Our life at Pioneers

Sundials!!

2012-02-21T15:55:00.000+02:00

We made our own sundials in class today and told the time by the shadows of the sun.

Time Zones

2012-02-20T18:19:00.000+02:00

Hello students,

Today we talked about Time Zones and why we have them. We learned how to look at the map and see how many time zones there are between two countries.

Tomorrow we're going to make our own sundials and learn how people used to find out the time before we started using watches and clocks.

Here is a video to help you understand more about time zones.

No school, but still we have spelling

2012-02-19T21:08:00.003+02:00

I hope you had a fun day off school kids!

Just wanted to give you a head start on your spelling words for the week:

since, earth, equator, longitude, latitude, rotate, hemisphere, axis, east, south

Have fun, start studying.

It's The Weekend!!!

2012-02-16T16:15:00.000+02:00

Good job this week kids.

Today we sang for Mr Ben's class and he loved it! Well done.

We played our vocabulary game and wrote an essay.

See you next week!

Seasons & Rotations

2012-02-13T19:22:00.000+02:00

Today we read about how the earth rotates and why we have seasons.

You all did presentations and pretended you were teachers explaining to the class why it's cold in the winter and hot in the summer. You all did great! Here are some pictures:

2012-02-12T19:28:00.000+02:00

Hey kiddies,

Spelling words for the week. Start studying them today:

rise, east, equator, earth, quiet, cute, avoid, lightning, tunnel, complain

We're learning about the earth's rotation around the sun and why we have seasons. We're doing this so that we can learn about time zones next week.

Here's a fun video for you:

dum dum dummm...

2012-02-08T19:40:00.000+02:00

Yes my children... you have a test tomorrow. I hope you've studied.

Spelling, vocabulary and capital letters will be on the test tomorrow.

Your homework for today is creating a gmail account for our blogging module and finishing the essay we stared in class.

See you tomorrow!

Why does it always rain on me?

2012-02-06T13:21:00.000+02:00

Below is our song for the week: Travis - Why Does It Always Rain On Me?

Yesterday we learned about the proverbs 'rain on my parade' and 'the light at the end of the tunnel' and talked about what rain, parade, light and tunnel are metaphors for.

Today we looked at the song and discussed what it means and what the lyrics are really mean when they mention rain.

Start thinking about what the singer's story might be. Why is he sad? Why does his life feel so dark? What happened when he was 17?

Binders and other things

2012-02-05T15:18:00.000+02:00

Hey kiddos,

Good class today. We learned about all the different times we need to use capital letters (this will be in your test) and learned two new proverbs this week:

The light at the end of the tunnel
Don't rain on my parade

Remember these because they are important for our song which we'll start tomorrow.

Everyone has to have their binders with them tomorrow. You must bring these every day as well as all your worksheets.

The binders have to split into the following categories:

Writing
Reading
Vocabulary
Blogging
Extras

Please study your vocabulary every day and remember to read your library books for at least 10 minutes each day.

Your spelling words are:

whistle, goal, knee, knock, business, malicious, substitution, mountain, challenge, thief

Second Semester

2012-02-01T17:33:00.000+02:00

Hey kids,

Awesome seeing you all today! I'm really looking forward to this semester and working with you guys.

Do not forget to bring your homework packets tomorrow. Please make sure they are finished.

Facebook

2012-01-20T17:54:00.001+02:00

Hey kids!

I hope you're all having a lovely time on your holiday and are working on your homework packets.

If you've on Facebook come find me! My name on Facebook is Sara Pioneers. If you have any questions about the homework or want to tell me about your holiday or say hello - you can ask me there :)

WOOOOHOOOOO!!!

2012-01-11T21:10:00.000+02:00

Yes children... the end of the semester is here!!!

Fantastic work this semester. You've learned a lot and you've worked really and I'm very proud of you!

Today we did our BIG BAD JEOPARDY CLASS QUIZ GAME! It covered marketing, sociology, Arabs in English and Vocabulary.

