Save the Elephants! (essay)

The African elephant is classified as a member of the order Proboscidea and family Elephantidae. 

It is the largest land mammal. It has a heavy, grey body, four legs and a short tail. Its head is large with two huge ears, two small eyes, a trunk and two teeth called tusks. These animals are herbivore. 

The elephant's eyesight is not very good and it uses its big ears for ventilation and communication. It can weigh up to six tons. The trunk is used for breathing, smelling, drinking water, picking food, breaking branches and fighting. 

Elephants are ready to mate at the age of 15 or 16. The mating pair will often separate from the herd for a few weeks. After 21 to 22 months, one calf is born.

The African elephants live in Africa, south of the Sahara desert, in tropical forests, savannah areas, deserts and river valleys. They are endangered, because poachers kill them for their ivory tusks. 

In the prehistory, there were about 300 species of elephants, and now there are only two! We must do something to save them. We can put them in game parks with cameras around their necks. The law can also help by preventing poaching. We can ban the selling of ivory. 

If we prevent the elephants from becoming extinct, we will save many other animals, too. That is how the nature works!

Dunja Ilić, VIII2, November 2008

Sing a Rainbow (song)

This song has always been fun to sing, and here's how my 7-year-olds performed it in November 2008.

Here are the lyrics to sing along:

Red and yellow and pink and green
Purple and orange and blue
I can sing a rainbow,
sing a rainbow,
sing a rainbow too.

I1

I2

 

I3

Deadlock by Sara Paretsky (book review)

This is a murder mystery and the main hero is Vic I. Warshawski. She is a private investigator in Chicago, USA.

People imagine private detectives to be tired-looking men in raincoats, but Vic is a female. She is tough, beautiful, carries a gun - and goes on asking questions until she gets answers.

When Boom Boom, a former ice-hockey star, dies in an accident by falling under a ship, the city mourns. Nobody suspects murder. But, Boom Boom was Vic's cousin and she was very fond of him. She wants to know how and why the accidents happened, because she does not understand how a strong young man can just slip and fall into the water like that. 

Then she finds Boom Boom's girlfriend going through his personal papers in his apartment. And, Vic did not even know that Boom Boom had a girlfriend!

Soon Vic realises that she is conducting a murder investigation. Somebody else knows it too, because another murder quickly follows, and some rather strange accidents as well. But, Vic has a very personal interest in the case. Nothing is going to stop her!

If you want to know what happens next, if Vic finds a murderer, you have to read the book. 

I enjoyed reading the book because it is a murder mystery and I like mysteries.

Ivana Grubišić, VIII2, 2 November 2008

The Dead of Jericho by Colin Dexter (book review)

The name of the book that I have recently read is ’The Dead of Jericho.’ It is a murder mystery, written by Colin Dexter, which takes place in the old part of Oxford - Jericho.

When Chief Inspector Morse met a beautiful woman called Anne Scott, he did not know that she would hang herself only six months later.

He hears about the sad news and investigates it, even if it is not his case. He finds out a lot of things – that there were no curtains upstairs, that the front door was unlocked... He interviews most of Anne’s neighbours and the city’s blacksmith. He manages to get the key from Anne’s back door.

One night he gets into the house and notices a lot of details. When he finishes investigating, he goes out of the house, over the garden wall and then he gets caught. He is pushed into a police car. The man who catches him is Constable Walters, the helper of Chief Inspector Bell, in charge of the case. They drive to Morse’s home and exchange information.

The next day, while Morse is on the Summertown Bridge Club talk, given by Charles Richards, the second murder happens in Jericho. It is Anne’s neighbour, George Jackson, who gets killed.

Morse is puzzled, but the Assistant Chief Commissioner wants him in charge of the case. Morse takes the case and exchanges information with Bell once again.

In the next few days, he finds out about a blackmail, some letters and a lot of other details. In the end, he catches the murderers – Charles and Conrad Richards, Anne’s lover and his brother.

The characters of this story are Morse and Lewis, his Sergeant, Charles and Conrad Richards, Charles’s wife Celia, some members of the Bridge Club, the Murdoch family...

The main character is Chief Inspector Morse. He is intelligent, but he has three flaws: beer, Mozart and women. He is very much like an ordinary person, not like an inspector. That is what makes him so special.

I liked this book very much. It is interesting and exciting, but sometimes it can be scary and that is what I like.

Dunja Ilić, VIII2, 26 October 2008

Video games (project)

The following video clip deals with video games. The project was done by the boys in class VIII2, Pavle Mandić, Marko Draško and Marko Mišković, in October 2008. Although there are a lot of spelling mistakes, it's the effort that counts.

Sausages with ice-cream (song)

This is probably the most popular song among my pupils. It's a perfect way to revise the food words. Here's how my class VI5 performed it in June 2008.

Here are the lyrics:

I like toast with cheese.
Katy likes chips with peas.
Peter puts pepper on his baked beans.
Edward likes raspberries
And Jessica loves strawberries,
But John likes sausages with ice-cream.

I like sticky toffee.
Donna likes a cup of coffee.
Daniel likes a nice fruit salad, it seems.
Wendy loves apple pie,
But nobody can tell us why
John likes sausages with ice-cream.

Let's Have a Picnic! (song)

This is how my class IV4 sang a lovely song from our coursebooks called 'Let's Have a Picnic' in June 2008.

Here are the lyrics:

How many eggs
And how much meat
Are we taking on our picnic?
Bring your glass and bring your plate,
Let's have a picnic!

How many girls
And how many boys
Are coming on our picnic?
Bring your games and bring your toys,
Let's have a picnic!