Cambridge Academy of English @ MH
Today, we spent the whole day in London. We first went to see Buckingham Palace, the British royal family’s city residence. We were surprised and lucky to see the Queen’s Guard marching along from the Palace. We could get our cameras out fast enough to get a photo, but they looked very smart in bright red jackets and tall, furry black hats. There was also a mounted soldier following them on a beautiful horse. It was very exciting. After our lunch in St James’s Park, we headed towards the River Thames to catch the other famous sights of Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and Parliament Square …
… and then to one of our trip’s highlights, the Coca-Cola London Eye.
After our brilliant ride on the London Eye, we walked along the south bank of the River Thames, watched performers dancing and singing, acrobats, artists and skateboarders paused for a rest and much-needed drinks of water. When we reached the famous Millennium Bridge, we stopped in the middle, where there are some fantastic photo opportunities. The views of Tower Bridge and St Paul’s Cathedral were fantastic. At Blackfriars, we were excited to get a London underground (or tube) train to Covent Garden. Once there, we did some souvenir shopping and rounded off the day with pizza for dinner. After dinner, Taleb celebrated his 13th birthday with a surprise cake and candles and everyone in the restaurant sang for him!
Heavy rain stopped play outdoors, so we moved indoors to decorate boxes and make collages. Everyone was very focused on their artwork, which was great preparation for our T-shirt and bandana session. Can’t wait to show off these fabulous designs at our Fashion Show on Friday!
After dinner, we celebrated Anna’s 10th birthday and had a lovely chocolate party cake for dessert. Anna made a wish and blew out the candles – after we had all sung Happy Birthday, of course. At the end of the evening, the Girls’ Team, the Boys’ Team, Becky and Lisa all competed in a quiz. Becky and the Boys were the winners with 71 points, but the Girls came close with 69 points and Lisa was only just behind with a score of 66.
Today, we were really excited to host some English schoolchildren from Saffron Walden who came to find out about us, our lessons and what we do here at CAE Moreton Hall.
They are all more or less the same age as us and joined in with our lessons and activities. In English class we enjoyed a food tasting lesson about British foods such as custard (delicious), mustard, (disgusting), pickled onions (very sour and a bit spicy) and Monster Munch (yummy). We did some archery, using long bows, recurve bows and compound bows and then played a big game of obstacle rounders. It was intense and competitive with lots of running and sliding.
We finished the day with a great game of ultimate frisbee. Most of us had never used a frisbee before so it was difficult … however, it was so much fun.
It was a big surprise when we started the day, not with a lesson, but with a trip to the pool. We had a fantastic time with Jake and Becky, splashing about with the floats and rushing down the flume slides. We got back to school ready for Sunday brunch, with sausages and bacon, hash browns, fried eggs and beans. After lunch on this upside-down day we had English classes. Becky gave us a brilliant lesson all about British music. We talked about our favourite pop stars and listened to famous musicians like Pink Floyd, The Beetles, Adele, Ed Sheeran, Clean Bandit, Queen, Spice Girls, The Who, Oasis and David Bowie – some of the most well-known bands and singers in the world.
Afterwards, we started work on our fashion show outfits, designing t-shirts and bandanas. You can see some of our first efforts in the pictures here, and we’ll be showing them off finally in the Grand Fashion Show at the end of the week. In the evening, once we’d cleared away the dinner things we played lots of funny games indoors, like “pass the parcel” and “pass the pigs”.
Today was our first rainy day at Moreton Hall. The air is fresher and we played badminton and dodgeball in the sports hall. Later in the day we went to the art room and did some pastel work, inspired by Mondrian and Kandinsky.
At the end of the day we spent the evening competing to build the largest marshmallow tower and the strongest bridge. We had two teams, so it was Boys v Girls! The girls’ tower was the tallest, but the boys built the strongest bridge. So for tonight at least, the score’s one all.
Today, we travelled to the centre of Cambridge by double-decker bus. After lunch on Jesus Green we walked down King’s Parade, where we saw the famous Corpus Clock, Trinity College, St John’s, King’s College and King’s College Chapel. Later, we went punting along the “Backs”, where the river flows behind other Colleges as well, such as Queen’s, Magdalene College and Clare’s College. We went under the unique Mathematical Bridge and Cambridge’s very own Bridge of Sighs. Our punt “chauffeur” was brilliant, and throughout the punting trip she told us stories about the history of Cambridge University’s various colleges.
When we got back to Moreton Hall, Chef Paul taught us how to make our own pizzas for dinner. We all chose different toppings and Chef Paul put them in the oven for us and awarded prizes for the first and second best. The winners were Ewa and Rainbow. In the evening we were pretty tired and wound down from the busy day, chilling and playing Uno, chess and Old Maid, a traditional British children’s card game, and making loom bands.
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