The importance of Reading

Open publication - Free publishing - More l1

Mark Twain's birthday

Beautiful!
To mark Mark Twain's 176th birthday, Google greets us today with the above gorgeous mural with a scene from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The moment depicted here and used by Google is Tom painting the fence as punishment by Aunt Polly for dirtying his clothes in a fight with another boy :)
What a great way to honour on of the greatest masters of American Literature!!!
For further infos please check here.

FADO earns UNESCO recognition

Streetart of Amália, Lisbon

That's right! Today the Portuguese FADO was added to UNESCO's List of World's Intangible Cultural Heritage which includes traditions and skills passed on within generations.
For those who aren't very acquainted with FADO, Fado songs are usually peformed by a solo singer, male or female, traditionally accompanied by a wire-strung accoustic guitar and the Portuguese guitar. The most famous Fado singer was / is Amália Rodrigues, who in the 20th century made Fado known beyond Portugal, performing all over Europe, Japan, South America, and even in the United States; contemporary FADO singers include Mariza (considered the new "Queen of Fado"), Carlos do Carmo, Dulce Pontes among others.
Let's hope Portugal and the Fado Museum cling to their goal of preserving FADO's cultural legacy throughout generations :)))

Now Enjoy!



For further info,
http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?lg=en&pg=00002
http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?pg=00011
http://www.economist.com/node/250031
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariza

THANKSGIVING 2011 - 24th November

Much has already been said here last year about Thanksgiving and if you do some research on the web there is no shortage of Thanksgiving Day resources for us teachers to explore.
So, besides all those referred to last year, my selection for this year - with or without the general strike :) - is:
http://www.plimoth.org/learn/just-kids/homework-help/who-were-pilgrims - loads of data on the Pilgrims, Mayflower, Indians...
http://www.teacherslovesmartboards.com/smartboard-thanksgiving-holiday-resources.html 

Painting by Norman Rockwell

- stuff for smartboards
http://www.abcteach.com/directory/seasonalholidays/thanksgiving/ - varied resources from coloring pages to crosswords, unscrambling the words...
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/stories/history/first-thanksgiving/ - it's no surprise any more that National Geographic has very good quality materials also for the younger ones, perfect for our learners of English from stories / info to activities (such as a recipe here or crafts here) or games - do try this Quiz Your Noodle here to test your knowledge on Thanksgiving!!! For ourselves, teachers, check this as well from National Geographic.
http://www.brainpopjr.com/socialstudies/holidays/thanksgiving/preview.weml - very nice resources with audio

Though Thanksgiving is not celebrated in Portugal, as teachers / educators, we can always take advantage of raising cultural awareness to teach learners to be grateful for who/what they are and what they have, especially now that we are facing harder times, and gratitude and generosity should be a constant. More: both the Pilgrims and the Native Americans worked together in an environmentally sustainable way and celebrated their plentiful crop giving thanks; nowadays, in a time of environmental concerns (for most, at least), we should question ourselves about our dependence on the earth as a food source - if we destroy it, what and how will we eat???
Soooooooooooo, whoever and wherever you are, do give THANKS.

International Day for Tolerance

The Golden Rule by Norman Rockwell

UNITY

WE SHOULD WORK TOGETHER
NO MATTER WHAT THE WEATHER
LOVING EACH OTHER
IN UNITY
Like a hurricane moving
a thousand miles an hour
breaking down barriers
UNITY has power
Like the links of a chain
constructed in a circle
we all have a part to play
the part we play is vital
Nothing stops an idea
Which time has come
so make UNITY the idea of everyone
Because every community
should work cohesively
think GLOBALLY
and act LOCALLY
Yes tolerance and cooperation
will only serve to benefit
each and every nation
so stand united
because we will fall divided
the time has come
to establish UNITY.
Because...
WE SHOULD WORK TOGETHER
NO MATTER WHAT THE WEATHER
LOVING EACH OTHER
IN UNITY.

in Rhyme Don't Pay, LEVI TAFARI

3 years!!!

Source: clipart

3 years, over 23.000 visitors and 200 posts; how does that sound, hem???
I started this blog as part of a teacher training course I was attending at the time and ever since that day that I've intended to keep it - not only as a record of teaching materials I find interesting but also stuff I would like to share with others. What I hadn't intended though was to spend so much time with it and feel so much pleasure.
Has it been worthwhile? For me, definitely! I'm quite happy with the outcome and grateful with all the positive feedback I've had all this time. I've come to the conclusion that blogging isn't only about numbers: it's much more about learning and sharing :)
Thanks for YOUR support. Alex

Yummy ... Chocolate!

Source: darkchocolatehealthbenefits.org

Can you imagine life without chocolate???
At my place no one can and as far as I know it is not so bad...
Many scientific studies have already linked chocolate with health benefits which include:

• decreased risk of stroke
• cancer prevention
• an increase blood flow to the brain thus helping performance and alertness.
• improvement of certain brain functions of people facing, for instance: aging, sleep deprivation or fatigue
  

Of course all this also depends on the chocolate quality with all studies pointing out that dark chocolate is, by far, the best. That doesn't give us an excuse to eat chocolate by the pound! Moderate consumption - as everything in life.
Back to my place... at weekends (and only at weekends) I always bake at least a cake or prepare a dessert for family and guests. By this time, I'm sure you've already guessed my children's favourite: chocolate cake, chocolate cake with chopped walnuts, chocolate cake with chocolate chips...
Well, some days ago, I decided to try to do something slightly different with...chocolate and came up with chocolate muffins!
Here are the ingredients:
200 g all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
150 g sugar
120 g dark chocolate
50 g butter, melted
2 large eggs, beaten
1 teacup cream
150 g chocolate chips (or you can cut up a chocolate bar into chunks)
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water

Method:
Pre heat the oven at 220º. 
Grease each muffin cup thoroughly (or simply use paper-lined muffin cups).

In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, sugar and the melted chocolate with the 50g melted butter. Add eggs and cream and beat everything with the help of an electric blender. Add milk and water and mix. Finally, add some of the chocolate chips and mix again for a minute. Spoon mixture into prepared muffin cups, and add the remaining chocolate chips on top of each muffin.
Bake at 200º for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean :)
Cool for five minutes before removing from pans. YUMMY!!!
My kids loved them and you know what? My students also because I've already shared the recipe with them and one of the students tried it out and took the result to school. Here they are - Flavio's muffins:

They look great, don't they? I can assure you that they also tasted wonderfully! Congrats Flávio, keep on!