Halloween

• In this site, you'll find crosswords, scrambled words, word searching games, rhymes and more! Here, there a few samples of Halloween recipe cards to print.
• For little ones, here, you can find printables of coloring pages, bookmarks, and more.
• The story of Halloween, you can make comprehension questions using this text, or this one.
• Stories and Tales of Halloween, for advanced kids here.
• Very short scary tales.
• In the haunted house, students make their own choices and stories! Then, they can report what happened to them!
• A webquest on The History of Halloween, for kids.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Friend's day activities

On July 20th we celebrate Friend's day. Which of the phrases below would you write on a friend's day card?

• you make me live
• you’re a very nice person
• you are part of my family
• you're the best friend that I ever had
• I really love you
• I like spending time with you
• I got you, to help me forgive
• You make me a good person
• You know I'll never be lonely
• I really love the things that you do
• Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Walk beside me and just be my friend.

2.You can use those phrases to send cards to your friends. Visit this site, or this one for free friendship cards.

3. Now watch this video and listen to Queen's song You are my best friend. Tick those phrases (act. 1) you hear.

I would like to thank Emilia Gatto, the teacher who designed these activities. Thanks Emilia!

FREE Printables

FREE Printables that make our work easier. Check it out!

Business card
Cards (recipe)

Certificates

Easter Bunny letters

Family tree templates

Games battleship, hangman, and tic-tac-toe papers.

Gift tags

Greetings

Grocery Lists Useful if you are working with topics like 'going shopping,' 'food,' 'countable and uncountable nouns.'

Invitations

Labels

Letters for Santa Claus

Letterheads  
Letters of recommendations

Maps Signs
Medical Forms 

Menu planners

Mother's day Cards Wonderful opportunity for students to express themselves freely in a card.

Play money Useful if you want to work with dramatizations of 'going shopping'

Storyboards useful if you are making your students write stories or cartoons. 
Teacher's printable

Teacher resources class attendance papers, grade book papers, lesson plan sheets, seating arrangement charts.

Songs

Marvin Gaye’s real name was Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. Gaye was an American singer-songwriter and instrumentalist. He was born on April 2, 1939 and died on April 1, 1984. "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)" is the second single from Marvin Gaye's legendary 1971 album, What's Going On. This song, written solely by Gaye, became one of his most poignant message of sorrow at the world dealing with the environment. Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) soon became one of Gaye's most famous songs in his extensive catalog.

Suggested activities

1. The song deals with world ecological problems. Here's a list of environmental problems, talk to a partner and guess which ones will be mentioned in the song, and predict the words or phrases that may appear in the lyrics.

• destruction of rain forests
• air pollution
• water pollution
• radiation
• destruction of ozone layer
• overpopulation
• sewage waste
• chemicals
• malnutrition
• species in extintion

2. Listen to the song and fill in the blanks. Oh, mercy mercy me Oh, things ain't* what they _____________ ______________ ______________ No, no Where _____________ all the blue sky ______________________? _________________ is the wind that blows From the north, east, south, and sea Oh, mercy mercy me Oh, things ain't what they _____________ _______________ _______________ No, no ___________ wasted on the _____________ and upon our _________________ Fish full of _________________ Oh, mercy mercy me Oh, things ain't what they ____________ ______________ _________________ No, no ______________ in the ground and in the sky _____________ and __________________ who live nearby are dying Oh, mercy mercy me Oh, things ain't what they ______________ ______________ ______________ What about this overcrowded land? How much more ___________ __________ ____________ can you stand? My sweet Lord My sweet Lord My sweet Lord * Informal of aren't 3. Highlight the problems our planet is enduring. Were they the same you thought of? 4. With the help of the list in activity one, write 2 or 3 more lines to the song lyrics. To express your ideas, work with the on line dictionaries you have available in this blog. I would like to thank Andrea Giorno, who designed these activities to share with us.

Writing Essays

Some resources on how to write essays effectively.

