Great memories!

Hi friends

APPLICA-TE!

APPLICA-TE is the title of the newest ideas' competition promoted by Nova Information Management School, from Universidade Nova de Lisboa and it's for you - for students between the 7th and 12th grade.

The IMS NEW CHALLENGE competition aims to stimulate creative and entrepreneurial spirit of young students of secondary education , rewarding original ideas that have potential for creating projects that in some way improve people's lives.

The challenge is to create and describe in detail an App that fulfills a unique purpose : to improve life. The best ideas will be awarded as well as the school of the winning project . Applications are open until 8 May 2016 - therefore, over two months for you to show how skilled you are. Can you imagine your mates', parents', teachers' reaction if you won? What an amazing feeling that would be and the visibility it would bring upon yourself? Your school? Soure?

Go ahead, folks, read the official rules and just ask for help in case you need.

 Good Luck!

Google SCIENCE Fair

I know some of you are really good at sciences, physics and chemistry. Therefore, thinking about how you can improve your skills, aim higher and go beyond what is expected from you at school, here's a challenge:
The 2016 Google Science Fair is open. It is a global online competition for youngsters between 13 and 18 and you can participate individually or in teams :=)

In partnership with National Geographic, LEGO Education, Scientific American, and Virgin Galactic, they want to hear how students will use science and engineering to make something better!

To help you get some inspiration and develop project ideas, the website also offers a Make Better Generator in which you are invited to finish the sentences
"I love..."
"I'm good at..."
and answer "What will I make better?"
With your answers, the website generates a collection of videos and websites that can really inspire you by sparking (project) ideas.
As you know and all developers know, science is everywhere and that's exactly the title of this year's inspirational video below:

To be sure it's for common students, just like you, but who believe in excellence and hard work, here is the testimony of last year's winner - a 17 year-old girl concerned about the spread of Ebola:


What are you waiting for?
Think about something you love, wish to make better and submit your project!
Ask for help, experiment!
Just go for it!
Make your dreams come true!

UPDATE: Have a look at another prize winning project at http://www.washington.edu/news/2016/04/12/uw-undergraduate-team-wins-10000-lemelson-mit-student-prize-for-gloves-that-translate-sign-language/

MLK Day

Today's Doodle (USA)

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (officially Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.) is an American federal holiday marking the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. It is observed on the third Monday of January each year, which is around King's birthday, January 15. Celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day is no long-standing tradition. The holiday is a little more than three decades old, but the proposition that the date should become a holiday dates back to his assassination in 1968.

MLK in 1964

Today's doodle honors Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister, community activist, philosopher and humanitarian. His leadership of the American Civil Rights movement, Nobel Peace Prize for non-violent civil disobedience in the face of racial injustice, and eventual martyrdom for the cause, cements his place as a hero for peace and justice worldwide. 

One of his most powerful tools was his ability to communicate poignant truths in beautiful and moving speeches, which guest artist Richie Pope highlighted in this doodle today. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. moved the USA forward by committing to bettering the lives of American citizens, no matter their race. He told everyone, "Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase." Today we're inspired to keep working towards a better future with grace and optimism.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Christmas is coming and so is the end of 2015. Before that though let's share with the world something great you've also achieved this year, together with your Physics / Chemistry teacher, Nélia Matos. 2015 has been the International Year of Light and you produced a great video about light that can be heard in Portuguese but read in English. Shall we remember it?

Now, yes, it's time to wish you a very merry Christmas, everyone!
Hope you have a beautiful Christmas with love and understanding.
Christmas is a time of sharing, of giving not only presents but also affection. Hope you enjoy this ad (also a PSA) with a famous animal character.

Sporting Race 2015

Last October 11th  there was the Sporting Race 2015.

About 6,200 people, divided into two groups of 4km and 10km, participated in one of the biggest races nationwide. I was also involved and, in my opinion, athletics is what is "fashionable " now, as more and more people worry about their health and well being. I love running and as I am from Sporting I could not have missed it.
Thank you, father, for your amazing company and support. 

