An incredible International Week 2019 at BIS Hanoi

International Week 2019 has been an incredible week of flags, traditional costumes, music and many cultural activities all around the world. The purpose of the week is for Primary students to focus on and dived into learning about cultures, traditions and much more! 

On Monday, a Parade of Nations was held on the schoolyard to kick-start our International Week 2019. We celebrated the 33 nationalities in our school, from F1 – Year 9 with beautiful colours of different flags and designs of national costumes on display. A huge number of parents had come to join in with their children and the parade is proved to be a great success.

For the International Week, our parents and Vietnamese staff have together set up the Vietnamese Experience in the Parent Lounge. The room has held a hive of activity with students and teachers tasting food and learning more about our wonderful host nation. Especially this year, we have the cyclo at school just for this week and it has been a real highlight for all visitors!  

This week Phase One have had a fantastic week learning all about different countries from around the world. Each class was given a different country to study and spent some time thinking about how we can make links to Global Actions.

In Year One we learnt about some Polish language, practised some traditional Polonaise dancing, a visit from the Polish embassy, built replicas of the Taipei 101, made milk bubble tea, helped make and bake some delicious cookies and made some Statue of Liberty hats! They event got a visit from a Polish MasterChef winner: Chef Ola Nguyen and were then had the chance to taste the delicious Masterchef-edition of apple pancake!

In Year Two we learnt a very intimidating dance called the Hakka in which we performed to an audience at the main entrance, learnt about the traditional Thai fruit carvings and then our own version, built the Great Wall of China using nothing but sugar cubes and made and tasted some French crepes and even ordered them in French too in our French cafe run by our parents!

International Week in Phase 2 has, once again, been a phenomenal success. The students have worked diligently, learnt an incredible amount and had a lot of fun! It has been wonderful to see so many parents taking on active roles in the Phase 2 BIS community. Thank you to all those who have visited us to give presentations, to teach us new and exciting games and activities and to share traditional (and very tasty) foods with us!

Phase 2 have travelled through a whopping five continents this International Week, with only North America (and Antarctica) not being studied. Our learning has had great breadth and depth, with activities as diverse as Spanish architecture, Austrian traditional games, Malawi stories, Malaysian dancing, Swiss sculpture, Pacific coral conservation and Brazilian drumming.

Phew! We might need a little while to recover before next year…

In Phase 3 this week the children have explored Europe, Asia and beyond at BIS Hanoi.

In Year 5, classes have learnt how to make Irish stew, designed origami tulips from The Netherlands, as well as learning about traditional German costumes. In Year 6 the children have been busy sumo wrestling in Japan, creating rangoli patterns from India, cooking South Korean bulgogi and kimchi, and playing ice hockey inspired by Canada.

With each country studied, the children have been examining how governments and local people are working hard to support climate action and environmental sustainability.

International Week 2019 would not be possible without our supportive parents and members of BIS community who have come in to lead workshops, presentations, teach skills, cook food and have fun with our students. Thank you to everyone who has joined in and supported us this week!