- The newsletter provides information about upcoming events at Al Yasmina School including performances, trips, and celebrations for National Day. - It recognizes students for musical and academic achievements and provides classroom updates from each grade. - Key dates mentioned are the Year 4 Dubai trip, FS2 performance, Festive Fayre, Primary Open House, and the Al Yasmina Festive Concert.

1. Al Yasmina School Primary Newsletter
29 November 2012
Issue 11
Dear Parents,
Dates for your Diary
Tuesday 4 December - Year 4 Dubai Trip
Wednesday 5 December - Year 4 Dubai Trip
Wednesday 5 December - FS2 Performance
Thursday 6 December - Year 3 Ancient Egyptian Day
Saturday 8 December - Festive Fayre
Sunday 9 December - Primary Open House 8am-9.30am
Monday 10 December - Al Yasmina Festive Concert
From The Music Department
We have three clever Musicians of the Week this week: Omar Khalid Nazhat
(Key Stage1) and Amelia Pearson and Zaina Al Humiri (Key Stage 2). Khalid
sang London‟s Burning beautifully by himself, and played it on the
xylophone without a single mistake. He then showed real kindness by
helping his friend to learn it. Amelia and Zaina wrote a super verse for our
class rap, and performed it with great style and confidence. Well done to
all of you!
The cast of The Wiz had a special visitor at this week‟s rehearsal when Mr
Gale called in to listen to them sing. He loved it and left with a big smile on
his face! Well done to the children who made it through the auditions
to get solo roles – we know they‟re going to be brilliant!
We have several dates for your diary:
Thursday 29 November –Monthly Music Recital at 2.45 in the Recital
Room.
**Saturday 8 December - Festive Fayre. The following primary groups
will be performing at the following times:
11.20 Junior Choir
11.40 Intermediate Choir
12.00 Flute Choir
12.40 Brass Ensemble
**Monday 10 December, 6pm - Al Yasmina Festive Concert
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2. **If you haven‟t yet done so, and your child is involved in the above groups, please email
cknapton@alyasmina.sch.ae stating child‟s name, group, and whether they are able to attend the
above 2 events. Many thanks.
Ideas for Christmas shopping. Geoff Sinker, the guitar teacher informed the school that Musicians
Warehouse in Dubai (just behind Times Square Mall) has a sale on Guitars, Bass Guitars and amplifiers
of 41% discount to mark National Day weekend. That is an amazing discount!! The sale is Friday,
Saturday and Sunday.
Friend of Al Yasmina (FOY)
Festive Fayre
Cake Stall
The Festive Fayre is only one week away, and the Cake Stall needs your help.
We will be selling cakes & biscuits on the day, but we need parents & students
to help us by donating cakes & biscuits that we can sell.
We will be collecting cakes on Saturday 8th December from 9.30am, and
also on Friday at the school from 10am-12pm.
Any queries please contact Sam Goodwin on goodwins.uae@gmail.com
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3. Candy jar competition winners
The winners of the Candy Jar Competition were
announced today. Luca Aveta (FS2 Orange) won the
boy‟s entry and Maria Arce Zepeda (FS1 Blue),won the
girl‟s entry. Well done!
From the School Nurse
All donations from Pink Day (breast cancer awareness)
were collected and presented to the Red Crescent,
who will use the funds to aid those affected by breast
cancer and are unable to pay for their treatment. The
total amount raised was 14,500 Dhs.
From the Library
Bookworm Fair
WOW! What a great Bookworm Book Fair we had once again. There was a wide range of books
available to buy making the decision of which one to choose rather difficult. The most popular book
“Dairy of a Wimpy Kid – The third Wheel” sold out within 2 days and the Bookworm Staff exhausted all
their stock and even had to bring some in from the Dubai shop to meet demand! Thank you to all
the children and parents who supported the book fair and Primary Library was able to choose 200
free books to put in the Library for all to enjoy.
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4. From the Arabic Department
Year 4 NON- NATIVE have designed greeting cards to Sheikh Khalifa and the people of the
UAE. They were really excited and happy.
