Happy birthday, Websail!

It's been a year already since Mr Dimitris was timidly making his first post in this weblog, without knowing how, or where it would lead us...

 "This is my first blog! I feel like I'm sailing in uncharted waters! Let's hope taht it will be full of interesting and useful experiences... The ambition is the creation of a place of meeting and dialogue amongst teachers, parents and students of the 10th Primary School, around the issues of the school, of learning and education in general..."

 The blog that startes out with so many questions and insecurity was about to become everyone of us' "Websail", go outside the walls of our school and take us to places near and faraway, real and imaginary!
We would like to thank for once more, from the deepest of our hearts, all of you who travel in the Websail and help it keep going...
All that's left to us is wish it...

Happy birthday and lots of happy voyages!!!

Α story-teller deserving...awards!

Have you ever heard of Hans Christian Andersen? No? But you have surely heard of "The Ugly Duckling"? "The Little Mermaid"? "The Emperors' New Clothes"? Well, time for you to learn that they were all written by him! We met him in our English class a few days ago and we decided to get to know him a little better!

Hans Christian Andersen was born on April 2, 1805, in the town of Odense in Denmark. He was born to a poor family. His father was a shoemaker, and his mother earned money washing other people's clothes. Although they were poor, his parents didn't want him to work from an early age and they encouraged him to develop his imagination. So, when he was fourteen, Andersen convinced them to let him go to Copenhagen, Denmark, rather than study to become a tailor. He was determined "to become famous"! Andersen lived very poor in the first years of his life in Copenhagen. He tried to become a singer, a dancer, an actor (!), but he failed. Although he had been a very poor student at school (he himself said that his school days were "the darkest and most bitter of his life") he managed to pass his University examinations in 1828 and that was when he wrote his first narrative, which was quickly followed by a collection of poems.

However, that didn't instantly bring him the fame he was aspiring to... His fairy tales were not popular at first. They started seeing success about ten years later! 156 fairytales and stories were published during his lifetime, but he also wrote other kinds of texts and some of them were published after his death, so, if we add them up, that makes 212 works in total.

Andersen died as a successful writer at the age of 70, on August 4, 1875. Apart from the works we already mentioned, other well-known stories written by him include "The Princess and the Pea", "The Tin Soldier", "The Nightingale", "The Little Match Girl"...
His stories are considered unique because he didn't write in the "traditional" way fairytales were written at the time. We don't only see "good guys" and "bad guys" in his fairytales. There is not always a "happy end". There is often melancholy in his narratives. What he wanted was to make his readers think about his characters and their stories and make his stories appeal  and make sense to both children and adults.

Some interesting facts!

1. Hans Christian Andersen never learnt to study successfully. He never learned how to spell or how to write in Danish!
2. Andersen was not considered to be handsome. In fact, some considered him to be quite unattractive! He had a big, long nose, he was very thin and he was about 185 cm tall (which was very unusual for his time) and was a shoe size of 47!!! Some even believe that the story of The Ugly Duckling may have been derived from personal experience!
3. There is an award that is named after him-The Hans Christian Andersen Award, given to the best children's books author and illustrator every two years, by her Majesty Queen Margrethe II of Denmark!
4. Hans Christian Andersen never married and he didn't have any children.
5. He liked watching and listening to operas!
6.  There is a sculpture of The Little Mermaid on the harbour of Copenhagen, Denmark!

Let's have some fun with Hans Christian Andersen! Click on the image:

Day without cars!

If you passed by our school on Saturday morning, you would think you had visited a bicycle exhibition!

About 50 bicycles (big or small, with or without training wheels) were running around the schoolyard!


All this happened within the framework of celebrating the "Day without Cars" (22nd September).


For two hours, Mr Kostas was setting up tracks for us to show our talent in pedal and learn how to hit the brakes effectively!

Let me see who's the most skilled rider!

"Go!"...

...in between the cones!!!!

...and brake at the right time!

However, we didn't stop there! After completing the "artistry" exercises, we left our bikes to the side and got informed about the right riding behaviour when we are on a bicycle. To put it simply: to ALWAYS wear a helmet and light-coloured clothes and have our lights on when we drive at night. We left the hard work for the end! A specially equipped team with rolls, special colour and the guidance of our teacher and our headmaster painted the crossing on the east side of the school which had completely faded out! Two other teams painted signs for the pedestrians and cyclists on the pavement. So as we (especially grown-ups) don't forget that the pavements are... ...for pedestrians!    ...and bicycles! It was an awesome Saturday morning! ...much better than a drive in a car... Original post by Maria Priniotaki

The refugees of Rethymno...

  Mr Paraskevas Syrianoglou knows a lot about refugees! He knows even more about the refugees of Rethymno and of our area-Tsesmes! The "Tsesmelis"! As a president of the Rethymnian Minor Asians Association he made us the honour to talk in our school on May 19th and we thank him a lot for that! We learned so much on that Saturday (especially we, grown-ups), so as to be able to teach it to the younger ones, too...
  We learned how so many Greeks were made to leave their homes in Minor Asia during the first decades of the last century, how they were scattered around Greece and that about 4200 of them arrived in Rethymno...

