Some of our recent artworks have been completed and the results are great. These works are pretty big, about a metre high, and they’ve taken quite a while to finish. What do you think?

This task is to post some school work. It could be your new persuasive writing, your artwork or even your bike system. I know we haven’t all finished our work, but that means you have even more of an incentive to complete the work.

Last week the students took part in one of our hottest “Lapathons” yet. The students collected sponsors for the number of laps they could run (or walk) around the oval. The senior students naturally had the longest distance to cover and tried to do at least 20 laps. Unfortunately, it was a very hot day so it turned into a bit of a slog. However, the students did everyone proud and are now bringing in their sponsorship money which will go to helping Kathmandu Kids and purchasing new iPads for the school.

I was having a browse through the students’ blogs today and I had an amazing surprise. Monika has had a monster blogging frenzy! She posted eight, yes 8 new posts in one day and all of them were different and interesting. She’s also on the verge of being only the second person in the school to reach over 1000 visitors. Great work, Monika.

This week our amazing Art teacher, Miss Sveinbjornsson, invited the incredible and energetic Aussie artist Phil Doncon to present his inspiring “Paint Storm” show. However, not only did we get the show, but we were also lucky enough to take part in a painting workshop with Phil himself. We learned how to plan, build and create art in specific stages while Phil painted one of his famous super quick masterpieces. After the instruction the students were allowed to create art for themselves. In their groups they performed a mad-dash, tag-team display where each student had about 60 seconds to add their own contribution to the sound of exciting music. The whole experience was highly energetic and incredible fun. Some photo’s are below. Check out Phil’s website – especially his gallery page and his Ocean and Surf paintings.

Well, we’ve only got 7 weeks left of the school year! It doesn’t seem that long ago that we all walked into our new class together and now a whole year has almost passed us by. The students’ blogs are approaching their end as students will be leaving my class and I’ll be getting ready for a new set of bloggers. However, because I’m moving up a year some students may be fortunate/unfortunate to have me for a second year and will be able to hold onto their blogs. Even I don’t know how it’s all going to work out, but to be honest I’m just looking forward to seeing what the students come up with for their last 7 weeks.

During one of our recent My Place episodes one of the child characters passed away. This gave us a perfect opportunity to discuss the sensitive issue of what we believe happens to us when we die. Strangely, though, whilst I thought it may be too sensitive the students were more than happy to discuss the whole issue. With their usual level of enthusiasm and openness the students plunged headlong into the discussion and produced a series of fascinating podcasts. While some of our previous podcasts have been very formal (such as the “Stolen Generation”) and some have been fun and informal (mainly our “free topic” chatty ones) this one sort of fell somewhere in the middle.

Prior to doing the podcasts a set of guidelines were issued regarding respecting the beliefs and cultures of each other. However, whilst this was a sensible precaution it proved totally unnecessary as there wasn’t a single instance of such negative behaviours all day. I’ve included three podcasts here and I hope you find them as interesting as I do.

     

LA19 are in the process of trying to create Khan Academy accounts for the students. To do this I’m including this video for parents to watch so they can follow the process and enroll the students in a safe and monitored manner.

After a well deserved and much needed holiday the students made a very relaxed and casual podcast about some of the things they got up to on their break. This friendly, relaxed conversation comes to you courtesy of Monika, Eesha and Oriyah.

 

Recently, a young girl called Malala Yousufzai just missed out on winning one of the greatest prizes in the world – the Nobel Peace Prize. Each year the person or organisation who has contributed to the achievement of peace throughout the world is nominated for the Nobel prize. Unfortunately, Malala didn’t win, but the fact that such a young person was nominated was amazing.

Malala came to the attention of the world after being shot in the head by the Taliban. In the area of Pakistan where she lived the Taliban doesn’t believe girls should receive an education. However, Malala strongly believed in the rights of everyone to have access to an education and began a blog calling for equal rights. This was how the Taliban found her. They followed her as she went home from school and shot her in the head. The two videos below tell an amazing story of just what an individual, no matter how young, can achieve. What do you think? What problems in the world would you use your blog to fight for? What issues are important to young people today that you could use your blog to support?