Foundation Stage 1 (FS1)
This week we have really enjoyed learning about the theme, „Food from the
UAE‟. It has been a great experience for the children to learn more about the
local culture and customs; it has been the perfect build up to our National Day
celebrations. We have been greedily tasting local foods and talking about their
ingredients, as well as making flags and other decorations ready for our big
celebration, National Day. It has been exciting for us to learn about National
Day and take part in the celebrations.
We have continued to enjoy many generous samples of foods from your
family‟s home countries, and we want to say a huge thank you to all of you who
have made such an amazing effort to support the children in their learning
about „Food around the World‟. It has been a wonderful experience for them.
Next week, we are going to continue with this week‟s theme, as well as sharing
our news on how we have celebrated National Day. We will also be
consolidating our learning in Mathematics by counting with 1 to 1
correspondence along with continuing correct letter formation when writing our
names.
Congratulations to last week‟s „Stars of the Week
Ishva Siva, Lucas Chang, Benjamin Sperbel , Layal Sherif,
Jessie Hutcheson, Lexi Evans
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5. Foundation Stage 2 (FS2)
WOW!! What a busy week we have had in FS2. We have been to China and Japan! We began by
comparing the landscape of China to the UAE, we then created our own collages showing what it
would look like if we merged China with Abu Dhabi! The children had lots of interesting ideas and
enjoyed being creative. We also made lanterns, dragons and tasty healthy Asian treats. FS2
enjoyed reading Asian and dragon themed books which were kindly brought in by some of the
children. In our number work we have started to look at time. We carried out an investigation about
what we could do in a minute. Have you ever thought “how many times can I hop in a minute?”
See if you can do more than the very fit children in FS2. Please let your child time you too.
Next week we are going to be learning about the UAE so please take lots of photographs of your
National Day celebrations. You could help at home by
• taking photographs of celebrations you see taking place
• discuss what your favourite UAE experience has been so far
Phonics Focus
Revision of Phase 3 diagraphs – ng, th, sh, ch
Revision of Phase 3 tricky words – she, he, all, was, with, then, them
Helpful websites –
Phase 3 tricky words – http://www.mrthorne.com/category/hfw/
Time activity - http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks1/maths/telling_the_time/play/popup.shtml
Reminder – our FS2 performance is on the 5th December. Be prepared to be amazed!!
Congratulations to last week‟s „Stars of the Week
Aarib Zaidi - Purple class, Zayed Al Hammadi – Ruby Class, Salma Sari – Amber Class, Karin Bedrozov –
Orange Class (who was away when the photos were taken. He‟ll appear next week!), Zainab Ali –
Jade class
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6. Year 1
Year 1 have proven themselves to be rather fabulous writers and illustrators. Each class have been
writing their own stories and forming some super questions with cool illustrations! Ask your children
what they have written and illustrated this week.
Our mathematicians have been working their number magic and you could see the smoke coming
out of their ears as they have worked hard to conquer subtracting with number lines and number
squares.
Building up to National Day too has been fun: UAE paper chains, National Day
cards, patterned carpets for Bedouin tents and a Beauty Contest for our 3D camels
to be judged on Thursday! That‟s not to mention the dancing and very tuneful
singing of the National Anthem.
On Thursday we will parade around our shared area to show off our fabulous clothes and camels!
Remember it is non-uniform! Please wear traditional dress or clothes in the UAE colours.
Next week is busy! We will be
continuing to explore HUMPH the
camel story and write a recount of
his adventures. Having read a
lovely book this week called One
Rainy Day , we will be exploring
which material is best for an
umbrella as our science
investigation next week. In
Numeracy, we will be securing our
number bonds to 10 and 20 and making quite sure we can count
forwards and backwards in 2s, 5s and 10s!
A fun website is: http://www.topmarks.co.uk/Interactive.aspx?cat=12
REMINDERS:
The Heritage trip on Tuesday 11th December is coming up soon, and we urge you to get your consent
forms in by 4th December please, otherwise your child is unable to come!
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7. PE for Sparrows is on a WEDNESDAY at 9am so your children need to come in the
school uniform please and change in school. Please do not send your children in their
kits.
Homework due date is MONDAY. Please ensure your children bring their kits.
