thanksgiving day - games

Thanksgiving Memory game

Thanksgiving Feast

Thanksgiving Coloring Fun

plurals of nouns - review

Plural - exercícios online 3

Neste exercício podes rever/aplicar o que já aprendeste sobre: articles a/an; school objects; numbers e regular and irregular plurals!

;)

Plural - regras + exercícios online 2

Brown bear, Brown bear, what do you see? - Animals and colours!

Colours/Animals

 Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" is one of the most famous questions in children’s literature. The story introduces a series of animals asking the same question, "What do you see?" 

Wild animals - online exercises

Basic Vocabulary.

Online exercise consisting of 3 parts: how to spell animal names (16 animals), where animals live (continents) and what they eat.

;)

Animals - online exercises - writing and reading activities

Wild Animals - 

Vocabulary is the first of a group of activities to practice different vocabulary about wild animals. This exercise let you learn the names of wild animals with writing activities. 

The previous part has got reading activities. 

Following exercises in this series are: 2. Wild Animals - Body Parts, 

3. Wild Animals - Food & Habitat, 

4. Wild Animals - Abilities.

;)

by María Jesús Rodríguez Arenas

Animals + verb to have got

Verbo Have got e diferentes partes do corpo!

Verb To Have got + animals + plurals + family

Um livro interactivo que te vai ajudar a rever o vocabulário da família e animais domésticos. Excelente para exercitar o verbo To Have Got! :)

Mrs Hublet in chagall-col.spip.ac-rouen.fr

Bonfire Night in the UK (for teachers)

Theme: Bonfire Night in the UK
Lexical area: Festivals

Introduction
November 5th 2005 marks the 400th anniversary of the famous Gunpowder Plot when Guy Fawkes and his conspirators attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London. Bonfire Night is celebrated throughout Britain on the evening of the 5th of November with firework displays. As a language assistant you can really bring this class to life by adding your own experiences of how you’ve spent Bonfire Nights in the UK.

Task 1 is to find out how much your students already know about Bonfire Night and to look at the important vocabulary. Task 2 is a jigsaw reading about the history of the Gunpowder Plot. Task 3 asks students to talk about similar festivals in their own country and Task 4 gives students the opportunity to talk about winter food and design a Bonfire Night menu. Task 5 is a pronunciation task based on a traditional rhyme and Task 6 looks at firework safety.

1. Bonfire Night
Draw a picture on the board of a bonfire with a figure (an effigy of Guy Fawkes) on the top and people standing around with sparklers. Draw the moon and fireworks in the sky. Ask students what the things are and label them – fireworks, moon, bonfire etc.

Write the date at the top – November 5th and ask your students if they know anything about this British festival. If they do, elicit as much as possible and fill in any missing information. If they know nothing about Bonfire Night at all, give a brief and simple explanation, but not too much as they will find out more in Task 2.

Task 1 Bonfire Night
Listen to your teacher and make a note of any new vocabulary.

2. Guy Fawkes jigsaw reading
Depending on the level of your group, decide how much of the vocabulary to pre- teach. Make sure all students know the meaning of the following, before they begin the reading: blow up, a plot, gunpowder,

The Houses of Parliament.

This is a simple information gap activity. Cut up the text and put students into pairs. Make one student in each pair A and the other B. Give out the corresponding texts. Student A has four bits of information missing from the first paragraph and student B has four bits missing from the second paragraph. They must read their text and ask each other questions to complete the missing information. Make sure they don’t just look at each others’ papers to get the answers! This defeats the object of them asking each other questions and makes it far too easy. They will probably all try to do this so demonstrate the activity beforehand using a book or folder to create a barrier between the two students.

Task 2 Guy Fawkes jigsaw reading
Work in pairs, A and B. You are going to read about the history of Bonfire Night. Ask your partner questions to find the missing information.

Example

• A- “When did the men make the plot?”
• B – “In November 1605”
• B- “When do people remember the attempt?”
• A – “On November 5th.”

