Clube de Inglês: Google Doodle

Showing posts with label Google Doodle. Show all posts

Thursday, March 8, 2012

International Women's Day 2012

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Happy New Year


Google Doodle

This is the time for a 2011 review. It was indeed a true revolutionary year of protests worldwide and that's the reason why Time Magazine's Person of the Year was The Protester. In their own words, "In 2011, protesters didn’t just voice their complaints; they changed the world."
Maps of the World also has a fantastic compilation of the main events and you can even vote for the event of the year. However, as usual, Google has produced a short video reviewing 2011 (embedded below) that's really worth having a look:

By this time, you are already making all the necessary preparations for a farewell to 2011 and for the warmest welcome to 2012, just like everybody else, right? Before you go, have a look at this slideshow by REUTERS.
As far as I am concerned, thank you so much for your trust and inspiration to keep me and this blog going :)
I wish you all a HAPPY NEW BOOK - a brand new book with 365+1 white pages for you to write on the best way possible.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

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.

Monday, October 31, 2011

Hallowe'en... but not only!

GOOGLE HALLOWEEN DOODLE 2011 - A fun time-lapse video of the Google doodle team & friends carving giant pumpkins in the Halloween spirit. Shot on location at Google's Headquarters

For many, Oct 31st only means Hallowe'en but this has become a very important date for many and different reasons.
Surely you are all aware through the media that the United Nations Population Fund has designated today - 31st Oct 2011 - the Day of Seven Billion, a milestone to mark the planet's population growth based on data interpolated from 5-year-period estimates. However, did you also know that...

Source: moneybox clipart

- since 1924 this day has also been celebrated as World Savings Day ? Never in recent times has this thought become so relevant...at least a day devoted to the promotion of savings all over the World!!! But cheer up anyway if you're Portuguese and desperate with so many cuts: check an online platform for donations and reuse of what has become useless to their owners presented today at Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation: dou.pt !
- on this day in 1892, "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" by Sir Arthur Connan Doyle was published? That's right: the first collection of the beloved British detective whose adventures the author had been publishing loose in magazines since 1887 ;)
- some centuries ago, back in 1517, Martin Luther posted the famous 95 theses? According to traditional accounts, this priest and scholar first nailed a piece of paper onto a church door containing the 95 revolutionary theses that marked the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.

Source: Halloween clipart

As you can see, these are only some of the most important events on this day throughout history but relegated to the background (not to say to a state of oblivion) because of Hallowe'en euphoria.
As I've already posted here, here and here about Halloween for now check this: a gallery of gorgeous jack-o’-lanterns that honor literary greats like Edgar Alan Poe, William Shakespeare, and the Brothers Grimm!!!
It's getting late for those willing to face the cold and darkness for a trick or treat; as for myself, I will stay home with the family having a nice dinner. What about you?
Whatever the case... HAPPY HALLOWEEN !!!

Monday, September 5, 2011

Freddie Mercury doodle

Who doesn't know Freddie Mercury? Who hasn't heard of the rock band QUEEN and the lead vocalist?
If Freddie Mercury were alive, he would be 65 today and to honour him, here it is an amazing google doodle.
I just couldn't help it, folks - Queen and Freddie Mercury are still my favourites... I simply can't forget the acclaimed London musical our school group watched in April 2009 which was absolutely fabulous! We still talk about it at school and if you ever have the chance to see it, don't miss We Will Rock You - it's still rocking after 9 years and has just been awarded the BBC Radio 2 Audience Award at the Olivier Awards in London :)

Now, the google doodle:

For more infos, please check:
http://www.biography.com/articles/Freddie-Mercury-9406228
http://www.queenonline.com/
http://www.queenzone.com/

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Summer

Google Doodle marking the beginning of Summer

Another fantastic doodle on google's homepage to celebrate the beginning of Summer.
For my adult learners, though, I've prepared something different to welcome Summer.
I have been reviewing the months, seasons, meals, food and nutrition (loads of vocabulary!) and for homework I asked them to identify all fruits and veggies they could as well as to name the artist. Have a look at the painting:

SUMMER, 1573
Giuseppe Arcimboldo

What I did was...for the learners, I've prepared a worksheet; for the class, I've print screened the image in different parts and prepared a Powerpoint Presentation.
I hope they have a nice time, identifying Giuseppe Arcimboldo and then all the different food items he used for this painting (and some are not very clear).
This can be done with / for all seasons once this artist has a set of paintings with the four Seasons; if dealing with the topic jobs, some of his other paintings can also be used: sts can be asked to describe the painting and speculate about its title and justify it.

My time is quite short at the moment and that's why I'm not including my materials. If you wish them, please email me and I'll be delighted to send them to you as soon as I can.
Any suggestions?

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

IWD - International Women's Day

Google Doodle to celebrate the centennary of IWD

I have never celebrated Women's Day in any special way (isn't it every day???) but the truth is that there is still a long way to go - and world over - till real equality is achieved. It is therefore still important to observe this date, to highlight the differences and to make us think about women's rights in countries as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan... in the 21st century.
Have a look at this recently released PSA with Daniel Craig dressed in drag for the cause of sexual equality. In this two minute video, directed by Sam Taylor-Wood, Craig appears as Bond alongside the voice of Judi Dench as M.

http://www.weareequals.org/

Friday, December 31, 2010

Happy New Year !

Google Doodle - New Year's Eve

Thank YOU for making 2010 so great!

With your support, I hope I'll be able to do even better in 2011.

Happy New Year to you and yours.
All the best for 2011 :)

Friday, December 24, 2010

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Christmas

Statue of J. Betjeman
at St. Pancras Station

The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.

The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that the villagers can say
'The church looks nice' on Christmas Day.

Provincial Public Houses blaze,
Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze,
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says 'Merry Christmas to you all'.

And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.

And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children's hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say 'Come!'
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.

And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?

And is it true ? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

John Betjeman in I like this Poem (ed. Kaye Webb) Puffin Books

Google Doodle paying tribute to the festive season

Sunday, October 31, 2010

UPDATE - Halloween Google logo

Doodle - Happy Halloween from Google featuring Scooby Doo!!!

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Happy 70th Birthday, JOHN LENNON

Image Credit: archive.org

For those about my age, you surely still remember John Lennon who, if alive, would be celebrating his 70th birthday. Due to his influence through music / lyrics and political / peaceful messages, this date is being marked worldwide with different events (special concerts, museum exhibits, CD reissues, a monument in Liverpool - the legendary musician's hometown - even in Iceland with a ceremony hosted by Yoko Ono) as well as by Google with this special interactive doodle playing his famous song Imagine.
As a teacher I've already introduced some of his songs in classes - namely the one already mentioned with the topic war / peace, Happy Christmas, Woman,...
As for kids / teens, many have already heard his songs on TV, in ads or heard parents referring or listening to John Lennon in his solo career or most certainly to the Beatles, the band he himself described in 1966 as having become "more famous than Jesus".