Team I Don't Know came out the winner with 550 points closely followed by Coffee Mate who had 500 points.

Excellent work.

Team I Don't Know is also the semester class points winner with 1070 points (pretty awesome).

Once they decide what they want their prize to be we'll take a little trip somewhere fun in Nablus.

Tomorrow we've got our football game and then it's the holiday.

Don't forget your holiday packets and reading your books.

Well done and I'll see you next semester!

Miss Sara

Holiday Homework!

2012-01-09T13:46:00.000+02:00

Dear students and parents,

The children have all been given a homework packet to be completed over the break. They have to complete one page each day.

They have also checked out books from the school library that they have to read over the break.

It is very important that they keep reading and working on their English over the holiday. The homework packet is meant to be done over the two weeks.

All students have to bring their completed packets with them on the first day of next semester.

Enjoy!

No Test This Week!!

2012-01-08T13:03:00.000+02:00

Hello children and parents,

There will be NO English test this week.

Last week we revised all the spelling we did over the semester and this week we're focusing on vocabulary.

Please make sure you bring ALL your vocabulary sheets with you to school every day.

We're going to keep doing reading so if you read Ramona - please remember to bring the books.

Good writing work today. We've been working on first and second drafts and you've all done a great job.

Good luck with studying for your other tests!

Spelling & Vocabulary

2012-01-04T15:18:00.002+02:00

Hey kids,

Keep working on your spelling and vocabulary! Good work today... keep it up!

Spelling for the year

2012-01-02T10:14:00.000+02:00

These are the spelling words we have done this year. There will be a test on them - you have been warned.

You also need to study all the vocabulary words we have taken this year as well as the list of past tense irregulars.

Teacher

Eyes

Died

Friend

Twice

Pushed

Pencils

Stairs

Buys

Climbing

Delicious

People

Much

Palestine

America

Their

Lovely

Country

Garbage

Lazy

Friendly

Pleasant

Doesn’t

Apostrophe

Spaghetti

Sweat

Cheap

Expensive

Similar

Starving

Package

Personality

Taught

Told

Said

Benefit

Choice

Laugh

Persuade

Sometimes

Competition

Through

Friends

Welcome

Advice

Patriotic

Effective

Genius

Physiological

Safety

Youth

Laugh

Some

Little

Necessity

Symbol

Luxury

Round

Give

Light

Which

Restaurant

Ceiling

Thief

Piece

Receipt

Receive

Chief

Wait

There

Their

Dramas

2011-12-28T17:11:00.000+02:00

No English!

2011-12-21T16:28:00.002+02:00

Oh no! We didn't have English today.

Don't worry - we'll still have our test tomorrow!!

Study your spelling words, 'ing' and 'ed' adjectives and marketing.

Have fun :)

Advertising Strategy

2011-12-19T13:05:00.000+02:00

Yesterday we talked about the different strategies marketers use in their advertisements.

We talked about using:

Emotion (happiness, fear, comedy)
Celebrity Endorsement
Price
Promise of a better Life
Coolness (ads)

Here are a couple examples we watched in class. Can you remember what strategies they used?:

Thank you Mrs Titti!

2011-12-16T19:10:00.003+02:00

Our Christmas Song!

2011-12-13T10:20:00.001+02:00

Practice hard for the competition on Thursday!

Deck the Halls
A Pioneers Christmas Song

Deck the halls with boughs of holly,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Tis the season to be jolly,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Sing we joyous, all together,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Heedless of the wind and weather,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Deck the halls with maqloubeh
Fa la la la la, la la la la
Flip the pot and uncover
Fa la la la la, la la la la

See the smiles on teachers’ faces
Fa la la la la la, la la la
Now we’ll all get A pluses
Fa la la la la la, la la la

Thank you Mrs Qamhieh!

2011-12-11T09:30:00.000+02:00

For the very delicious maqloubeh!!!

It was very very very very very wonderful! Thank you so much!

Children your spelling words for this week are

meat, meet, graph, cell, data, spread, piece, submarine, library, sociology

Study hard!

