We need to meet to make some trip preparations and review some materials. The meeting will be held in Pudong at 12:45 on Thursday Feb 4th in HS Room 319. You must bring your lunch to the room. Please plan on pre-ordering a sandwich for that day. Sr Castro will soon be posting his meetings on the Puxi campus. Watch for them!
REMEMBER THURSDAY FEBRUARY 4th HS ROOM 319 at LUNCH 12:45
SAS school trips have the option to offset the carbon fuel used in flights by contributing to the Million Trees Project through Roots and Shoots, a network of school environmental clubs. 25 yuan buys one tree to help with reforesting Inner Mongolia. Our round trip flight to Barcelona would be worth 225 yuan or 9 trees per person. If you would like to contribute to the Million Trees Project by purchasing 1-9 trees please put your chosen amount in an envelope and submit to Sr. Castro or Sra Leyden. This is optional and out of the goodness of your heart and your concern for our beautiful planet!
The final payment of 7000 rmb is due on Monday Feb 1st. Please follow typical payment procedures with the cashier on your campus.
Some students still have outstanding paperwork. We need to have a copy of your passport, resident visa in China and your world wide insurance coverage (mandatory - in the event that you don't have coverage you will have to have a credit card and a letter from your parents authorizing the signing of medical expenses on it in the event of an emergency .
We must submit payment and passport numbers to the airline this month so this paperwork is very important to issuing our flight tickets.
During winter break you should be sure that you have made all arrangements to update your passport and chinese visa if necessary. You also need to make sure you have a worldwide insurance policy. This is why we require all documents in December so we can check and confirm.
Another important aspect of the trip is getting ready to meet your host families. This year we will stay with two different families. It is a common courtesy to bring a hostess gift to the family. They would appreciate a gift from either China or your own country so winter break is a great time to do some shopping especially if you are going home and want to represent your country. Hostess gifts do not have to be expensive just enjoyable. Communicating with your host family will also make your experience more meaningful. Photos are a great way to start conversations. Think of printing a small album of photos of your home, family and friends to show to your host families. You can prepare this over break as well. They will be curious about China so photos of your life here will also be interesting to them. Finally, you may want to start collecting a small glossary of words and phrases that you would want to use in Spain or a list of things you want to learn how to say. This is a project you can start over vacation and/or we can do it together during trip meetings in January.
If you want to purchase a small travel dictionary vacation might be the best time to do this as well.
Clothing! - Barcelona and Valencia can be cool and rainy or dry as well as warm in March. Key word - variable! Since we will walk a lot you need to plan to have good sneakers or shoes. Flip flops and shorts will not work really. You will need a light rain jacket, a jacket and a sweater to layer. Jeans and some nicer slacks as well. Any kind of shirt but remember... school dress code applies so no saggy pants or spaghetti strap low cut blouses. If you need to buy clothing you may want to take advantage of the winter break to plan your shopping as well.
Hasta muy pronto!
We would like to meet to confirm necessary trip information and meet each other. Thies are important meetings so please make every effort to attend:
Pudong Campus - Thursday Dec 10th at 1pm in the Orange Couch Room . please Know your school email and bring paper /pencil and your document checklist.
Puxi Campus - Thursday Dec 17 at 12:25pm in Room 119.
It is very important that we have your personal and school email as well as your parent's emails so we can stay in good communication. Please check the blog regularly
The second payment of 7,000 RMB is due by Tuesday, December 1, 2009
The balance of 7,000 RMB is due by Monday, February 1, 2010.
The payment should be made in cash to the financial office by the above dates.
If you are joining the trip and have not made the first payment of 2,400 please see Sra Leyden or Sr. Castro to sign up and make a total payment of 9,400 on December 1.
Muchas Gracias!
Any IB diploma student planning to go on our trip can now work towards a maximum of 30 CAS hours. Please see the CAS CREDITS page in the sidebar to the right.
If you are interested talk to the trip leaders and your CAS Coordinator or mentor. This is a wonderful life and learning experience and we want to help you take advantage of it fully!
The two forms mentioned above are now attached to the blog. You can find them on the page with a link to the PDF file that you can then print from your computer.
If you want Creativity or Action Hours for your Spanish trip experience see the CAS coordinator and Ms. Leyden to determine the hours and the particular focus.
Please view the pages for Trip Registration and Parental Permission. This is a sample of the documents you need to hand in. We will posting this in downloadable form shortly. Keep visiting us!