European Quality Label

Well, further recognition for (y)our work and another award for your class. Pleased?
As I always say,
1. If you're going to do something, do it well, the best you can!
2. Those who work hard will, sooner or later, be recognised and rewarded for it.
We started at a national level and now we've reached out the European Quality Label :) End of the line???

Just Do It

What's he yelling at? Why is he doing it?

In what way can it apply to YOU? What is his message?

Deadline: 19th October, 2015

This Summer...

This summer, I did many fun activities.

I drove Kart Race Track in Batalha and I enjoyed this experience in which I had a lot of fun and adrenaline. I also rode bike with my friends.
This holiday season I spent some time in the Algarve, too, and I had the opportunity to go canoeing in the sea. I also travelled by boat when I crossed the river Sado on my way back home.

I went to the adventure park in Figueira da Foz with my friends and it was so much fun, despite the huge physical effort... I remember that that day was very cold.
I sometimes went to the cinema with my friends and I watched "Pátio das Cantigas"  with my parents - I really enjoyed this movie! But my holidays were not only fun and rest: I also helped my grandparents in some agricultural tasks and mowed my garden lawn several times.
Anyway, the holidays are over and now I'm back to school. 
I wish you all a good school year.

Welcome Autumn!

GOOGLE DOODLE - First day of Autumn

https://g.co/doodle/7c48ad

autumn | Learn about autumn on instaGrok, the research engine:http://www.instagrok.com/results.html?query=autumn&share_id=_&result_id=LM8zBSjLvernHUoxeNXF&action=view

Quality Label

To kick off 2015 / 2016 nothing better than a national recognition for our great eTwinning work last school year.
In "Stone Culture Rolling Over Europe" we showed collaborative work between partner schools, students and teachers, involved the school community, integrated the curriculum and made appropriate and diversified use of ICT.
Another amazing achievement for (y)our class and our school for two years in a row - first with a Honour Position with this class blog and now with our eTwinning project!

Congratulations!

Welcome!

Welcome back to school!
Welcome to a 2015 / 2016 school year! May it be a fruitful and successful one for all of us and our readers, too.
Well, let's start off with good news also to bridge last school year with the beginning of a new one:
João Carecho and Verónica entered our school Honour Board after having achieved excellent results. I am very proud as they certainly are not to mention their families, who were at school yesterday for the ceremony Here are our hero and heroine:

 As we are all well aware, this is not going to be an easy or a common school year with three exams ahead of us... yes, ahead of me, too, as I get worried about you, your performances and results. I'm convinced you will be up to the challenge and hopefully 9ºA will surprise all with even better results than in 2014 /2015 and with more students in the school Honour Board.
Have a great school year, y'all!

Aristides de Sousa Mendes, by Joana

In the aftermath of WW2, heroic acts of bravery have been celebrated in the media - who hasn't heard of Irena Sendler, the Polish nurse who saved over 2500 children from the Holocaust? Who hasn't heard about and read Anne Frank's Diary and doesn't remember Miep Gies, the Dutch lady who hid Anne Frank and her family? Or who hasn't seen the movie and inspiring true story of "Schindler's List"? 

Well, it's about time we celebrated the best of Humankind, this time with a national hero even if only posthumously.

The (hi)story of Aristides de Sousa Mendes, also known as “The Disobedient Consul”, has already been documented in a movie appropriately called “Disobedience”, in a book (http://sousamendesfoundation.org/books/), and now, our school also honours The Righteous Portuguese with an online publication we can all be proud of.

After last January’s commemoration of the 70 years of liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration camp, the class was invited to take part in a flipped activity that included the viewing of an excerpt of the movie “The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas”, reflected on the atrocities committed during WWII and one the students, Joana Cruz, was challenged to research and write a text on Aristides de Sousa Mendes – the Consul of Bordeaux who, just like other Lifesavers, for so long deserved  recognition for his altruistic deed, for a place in History after having saved over 30,000 people and being severely punished by António de Oliveira Salazar.