1. How to write an effective introduction? Here, you'll find a video tutorial dealing with 7 types of introductions with clear samples.
2. For paragraph structure, click here to get a printable version on how to organize and develop your paragraphs in an essay. Or watch this tutorial.
3. To write your conclusion, read this printable version on how to round up your essay.

Other elements to take into acount: Transitions - watch this tutorial on how to connect paragraphs, sentences and ideas in different kinds of essays/paragraphs The use of pronouns - watch this tutorial. Active or passive voice? - When is passive voice ok? Watch this tutorial.

Kinds of Essays

Comparison/Contrast - watch this turorial. Cause/Effect - click here for the tutorial.

Video Lessons for Kids

Colors

Numbers 1-10 Numbers 10-20 Personal Pronouns Adjectives Farm Animals Stories

.

Songs

Here you'll find the complete video of Thriller (13' 40") and here its lyrics.
If you are working with the topic "Terror/Horror," this song has a lot of useful vocabulary.

If you don't have the possibility of watching this video on line with your students, you can download it and convert the file into DVD format and play it on the school DVD player.

First you need to have the program youtube2video which you can download here, (free trial for 30 days, but you can buy it for u$s29 to see how to run this easy-to-use program watch this video.

Or you have this option, you can download the video to your computer.

Suggested activities:
Make a list with all the phrases related to "horror" and add some more. Like this one:

to run away - a ghost - there's nowhere left to run - a beast is about to strike - you fight to stay alive - close your eyes - there's no escaping - a creature creeping up behind - under the moonlight - close to midnight - shiver down my spine - you're paralyzed - try to scream - shouting - evil - in the dark - to terrorize the neighbourhood - start to freeze - something stops your heart - a door slam - your body starts to shiver - you're fighting for your life - feel a cold hand - the dead start to walk - this is the end of your life -grizzy ghouls from every tomb etc

You can also divide the vocabulary items under headings like "to shout" = scream, night creatures' call, and so on.

Let your students watch the video or listen to the song and tick the phrases they hear. This activity can be used in the pre-phase of a reading, speaking or writing task since it provides students with a lot of vocabulary.

On-line dictionaries

Are you writing an essay? Correcting your students' written text? Looking for activities to work with dictionaries? Here's a list.

ENGLISH DICTIONARIES

Here you can find the Merriam Webster on-line. You select the reference (dictionary, Spanish-English, Thesaurus or Medical) and type the word you are looking for. In Thesaurus you'll find synonyms/antonyms, near synonyms, and related words. After using the Thesaurus, you can click on the link Visual Thesaurus and see the network of words, their semantic relationship and follow a trail of related concepts. In this page, you'll find the Cambridge Dictionary. First you select the kind of dictionary (Learner's, advanced learner, idioms, phrasal verbs, American English) and then you type the word you are looking up. You'll get a definition, part of speech, and example. This on-line dictionary gives you quick definitions and also links that show the word you are looking up according to different categories or contexts - (General, art, business, medicine, miscellaneous, religion, science, slang, sport, tech and phrases). The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English is also available on-line. You type a word or phrase and you'll get all the possible entries with examples and collocations. If you click the 'menu' button, it will help you find the meaning you are looking for fast! Wordsmyth offers definitions, synonyms, examples and the possibility of choosing your dictionary level (children, beginner, advanced) The free on-line dictionary by Farlex This dictionary gives not only entries with definitions and examples but also the word's pattern of use, synonym/antonym, hypernym, hyponym and part holonym. This dictionary is incredible! it is called 'reversed dictionary,' you type the definition or concept of the word you want to know and it provides you with a list of words within which you can find 'your' word!

FOREIGN LANGUAGE DICTIONARIES

If you are translating, this site will help you with your English to Spanish translation or vice versa.

ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARIES

If you are interested in the etymology of a word, this site is the one! Explore what a word meant and how it sounded many years ago. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable -Words with a tale to tell! A fascinating resource for exploring the original meaning of words and phrases and how they have developed over time. The Origins of First Names - An excellent site for finding out the meaning of first names...worldwide! Attractively presented, easy to use, plenty to explore! The Meaning of Surnames - Do you want to know how your surname came about? Want to know what it means? You should find an answer here. Names are arranged alphabetically and a search option is also available.

