7th Childrens Writing Competition

The Dar Al Atta’a Let’s Read Committee announces the launch of its

7^thChildren’s Writing Competition

Students are invited to write a poem entitled: ‘My Dream’

This theme can be interpreted as ‘hopes and dreams’ or ‘dreams and nightmares’! The poem may be written in rhyming or free verse, and it can be funny, sad, thought-provoking, scary or uplifting etc.  The poem will be judged on its originality, use of language, the theme and its impact on the reader.

*Poems should be type written and no more than 12 lines long.

*Poems must be the student’s own work and not copied or written by others.

*The poem should be clearly marked with the student’s name, age, school and contact number.

* The telephone number and email address of the school must be included.

      

Entries will be judged according to three age groups: 4-8 yrs 9-13 yrs and 14-18 yrs and the winning entries will be awarded trophies, great prizes and have the opportunity to see their work in print.

All entries should be sent by email to: letsreadoman@gmail.com or posted or delivered to:

 Dar Al Atta’a, Building no. 119, Bashaer Street, Madinat Al Sultan Qaboos Tel: 24692996

P O Box 156, Jawarat Al Shatti, PC 134 Muscat www.daralatta.org

The deadline is 13^th March 2013. Any entries received after this date will be disqualified.

For more information please contact Jane Jaffer at: letsreadoman@gmail.com

or visit our Facebook page: letsreadoman@groups.facebook.com

Good Luck!

le fin.

Dubai Summer Surprises & Modhesh world

Imagine my surprise when a few weeks ago, I was invited by Dubai Events & Promotions to visit Dubai last weekend to experience the launch of the 15th edition of the Dubai Summer Surprises event? So, this past weekend Mrs Sythe & I went up to Dubai to make the most of the holiday, tour parts of Dubai we'd never been to before, and see just how much punishment my credit card could take in the sales.

The summer event known as Dubai Summer Surprises is in it's 15th year of operation, and kicked off this last weekend on the 14th June and will run until the 14th July. If you happen to have children who are not running away to cooler climes for the summer, there really is quite a lot on to keep the little ones entertained and happy. Obviously, this DSS is not just for kids, it's also for big kids too - lots of sales in the malls and special offers on hotels and spas.

In a nut shell, the Dubai Summer Surprises event consists of: Free kids shows in most of the malls in Dubai (Ice Age 3, Spongebob Squarepants, Barbie, The Smurfs and more..), special promotional prices in hotels all over the city, some incredible deals for some of the many spa's in Dubai. And, of course, the indoor theme park for kids known as Modhesh world.

A brief round-up of some of the events in the next month.

I went to the launch of Modhesh world on Thursday evening and was impressed by the sheer size of the place. Think of the kids play-area in Muscat City Centre, multiplied by a factor of about 35 and you may be starting to get into the right size of this place. The best bit is the price: it's Dhs 10 to enter (kids under 2 are free) and if you were a kid I'm fairly sure you'd find more than a few things to do that would leave you totally exhausted (a happy parent is one with a sleeping child right)? This years version of Modhesh world runs until August 25th and is situated in the World Trade Centre.

Modhesh world is open daily from 10am, except on Fridays where it opens at 2pm - it closes at 10pm except on the weekend or Eid where it closes at midnight. Ramadan timings are 6pm - 1am. I walked around this place for about an hour and still did not see everything that there was to do there, for about $2.65, I think it's exceptional value for money.

Now, back to the big kids and their needs. I visited the following malls: Festival City, Mall of the Emirates, Dubai Mall, Mirdiff City Centre, Ibn Battuta Gate, Mercato Mall & Burjuman. Every single mall had shops offering sales - not every single store, but a lot of them. Also, in some malls (for example Mercato) if you spend over a certain amount of money you get an entry into a free prize draw for a car. So if you are going up to Dubai for a weekend of shopping, its worth while to know about some of these offers.

All in all, it was a fun weekend, I got some killer deals in the sales, had a little visit to a spa (more on that another day) and saw hundreds of kids with the biggest smiles on their faces having a great time. Hopefully I have helped some of you with kids here in the summer months find something fun to do on a weekend. Dubai is, after all, only an hour's plane ride away.

le fin.

Beavers and Cubs for kids at school

For those of you with boys here between 6 and 10.5 years old, you may be interested in having them join the Beavers or the Cubs as part of an after-school activity. Girls can join if they really want to as well.


Beavers is for boys aged 6 - 8 years and Cubs is for boys aged 8 - to 10 and a half. They meet on Saturdays during term time at the ABA in Al Khuwair. Beavers is one hour long and Cubs is an hour and a half long (beavers starts at 3.45 and Cubs at 5pm).

They do all sorts of stuff; they work on badges of all types for example this term at Cubs they did The Scientist Badge, The Astonomy Badge and the Personal Safety Badge - next term they are doing Map Reading and Community Challenge Badges.

The cost for Cubs is 15 RO per term and Beavers is 12 RO per term, and I think thats a pretty good price. If anyone is interested they can e:mail specksmith2000@yahoo.co.uk.

Should your children be older, there is of course also an active troop of Scouts and Explorers now functioning here in Muscat as part of the same Scouts troop - Scouts are for kids aged 10 to 14 years
and Explorers for kids aged 14 to 18 year.

More soon.

le fin.