Abingdon School Open Day

    The Open Day this year will be on Saturday, 1 October 2011. The Open Day is for all the family, with activities and displays(展示) about all aspects(方面) of the school. All the teachers, students and parents will attend. The day starts at 9:30 a. m. and finishes at 2:30 p.m.  You are welcome to arrive at any time during the lessons in the morning and afternoon. Please read the outline of Open Day events.

    If you can't come to the Open Day, that's all right. There are many other chances(机会) to visit Abingdon School

    St Helen School and St Katharine School Open Day will be on the same date, so you can also visit those two.

    Parking at the school on the Open Day may be limited(有限的), so you can also park your cars in Lotus Supermarket's car park.  It's just a three-minute walk away.

The map of Abingdon School can be found on the school website-www. abingdon. edu.

    Did you spend much time lying on the comfortable sofa at home during the summer vacation? How often did you do sports this summer? People across the world need to get moving, according to a new study by the World Health Organization (世界卫生组织).

    5% of adults do not get enough exercise, according to the study. This number hasn't changed from 2001. Because of this, about 1.4 billion people are close to deadly diseases (疾病) such as heart disease and cancer (癌症).

    People should do at least 2 and a half hours of "moderate intensity (中等强度)" exercise each week, such as dancing or swimming. They can also do 75 minutes of "vigorous intensity (高强度)" exercise, such as running or playing soccer, according to the WHO.

    As for how to exercise more, experts says that we don't have to go to the gym (健身房) every time For example, we can go up and down stairs (楼梯) a lot instead of taking the lift. If we can't go to a dancing class each week, standing on one leg for 30 seconds a day is very good too.

    The study also found that women are less active than men, 32% of women hardly ever take exercise, compared to (比较) 23% of men. Women spend more time at home taking care of children and doing housework.

    But unlike that in most other countries, men are less active than women in China, with 16.6% of men and 12% of women not getting enough exercise.

    Here I want to tell you some information about water.

    Water covers most of our planet. People can find it in oceans, lakes and rivers, and under the ground. Water moves in the environment by evaporation, condensation, and precipitation. The warm Sun helps water change into vapour and rise up into the sky. It is evaporation. The vapour in the air forms clouds in the sky. It is condensation. When the clouds get heavy enough, the water falls back to the ground as rain or snow. This is precipitation.

    Ocean water has too much salt in it. Much of the water travels far over the land. When it travels over the land, the water picks up salt from the rocks and soil. About 97.5% of the Earth's water is salty water. It is expensive to take salt out of the water.

    All people need clean water. They need it for drinking, for cooking, and for bathing. Some people in a village in South America did not have clean water. Their water was full of oil and dirty things. People there got sick when they drank the water. Other people heard about the problem. They sent empty water tanks (储水池) to the village. Rainwater fell into the tanks. Now the people in that village have the clean water.

Music is good for us. According to the new study from the World Health Organization (WHO), music can 1 us happy and healthy. For example, when I feel 2 listening to some classical music helps me relax. When I'm down, I like pop music full of hope and love. It is easy for 3to fall asleep with light music. Some doctors 4 that people who love music may have a long life.

Near my house, a man and his wife have a small music house with mood music(情调音乐). People like to spend time here when 5are plying different kinds of music. Sometimes, we are lucky to hear some famous singers sing songs written by themselves. The songs are 6beautiful that we sing along with them. We communicate(交流)with one another 7 his special language. The most moving music is Chinese folk music(乡村音乐). It 8_us the sweet days in the past.

Everyone of us, rich or 9, young or old, may have his favorite song. 10 will be together with us as long as we live.

Have you ever heard of the "space race (太空竞赛)"? It sounds like a game, but it was not. The "space race" was a kind of competition between the United States and the Soviet Union（前苏联）. Both countries wanted to be the first to send people into space. 

Both the Soviet Union and the United States sent rockets (火箭) into space in the 1950s, but not people. Then in 1961, a man called Yury Gagarin from the Soviet Union became the first man to travel in space. 

People in the United States were upset. They'd hoped an American would be first in space. Soon President John F. Kennedy told the world that Americans would be the first to land on the moon. He said they would get there by 1970. 

Landing on the moon was hardly possible at the time. But that "impossible dream" came true. 

On 16th July 1969, a huge white rocket left the United States. It was carrying a spaceship called Apollo 11. In it were three US astronauts: Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin. 

Apollo 11 travelled quickly through space. On 20th July, it was near the moon. Armstrong and Aldrin moved slowly into the Eagle. That was their landing craft (登月舱). It would leave the command ship (指令舱) and land on the moon. 

Collins stayed in the command ship. Armstrong and Aldrin watched the moon getting closer and closer. Finally, the Eagle landed. Armstrong used his radio to tell people on the earth, "The Eagle has landed. " He and Aldrin stepped out into (步入) a strange new world. They were walking on the moon!

What did people do to communicate in ancient times? Here are some very interesting answers to this question.

Alphorns（阿尔卑斯长号角） were once used to communicate in the mountains in Switzerland. They are very long and they are very heavy, too. So, alphorns are hard work to blow. Then why use them? Well, they make a loud sound which travels much further than the human voice. Herdsmen（牧民） used them to call cows in the distance for milking. At sunset, alphorns were also used to send a message down to villagers that all was well. These days, they're mostly used as musical instruments.

The people of La Gomera, an island in Europe, have their own special way of sending messages from mountain to mountain. They use a whistled（口哨） language called el silbo, which comes from their language Spanish. Whistling can be heard within five kilorneters, which means it can be used across much greater distances than shouting. El silbo can be used for all kinds of messages, including greetings and announcements. El silbo is used a lot less than it used to be, but primary school students in La Gomera have to leave it.

Did you know it 's also possible to send messages without making a noise? This is called visual communication, and it includes the use of flags and even smoke. Long ago, soldiers along the Great Wall of China used smoke as a warning. If they noticed the enemy from their signal（信号） tower, they lit a smoky fire. When soldiers in other towers saw the smoke signal, they lit fires, too. In this way, messages about the enemy's arrival could travel as far as 800 km in just a few hours.