion panel with our  12th grade IB students and those in a school in Paraguay, through the Spanish department.

The International Book Store has set up an online book fair for staff and students as well and this to can be accessed directly from our website. 

4. Finally, we will continue promoting STEAM Fest as of next week with reminders about dates and requirements.

 

This will be the second time we have had to move both DVA and STEAM Fest online. Both have been revamped to meet the needs of online learning but STEAM Fest has is the event that has morphed the most. In developing this year's STEAM Fest we have done our best to ensure that relveant ICT project work has a place, as well as guided general challenges and guided open challenges as well. You can check out the 2021 Site as well as STEAM Fests past, here. 

Thanks for all of the hard work you do in promoting these school activities. 

The DVA, STEAM and LRC Teams greatly appreciate your support. 

Brain Awareness Week 2021

 Each school year the LRC Team prepares  a variety of fun activities and resources designed for students to learn more about their brains, how to keep them healthy and challenge them.

This year we are still teaching from home so we again had to find another way to do this.  We have found that Google Sites has proven very useful for creating online themed events for the community. Just short of  year from the day they locked things down in El Salvador due to COVID-19, we find ourselves publishing our newest resource via Google Sites. 

Here is the link to our Brain Awareness Week Page.

We hope that members of our community will enjoy taking part in these activities.

Happy Friday Everyone!

DVA and STEAM Fest 2021

 ABC DVA 

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Link to the Website

ABC Secondary STEAM Fest is Coming!

This year STEAM Fest will work a little differently and take place online.

In preparation, the STEAM Team has prepared a great many challenges for you to look through and take part in. There are Grade Level SDG challenges, General Challenges and you can even Build your very own challenges using the guidance on our website. All entries are individual this year due to our special circumstances.

This year we will include a judging panel full of wonderful ABC teachers who will help determine which of our wonderful ABC Makers attain  Bronze, Silver and Gold Level standards! The students whose projects are allocated the highest points by the judging panels will also be awarded a special prize.

Finally, we would like to issue a challenge to all Secondary ABC Students to design the STEAM Fest 2021 Logo and Slogan for the event. To be eligible, all entries for the Log/Slogan Competition must be sent to either Mrs. Garcia or Mrs. Serrano by March 15th. 

Please check out the STEAM Fest 2021 Webpage and watch our Promotional Video for further details on how to join the STEAM Team of student Makers, for STEAM fest 2021.

Finally, a reminder about LRC- Today  in History, is our weekly update with interesting facts for you and the students to enjoy.