To the Sheebs!

2011-12-06T19:59:00.001+02:00

And a big thank you to Sheeb and Mrs Sheeb for his maqloubeh!!

Delicious!!

I wanted to put this picture up last week but didn't have time so... here it is!

Signs

2011-12-05T12:37:00.000+02:00

Today we talked about being deaf and blind and the ways people communicate and live.

We learned some sign language and you can never say these words in class again! You must always sign them!

Thanks you Issas!!!!

2011-12-04T18:12:00.000+02:00

The English teachers would like to thank Mrs Issa for her wonderful, delicious, amazing, fantastic maqloubeh!

Thank you so much!

Children, today was a good day. You started your marketing proposals in class and there are lots of interesting ideas for products. Remember you have to give me these on Thursday.

Your homework is to read the vocabulary words. Please don't forget.

Your spelling words for the week:

teacher, eyes, died, friend, twice, pushed, pencils, stairs, buys, climbing

More maqloubeh!!!

2011-12-03T12:25:00.001+02:00

Thank you Abs and Sheeb for the delicious maqloubeh!!

Test!

2011-11-30T14:55:00.000+02:00

Yes children, like every Thursday... we will have a test.

Your test will cover the vocabulary and spelling words, grammar (gerunds), gender roles AND place (marketing).

STUDY VERY VERY HARD.

Ameer you will have 10 extra points on your test for solving the riddle before anyone else in class and Hiba you will have 5 extra points for coming in second!

Well done everybody on your stand up comedy today.

Some very good jokes!

See you tomorrow.

Kiddies!

2011-11-29T19:54:00.000+02:00

Nice work today.

We did marketing (p is for place) and talked about why location is important to sellers.

We did more stand up comedy with jokes from Yazan, Mo'men and Abs.

Abs's joke was particularly good! Very funny.

Remember everyone, you all have to do your jokes tomorrow.

Start studying for your Thursday everyone.

I love learning my vocabulary words

2011-11-27T13:31:00.001+02:00

Today we did Gerunds - when a verb pretends to be a noun.

Like:

Reading is fun.
Essam likes playing football.

We wrote essays in class (some of you have to finish them for homework).

You also have a gerund worksheet to do for homework.

THIS WILL BE ON YOUR TEST.

These are your spelling words:

Delicious, people, much, Palestine, America, their, lovely, country, garbage, lazy

Also - read your vocabulary words.

See you tomorrow!

Thank you Issa!!!!!

2011-11-24T16:48:00.000+02:00

Test

2011-11-23T17:03:00.003+02:00

Don't forget we have a test tomorrow.

Study hard.

Know your spelling and vocabulary, revise our worksheet on cognitive dissonance and study our marketing work.

Good luck.

The Good Vibes Tuesday Souk

2011-11-22T18:02:00.000+02:00

Today in marketing we learned about pricing.

How do sellers decide how much to sell their products for? We had a mini souk so you could get a taste of what it's like to be a seller who has to set prices for their products.

We also talked about what things you have to think about when you decide how much to sell your product for.

The winning seller was Ameer who made over 300 shekels!

The winning buyer was Yazan who had almost 50 shekels left over from his 100 shekel budget!

They both won 50 points for their teams.

Children - please remember to study your vocabulary AND spelling words. You should be studying them EVERY SINGLE DAY...

... Seriously.

Here are some pictures.

Spelling, vocabulary and homework for the week

2011-11-20T13:30:00.005+02:00

Hey kids,

Your spelling words for the week:

Friendly, pleasant, doesn’t, apostrophe, spaghetti, sweat, cheap, expensive, similar, starving

You all have a list of vocabulary words.

SPELLING WORDS AND VOCABULARY WORDS WILL BE ON YOUR TEST. PLEASE STUDY THEM.

You have grammar homework and some of you need to finish your essays for homework.

Make sure you do them.

Put 'em up!

2011-11-16T16:14:00.000+02:00

Fantastic work on your dramas today kids!