A - In ____________________ a group of men decided to make a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London. The men were angry about the way the Catholic people were being treated in England. At this time the King of England was __________________. The plot is known as the ‘Gunpowder Plot’ and the leader of the plot was called ________________. The men put 36 barrels of gunpowder in the Houses of Parliament and they waited for the King to open Parliament. Guy Fawkes was the man who was going to light the gunpowder and cause the explosion. However, __________ found the gunpowder before it could be exploded and they caught all the men involved in the plot. The men were tortured and killed. On November 5th British people remember the spectacular attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament by celebrating ‘Bonfire Night’. All over Britain there are firework displays and bonfires with models of Guy Fawkes which are burned on the fire. It’s normally quite cold on Bonfire Night so people wear warm clothes, hats, scarves and gloves to spend the evening outside. Traditional Bonfire Night food is jacket potatoes and toffee apples. This year is the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot and there are special events being held in London to remember the events of 1605.

B - In November 1605 a group of men decided to make a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London. The men were angry about the way the Catholic people were being treated in England. At this time the King of England was James the first. The plot is known as the ‘Gunpowder Plot’ and the leader of the plot was called Guy Fawkes. The men put 36 barrels of gunpowder in the Houses of Parliament and they waited for the King to open Parliament. Guy Fawkes was the man who was going to light the gunpowder and cause the explosion. However, police found the gunpowder before it could be exploded and they caught all the men involved in the plot. The men were tortured and killed. On _____________ British people remember the spectacular attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament by celebrating ‘Bonfire Night’. All over Britain there are ___________ displays and bonfires with models of Guy Fawkes which are burned on the fire. It’s normally quite cold on Bonfire Night so people wear warm clothes, hats, scarves and gloves to spend the evening outside. Traditional Bonfire Night food is ________________ and toffee apples. This year is the ______ anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot and there are special events being held in London to remember the events of 1605.

3. Discussion questions
These questions are to follow on from task two. If you haven’t done task two, but have explained the events of Bonfire night in another way, you could still use the questions as a starting point for talking about similar/other festivals in the students’ country. Put students into small groups or discuss the questions as a whole group if your class isn’t too big.

Task 3 Discussion questions
Discuss these questions in your group.

• Which festivals in your country remember historical events?
• Do you have any festivals that are similar to Bonfire Night in your country?
• When do you have firework displays in your country?
• Do you think you would like Bonfire Night? Why/ why not?
• Do you think festivals are a good way to remember historical events?

4. Bonfire night food
Try to remember if there was any typical food you would eat on Bonfire Night. Soups, jacket potatoes, burgers, toffee apples? Tell students that food for Bonfire Night has to be hot and you have to be able to eat it outside, sometimes standing up as you watch the firework display. Think of some ideas together and ask students to think up a menu for Bonfire Night.

If they need a structure, get them to think of one type of soup, a jacket potato filling and something sweet that they would like to eat on a cold, winter evening.

Task 4 Bonfire night food
You are going to think of some food to eat on Bonfire Night as you are watching a firework display. The food should be hot and tasty. What would you like to eat? Write your menu here:

5. Remember Remember the Fifth of November
This is a pronunciation activity. Depending on what problems your students have with individual sounds or intonation you can adapt the task to their needs. You say a line and get the students to repeat the same line. Gradually build it up until they say the whole rhyme all together. You may feel a bit nervous about doing this type of ‘choral drilling’ at the beginning, but lots of students do appreciate the chance to practise their pronunciation in this way and it can be quite fun.

Task 5 Remember Remember the Fifth of November
This is a popular rhyme about the fifth of November. Listen to your teacher saying each line and then repeat. Try to copy their pronunciation.

Remember remember the fifth of November, Gunpowder, treason and plot. I see no reason why gunpowder, treason Should ever be forgot...

6. Firework Safety
This is a group task and would be suitable for lower levels and/or younger students. Tell students that before Bonfire Night in the UK there is always a campaign to ask people to use fireworks safely. This year a new law is being introduced in the UK to completely ban the use of fireworks to everyone under the age of 18. This may be a shock for some of your students who are used to having access to fireworks from an early age, as is the case in Spain for example. For more information about the new ban, check out:

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3539880.stm or
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/chat/your_comments/

This activity asks students to think about firework safety and to design a poster for children to keep them safe on Bonfire Night – or at any festival that uses fireworks. Brainstorm a few ideas with the group about firework safety, such as keeping pets indoors and not returning to a lit firework that hasn’t gone off etc. Then ask the groups to design a poster to encourage firework safety.

Task 6 Firework Safety
In the UK there is a new law to ban everyone under the age of 18 from buying fireworks and carrying fireworks in public places.

• How old do you have to be to buy fireworks in your country?
• Do you think the British law is too strict?

