Red Nose Day

Well, I'm ready!!!

Year of the Goat

As we enter the Year of the Goat (or Sheep)

and several of our students volunteered to take part in

the Chinese New Year parade up in London.

Thanks Aiste, for sending me these photos ...

TABLEtalk ... Health Matters

I really value and appreciate the way that students willingly engage in our TABLEtalk topics, week-by-week,

especially when I suspect they'd rather just play games!

Once again everyone rose to the challenge of

designing a poster of their

Top Ten Tips for a Healthy Lifestyle.

Raquel, Dashini, Earl & Vaithi

Yasir, Shahir, Arshad, Pauline, Vinila

Joachim, Kien, Kalyani

Tim, Kandice, Kevish & Sue

Dushan, Tashfeen, Sandra & Adriane

Dhara, Artur, Deep & Lubaib

Eadom, Ana, Mohammad S & Mohamed D

All of the presentations were excellent - clear, concise,
informative and educational; however, as always,
our Mr Sharsheer takes the prize for entertainment
and laughter factor :-)

Here's my own top ten pick from the posters each group produced ...

1.  Develop the art of positivity

2. Be sure to eat a healthy balanced diet

3. Take good care of your heart - you've only got one!!

4. Personal hygiene is important - not just for you personally
but for the sake of your friends too!!

5. Good advice ... unless of course the sugar comes in the
form of a maple pecan slice (my very favourite)

6. As someone who's allergic to Facebook and
Twitter I really liked this one :-)

7. My two favourite types of people are those who
make me laugh and those who laugh easily at my silliness.

8. Good clean water - important the world over.

9.  I especially liked Mr Sharsheer's advice to kiss more often

10. Be Happy :-)

Red Nose Day is coming ...

What do you mean, people are looking at me???

Chinese New Year

At our World Cafe on February 18th we celebrated Chinese New Year (or what some might call Lunar New Year).

We would like to say a VERY BIG THANK YOU to Yoon's Chinese Restaurant in Chatham for the fabulous food ... there was sooooooooooo much of it, we were begging students to take some home with them.

Thanks too to all the students and staff who participated in our Chopstick Challenge ... the aim of which was to transfer 35 objects from a plate to a bowl (using chopsticks obviously) against the clock. Those items consisted of 10 maltesers, 10 dolly mixtures, 10 small black beans and 5 cardamoms. 

CONGRATULATIONS

to our winning student

Mujeeb Olamilekan Kazeem

who completed the task with a time of 1:00:03 

It is with much regret that I have to report that our faithful Frank disgraced himself by emptying the contents of the plate directly into the bowl partway through the challenge ...  he was duly disqualified!!

Pancake Party

"Pancakes for 50 people, please!"

What a great night, all a bit manic but lots of fun ...

"Mohamed, Aiste & Sandra, thank you so much for all your help in
the kitchen providing pancakes for a crowd!!!"

 

 

It was a great social evening.

"Haris & Anna, great to have you join us for the evening :-)"

 

And in the midst of that we celebrated Susann's birthday,

 and my birthday too ...

We also had a quiz put together to celebrate what some know as Chinese New Year and others call Lunar New Year ...

There were four people who came joint second in our
quiz, with 9 correct answers out of 12.
They were Suzan, Anu, John and (pictured above) Mr Bill,
also known as 'Lynne's Dad'.

But our winner with FULL MARKS
was Patrick, from Nigeria :-)

I wonder if you can answer these questions ...

1.  In the middle-autumn Festival, which of the following traditionally eaten?

a. Tangyuan          b. Spring roll           c. Moon cake  

d. Dumpling          e. Youtiao

2.  The last dynasty of China was?

a. Tang          b. Song         c. Sui          d. Qing         e. Ming

3.  At current, who is the General Secretary of China?

a. Deng Xiaoping            b. Mao Zedong             c. Hu Jintao    d. Jiang Zeming              e. Xi Jinping

4.  The Terracotta Army consists of how many life-size statues of warriors?

a. approx 4,500             b. approx 5,500         

c. approx 6,500             d. more than 7,000

4.  Mandarin is a tonal language – how many tones does it have?

a. two         b. three           c. four         * five

(see below for answers)

Many, many thanks to the Chinese students
for their hard work and cultural lesson :-)

Answers:

1.   c - moon cake

2.   d - Qing dynasty

3.   e - Xi Jinping

4.   d - more than 7,000

5.   c - four tones