Ossama, Ali, Essam, Adeeb, Yazan and Rifaat had the best drama! Their story line was really well thought out and the character were excellently played.

Don't forget we've got a test tomorrow so please study your vocabulary and spelling words. You will definitely have a question on Edward Said and stereotypes so make sure you go over your worksheet.

See you then...

Edward Said homework!

2011-11-13T18:17:00.000+02:00

Don't forget to ask your parents about Edward Said!!!

A new week - a new list of spelling words

2011-11-12T18:17:00.000+02:00

Hello wonderful children,

Here are your spelling words for the week:

Package, personality, taught, told, said, benefit, choice, laugh, persuade, sometimes

Learn them, love them and recite them even in your sleep.

You also have your list of vocabulary words for the week. These will be on your test as well. There are bonus words at the end for children who want to make Miss Sara very very happy.

For your listening pleasure:

Congratulations to...

2011-11-02T15:54:00.000+02:00

Ahmad Hijjawi!!!

For winning the Spelling Bee and winning his team 50 points!!!

Good work Ahmad.

Runners up were:
Hiba
Sheeb
Islam
Ossama

Nice work kids

The 99!!!

2011-10-31T14:18:00.000+02:00

We received our free copies of The 99 from Dr. Naif Al Mutawa today!

It was all very exciting and you all wrote great thank you letters that I'm going to mail to him.

Here are some of the photos we took in class.

Don't forget to study for the spelling bee and I'll see you on Wednesday!

Spelling Mania!!!!!!!!!!!!

2011-10-30T10:31:00.001+02:00

Kids! Massive spelling bee on Wednesday of all the words we've taken this year - I know you're excited!

Competition, through, friends, welcome, advice, patriotic, effective, genius, physiological, safety, youth, Laugh, some, little, necessity, symbol, luxury, round, give, light, which

START STUDYING!!

It's The Weekend!!!

2011-10-27T10:39:00.000+02:00

No English class today. I know you're all very sad.

The good news is... it's the weekend!!!

See you next week...

Vote for me!

2011-10-26T09:49:00.000+02:00

Alright lovely kiddies,

Good work this week. We've been working on our song and yesterday we had student elections in class.

Students got into campaign teams and delivered speeches outlining their campaign promises.

Stand out campaign promises included:

- making taxis 1 shekel for a ride
- asking for a school gym
- using more solar power
- subsidizing petrol

As it stands our current president is Mr Neshat. His campaign team includes Huda (foreign minister), Mohammad Sheeb (consultant) and Yazan (Vice President) and Fayyad (speaker of the house).

I have not yet found my camera so I'm sorry there are no pictures!

Nice work everyone.

Zaha Hadid

2011-10-24T09:46:00.000+02:00

Hey kids,

Good work yesterday.

We learned about Zaha Hadid, our new Arab in English. She is one of the most famous architects in the world and one of the most respect female architects ever.

She was born Iraq in 1950 and now lives in London.

You all designed your own buildings and they were brilliant. I'm sorry I didn't take any pictures but I've lost my camera (have you seen it?).

Ossama had a great building shaped like a hand and each finger was its own apartment.

Barcelona's team also had a great one shaped like a hamburger where each part of the hamburger was a different floor. Excellent!

Team I Don't Know had a beautiful building shaped like the letters of Miss Sara's name.

Lovely.

Alrighty then. Your spelling words for the week are:

Package, personality, taught, told, said, benefit, choice, laugh, persuade, negotiate

Enjoy it.

Your test is on Wednesday this week. Don't forget.

Drops of Jupiter

2011-10-20T18:26:00.000+02:00

Our song..

TEST TOMORROW!

2011-10-19T16:25:00.001+02:00

Don't forget!

Study the worksheets I've given your for the past few weeks and you'll be fine.

Good luck!

Packaging

2011-10-18T16:01:00.000+02:00

Superb marketing lesson today kids.

We talked about packaging and why it's so important to have packaging that is connected to your product and is eye catching and attractive (nice looking).

Then each group picked a product, identified the target market and created packaging for it.

