Atika English Week

On the 18th of September, the Omani schools came back to life. As the new days of schools have started everyone was excited. Mothers dropping their children to the school and checking on them before leaving them in their new classes. All the schools were busy with parents, students and sure teachers.
In Atika School, English teachers were ready for the students. I am one of them proud to say that we had the idea to have the first week a ground week, a week where the students test their abilities in English and work through the week to know some ways to improve their language skills.

goodbye Samantha (the end of Teddy Bear)project

hello again
so this time i will tell you about Samantha and the bulldog. we sent some pictures, some gifts and other things that I am sure would like
we got Atika and Saham back which was amazing, they had a scrapbook with them that shows what they have been doing and along with letters to my students

Australia

dear everyone
I am here to give you two news
at the end of this school year and the students were ready to leave (I know it is kinda old news )
news one, the students recieved a cultural package from Australia and they send one to them, mine is as usual, full of Omani stuff and we were proud to see them display in their classroom
this is what their teacher had to say
Dear Asma and students,We were delighted with your parcel. In the photos you can see studentssetting up a display in their classroom.We have a map & copies of the photos you sent to add to the display.Parents will see the display next week when they come in to talk to theirclassroom teacher about their child's report card.Students want to continue their friendship by writing letters to yourstudents, especially the girls in these photos.I have found an iEARN partner in Indonesia, Saara, a very keen youngeducator teaches in an Islamic school outside of Jakarta.Saara teaches English too. As an Indonesian language teacher, I will needto devote my classroom time to projects with Saara now.
We hope that our students can collaborate over the internet on projects.Saara is keen for her colleagues to join in too.I am really thankful Saara is in an Islamic school! I hope we can build astrong friendship and get to know and understand each others culture.Thank-you Asma for our project. Some students will write letters abouttheir everyday life to post to your students before the end of this calendaryear.
Kind Regards
Sue Foly

Holiday Card Exchange

dear friends

last week we recieved some postcards from our friends in Al sharqia region, Sinaw, our friends are in Al shikh Said Al khalili in Samad Al Shan..

the students were very excited to read the letters and now we are preparing to do a thank you note to them,,

enjoy the pictures

a tour around Hafit

The day: Tuesday 16/3/2010

Today we took Samantha and the bulldog, to a tour a round Hafit, one of the small villages in Saham.. it has so much fun
We went first to Ali bin Majed mansion, and Ali is the secretary to our president, and this is his house in his hometown as he lives for the moment in Muscat (the capital city of Oman) we couldn't go inside the gate of his mansion as it is a private property. So, we decided to go to the health center in the village it isn't a big hospital it is just a branch. It has two waiting rooms one of the men and one for the women, two doctors in both sides, it was quite crowded that morning so we didn't want to bother the patients, the students were curious about the ambulance, so we took a photo beside it and there were some doctors having their break,, I am sure they were wondering what we were doing.
After that, we went to the students favorite place "Fatma Hypermarket" it is actually a supermarket and even can be called a shop because it wasn't that big.. the students bought lots of sweets for themselves and as they claimed for Sam,, after spending 10 minutes beside the cashier .. Next was my husband's favorite place " the beach" the students were excited, they ran everywhere like bunch of kids, but I was tired to run after them, I had fun myself, I wrote on the beach the word iEARN and enjoed the nice sun and the soft breeze,, but again the noisy students disrupted that,, anyway,, it was fun, tomorrow they will write about it,, I am so happy that they well lol

Austraila

last week we knew that one of Austrilain school wants to work with us
we had the class marked, our friends sent us some questions in the forum
here they are
Hi this is 7B from Mission Beach State School Australia. We would like to ask Asma's class in Saham Oman a few questions.

How do you all communicate with eachother. Do you use internet chat sites, like MSN or Facebook? Vanorria

What type of games do you play at Oman? Sarah

can you have more than one best friend in Oman? do your friends leave you out? do you have facebook? Marni

do you have any technology resorces? eg DSi's computers, tv's? chloe

do you have a dog !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

is there any other languages you learnt before from jacob.w

Bye from us for now. Please reply & tell us if we are in tne right place in the forum. We hope to have our box ready to send this week. (Ms Sue Foley)

enjoy
Asma

the first students forum

dear friends
my students and I participated in a youth forum, we had fun, they told other students about the the teddy bear project and the cultural package exchange, we had mr Khalid with us and Abdullah alBahrani
and we were in the national newspaper, isn't that cool
check these pics

Cultural Packages

today we recieved a package from the USA, Ohio and it has many nice things, some students and including the headmistress were very hesitant about holding the american flag, i don't want to go deel into politics but people in Arab world feel that America doesn't respect them and therefore they act in disrespect to them, i had to remind my students that we shouldn't judge the people because of some people who took bad decissions, people are still human beings like us with good deeds and bad ones, just like us, we are not angles, we are just like them, back to to our topic, they were some sweets and i ate the first one, and there were a sweater. i love the fact that they marked everything and they label it, everything has a tag, they know a little about us, but they will know more byu time.
another e-mail from Australia, they want to work with us, i feel blessed, they are alower grader though, the students work with higher graders, i don't care about that, what we care about is the language, and there is a huge difference between teenagers outside and here, my girls will be shocked but not that much. they watch too much tv you know

I used google maps to see our friends location and they have lots if green clour around the, , lucky them

the headmistress think i am too easy with them i am not the tough kind, i like to have fun with my students and to show them the crazy person I am
so now we should send three packages
Australia
Ukraine
and
USA
Very nice work
bye for today

Nizwa

here I am with Asma and Zamzam who are two of my students, they are nosiy, just the way I like it, i like my students to be lively, and to be as crazy as their teacher,

well talk more about them later

see ya

Asma

I downloaded more pcitures when we were in the fort with Moza the region coordinator and soe toursit were there,

Asma and Zamzam told their class about their experince when they come back

enjoy

f

shattered

what would you feel if you wake up one morning and you found out that one piece of you has been missing, what would you feel if you missed an important piece and that piece is not coming back again. it disappeared, vanished. you know it is scary how life can go so quickly from good to bad. from white to black. what if you just can't coulour it again, or you can't give it the gleaming, that special colour that makes the whole difference,
my student died. she just died, i wake up one day to hear that she has gone away
is that possible
well it is possible and it happened, it really did

the students reactions

today my students met Samantha and the bulldog, they were very excited when they read the letter from our friends in the US, Ohio,

they were very excited

thank you Atika School

Sam and the bulldog

Today we received the American Package, we held a morning meeting with the students with the headmistress and her assistance. It was very funny to see the lock in the students face as if they have done something wrong, a visit to the headmistress office means that they are in troubles. However, when they saw the package, they understood and their faces were light up. We received a teddy bear and her name is Sam a short for (Samantha) along with a bulldog which is the mascot of the school football team. We also got a Christmas ornament and lots of nice letters After the meeting and opening the box, we will read the letters in the iearn class and they students will take Samantha home and enjoy the time with the teddy bear