Congratulations to last week‟s „Stars of the Week‟
Aahna Syed (Larks), Marc Ghaly (Doves), Kareem Safareeni (Sparrows), Khaled Barabbaa (Cuckoos)
and Isobel Woodrow (Robins)
Year 2
LONDON‟S BURNING!
This week Year 2 pupils were eyewitnesses at The Great Fire of
London!
On a sunny Tuesday morning, we travelled back in time using our
time machine to 1666 where we saw the Great Fire of London
taking place before our eyes! It was a dry day with a strong wind
and the houses were so close that the fire spread quickly…
“Terrifying” said Arantza. “So sad” said Maryam.
Now we really know how the people in 1666 felt. We used all our
emotions that we felt to write about the catastrophic event.
We have taken on the role of Time Travelling Journalists! We are
looking for scoops, writing factual pieces, interviewing and
deciding on catchy headlines all to let people know about The
Great Fire of London. They will be coming soon……hot off the
press!
In maths we have been consolidating our knowledge of
multiplication using arrays to help us solve word problems. We
have also been learning songs to help us with our Times Tables!
In science we have been investigating materials. We made
predictions about whether they would bend, twist or stretch and
then we discovered if we were right…..plastic definitely does not stretch!
Next week we will be moving onto our mini topic of dragons, we will be thinking about their features
and characteristics and then designing our own!
PLEASE CAN WE HAVE ANY JUNK MODELLING MATERIAL! Particularly shoe boxes!!!
We hope you all enjoy celebrating the UAE‟s 41st National Day!
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8. Congratulations to last week‟s „Stars of the Week‟
Grace Smith – Spoonbills, Suha Kaddoura – Sandpipers, Breeana Deruba – Storks, Khalfan Al Hinai –
Herons, Abdulla Al Thabahi - Flamingos
Year 3
The children have been reading, following and writing instructions, building on what they already
know and learning that „bossy verbs‟ are also called „imperative verbs‟. After discussing the features
and layout of instructions, the children had fun reading and following instructions how to play a
game from Ghana called Achi, and how to play an old game called Nine Men‟s Morris. Ask them to
tell you about the games and explain how to play. Next week, we will continue to write instructions
and will edit and improve our work further. In Maths, we have been exploring fractions. We have
been using real life contexts to describe and find fractions of numbers and objects, and have been
learning how to find different fractions of a number. We will continue to build on our knowledge and
skills next week. In Science, we are beginning to observe our class plant experiments and we are
thinking about drawing conclusions. The children have had some brilliant ideas about testing the
effects of temperature, sunlight, soil and water. If you find time to do another experiment at home,
do tell us about it. In Topic this week, we have been comparing Modern Egypt to Ancient Egypt, and
have been discussing the advantages and dis-advantages of the Aswan Dam. The children were
fascinated by Abu Simnel and how the experts came to the decision of moving the temple.
We would like to wish everybody a happy National Day! We hope you have fun and take part in the
celebrations around the Emirates.
Reminder: 6th December: Egyptian day. Start thinking about what or who you will be.
Congratulations to last week‟s „Stars of the Week
Dana Talal Khouri (Cormorants), Alex Crouchman (Buntings), Max Jones(Curlews), Harry Young (Terns)
and Numan Kurkcu (Ravens).
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9. Year 4
Last Thursday, the children in Year 4 were lucky to have
welcomed another guest speaker. Mrs. Curtain, a parent of
Year 4 Warblers class, came into school to share her
experiences as a real life news reporter. All of the children
were fascinated to learn about the highs and the challenges
that face any news reporter around the world. Mrs. Curtain
showed the children news reels, pictures, videos and clips
which helped them to understand the features of a news
report.
After the talk, the children were very keen to produce their own news
reels in the style of those seen and using the props Mrs. Curtain had
left in school for us to borrow. Using our topic, architecturally sound as
a stimulus, the children created their own dramatic reports based on
an event affecting a famous building from around the world. Have a
look at some of the photographs of the children‟s their storyboard
plans and then them in mid action!
Coming Up
All of the Year 4 team are waiting in anticipation for their educational visit to Dubai next week! The
children have been told what to expect and what to bring for their trip day by their class teacher.