The winning group was Coffee Mate whose shampoo bottle for men and women had spikes and waves at the top to represent men and women's hair. Very well thought out!

All the groups did a great job. Barcelona's Team had a pen that changed colors that came out of a remote controlled box. Team I don't Know had shoes with laces that tied automatically for people with no arms - those came in a beautiful box the same color as the shoes.

The Ferrari Butterflies made a wonderful package for chips. The bag of chips had legs and would walk to you when you used the remote control.

Team FCB made a colorful box for an X box.

Don't forget your homework for tomorrow is to read the 2 papers I gave you.

See you tomorrow.

Drama pictures!

2011-10-18T08:51:00.000+02:00

Last week we studied the word 'advice' and picked out your favorite pieces of advice from the 'Wear Sunscreen' song.

Neshat, Mo'men, Ossama, Adam, Ahmad and Ali Masri created a fantastic drama from their favorite piece of advice: sing.

Here are some pictures. Good work guys!

This week and the test

2011-10-16T14:05:00.000+02:00

Hey Kiddos,

Exciting week ahead.

These are your spelling words:

Competition, through, friends, welcome, advice, patriotic, effective, genius, physiological, safety, youth

We will be doing type 1 conditionals and reviewing unreal conditionals from last week (If I could fly like a bird, I would go to Australia).

In Marketing we will be looking at packaging and the way products look on the shelf at the store. In sociology we're doing the story of a baby called X and what happens to twins who are separated at birth.

We're going to keep up with the writing work and planning out our essays.

We're also going to do more work on facts and opinions.

Everything I've talked about here will be on your TEST on Thursday so make sure you study a little bit every day.

Good work on dramas. Will post the pictures tomorrow.

Miss Sara

D-d-d-d-dramas!

2011-10-12T19:10:00.000+02:00

Today we talked about Abraham Maslow and his pyramid of needs (physiological, safety, belonging, esteem & self actualization).

High fives to everyone who managed to say physiological correctly. That is a hard word!

We had a sociology/marketing tie-in when we looked at advertisements and matched them to the need they were trying to meet.

Although Maslow came up with his pyramid of needs in 1943 - it is still a very important tool in marketing.

Tomorrow we're performing your dramas using your favorite pieces of advice from the 'wear sunscreen' song.

Good work on spelling today. Almost everyone spelled 'necessity' correctly. Nice work!

Oh, I've gotten the comic books from the printers so I'll give them to you tomorrow! If you want your own copy please bring me 25 shekels tomorrow. They look really nice.

See you then,

Useless Inventions

2011-10-11T15:02:00.000+02:00

URGENT!!!!! 5TH GRADE BAND TRY OUTS ARE TOMORROW DURING BREAK (10:30). 6TH AND 7TH GRADE ON THURSDAY. BRING YOUR INSTRUMENTS (EXCEPT IF YOU PLAY THE DRUMS).

Today in marketing we talked about target markets (the people who will buy your product) and what benefits products have that make people want to buy them.

Then we looked at useless inventions - products that nobody wants to buy because they have no real benefits!

You all made your own useless inventions - they were great. Here's some pictures of them.

Working in groups

A very ugly dog with a basket on its back

A TV set that doesn't play anything

A football field made out of chocolate and a radio made out of gold

A remote control plate

Nice work kids! Study spelling - we'll have a spelling bee tomorrow.

Wear Sunscreen

2011-10-08T19:57:00.000+02:00

Helloooooo children!

Welcome to a new and exciting week.

Our spelling words for the week:

Laugh, some, little, necessity, symbol, luxury, round, give, light, which

Our song for the week:

See you tomorrow!

Our Pavlovian Drama

2011-10-06T18:33:00.001+02:00

Well done kids! Some pictures for you:

Shadia Mansour homework

2011-10-05T15:38:00.000+02:00

Hey kids,

Great work today.

Remember your dramas about Pavlov and his dogs will be performed tomorrow so make sure you have learned your lines!!

We watched Shadia Mansour's interview about growing up in England. Don't forget your homework for tomorrow is to finish your essay on her.

