The ISD grade 3 Christmas market returns for a good cause

After the global pandemic forced last year’s market online, the students were excited to get back to a live, face-to-face (2G+) market earlier this month.

The Primary Years Programme (PYP) at ISD encourages children to address complex social and environmental issues, and to make positive changes in their local communities. As they have in previous years, this year’s grade 3 students focused on creating gifts and seasonally-themed items from wood, paper, and other sustainably sourced materials. The end products included Christmas decorations, origami sculptures, candle holders, bracelets, and games, such as Tic Tac Toe. Things such as candle holders for example, are ingeniously created using recycled fence posts and baubles from last year’s Christmas trees.

The students were also delighted to be able to sell homemade drinks and snacks once more; their waffles, cookies, and kinderpunsch were a huge hit with parents, teachers, and fellow students alike!

In keeping with the theme of sustainability, students decided to retain the successful pre-order system developed last year, in an effort to reduce waste; the children made prototypes, took pictures, and took online orders, before producing their wares on demand. After weeks of hard work, they were finally able to host a physical market – complete with authentic wooden stalls and live Christmas music – for fellow elementary school students and their parents.

As always, it was a thought-provoking process for the youngsters. They quickly realised how rewarding it is to make products with sustainable materials. They spent much of their time in the Outdoor Learning Environment (OLE), trying their hand at different techniques such as sawing, drilling, sanding, and experimenting with different branding and decoration techniques.

“In their Sustainable Choices unit, students become aware of how products with a low environmental impact are created”, says Stephen Barratt, Elementary School Principal. “While this is a focus every year, this year the students had to find a balance between using recyclable and compostable materials and creating a Covid-safe market experience where more packaging is sometimes required.”

We are pleased to report that some 1800 products were sold this year, with €1861 raised; the students have agreed that the proceeds will be donated to local charity, Frauen Helfen Frauen e.V.

ISD Director, Frank Tschan, is proud of the school’s long and impressive history of teaching students to apply their learning for a good cause. “This is something we have stood behind with full conviction for more than 50 years.”