Sants Innocents, the Spanish April's Fools

If you are in a Spanish-speaking country today and play a joke on your friends and follow that up with a shout of "¡Tontos de abril!" chances are you'll get nothing but blank stares as a reaction. The minor holiday of April Fools' Day is little known in Spain and Spanish-speaking Latin America, but there is a rough equivalent, el Día de los Santos Inocentes, observed on Dec. 28. That means TODAY! The day is observed in much the same way as April Fools' Day. And when the prankster is ready to reveal the joke, the saying is "¡Inocente, inocente!"

The Day of the Innocents has a dark history from the Gospel of Matthew and the Massacre of the Innocents by Herod the Great, the Roman-appointed King of the Jews. Herod ordered all infants under 2 years old in Bethlehem to be killed because he was afraid that the baby Jesus was the newborn King of the Jews as had been foreseen. The infant Jesus turned out to be in Egypt with Mary and Joseph so Herod had been tricked. This day became a day to trick your friends. and thus followed the tradition of tricking friends on that day.

In Catalonia, on of the most common pranks is the one that consists on placing a "llufa" on someone's back. A "llufa" is a man-shaped pieced of paper which is stung on the back of an "innocent". 

Go out and practice it. Have fun!!

Christmas

We have already lived (and survived) another Christmas Day. Nevertheless, we still have New Year's Eve, New Year's Day and in Spain we'll get the visit of The Three Wise Men.

In this post we include a link with information about this celebration, which is celebrated around the world, even in countries where the Christian is not the most widely spread religion. So if you are curious enough, have a look at this link, too, where you will find information about recipes, the Christmas Story, customs and traditions and many different activities you can do at home, all the family together. Enjoy and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Sports

Everybody knows how important it is to practice a sport. In this post you will find descriptions of different sports where students have written about their rules, the equipement required, any special features, etc. Time to take up a sport, for sure as one of your New Year Resolutions.

Handball from LidiaGon

Golf from LidiaGon

Surfing

Snowboarding from LidiaGon

Ice hockey from LidiaGon

Artistic skating from LidiaGon

Tennis from LidiaGon

Rythmic gymnastics from LidiaGon

Sports by Lidia Gonzalo

Sports 2 by Lidia Gonzalo

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving Day! 

Next Thursday, especially in the USA, people are going to celebrate Thanksgiving Day. The origins of this celebration are in the 17th Century. Nowadays, this holiday takes place the 4th Thursday of November. That allows lots of people to go home and spend the day with family and friends. 

Have a look at this website where you will find traditions, recipes, ideas for decorating, etc.

Functional language

In this post we are not showing you any of the tasks done by our students. We have decided to share with you a picture where you will find lots of useful expressions. Some of them are quite informal, which means it would be better to use them in an oral situation. On the other hand, you will find some phrases used mostly while writing compositions and whenever a formal language is needed. We hope it's useful.

Designing our own rooms

Sometimes it is very difficult to write about what we don't know. However, 1st ESO students have created their own rooms and have written a short description about those projects. They have used expressions such as There is/there are, paying attention to singular and plural nouns. They have also used prepositions of place (next to, near, in front of...) and they have enjoyed cutting and pasting different objects from decoration magazines. They are great artists!

Reviews

2nd ESO students have been really busy recently. They have been reading books, watching films and series, they have visited some restaurants, they have bought and listened to some CD's... In this post we are showing you some of the reviews they have written about different subjects and about what they think: if they were fascinating and thrilling or boring and sad. Have a look at what they have done and feel free to leave your comments. Maybe you'll agree with some of their opinions or maybe not. Who knows?

Reviews by Lidia Gonzalo

Our bedrooms

Once again, 2nd ESO students have been writing short compositions. This time they have described their own bedrooms. They have used structures such as there is/there are, have got or prepositions of place. As you will see, they have also used vocabulary related to bedrooms and houses. They have included actual pictures of their own bedrooms. As usual, we hope you like this task.

My room by Lidia Gonzalo

Description of rooms from LidiaGon

Description of a room from LidiaGon

My bedroom from LidiaGon

Description of a room from LidiaGon

Rooms

My bedroom

We love animals!

1st ESO students have produced some powerpoint presentations about their favourite animals. They have learnt what those animals eat, where they live, if they are endangered... We hope you like the presentations.Enjoy!

Pandas from LidiaGon

Pumas from LidiaGon

penguin from LidiaGon

Dog from LidiaGon

Tigers from LidiaGon

Pig from LidiaGon

Otter from LidiaGon

Tigers from LidiaGon

Horse from LidiaGon

Tigers from LidiaGon

German shepherd from LidiaGon

Dolphin from LidiaGon

Sea turtle from LidiaGon

Husky from LidiaGon

Dogs from LidiaGon

Meerkat from LidiaGon

Halloween again!

Hi again!

