W Górach - In the Mountains

Hi, Everyone.

Since it's holidays, I'm in the mountains for a week, or as the Poles say "w górach" (pronounced "fgoo-rah").

These mountains are called the Pieniny ("pye-nee-nih") which are on the border of Poland and the next country, Slovakia. It is possible to have one foot in Poland and the other one in Slovakia if you stand in the right place!






The map on the right shows where my school is (in Kraków up the top) and the little spa town where I am now, Szczawnica, down below (pronounced "Sh-chaf-nee-tsah"; I'm sorry for all these hard words - that's Poland!).

There is a big river running past the town, and tall mountains all around that you can climb. The white line on the map shows you where Poland shares a border with the country of Slovakia.

Here is a typical view of the countryside. It is quite beautiful.



You can take a chair lift ride up to the first mountain top if you don't feel like walking, but after that you have to use your feet.



I hear that there is a hidden castle in the mountains.

I intend to find it!

Location:ul. Jana Wiktora, Gmina Szczawnica, Poland

Witches, Ghosts and Goblins

Friday 28th October was the last day before the mid-term holiday. Other schools in Poland don't get a holiday, but because this is a British school, its students get holidays just as if they were in Britain, lucky things!

But apart from being the last day before holidays, it was also a special day because of the Halloween party!

Everyone had a chance to dress up as their favorite scary character.


We had witches, skeletons, vampires and even mummies.























As some of you may remember, I've got a thing about making sure that everyone uses a good pencil grip.

Well, Axel made a point about this!
Take a look at his hand.
What do you think of his pencil grip?


(Don't worry, none of his wounds was real. The pencil - which was stuck onto his hand with special glue - fell off his hand by lunchtime, so his pencil grip returned to normal in no time.)

During assembly, our class also read the poems we had been working on during the week. Here's an example of an 'acrostic' poem we came up with:
Eerie Evening
Crying, weeping, scared,
Running through a graveyard,
Every creepy sound,
Everywhere spiders, bats and zombies,
Pumpkins glowing, scary faces seen,
Yell ... "Happy Halloween!"

It's called an acrostic poem because you come up with a word that's related to the subject of your poem and write it downwards (in this example, we used the word 'creepy'). Then you use each letter of the word to start each line of the poem, writing across. It's great fun. It helps if the class has already come up with a word bank of descriptive words that are written on the board to give you ideas for the poem.

After playing all sorts of games like trying to make a picture of a pumpkin with your eyes closed (kind of like 'Pin the tail on the Donkey') ...


... and breaking up into teams to try to make the best mummy out of toilet paper ...


... We finished off with a feast of Halloween goodies!

Location:ul. Smolensk 25, 31-108 Kraków, Poland

First day of school

I enjoyed my first day at the British International School of Cracow. There are only eight children in my class: seven boys and one girl.

Everyone at school is a bit tired because they have been going for 9 weeks, but mid-term break is just next week. My class is a grade 4 class of children from all around Europe. Most of them can speak English very well. All classes are in English.



This week everyone is getting ready for a big Halloween party on Friday, the last day before the week-long holiday. We are making all kinds of decorations for the classroom, including skeletons, pumpkins, ghosts and bats.


We've also been writing scary poems in English and our spelling words have all been to do with Halloween, such as 'pumpkin' and 'ghosts'.

Because the school is in the middle of the city, the students have to walk to the playground. They do this as a group with the 'yard duty' teachers. We also have a 'lollipop man' with us to make sure that crossing roads is safe. He even wears a special suit with 'Stop' written on it so that cars can see him easily.



I must admit that it does look funny, but the most important thing is that the children are safe when they cross the very busy streets of Cracow.

Location:ul. Smolensk 25, 31-108 Kraków, Poland

First Day in Cracow

Hello everyone!
I arrived in Cracow, Poland after traveling for 29 hours by plane. I was very tired when I got here on Sunday 23rd of October.

Cracow is a beautiful city with many cathedrals and old buildings, including a castle where kings used to live called Wawel (pronounced "Vavel"). This castle is on a hill, overlooking the Vistula river.


There is a legend that a dragon called "Smok" once lived in a cave under Wawel Hill before the castle was built there. The story goes that each day the evil dragon would scare everybody, burn houses with his fiery breath and eat their farm animals for his food. King Krakus wanted to stop the dragon, but his bravest knights weren't able to do anything against the dragon. The King ended up promising his beautiful daughter's hand in marriage to anybody who could defeat the dragon. No one could do it. But one day, a poor cobbler's apprentice had a go. He stuffed the body of a sheep with sulphur and put it outside the dragon's cave. The dragon ate it and soon became incredibly thirsty. No amount of water could stop his stomach ache, and after swelling up from drinking half of the Vistula river, he exploded. The apprentice married the King's daughter as promised and they lived happily ever after.

This, of course, is just a story, but there is a statue of this legendary dragon under the castle.


So, Cracow is very old. It has been a city for 1,400 years but people have settled here for even longer than that, since the Stone Age.

In my next post, I'll tell you a bit about the school I am working at.

Location:Ul. Zamenhofa, Cracow

Preparations

Hi Everybody.

I hope you have been enjoying your holidays! I am preparing to visit Poland, a foreign country in Europe. I will be teaching some English-speaking Year 4 students in the city of Cracow for five weeks. (Cracow is spelled "Kraków" in Poland, and pronounced "Crack-oof").




In this blog I will be writing about this exciting trip to a foreign country, where most people don't speak English, and really old buildings such as castles are everywhere (yes, the kind that knights on horses used to ride out of).




I welcome you to read and share in my experiences, and leave comments and questions on this blog. I will definitely answer you!

I will be leaving Melbourne on an airplane on the 22nd of October, so I am madly packing and getting ready. There is a lot to prepare, so wish me luck!

See you in Poland.

Location:Jamieson Way,Point Cook,Australia