Earth Hour

So, are you ready to put the lights out? It's Earth Hour at 8.30 tonight; the hour when people around the world try to turn out their lights as a small gesture towards conserving energy and looking after our planet. We can't make a big difference all by ourselves but we can make a small one and if enough of us do it, we might do enough to make a big one. Here's the video that we watched in class that gives us a short introduction to what is happening.


We were working on rotation of shapes today and some of us managed to get to play a little golf at the same time; maths golf that is. You have to move the ball into the hole in the smallest number of moves by rotating, reflecting or transforming the position. So far, Abdullah is in the lead with 41 points. Can anyone do better? Here's the game if you'd like to have a go.

Downhill All The Way

We were out in the fresh air today, conducting one of the science experiments that is part of our topic 'The Physical World'. We were recording the effect of gravity and slope on the distance a car would roll. Our idea was that the steeper the slope, the further the car would roll. Here's some pictures:

Changes

What a fun day we had today! Lots of building, reading instructions, co-operating and problem solving. A little bit of frustration as well but that's natural when faced with a problem. I am talking about building the fairground rides of course. There will be photos of our work coming later.

Wednesday is our Swimming Carnival, as we know, and because we will be missing the library lesson Mrs Caffrey has kindly allowed us to return and borrow books on Tuesday instead. So, if you want to change your library books, remember to bring them back a day early.

There Are More Questions Than Answers

I see from the comments to a couple of posts (eg Funny Faces), that some people are wondering how I made the faces look so weird like this

or this

or this.

I don't really understand the fuss; isn't this what you look like normally? Ok, I admit it, I played around with the photos but I didn't use an 'app'. You young people, haven't you ever heard of doing something yourself?

News and Updates!

What a shock we had in school today! There was a very unexpected bit of news that made everyone very happy; Mr Ward was back! Hurray! shouted all the children when they saw him. Boo! shouted all the children when he made them start work. As some of you know, I was gone for a few days because I had to go to a party. Not just any party of course; my grandfather has reached the ancient age of 100 years old. He is a century, as Ruy said, and his family came back from various bits of the world to be with him on his special day. You can see a picture of all of his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren in this newspaper photo. He is the one who looks very old and I am the one who looks very handsome.



Our second bit of news, not quite as exciting, is that school is closed tomorrow. We have been told that rain is expected and we should close the school as a precaution, therefore there is no school (sadly) and no Cinema Night. Keep checking the school website for further information and for some work to do while you are at home tomorrow.

Don't forget, it's the Swimming Gala on Wednesday next week. Start practicing now!

Finally, our Mystery Question of the last couple of weeks has been answered! Perseus managed to slay the monster Medusa by using a special reflective shield which acted like a mirror. He could then see her without being turned to stone by her terrible eyes. Congratulations to Ethan who was the first person to get the correct answer. Who will be first with the new question?

Taking A Trip To Red Sea Mall

Whew! What a great trip that was! We had a lot of fun at Red Sea Mall today, going on the rides, screaming, taking photos, screaming, getting soaking wet on the Log Flume, screaming, feeling really sick on Jamaica, screaming, asking to have something to eat and screaming. A couple of us got a bit too bumped on the Bumper Cars and a couple of us needed a few too many reminders to act safely but mostly we had a good time. Here's a few photos and a little song to go with the trip.

Final Warning!

Phew! That's the last parent out of the door and another set of Parents' Evenings finished. Except, of course, for the mysteriously large number of people who seem to have 'forgotten' to give me the paper asking for an appointment. I think some people need to have a good look at the bottom of their bags.

Anyway, tomorrow is Red Sea Mall trip day! (Hurray) Don't forget you still have Arabic in the morning (double Hurray!) and PE in the afternoon (oooh). You should bring a snack to have before you go because we won't be back until nearly second break and there definitely won't be any diversion to McDonald's. You can also bring a camera if you like as Miss Hall will be doing some work with you which includes photos.

Reminders

Two bits of news at the moment:

For those who are in Mr Murphy's Thursday morning football club, it has been cancelled until after the BSME team go to Qatar. So, no football on Thursday's until after the holidays.

If you want to be in the Talent Show, the auditions are on the 7th and 8th of March in Room 52 (Upper School Drama)from 2.45 to 4.30.

Funny Faces

We've been working on symmetry lately and I've also been taking pictures of everyone for different reasons. What would happen if I tried to make a symmetrical face, I wondered? Here's what would happen...

Mystery Question: Unanswered!

Well, we've had two answers for the question so far but neither of them have been correct! I'll give Mafdi and Abdullah a house point each for having a go but the top prize of three house points is still waiting to be won!