Work in groups and design a poster to encourage young people to keep safe when they’re using fireworks.

 Internet links
This site has bonfire night food ideas.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/news_and_events/events_bonfirenight.shtml

This site has basic information.
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/Guy.html

This site has simple information about the history of Guy Fawkes.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A199488

This site has a Gunpowder Plot game.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/games/gunpowder/index.shtml

This site has the full history of the gunpowder plot.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/state/monarchs_leaders/

By Jo Budden

My description

Hi!
My name is Cátia Santos and I'm twelve years old. My birthday is on the 1st september.
I'm from Portugal, so I'm portuguese. I live in Oeiras, Damião Góis Street, number 5.
My phone number is  nine, double two, six, eight, nine, one.
My favourite food is roast chicken with patatoes and salad. I love orange juice.
I like to listen to music, but I hate computer games.
My favourite hobby is reading.
I'm short and thin. I have got long, curly, brown hair and brown eyes. My face is oval and my nose is small.
I'm very polite, reserved and obedient.

Celebração do Halloween

Estão expostos, na Biblioteca da nossa escola, os trabalhos elaborados pelos alunos das turmas C e E do sexto ano.

Visitem..pois vale muito a pena ;)

Estou muito orgulhosa dos meus alunos... Parabéns a todos ;)

Terra Treme no AEMRA

                                                              Exercício realizado no dia 13 de outubro às 10:20.

Concurso Quadras de São Martinho na BE

CONCURSO DE QUADRAS TRADICIONAIS de S. MARTINHO 2016/2017

REGULAMENTO
1. O concurso está aberto a todos aos alunos do 1º, 2º e 3º ciclo do Agrupamento Matilde Rosa Araújo;

2. As quadras tradicionais (com rima) têm de ser inéditas e obedecer ao tema do S. Martinho.

3. As quadras poderão ser ilustradas com desenhos /ou colagens, apresentadas em folha A4 branca, manuscritas ou a computador.

4. Cada turma pode concorrer com o máximo de três quadras devendo o professor de Português proceder a uma seleção.

5. Os trabalhos dos alunos serão entregues ao respetivo professor de Português, que fará uma lista com a identificação completa dos concorrentes (nome, número, ano e turma).

· Aconselha-se, para o efeito, que seja lida uma versão da lenda de S. Martinho, podendo, nessa aula, o professor dar oportunidade aos alunos para elaborarem as quadras.




6. O professor de Português fará chegar os trabalhos devidamente identificados à coordenadora da Biblioteca Escolar, em envelope fechado, até ao dia 4 de novembro.

7. Os trabalhos serão apreciados por um júri composto por três professores.

8. Os critérios de selecção serão os seguintes:

· Fidelidade às normas deste Regulamento.
· Correção linguística e coerência textual.
· Propriedade vocabular.
· Criatividade.
· Originalidade.

9. Das decisões do júri não haverá apelação.

10. Os resultados do concurso das quadras de S. Martinho serão divulgados na segunda semana de novembro.

11. Os trabalhos serão expostos na Biblioteca Escolar da Escola sede do Agrupamento.

12. As quadras dos três primeiros classificados serão publicadas no Blogue da Biblioteca Escolar.

13. Os vencedores do concurso receberão um prémio simbólico.



Organização: Departamento de Línguas
Biblioteca Escolar/CRE




É lógico que vamos participar, por isso preparem-se ;)!!!

for teachers - The best reference websites for English Language Learners by Larry Ferlazzo

by Larry Ferlazzo

The Best Reference Websites For English Language Learners

These are links to websites that English Language Learners can easily and quickly use– without having to register or sign-in (or download) — to aid them in spelling, pronouncing, learning the meaning, etc. of a word or phrase they are trying to read or write.

My students and I often find them very helpful. Having access to them provides a greater sense of self-reliance and confidence that they can find many answers (or confirmation of information they knew already) on their own and very quickly. And it dramatically reduces the number of “simple” questions I have to answer so I can focus on assisting students in higher-level learning or spend time with those who have special needs.

In addition, students can use these tools at home on their own computers or ones they have through our Family Literacy Project.

The basic criteria for a site to be on this list is this:easily accessible to English Language Learners; free-of-charge, and no registration or downloads are necessary to use the sites.

