A Spooktacular Halloween!

Halloween (short) movies

One of my favourite sources - because of its reliablility and accuracy - has always been www.history.com and here you will find plenty of videos on this festivity. The one below is one of those videos, namely describing the real story behind the tricks and treat of Halloween.

 The next video has the same goal and is even shorter (about one minute length)   A cute song for children, but also full of clear vocab and pics connected to Halloween:

 

Two fantastic videos are "The Night Before Halloween" by Tim Burton though one of them is re-cut with Marilyn Manson's version of "This is Halloween".


The longest one here is definitely this but worth watching also because it's based on the book I've recommended before "Room on the Broom".

Hope you enjoy my choice of halloween videos! 

Happy Halloween!!!

Halloween Games

Halloween is also a time to play and learn. Check these out:

http://www.abcya.com/word_search_halloween.htm - great word search that one can either play online or print
http://www.smartygames.com/igre/math/halloweenMath.html - choose a maths operation and use the arrow keys to move a ghost. Nice game!
http://blackdog.net/holiday/halloween/hangman/index.html - Halloween hangman in which one has to guess the word by pressing the alphabet keys on the keyboard
http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/games/spelloween/spelloween.html - a spelling test!
http://www.xtec.cat/~ihidalgo/hallow/acthal/hallo8.htm - for vocabulary practice
http://www.xtec.cat/~ihidalgo/hallow/acthal/hallo.htm - a crossword
http://www.edhelper.com/Halloween28.htm - learners choose the correct definition

among so many others!!!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween Recommended Readings

Some books worth reading by Halloween...

Beautiful full colour books for kids:

When a witch loses her hat and wand while riding her broomstick, three helpful animals find the missing items. All they want in return is a ride on the broom. Is there Room on the Broom? 

The Best Halloween Hunt Ever - A bestselling search-and-find book filled with fun Halloween-themed puzzles.

Little monsters and goofy goblins prepare for Halloween in a silly, spooky spin on Clement C. Moore's "Night Before Christmas." A bewitching adventure for children. Colour illustrations throughout in The Night Before Halloween.

It was Halloween, the spookiest day of the year, and my nephew Benjamin had dragged me to a graveyard to do research for my book. There I met Creepella von Cacklefur, a very spooky mouse who - tried to lock me up in her coffin! Oh, how would a fraidy mouse like me ever survive? Another 1st person narrative in It's Halloween, you Fraidy Mouse!

For older readers:

Halloween Trivia - Halloween is one of the most celebrated times of the year among North Americans. Find out in this fun-filled, fascinating collection of little-known facts about all of the odd customs of Halloween and where they originated.

Who doesn't know Agatha Christie, the Queen of Suspense?

A teenage murder witness is drowned in a tub of apples...At a Hallowe'en party, Joyce - a hostile thirteen-year-old - boasts that she once witnessed a murder. When no-one believes her, she storms off home. But within hours her body is found, still in the house, drowned in an apple-bobbing tub. That night, Hercule Poirot is called in to find the 'evil presence'. But first he must establish whether he is looking for a murderer or a double-murderer...

Mel C. Thompson's collection of Halloween poems and paranormal stories in this Diary of a A Suburban Zombie. His unique perspective on zombies, mummies, vampire bats and world-conquering pumpkins. He takes us on a tour of hostile UFOs, the sex lives of immortals and the jobs of former monsters-turned-workers...

The Complete Poetry of Edar Allan Poe is also a compelling read! From Annabel Lee to The Raven, this edition of Poe's complete poetry illustrates the transcendent world of unity and ultimate beauty he created in his verse.

This is Halloween, READ!

http://bookriot.com/2013/10/24/book-o-lanterns/

Hallowe'en Suggestions

With Hallowe'en just a few days away, I prepared these exercises for all to practice vocabulary associated with this festivity - not with the most common words though...

But if you are more into cooking and baking, have a look at this fantastic video on Hallowe'en party snacks by the British Council: Also by the BC, enjoy some exercises here.
For a gallery of Hallowe'en pictures around the world, please click here.

Happy Hallowe'en, y'all!

Creative Reading: BritLit 10 years on

Creative Reading, APPI and BC, 19.10.2013 from Alexandra Duarte

Quality Label

My School - Sec / 3 Martinho Árias – Soure - was awarded the Quality Label in an eTwinning Project.

For those who don’t know, “the eTwinning action is an initiative of the European Commission that aims to encourage European schools to collaborateg using Information and Communication Technologies;(ICT) by providing the necessary infrastructure (online tools, services, support). Therefore, teachers registered in the eTwinning action are enabled to form partnerships and develop collaborative, pedagogical school projects in any subject area with the sole requirements to employ ICT to develop their project and collaborate with teachers from other European countries (at least two teachers from two different European countries are needed). The primary workspace for the eTwinning action, is the eTwinning Portal (www.etwinning.net) and it is available in twenty-three languages. Teachers registered in the eTwinning action, also called; eTwinners find each other, communicate, share resources and collaborate through the eTwinning platform. This growing and active community enforced the change in the motto of eTwinning from "School partnerships in Europe" to "The community for schools in Europe"

 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETwinning)

Our project "Feel The Forest and Keep Your School Green" involved students, teachers and schools in Portugal, France, Italy, Poland, Turkey and Bulgaria and took place in the school year 2012/2013.
Many thanks to all teachers, students and adults learners who, one way or the other, have made their contributions to this successful project. Thanks also to the eTwinning NSS for the recognition.

Why I teach - And you?

To celebrate World Teachers' Day 2013, I'm sharing a poem and an absolutely amazing video. Don't miss it!!!

Teacher

Loud shouter
Deep thinker
Rain hater
Coffee drinker

Spell checker
Sum ticker
Line giver
Nit picker

Ready listener
Trouble carer
Hometime lover
knowledge sharer

Paul Cookson in The Works (10th Anniversary Edition)

Happy World Teachers' Day!