Apart from everything you already know about Halloween, today we want to show you a great site with lots of videos about this holiday.

You will find lots of interesting facts and maybe you can watch them with your children or your students. Have a look here.

We also want to give you the possibility of downloading many screensavers for free here. It's another blog with lots of nice stuff. Enjoy!

Halloween...

Did you know Halloween is on 31st October? Of course, you did!! 

There is a lot of stuff on the internet. Using these resources, students will create their own presentations and we will publish them soon.

If you want to know more about this celebration, surf the internet! Lots of ideas for parties, costumes, food and so on!! Here you will also find some jokes about this celebration. Enjoy! Halloween is around the corner!

What Do You Mean?

MUST SEE THESE GUYS! The worlds first premium conceptual segway dance youtube video! 

Directed, Choreographed, Edited and Filmed by David Moore



They'll get viral really soon! Have a nice weekend, everyone!

Informal letters

3rd ESO students have written informal letters to friends. 

The task was: Write an informal letter to a friend. He/She has already written to you telling you he/she has failed some exams. You have to cheer him/her up. Remember to:
- Say thank you for the letter 
- Sympathise with what has happened
- Make some suggestions to cheer him/her up 
- Tell him/her some news on your own 
- Include some extreme adjectives 
- Use informal language and contractions 

 Here you can see some of the letters.

Informal Letter

Reviews

Whenever we go to the cinema, to the theatre, to a concert... we have an opinion about what we have experienced and seen or heard. In this post, 2nd ESO students have written about different artistic expressions and they expose what they think about them. Do you share our opinions? Feel free to leave a comment.

Reviews

Projects. Classical Music

After working in class and at home, students have produced many presentations about some different musicians. 

In this post, you will see some of them. We hope you enjoy them.

Antonio Vivaldi from LidiaGon

Wolfgang amadeus mozart from LidiaGon

Niccolo paganini from LidiaGon

Serguéi rajmáninov from LidiaGon

Wagner from LidiaGon

Hildegard von bingen /Brahms from LidiaGon

Classical music

Since school started we have been talking about music. In this post you will find a list of composers. You have to choose one of them and do a little research about them. After that, you have to do a project about what you have found, answering these questions:

1. Composer’s date of birth 

2. During what period of music did this composer write?

3. What instrument(s) did the composer play?

4. How did the composer learn to play their instrument?

5. Name 5 important pieces of music the composer wrote

6. Write a paragraph about one of the five pieces listed above.

7. What other things were going on in history during this composer's lifetime? 

8. When did this composer die? 

9. How did he die? 

List the resources you used to find your information. 

Summer camps

Ready to go back to school? Summer is over, dear friends. We hope you have enjoyed your free time doing whatever you like doing most.

In this post we want to remember some of the activities that we can do during our summer holidays. Maybe you have also done some of them.

These projects were done by 1st ESO students, who are starting their second year tomorrow. Good luck to everyone!

Summer camp

Ancient Egypt

1st ESO students are also learning History in English. They have been working with computers and have done some projects about Tutankhamun, who was an important Pharaoh in Ancient Egypt. As a result, they have learnt many curious things about this king, his treasure, his curse... Tutankhamun was born 'Tutankhaten' during the Amarna period, probably at the capital, Akhetaten (Tell el-Amarna). The identity of his parents is disputed but they were perhaps Akhenaten and his lesser wife Kiya; the boy was a royal prince and ascended the throne at the age of about eight years. Tutankhamun married Ankhesenpaaten, daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti. Recently, Tutankhamun mask has been in the news because some workers accidentally broke it and used glue to restore the broken parts. You can read more here. 1st ESO students have been studying about the first river civilisations and they have produced some interesting pieces of work, using different techniques: powerpoint presentations, word documents, prezi presentations... We are sure you will like them.

Tutankhamen from LidiaGon

Tutankhamen (1) from LidiaGon

Egypt by Lidia Gonzalo

Obama's Elf

Hi everyone!

After a long time (ages!!) we're back again and will try to publish posts regularly from now on.

Today, we have chosen a short video. Listen to the words carefully and decide if the song really says what the subtitles say. How do we name those words which sound alike but in fact are written and have different meanings? Feel free to leave your comments below. 

INVERTEBRATES - ONE OF TWO MAJOR ANIMAL GROUPINGS

There are two basic groups of higher animals. They are vertebrates and invertebrates. While both have advanced through the processes of evolution, there is one fundamental difference. Invertebrates do not have backbones. Both groups are in the Kingdom Animalia, but their bodies are organized differently. What makes invertebrates different? All invertebrates share common traits. At the bottom of the invertebrate world are the sponges. Sometimes they don't fit in but they are still part of the group. In class we have been studying invertebrates and here you will see some of the projectes made by 1st ESO students. For more information visit this website and try the proposed quizzes.