Challenge accepted, the text was finally submitted, is now published in http://myhero.com/ and can be viewed and read at the following URL:

http://www.myhero.com/hero.asp?hero=A_Sousa_Mendes_3ma_PT_2015

 Thank you!

Unique Holy Spirit Celebrations

                                                      

                                               Feast of the Holy Spirit

  About two kilometers from my village, there is a village called Espírito Santo (Holy Spirit), in which there is a celebration with a unique tradition in the country. This festival has a whole litter made in pine nuts called "branch".

   It's a party that needs a lot of hand labour throughout the year. The party is of religious content, during the time of Pentecost ("Pentecost" is the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles who were gathered for the first time, waiting for the Holy Spirit, inspiring all of their work in the Church), usually in the month April or May, depending on Easter day. It's a party like any other, with Mass followed by procession, folklore evening, the streets with the tents of fritters, snacks and drinks, street vendors, artists (Portuguese singers), pipers, music band, fireworks and dances. But what attracts the visitors is undoubtedly the traditional "branch" that is made of pine nuts and integrates the procession. It is the pride of the people of the Holy Spirit. No one knows for certain the age or the origin of the branch but it surely is more than two hundred years old.

   On all Saints Day, November 1, a group of people starts looking for pine nuts in the area of pine forests. As pine trees are scarce in the county of Soure, people widen the search to Condeixa and Penela area where there are a lot of pine trees. For three or four weeks, people move through the respective tractors with trailers, equipped with ladders and with some agility they climb the pine trees and harvest the pine cones. Normally this operation is carried out on Sundays as it is a day of rest for most people. It takes about three tons of pine cones, then they are stored in a shed protected from moisture so that they can dry up to Christmas. On the day of the Kings (6th January) another stage is initiated – they open the cones to remove the pine nuts.

   In threshing they extend pine leaves layers with another layer of cones, and so on. They set it on the fire so that the cones can open with heat to remove the sprockets. Sometimes even then some cones are not open, so it is necessary to put them on top of a stump, give a blow with the wooden mallet to open them. The next task involves joining all cones and having a lot of people (friends and relatives of party-goers) to "cascabulhar", ie removing the nuts of pine cones, and putting the nuts in the "tarara" to separate the pine nuts (tarara is an agricultural implement to separate the seeds, corn or olive leaves), which is a time consuming job. To prepare the "branch" people need around forty "bushels" of pine nuts, which is equivalent to four liters

    Bushel is an old measure of capacity used especially for cereals. After a deserved stop a new task begins in February. Men armed with hammers start to break pine nuts, and women separate the brown film that surrounds it. It is a painstaking job that leaves pretty clean pine nuts, another group armed with needles and thread and a good vision and great care should be carried out to "threading", ie drill the pine nut by the edges to thread with about 1.20 meters topped with a knot at each end containing 1.00 meters. On average for every Sunday afternoon people make 100 pitches in a total of 900 needed to decorate the branch.

    Each thread takes about 300 pine nuts, and the whole operation takes twelve Sundays. There are several people who know how to prepare the branch but tradition dictates only one person preparing the litter without any help. We are only missing the horseshoe-shaped cakes baked in wood stove. In celebration of the end pine nuts are divided by the population that contributes to the party. The story goes that when there is no one to grab the "branch" it is buried in the cemetery and this tradition ends, which to this day never happened.

                                                    Festival programme

The branch leaves the house of the butlers

                                                               Branch in church

                                                                            

                                                                          Pine nuts

My bro

Hello friends,
I want to introduce you to my brother who was born on 22.05.2015.
His name is Mohamed Cissé (I know it's a strange name for you), and now we are four siblings plus my father and my mother.
Mohamed sometimes cries and doesn't sleep and now I can not be a long time out of the house or play the ball because I have to help my mother to take care of him every day. Here's my family:
only black haha!
The problem is that he will have to learn to speak Portuguese, French and my African language so that when he grows up and goes back to my own country, he will not have problems communicating with others. He will also get to know my family in Africa haha.
I wanted to have a brother so much ... my mother has lost two sons .. finally Mohamed is here with us and I am very happy.
I love you all <3 <3 <3 <3 <3