To start our new Aztec topic, the Year 4 children learned the importance of human sacrifice in order to keep the sun god happy. Well after today the sun god would be beaming as the children created some outstanding sacrificial dances. Please not no children were harmed in the making of these dances.
Hello, we are the World Links Committee from Oakwood Junior School.
We would like other schools around the world to look at Oakwood Junior School's blog and to get in touch with us. We could compare life in our different schools.
We thought it would be good to put pictures of our school on the blog.
We will let you know a few of the things we do at Oakwood: Every year we have a Christmas performance, Year 3 and 5 together and then Year 4 and 6 together.
Our school day starts at 9am and finishes at 3.15pm We have 5 lessons every day. Every Wednesday we have singing assembly; we have school assemblies on the other days. Every pupil takes part in a committee, for example, there are the Travel Team, School Council and Healthy Schools Committee. We go on many exciting trips throughout our time at Oakwood, for example, Intech science centre, the Southampton Boat Show, the Sea City Museum, Southampton Art Gallery and residential trips to Minstead and Knapp House.
Oakwood has many exciting after school clubs to take part in, for example, netball, Songsters, football, hockey. We have a fantastic school netball and football team!
We hope this has given you a flavour of Oakwood and will entice you to get in touch! There are 242 pupils in our school.
Sorry it's been a while since our last blog - things have been pretty busy!
We came home to the UK for 3 weeks over Easter and enjoyed seeing a lot of our family and friends. When we returned to Mexico we spent a couple of weeks in a beautiful area called Cuernavaca - it is an old part of Mexico and had some lovely buildings. We were there to attend a language school for 2 weeks, staying with a Mexican family who were great hosts.
At the moment we are in the middle of our 'summer teams'. These are teams that come in, mainly from the US, and work with us - doing what we do all year round. In the last 3 weeks we have served around 2500 people, offering them medical, optical and dental services as well as having a children's and hair/nails area! A lot of the people simply cannot afford to go to the doctor, dentist or optician although they often need treatment. They are very grateful when we offer it to them for free :)
Mexico has now entered the 'rainy season'. Usually, this means we have sunshine for most of the day and somewhere around 4-5pm it will start to rain. The rain is often accompanied by a thunderstorm which lasts about 2 hours. Last week, however, it was cloudy, drizzly and rather chilly during the day - most unusual and, I'm happy to say, the sun has returned this week!
Lucy's school, which follows the American system, finished for the summer on May 30th! Therefore, she is free to work with us during the summer - although some school work, using the internet, is done when we have free time! Their school year starts again on August 16th.
We have been following your school blog with interest at all the different activities going on at Oakwood Junior School. We were impressed with the 5 Olympic rings that you managed to make together on sports day!
Enjoy the rest of your summer term and then your summer holidays!
It's hard to believe that we have been living in Mexico City for 6 months now!
It is a noisy place to live - probably much like other big cities in the world. We have become used to the sound of constant construction noises, honking of horns, traffic, loud speaker announcements, whistles, bells and voices! It is very different to living in sleepy Lordswood where we could hear foxes and owls at night!
You may have seen on the news that we had a major earthquake a couple of - days ago - our second since we moved here in September. They have been strange experiences, where the ground rolls and you feel a bit like you are on a large boat in the ocean! To begin with it felt like we were dizzy and then the realisation that the earth was actually rolling registered.
We had to evacuate our home on both occasions and find a safe place to wait out on the street until the earthquake came to an end. This took a couple of minutes - which doesn't sound like long but, believe me, when everything is swaying and the vehicles are all moving around on their own, it feels like much longer! We lost power for about an hour and a half but thankfully we had no damage.
I have added a selection of photos from our first six months here to give you an idea of the different sights, both within the city centre and also on the outskirts of the city. Enjoy!
Hello Everyone!
Although it now January 2012, I need to take you back a few weeks to catch up on what we've been doing.
December was busy for us as we had an International team, mainly from the USA, who came to work with us and the charity we are working with for a week. Lucy had the week off school to work with us too.
The Americans came from Buffalo, New York; Fairfield, Ohio; Dalla, Texas; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Spencer, Iowa and Rochester, Michigan. They all arrived on the Saturday and we spent the day collecting them from the airport and taking them to the hotel.
OSI (the charity we work with) have used this hotel for many years and get a special rate. We went to the hotel for the week too, because we move all our office equipment there so that we can do admin in the evening after we have been out in the daytime with the team.
On the Sunday we show the team a bit of Mexico City and they have a chance to go the market to buy gifts. In the afternoon we talk with them about what they will do during the week ahead. They will either work in the optical, dental, medical, children's or hair and beauty area. Some of them have certain skills that make it obvious where they will work (i.e. a nurse) but others have no particular skills and so we gave them a short lesson showing them what they need to know.
Sometimes the team brings supplies with them that we can use - toothbrushes, toothpaste, eye glasses, medicines, toys etc. We sort these into bags to take with us during the week.
This year we worked with three different churches on the outskirts of Mexico City. The people in the church advertise that we are coming so that the poor people in their area can come and receive free medical care. Of course, because it was near Christmas, we also took Christmas gifts with us that we had sorted into different age groups and genders,and wrapped. We also took bags of groceries with us to give away.
It was a very exciting week and they were so thankful to be given presents.