Each group was answering a different question. The questions are:

- what does Shadia's song say?

- who is Shadia? Where is she from? Where are her parents from?

- what is Shadia telling people about being Arab and how she feels about it?

Here is her interview:

DO YOUR HOMEWORK!

Otherwise excellent work this week. You're all doing very well with paragraphs.

You all designed some fantastic logos yesterday as well.

Working hard or hardly working?

2011-10-03T08:20:00.000+02:00

Spelling is my kryptonite

2011-10-02T10:17:00.000+02:00

Hey kids,

A new week begins.

Our spelling words for this week are:

know, knew, said, wrote, together, beautiful, eight, own, found, again, together, bring, ate, the, with, did, long, ran, never, because

Study them hard!

We're continuing with 'Kryptonite' and you've got a new drama to look forward to later in the week.

I'll try to get some pictures up this week so you can show your parents the work we're doing in class.

Later skaters,

Miss Sara

Spelling BEES, CEES & DEES

2011-09-27T17:02:00.000+03:00

Kiddies!

These are your spelling words:

know, knew, said, wrote, together, beautiful, eight, own, found, again

study study study for Thursday's Spelling BEE.

Good work today on our introduction to marketing and separating products into luxuries and necessities.

Well done on creating a luxury product - my personal favorite was the voice activated coke machine. Well done Dina, Ahmad and Ali!

See you tomorrow.

Please keep reading The 99. We will discuss tomorrow in class.

Songs, comic books & homework

2011-09-25T16:37:00.000+03:00

A new week has begun!

Welcome to our new students first of all. I hope you enjoy class and hope even more that you'll work hard because we're doing many cool things this year.

First things first, we started talking about the comic book 'The 99' today. As Mo'men correctly pointed out, it starts with the story of the attack against the Dar Al Hikmah library in Iraq by the Mongols in 1258.

Then the story takes a magical turn when all the knowledge from the books are placed in 99 gemstones.

We don't have color copies in class so please click on this link to read it in color: http://the99.org/include/contn/X1ZkxhXHSPO.pdf

Remember to get as much information about what is happening in the story from the pictures - they will tell you everything about how the characters are feeling and what is going on.

This is our song for the week:

Practice hard.

Don't forget we've got writing homework.

See you all tomorrow,

Miss Sara

Spelling Words

2011-09-21T12:21:00.001+03:00

Hey kids,

Great work today.

There are your spelling words for our spelling bee.

together, bring, ate, the, with, did, long, know, ran, never, because

Good luck!

Khalil Gibran

2011-09-19T15:04:00.000+03:00

Hello lovely class!

Today we had a great day - we talked about cities, countries and continents. I was impressed with the continents that you knew.

You've been singing the song really well too. You are indeed champions :)

This week we've been talking about Khalil Gibran, who was an Arab writer, poet and artist.

Tomorrow we're going to be looking at one of his poems called ' On Children'.

Here it is:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but don’t try to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows can fly.

Vocabulary:

Longing: to want something
Dwell: live
trive: try
Tarries: waits, wastes time with

See you tomorrow!

We are the champions

2011-09-10T21:59:00.000+03:00

We really are, and you have to believe it to be it.

Of course to be it - you have to sing it. So here's our song for this week.

As it turns out Mr David's class is also singing this song (the copycats) so we should challenge them to a competition and see who the real champions are.

Seriously guys - get to practicing. You should be singing this over dinner, on the bus and as you think about how much fun Miss Sara's class is.

Take note of any vocabulary words you're not sure of so we can cover them in class.

It begins!!!

2011-09-10T18:00:00.000+03:00

Students!

Welcome to our class blog. This is the place where you will find all the information you need about class, assignments, tests and all the fantastic stuff we'll be doing.

This is the place where you can also comment and tell me what you're thinking and how you're feeling about things.

We'll also put up a lot of pictures so that you'll always remember the things we've done in class.

I'm excited about all the stuff we're going to do this year.

See you soon!