Before I start listing specific sites, here are a few other “Best” lists that could also be considered as “reference sites”:

The Best Search Engines For ESL/EFL Learners

The Best Resources To Learn About The U.S. Census (contains many accessible tools for researching U.S. demographic data)

The Best Multilingual & Bilingual Sites For Math, Social Studies, & Science

The Best Sites For Learning About Google Translate & Other Forms Of Machine Translation

Here are my choices for The Best Reference Websites For English Language Learners:

PRONUNCIATION:

There are several simple text-to-speech tools out there. All students have to do is copy a word a few sentences from something they’re reading and paste it on one of these sites. They will immediately hear the word pronounced. Students can do the same with their own writing to double-check if it “sounds” right.

All these tools are similar — they don’t require registration, you can choose which “voice” it speaks, and it’s spoken in a fairly decent computerized tone:

Cepstral

Oddcast

Voz Me

iSpeech

UNDERSTANDING MEANING & CHECKING SPELLING:

This section will focus on three types of tools — ways that students can learn the meaning of English words in their native language,  ways that students can find simple English or picture definitions of the words, and the best ways they can find synonyms or antonyms.  Of course, many of these sites offer more than one of these features, so I may appear to be a little arbitrary in deciding which category they fit.

TRANSLATING:

These translating tools all work in a similar way — they let you copy and paste words or sentences, and then pick the language you want it translated into.   The translation then appears on the screen.   Some also let you translate entire webpages (Jeffrey Hill at theEnglish Blog, though he hasn’t tested all the sites listed here, rates Google’s tool as the best among the ones he has tried– by far).

Now, though, there’s an easy way for you to make that determination for yourself.

The New York Times published a chart titled “Putting Google to the Test in Translation.” In it, they compare several pieces of text using Google Translate, Yahoo’s Babel Fish, and Microsoft’s Bing translation system. I think you’ll agree that Google does the best job of the bunch…

Ethan Shen has just done a research project comparing Google Translate, Babelfish and Bing Translator. Here are his conclusions:

The final data reveals that while Google Translate is widely preferred when translating long passages, Microsoft Bing Translator and Yahoo Babelfish often produce better translations for phrases below 140 characters.

World Lingo

Google Translate

Windows Live Translator (which now supports Hmong)

Frengly

Nice Translator is the newest addition to this list.  One way it stands out is by translating into your chosen language as you write it.  Most other similar sites require you to input everything and click “enter” before it begins to translate.

The Oddcast Translator is different from the others in two ways — it provides audio as well as text translation, and you could only use it a few times for free before it requires to purchase the program.

The ESL Reader and the amazing Lingro operate with the same perspective. Once you either copy and paste words (The ESL Reader) or input a url address (Lingro), then all the words become “clickable.” Once you click on a word, you see the the meaning of the word in the language of your choice — English or in a student’s native language.

Tradukka is a simple translation site. It’s just a re-packaging ofGoogle Translate, but it’s a very nice re-packaging.  The interface is more attractive and accessible.

DICTIONARIES:

There are five other dictionaries that I think are particularly accessible to English Language Learners:

For Beginning and Early Intermediate English Language Learners,The Language Guide is clearly the best place to go. It’s easy to navigate, and has excellent images, audio, and text.

For students who are getting a little beyond the Early Intermediate stage,  I’d recommend Harcourt’s E-Glossary. It begins to introduce simple academic vocabulary with images, text, and audio.  I particularly like the fact it shows words in context, and “speaks” the sentences, too.

For Intermediate and Advanced English Learners, I thinkAnswers.com works best.  Once you type in the word you’re looking for, click “Word Tutor” and it will provide audio to a sentence using the word in context.

Ninja Words returns your query very quickly, and provides the basic information most people need. Its simplicity makes it attractive for high Intermediate and Advanced ELL’s.

Shahi is a dictionary that combines simple definitions with quite a few Flickr photos. The combination of the two makes it pretty accessible to English Language Learners.

Nathan Hall writes about Divii, an online dictionary that shows video clips (with a transcript) of search-for words used in context. You type in a word, and it shows you multiple short clips from videos where the word is used. Jeez, so many dictionaries are next to useless for English Language Learners because they either just show the word in writing or only pronounce the word itself. Some might include a written sentence demonstrating it in context. But you can’t beat literally seeing and hearing it! Of course, the videos are all from YouTube, which make it inaccessible for most schools. But students certainly use it at home.

