We were the Top Trumps Group. Our group’s goal was for new students to learn more about IST by playing a card game. We chose this topic because we all knew how new students feel when they to to new, fascinating schools, possibly in different, unique countries.

We learned

• that new teachers and students are super important
• that there are many events at school
• that taking notes when doing research is very important

Our advice to grade 4 students would be that they try to be team players. These are people who are willing to work as a team to complete tasks or overcome difficulties. Being team players helped us to cooperate and we ended up with a great innovation project that was extremely creative and unique. See our cards on Mr. Kimber’s blog.

Below are individual reflections from the Top Trumps Group. To read each reflection, click on the link and download the file.

Arthur’s reflection essay

Peter’s reflection essay

Seung Wook’s reflection essay

Zen’s reflection essay

The Top Trumps group is creating a trading card game that highlights the traditions and events of IST.

The Top Trumps Group are doing great. I’ll tell you why: They are done with their cards! They surveyed the students about what some great traditions at IST are, they made draft designs, they edited the design and then Mr. Kimber edited them. They thought they were ready and then, oh no!, the cards wouldn’t fit into the container they had for their cards, so it was back to the drawing board to resize. The cards now are printed in color and real card paper, and fit perfectly in the container.

They now have to try the cards out so that they know people will like them when they come out for real. That’s why they are going to plan an activity for elementary students from grades 2~5 to come and play with the  Top Trumps cards. That will be sometime soon. Be sure to check out the posters they are putting up around the school for details on the activity.

Here are all the cards in black and white. They will be available in full color in a a week or so.

Edited by Chloe.

The Top Trumps group is creating a trading card game that highlights the traditions and events of IST.

The Top Trumps group have finished their research and planning, and are now almost finished drafting their cards. 

They have been researching a lot about Top Trumps cards. Almost all of their information has come from the IST website, Wikipedia, and the Top Trumps official website (www.toptrumps.com). They also have been looking at the IST yearbooks to find special events that IST have done for a long time.

They are going to have 30 different cards with a different place, event or a person on each one. Some examples are Mr. Moody, library, and UN day. They will have 5 categories that the people playing will choose from:

1. Internationalness
2. Duration
3. Excitement
4. Amount of people involved
5. Educational value.

All of the members in the Top Trumps Group like all the cards they have made but their favorite event cards are UN day (Arthur), Soccer tournament (Zen), and Thursday Night Live (Peter). Seung Wook  likes the card about Mr. Moody.

They are hoping to finish their cards today and they are going to hope to test it out tomorrow. They will first test the cards in their group then they will ask other students to play.

Edited by:Dylan

The Top Trumps group has achieved much so far. They have had some struggles but that hasn’t stopped them from working. They surveyed grade 2 and 3 and they are turning the results from that survey into a chart. They’ve researched about special activities/traditions of IST and chosen the best ones to put on the cards. We think that their project will be a huge success.

Top Trumps are a kind of trading card game. Each card has a subject and the subject has different abilities that go with it. The cards have the same abilities but not the same percent, and one of the players would want the highest  percent for the abilities. Each card has different percentage for the abilities so that’s why you would want to trade them. There are some games for the Top Trumps cards but there are a lot of different ways to play the games.

Edited by Shehab and Chloe