PICTORIAL DICTIONARIES

For children, this pictionary dictionary is excellent! They can select a category and look at the pictures, then they can practice on-line with the activities (fill-in the blanks, flashcards, word scramble, spelling and recall) Visual Dictionary, where words are defined by pictures, for learning the names of objects.

DICTIONARIES OF QUOTATIONS

If you click here, you not only find definitions, type of words, examples and synonyms, but also quotes of famous people/texts that include the word you were looking up. You can use these quotes as a warm-up activity before starting a unit, for fostering discussion or just illustrating an idea. This is an easy-to-use resource. You can find quotes according to author, subject or word.

TECHNICAL DICTIONARIES

Incisive Media's Law.com provides a free legal dictionary that is not only reliable but also easy to use. Three different ways to retrieve information: by looking up terms, by searching definitions, and by browsing all entries alphabetically Linguistics - a glossary to linguistic terms

DICTIONARIES OF SLANG

This is a British dictionary of slang. It is alphabetically organized so you have to click on the first letter of the word you are looking for and scroll down. This is the American dictionary of slang. It is also alphabetically ordered.

DICTIONARIES OF SIGNS

An alphabetical guide to American Sign Language. Illustrated descriptions of hand positions and hand movements accompany each word. A valuable resource. This resource is organized according to eleven categories plus an index of all the signs used - over 200 in all. Each sign is accompanied by helpful, illustrated descriptions. A beginner's guide to 100 basic signs according to categories. Explanations are supported by helpful illustrations.

PRONUNCIATION DICTIONARIES

This dictionary gives you the pronunciation of a word but it doesn't provide the phonetic symbols.

FREE DOWNLOAD DICTIONARIES

You can download the Babylon translation dictionary here. With this dictionary installed, you highlight any word from any program, you press the 'control' keyboard button and click your right mouse button and the the dictionary activates and gives you the translation. It has a text translator as well. In this page you'll find a few free dictionaries. WordWeb has a free version. Check this site, full of different versions The Pocket Oxford English Dictionary is here free to download Concise Oxford Dictionary. A dictionary to download to your cell phone. Dictionary v2.9 Compatible with all J2ME devices. Easy to use. This post has been created in response to Cristina Falher's suggestion. Thank you Miss!

Swine Flu

If you are a school teacher, you would have received some kind of information of the swine influenza that was sent by the Ministry of Education. From our English classes, we can contribute part of our time to the project, and keep our students informed of such disease.

If you work with kids, this is a podcast you can save in your pc together with its transcript. It is spoken by kids!

Vocabulary to pre-teach or recycle

• Adjectives

contagious - sick - safe - healthy -

• Verb phrs

to spread from one person to another - to cough - to sneeze - touch your nose/eyes/face - to catch (the flu) - to be sick - wash/rub (your hands) - to get sick with (the flue) - stay away -

• Noun phrs

soap - water - alcohol-based hand cleaner - tissue - elbow/shoulder/hand - germs Suggested activities: TPR-mime all the actions as they listen to the audio Listen and answer questions, T/F Drawing/making posters Here you can download a two-page brochure to print and share with you teen or adult students.

Vocabulary to pre-teach or recycle

• Noun phrs

Swine flu/influenza - respiratory disease - high fever - virus - virus strain - vaccine - herd - flu-like symptoms - a nose/throat swab - medications - body aches - runny nose - human-to-human transmission

• Verb phrs

to outbreak - to result in (sth) - to cough - to sneeze - to have breathing difficulties - to go off feed - to get infected with - to spread (among) - to show signs of (an illness) - to catch (the flu) - to be transmitted through - to treat (an illness) - to infect (sb) - to get vaccinated Suggested Activities: Read and answer questions, T/F Use info in another context - Role play: doctor-patient, doctor-interviewer, farmer-vet Make informative posters.