PlayPhrase is a site somewhat similar to Divii. I learned about it from AnthonyTeacher.com

ANTONYMS & SYNONYMS:

Lexipedia is a pretty darn impressive site. This can fit under many of the categories in this section. You type in a word, and, in an engaging visual display, shows you a ton of information about that word and lets you get the audio of the word pronounced.

Visuwords is another unique, and fun, way to find synonyms in a visual display.  It’s free, and it also functions as a dictionary.

Snappy Words is a similar tool.

Graph Words is a new very simple visual thesaurus. It’s not as fancy as some of the other similar applications out there, but I think some of them are actually pretty confusing to English Language Learners.

Thesaurus.Land

I don’t quite know where to fit these next two web tools, so I’ll just list them here.

Tip Of My Tongue is an intriguing “dictionary-like” web application.  You can do a variety of things to identify a word or its spelling — actions that you couldn’t necessarily take with regular dictionary. For example, if you know the first letter and the last letter of a word, you would type them in and then the page will show the words (and their definitions) that fit those parameters.

The Rhyme Zone says it all with its name. It’s an easy way to find rhyming words and their definitions.

WORLD FACTS:

I’ve posted about a lot of new sites over the past year that provide information about the countries of the world. However, the sites that were on last year’s list continue to be the best, and I am just adding two more resources.

Depending on the information students are needing on countries of the world, both Infoplease Countries is good for basic data.  I’d also add Harcourt’s The World as another place for simple and accessible data, plus it’s available in Spanish, too.

National Geographic People and Places provides a broader overview of different countries, including the United States, and includes a lot of good images, too.

National Geographic also has an interactive Vital Statistics Map that lets you compare global trends on many topics.

The second new addition is called World Info Zone. It’s similar to the others, but the language might be a bit more accessible to English Language Learners.

National Geographic Kids has very accessible descriptions of many different countries. It does have an entry for every country in the world, but it’s still a good piece of work.

FACTS ABOUT THE FIFTY U.S. STATES:

America’s Library from the Library of Congress gives a very short and accessible overview of each state.  I’d also add Harcourt’s The Fifty States as another good source for simple info.

For more detailed information, I’d suggest students visit Infoplease: States.

The Measure of America is the name of American Human Development’s website.  It has an extraordinary interactive maphighlighting how states (or Congressional districts) in the United States rate in over sixty categories, including health, education, income, etc.  It might be a little tricky at first for English Language Learners to get the hang of it, but it shouldn’t be a problem with a little teacher assistance.

The British newspaper The Guardian has just published a good interactive map of the United States with a variety of demographic information (though I wished they had used the term “undocumented immigrants” instead of “illegal migrants”).

State Health Stats is amazing interactive infographic showing health statistics from all fifty states.

FACTS ABOUT CITIES & NEIGHBORHOODS:

National Geographic has a nice section on cities throughout the world.

This year, several new web tools have also opened for business that easily allow you to find demographic information about specific cities and zip codes in the United States. I think the best, and most accessible, ones are Zip Code Census Dashboard and Policy Map.

Mapping America: Every City, Every Block is an amazing interactive from The New York Times that displays U.S. Census data from…everywhere. The New York Times Learning Network also has asimple lesson plan related to it.

You can find other similar tools on my website under Student Neighborhood Maps. I’ll also be talking about a few other comparable applications in another “The Best…” list that will be appearing within a month called “The Best Online Mapping Tools.”

ENCYCLOPEDIAS:

I know some people have issues with Wikipedia, but I’ve found theSimple English Wikipedia to be a great resource, and the most accessible to English Language Learners.  I’d also put Fact Monsteron this list.

This next one isn’t really an encyclopedia, but I can’t think of any other category to put it in. I’m really quite impressed with Wiki Answers. It’s a huge and growing community composed of simple questions and their answers. All the ones I’ve checked have been accurate.

The Flowing Data blog has created an incredible infographic on world demographics. It’s designed to be a poster for sale, but there’s online zoomable version. This is their simple description:

In whole, the report tells a story of how we live and die, and the stuff in between.

Though it’s “busy-looking,” I haven’t seen any other kind of graphical representation of this amount of data, which makes it a lot more accessible to English Language Learners than most encyclopedias.

Suggestions are always welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous“The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

Categories: best of the year, dictionaries, geography, social studies, talking |Permalink

in:http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/?s=the+best+reference+websites+for+english+language+learners