Final Reminder

Cupcakes!

Art Attacks

We've been doing some really nice pieces of art recently. A couple of people have gone into the Golden Book for their art work and you can see pictures of them elsewhere on this website. Here are some pictures that we did as part of our work on symmetry.

Presentation Tips

So, it's presentation time tomorrow! How exciting. Now I'm sure that some of you are panicking at home, thinking "How can I remember the whole story, it's far too long? How can I make a PowerPoint in only 2 days!" and so on. You don't have to do that. This presentation is not focussed on visuals, it's focussed on story-telling. I want you to be able to tell a story from your country without reading it. The pictures, if you want to use them, are only there to help you remember the details.

I don't want you to try to talk for 15 minutes because you won't remember everything and so you'll mumble and stumble and we'll get bored. Just summarise the most important details and if you can answer any of the questions, that's a bonus. You can use Wikipedia (click here) to search for the name of a character from your story and that should give you a synopsis or short summary. Don't forget to try the Simple English version of Wikipedia if the other one is too complicated.

Welcome Back!

Phew! Here we all are again after a very exciting week away. Little did Mrs Ward and I know that the school was going to completely stop without us here. Who knew that we were so important? Somebody said that it was something to do with a bit of rain but I know that you just wouldn't have enjoyed school so much without us. It's good to see everyone safe and well back at school and presumably full of energy for the rest of the term.

Anyway, we've had a few problems with our internet due to the floods so I haven't been able to post anything here but now I can! The new spellings are up, our assembly date has been pushed back to the beginning of March and we have presentations to do on Wednesday so we're certainly busy. Let's get down to it!

Weekend News

I hope everyone got home alright after the rain and floods. There were still a lot of people at school at 4pm yesterday afternoon. I guess that their bus or car couldn't get through the water. As you can see from the pictures, in some parts of Jeddah it was really dangerous. Let's hope that nobody was badly hurt or worse. It's good to see so many people helping out those who are in trouble. We talk a lot at school about being a good team and working with other people. You can see that it's still important when you grow up as well, only then it's not just about being a good team member but being a good person. I hope that all the good team work you showed in the assembly last week continues when you get older. Well done again for being such a good example to everyone else and don't forget that Mrs Sheibani has kindly promised to give you ice cream as a reward. I think an umbrella might be better!




So, next week I'll be away and Mrs Uthman will be teaching you. I've given her the things I think she'll need but you can help out as well by showing her you are good listeners and that you are responsible. See you when I get back.

More Reminders

Ok, what do we need to remember?

1. Tomorrow is non-uniform day; bring a small gift as a prize for the Spring Fair
2. If you want to order anything from the Book Club, bring your money in an envelope
3. If it lo0ks like rain in the morning (are the clouds dark?) then you should bring a jumper
   

Reminders

Lots of things going on at the moment and lots of things to remember. Here's a few of them:

1. Auditions for Ali Baba on Thursday morning. Make sure you come in your time slot!
2. Non-uniform day on Wednesday NEXT WEEK. Please bring a small gift that we can use as a prize at the Spring Fair. It shouldn't be an expensive gift. Do not bring a toy that you got free from a fast food restaurant.
3. Tomorrow is the last day for photo money.
4. Festival of Football and Spring Fair - February 17th
5. Y5-2 Class Assembly - February 16th (I think)
   

New Gold

So, the first Golden Book of 2011 has just passed by and which wonderful student found himself in its illustrious pages? It was...RUY!

He got into the Golden Book because of his dedication to independent learning during our Astronomy topic. He has discovered many interesting and unusual pieces of information and, not only that, he has been able to explain all of the things he has learned to the rest of the class. Well done Ruy!

Two more Super Students are appearing in the blog at the moment. Laila and Saleh are the first people from our class to go up a level in 3 Minute Maths. Well done to you two and come on everyone else!

Healthy & Wise

As part of our focus on Healthy Eating over the next week or so we'll be keeping a food journal and keeping track of what we eat each day. I think some of us might be surprised about how much we eat and probably how much unhealthy food that we eat.

There are a few useful websites around to help us learn about what we eat and how it affects us. Here is another one which has a game about food and nutrition.

Happy New Homework! (I mean 'Year')

Hello again everyone and welcome to 2011! I hope you all had a great holiday and didn't get too wet or snowy. We're back to school and full of energy and enthusiasm about our New Year.

Part of the change to a New Year is thinking about all the things we want to do in the time ahead. We're going to give ourselves three targets that we'd like to achieve before our next holiday. When you've decided what they are, send them to me by clicking on the '0 replies' link underneath.