  We also learned how difficult life was at the beginning both for the refugees (lack of accommodation, clothing and warm covers for the night and terrible living conditions with people being literally "piled up" in public buildings) and for locals (lack of clean water, dirt and sanitation problems in the city due to overproduction of waste for which there wasn't an efficient drainage providence)...
  We learned that refugees weren't treated with the same hospitality by all of the local population and that there were people who, not wanting to accept them, made their life even more difficult (luckily the exceptions were few)...
  We learned, as well, about how important the contribution of the refugee population to the local society and economy was, how great a boost they gave to the development of agricultural production (especially to the suburban areas, like Tsesmes) but also to the arts-and what good gatherings they made with locals in the evenings!
  So, we thank Mr Paraskevas for once more, not only for his interesting lecture, but also for the 4 books of his that he donated to our school library!
Lastly, we owe a "thank you" to the residents of Tsesmes with (or without) refugee origins, who shared with us their experiences and memories from their childhood years and their ancestors.

Walt Disney: Our familiar...stranger!

Walter Elias Disney was born in Illinois, U.S.A. on
5 December 1901. Unbelievable as it may seem, Walt had a special learning disability-he had dyslexia. That means he had difficulty in reading and writing, as well as in spelling words correctly. 
At the age of 16 he left school to join the army (where he was not accepted brcause of his young age). 
There have also been reports that when he was still fairly young he got fired from the newspaper where he was working brcause "he wasn't...creative enough"!!!Of course (luckily for us, all!), all of the above did not let Walt down! He didn't give up and (after several unsuccessful professional efforts) he started with his brother, Roy, strenuously working on cartoons! So, the charming little mouse to us all, Mickey Mouse, "was born" in 1928, with the presentation of their movie, "Steamboat Willie". 
Disney initially meant to call him "Mortimer Mouse" (!), but his wife-to-be, Lillian, suggested that "Mickey" sounded better and he followed her advice! The characters of Pluto, Donald, and Goofy had been created by 1939...


Gradually, all of "non-creative" Disney's creations became more and more successful-and he one of the most (if not "THE" most) creative and successful cartoonists of the world!

It's he to whom we owe classic cartoon movies such as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs",  "Bambi", "Dumbo", but also, some movies that succeeded his death(15 December 1966),  such as, "The Lion King" και  "Aladdin" which are productions of his "heir" company, Walt Disney Pictures.

Here you will find the names of 20 of the best Walt Disney Pictures films, as they were voted by the public on Youtube in 2008:

   

A few more "secrets"...:
1. Disney was Mickey's voice himself for two decades!
2. It is said that Disney was in fact afraid of mice!
3. It is said that his favourite character was Goofy!
4. He has been awarded more Oscar Academy Awards than anyone else (22)!
5. The original idea behind the creation of Disneyland was for a recreation park to e built, where his employees would spend a pleasant time with their kids. Today 58.000 people are employed there and its size is about the size of 24 (!) football fields!
6. The production of movies such as,  "Toy Story", "Finding Nemo" και  "Cars"  has been made by Pixar Animation Studios (which is like a "brother" of Walt Disney Pictures)!

What about you? Which is YOUR favourite Disney movie? Who is your favourite character?

Shakespeare...inside-out!

Is there anyone amongst you who hasn't heard of the name William Shakespeare, even once? I don't think so...! William Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon in Αγγλίας, was (and is still considered to be) one of the greatest playwrights and poets, not only in his country, but also in the whole world! 39 plays are officially recognised as his, with  "Romeo and Juliet", "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "The Merchant of Venice" and "Hamlet" being amongst the most well-known. I beg your pardon? You already knew these too?

Well, did you know that...:

1. ...nobody knows exactly when he was born? All we know is that he was christened on the 26th of April in 1564 and the historians, estimating that he was then 3 days old, considered the 23rd of April in 1564 to be his birth day!
2. ...he never went to University, but studied literature, Latin, Maths and Religion by himself throughout his life?
3. ...he used more than 25,000 different words in total in his works, while he also invented words of his own, such as the word "assassination"? People use about 2,000 words on average when they write or talk!
4. ...his wife and all of his three kids were illiterate? (!) They were unable to even read or write!
5. ...he died on the same day that is considered to be his birth day, on the 23rd of April in 1616?

Let's play with William! Click on the picture:

Ludwg Van Beethoven: The great musician

I recently heard that "Beethoven" is the dog in a movie...!

But, because Beethoven was not only that, I decided to introduce him to you...

   Beethoven was one of the greatest musicians of all time. He was born in Germany in 1770 and died in 1827. he began composing musical pieces from an early age. His first composition came out when he was only 12. He quickly became popular as a composer and as a pianist as well.

    He slowly began losing his hearing until, in 1820, he became totally deaf. One of the greatest musicians could not hear at all!! But Beethoven didn't lose his courage too! He kept on composing music. Some of his most famous pieces were written when he was totally deaf! He couldn't even hear the audience's  claps...

Pieces by beethoven like the "9th Symphony" or "The Ode to Joy" are considered to be real musical masterpieces.Listen to this:

Original post by Dimitris Alexakis

Archimedes, our great mathematician and inventor.

      Archimedes is one of the greatest mathematicians and inventors of antiquity. He lived in Syracuse, a Greek settlement in Sicily in the 3rd century B.C. (287 B.C. - 212 B.C.). He was the king's relative and he could have a good position by him, but he preferred to study. So he travelled to Alexandria of Egypt and  studied with Eratosthenes, the great mathematician.

      Archimedes became famous in Syracuse, because he solved the problem of the King's crown. The King had asked for a new golden crown. However, he couldn't be sure if the crown was really made out of pure gold:

      

When the Romans attacked Syracuse in order to conquer it years later, Archimedes helped a lot in the town's defence with his famous war machines.

      He made big "mirrors" which reflected the sun's light and burnt the enemy ships.

      He also built huge hooks, which caught the enemy ship, lifted it up in the air and crashed it onto the rocks.

Original post by Dimitris Alexakis