In one church that we were in was a lady who had a growth on the roof of her mouth. It was about the same size as her tongue. She had been to several Mexican doctors who weren't sure what to do about it and wanted her to go into hospital to have it removed. She couldn't do this as she had no money to pay for it. One of the Americans on our team was a dentist - not just an ordinary dentist but one who had specialized in surgery and reconstruction. He actually came from Ghana originally, trained in the UK and now lives in the USA. When he saw her, he told her he would be able to remove it and that it wouldn't cost her anything. He performed the surgery and she was amazed! Her family teased her because her speech had been affected and they said she was now talking in a posh voice!! It was a good day!!
We saw over 800 people while the team was here - it was a very good week!
For Christmas we were lucky enough to be invited, by some friends, to spend the time with them in North Carolina. We had a really good time. They have lived in the States for 11 years but used to live in Lordswood where the eldest two children, Bethany and Abigail, were pupils at Oakwood Infant and Junior School! This is the first time we have spent Christmas with them since they moved. The area they live in is called Cary and is very much like Lordswood - lots of trees and walks, although the houses are much bigger and there is a lot more space!
Christmas in Mexico is not so much about the things that you get but more about the Christmas story. The children don't actually get presents until January 6th, which they call 'The Day of the Kings'. This is the day they remember the kings bringing presents to baby Jesus. They also have a special cake called 'Rosca de Reyes', that they eat on this day. Hidden inside the cake are little figures of baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Everyone cuts their own piece of cake and, if they find one of the hidden figures, there is a big celebration. Those people then have to bring the figure back to the person who brought the cake on February 2nd for another party - a fiesta! This is to mark the day that Jesus was presented at the temple. The Mexicans eat food called 'tamales' and drink 'atole' on this day. Most of their celebrations are based around the catholic calendar because it is a catholic country and they also enjoy getting together as families and friends.
We are enjoying the Mexican winter with temperatures during the day between 70 - 75 degrees fahrenheit!
That's it for now, we will write again soon,
Hilary and Lucy
In Mexico City:
Well, we have been in Mexico City for one week and are adjusting to not only living in a new country but also to living in a city!
Our journey was longer than we'd expected because all the electricity at Mexico City Airport failed just as we were coming in to land, so there were no lights on the runway and we were diverted to Toluca......see if you can find it on Google Maps!
Having sat in the plane on the runway for 4 hours, we were told that the lights were still out at Mexico City Airport and so we had to get off the plane, collect our luggage and go by bus the rest of the way.
Unfortunately, our luggage didn't get put onto our plane and so we couldn't collect it - in fact it was delivered to us three days later. I wonder where it went? The bus ride took another hour and a half so by the time we actually arrived in Mexico City, we were about seven hours late!
Lucy started school on the 3rd October and is enjoying meeting children from different countries. She is going to a very small international school where there are only 28 pupils. In fact she is one of only three in her year group! The other children come from various countries: Mexico, Korea, Cananda, America, New Zealand and Ireland.
The school day is very like Oakwood - it begins at 8.30am and finishes at 3.05pm with 45 mins for lunch. There is a park opposite the school (which is a large house) and the children are allowed to go and eat their lunch and play there.
Although the school is only about 7 miles away it takes about an hour and a half to get there! This means we leave just after 7am and take two buses. The buses do not run to a timetable and the driver will often sit and wait until the bus is full before setting off, as this is more cost effective. The roads are busy and noisy - there aren't many road rules! If the traffic is at a stand still the driver will turn off the main road onto the side streets and make up his own route. This was a bit scary the first time it happened because we didn't know where we were going! Thankfully, he pulled back onto the main road before we had to get off and we recognised where we were. It only costs about 8 pesos each to do the whole journey. Can you find out how much this would be in the UK?
We are living in a large house, which is also where the offices are for the organisation we are working with. We have two rooms and then share the kitchen. The kitchen has a good fridge/freezer and cooker but no built in cupboards or sink. The sink is outside and only has cold water!
We are hoping our Spanish will improve quickly so that we can understand more and speak to the Mexican people.
Adios!
Some old friends of the school have just arrived in Mexico!
Lucy (an ex pupil of the school) and her Mum and Dad have gone out to live in Mexico for a few years.
They went to Mexico a few yeas ago when Lucy's Mum, Hilary, worked for the school as a teaching assistant. They took SAM with them, and you can read about the good work they did while they were out there.
SAM and Lucy, looking a bit younger than they are now, with their Mexican friends.
This time, they have gone to do more work with the same charity, and have offered to keep everyone in the school up-to-date with what they achieve.
Many of the children and families in the poorer parts of Mexico City don't have access to clean running water, let alone a school to go to, and they make their living by foraging on the city's rubbish dumps.
We are looking forward to hearing how the Hamilton family settle in, about Lucy's new school and how it's different to Oakwood and about all the work they will be doing for the charity.
Good luck, Lucy, Hilary and Aaron!
SAM says:
I met up with an old friend again the other day when Mrs Hamilton came into assembly to tell everyone about her trip to Mexico last summer - and to tell us why she's going again this year...
I spent last summer working on the dumps on the outskirts of Mexico City - for me, it was just a couple of weeks, but for many families and children, it's their home.
They live on the dump, with no access to clean running water, education or doctors.
I went out to Mexico with a charity which takes health workers, dentists and other care workers out to the dumps and provides check ups to the families who live there.
You can see some of the conditions and the help we provided in the photos below...
Mrs Hamilton and her family are there again this summer with the charity, so next time you turn on your tap, or think about school, or go to the doctor or dentist, please spare a thought for the families they are helping.
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