Please could you ensure that your child is in full school uniform, brings a picnic lunch to eat in Safa
Park, a hat, a water bottle and a healthy snack for after their trip up to the observational deck of the
Burj Khalif.
The children will not need any money and electronic equipment of any kind is not necessary. Please
note, children may bring a camera with them if they wish, but the staff can take no responsibility for
these and recommend that only disposable ones are used. We would like to thank all of the parents
for offers of help and would like to thank the parents in advance who are attending the trip.
Year 4 Trip to Dubai
Wagtails, Sandgrouse and half of Wheatears: Tuesday 4 December 2012, arrival to school at 7.00 am
Warblers, Pipits and half of Wheatears: Wednesday 5th December 2012, arrival to school at 7.00 am
Year 4 Guest Speaker
Mr Tim Kelly, Architect: Thursday 6th December 2012
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10. Congratulations to last week‟s „Stars of the Week
From left to right: Jessica Priest (Sandgrouse), Elliot
Jones (Warblers), Niamh Hickey (Wheatears), Moodi
Rashed (Pipits), Yasmin Gabi (Wagtails)
Year 5
It‟s been an action-packed week in Year 5 again this week, with our F1 topic inspiring some creative
thinking. We have been finishing off the mood boards for our F1 car designs and researching about
one of the 20 F1 tracks, finding out about the layout, the length
of the track, exciting facts about races that taken place there.
Compiling our mood boards
Can you name the location of all the F1 tracks around the
World? Ask a Year 5 child for help if you get stuck!
Next week we shall be holding an F1 intensive week where we
will be working in teams to design and create our own F1
teams. We will be incorporating all aspects that are required
to run a successful team. I‟m sure the highlight for most teams
will be the designing and making of their own Formula 1 car.
In Literacy, the children have been creating instructions for
known board games. The next step will be to design and make their own board games based on life
in the UAE. I wonder which hotels will appear on the Monopoly board!!
Maths lessons have focused on developing the understanding of Fractions this week. Often a topic
that children fear, it has been fabulous to see the smiles on their faces when they realized they can
find equivalent fractions, fractions of quantities and change improper fractions to mixed numbers
and vice versa.
Congratulations to last week‟s „Stars of the Week
Findlay Smith (Parakeets), Isabella Palmer (Mynahs),
Mohamed Al Hammadi (Nightjars), Mariam Al
Magboul (Sunbirds) and Bareera Zakir (Swallows)
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11. Year 6
This week has been extremely busy for Year 6 as we have been working hard to get preparations
done for our chocolate making day. We‟ve been busy making and decorating the packaging for
our boxes or bags of chocolates, designing brand names and logos as well as the list of ingredients to
go on the packaging too. It‟s a big push now, but it will all be ready to sell to primary children on 12 th
December.
For Literacy this week we have been split into reading groups. Each group has taken a different book
to read and explore through our lessons and homework. Across the year group we have been
enjoying „Hole‟ by Louis Sachar, „Stig of the Dump‟ by Clive King, „Stormbreaker‟ by Anthony
Horowitz, „The Butterfly Lion‟ by Michael Morpurgo and „There‟s a Boy in the Girls‟ Bathroom‟ also by
Louis Sachar. Everyone has really enjoyed the opportunity to work with other children from the year
group.
In Numeracy we have been focusing on using our skills as maths investigators to solve problems.
We‟ve been using lots of „trial and improvement‟ as well as more systematic methods to help us find
the answers and have been working hard to explain our findings using mathematical vocabulary.
After the National Day holidays, we have another busy week with our trip to Parti Perfect and
Carrefour where we will be learning how chocolates are made and researching how shops advertise
products (please make sure all consent forms and payments have been returned to school for this
trip). We will also be starting our chocolate making in school; the children will be coming home with
their list of ingredients soon, they will need to buy their ingredients and bring them into school for
December 5th. Remember to keep the receipt as this will be needed to help determine how much
profit the children have made and so that parents can be reimbursed for the ingredients bought!
Well done to our stars of the week this week!
Bruce Donald (Eagles), Alex Darling (Falcons), Jade-Anne
McClean (Kestrels), Aine Griffiths (Ospreys) and Punita
Sukpool (Owls).
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