Creating presentations on emaze

Recently I came into possession of a bunch of great pictures which were taken during my trip to Italy (arranged by my daughter who lives there), and I decided to kill two birds with one stone - share the images with you and try the emaze tool for making my presentation.

emaze is a great free online tool for creating presentations as well as digital stories. It lets you upload pictures, videos, add text and shapes to your canvas to get a nice linear slide presentation. It is best viewed on full screen which allows you to hide the navigation buttons at the bottom of the page and use the computer keys instead.

It took me a couple of days to complete my first emaze presentation, not because it was hard work but because I did a lot of other stuff in between.

emaze is easy to use, it does not have tons of complicated formatting tools to employ, but there are some really helpful features that make the creative process pleasant. While working on your slides, pay attention to the tiny pale markings on your canvas which indicate the borders of your presentation window. Also it is very helpful to preview your slides on the left-hand panel as you work on your presentation.
The author can also invite other people to collaborate on the presentation which is especially great for student projects.

Enjoy the show!

Web resources for Easter activities

Traditional Easter activities are usually intended for younger kids because they include colouring of pictures, drawing rabbits and eggs, doing egg hunt. However, baking egg nests, weaving egg baskets or carving wooden eggs will be more suitable for older students, so there is something to do for everyone.

Below I have listed various resources that I found on the web which may come in handy to the teachers who wish to mark this festival in the classroom.

Teaching Ideas - Easter poems, stories and slideshows, different worksheets and card templates. The site also offers classroom display pictures and an assortment of Easter videos.

Activity Village has an interesting set of Easter coordinate puzzles for kids where they have to colour the squares according to the code.

TES Connect has a huge range of Easter activities for young kids, some of them are for the interactive whiteboard. Just remember, you will need a TES Connect account to download the worksheets and resources but it is free.
Get inspired by the ideas published on TES Pinterest board Easter Teaching Resources and Ideas. Little kids will love to watch Chick and egg lifecycle Powerpoint presentation.

The Guardian have published a great article with lots of suggestions for the teachers and links to resources. You will have to create a free account to get access to the resources.

Easter webquest on Onestopenglish website is great for older students with higher language level. Worksheets are free to download.

There is a great article on Mental Floss for senior students 6 Easter Traditions You Might Not Know. The text can be used for reading and discussion activities.

What does Easter Island have in common with Easter? Ask your students to find the answer by reading the post on the fabulous Wonderopolis website.

Finally, older students may enjoy watching this video about the stunning Faberge eggs which were made for the Russian Imperial family about a century ago, and also learn a bit of history.

The old year is going

The end of the year is close and it pertains to sum up the days gone by.
I do not pine for the year that is coming to an end and I do not write new year resolutions.

Everything I feel has been said about a hundred years ago by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

Made with http://www.postermywall.com/

Happy New Year to all!
 

A teacher in the summer

I am not a teacher in the summer.

I am a person who does not know anything about teaching, who does not stay up late at night grading essays or preparing for the next day's lessons, who does not worry about students skipping lessons or not doing homework, who does not call parents for consulting about their offsprings' school work, who does not attend staff meetings, who does not look for texts and exercises for tests, who does not labour creating a fresh task for an interactive whiteboard...

I am a person who sleeps in and enjoys her morning coffee leisurely, who does not put on makeup in the morning and does not style her hair every day, who does not wear smart clothes daily, who has thrown away her timetable and put textbooks in the darkest drawer...

I am a person who has recently discovered the joy of having a garden with green grass and multicolour flowerbeds, who has learned to listen to the silence and hear the bugs rustle grape leaves, who steps into the rain barefoot and lets herself be soaked in warm ozoned rainwater...


Teachers unanimously savour the summer break. Look at these tweets. The first tweeter is a headmaster :)

 

 





During my marvellous summer months I truly bask in the possibility to read read read... There are so many books and so little time for all of them. How to read the right book and not miss the ones that may be written just for you? I have found a lot of lists advising which books to read in the summer of 2012. Have a look at some of them.

11 Best Summer Books Of 2012 on Huffington Post 

Summer Reading 2012: 10 New Must-Read Books - new books with detailed annotations

Books to read this summer 2012 on MSN + annotations and reviews 

Richard and Judy Summer Book Club - new titles for the summer months


In addition to abundant suggestions which will help me now to choose my next book, I have happily discovered an online bookstore The Book Depository where you can get books at a good price and have them delivered to you free of charge, at least to Latvia.

Have a carefree summer!

Image source http://bit.ly/MMezm6

Webquest: Festivals and Holidays

Image by OLD SKOOL Cora

A few days ago I did an activity with my students which has been a little disregarded lately - the webquest.

I remember at the dawn of using computers for learning, webquests were rather popular possibly because other web activities had not been "invented" yet. Webquests meant students could get access to the computers and have a jolly time online, especially because computers were rare in their homes.

A webquest is a creative and dynamic activity requiring some web search skills. Students usually like webquests because they get a chance to spend a lesson in the computer room (if it is not homework) and do what most of them like - browse the web.

My 16 year old students had just studied the topic of festivals and traditions and what seemed to me a logical follow-up was their independent work on summing up the basic info about the most popular holidays. We did the activity in the computer lab and the hardest part was that the students did not have any links provided but had to find the information relying only on their own search skills.
The chart they had to fill in asked for the date and place of the original holiday, traditional food, drinks and activities.

Take a look at one of the charts completed by the student.
 

Here is the handout. You may print or download it. If you feel like removing some of the festivals I have included in the chart or add your own, go ahead.

All in all, it was a productive and win-win classroom activity.

Happy New Year!

Christmas time

Mistletoe

by Walter de la Mare

Sitting under the mistletoe
(Pale green, fairy mistletoe),
One last candle burning low,
All the sleepy dancers gone,
Just one candle burning on,
Shadows lurking everywhere:
Someone came, and kissed me there.


Tired I was; my head would go
Nodding under the mistletoe
(Pale green, fairy mistletoe)
No footsteps came, no voice, but only,
Just as I sat there, sleepy, lonely,
Stooped in the still and shadowy air
Lips unseen - and kissed me there.

Halloween is creeping up

October is the month of the scary Halloween celebrations. Like it or not, you can't ignore it because --- kids love it!

What an excellent chance to enliven your lessons with different Halloween activities and tasks.

Take a look at my suggestions, also my previous post here.


Bring the festive spirit into the classroom with this video (suitable for older students) giving an idea about the history of Halloween.

Always useful and handy printable worksheets by Sean Banville can be found on http://www.eslholidaylessons.com. Here is the Halloween lesson plan with printable listening and reading tasks.

English Page offers a lesson with Halloween vocabulary which is first studied and then used in writing tasks. Great resource for online practice.

Halloween worksheets on the good old Bogglesworld - a well-known and reliable site.

A rich Halloween resource page for younger pupils with a lot of choice for the teacher on Teacher Planet.

Finally, a great page with Halloween crossword puzzles for both younger and older students.

Quoting...

... a Canadian teacher Todd Wandio /http://cfllearner.blogspot.com/:

"I consider my vacation time a form of detox.
.............
Whether or not you pick up and go anywhere this summer (winter for you down unders), a small piece of advice - and the cool thing about advice is that it is free to give, free to take, or free to ignore - make time every day to find balance, peace of mind, and calm. You may not get more than two minutes to find it, but that two minutes can save you a half year of therapy."

Spiderweb (click to enlarge)

Rice fields in China (click to enlarge)

To see more fabulous and incredibly beautiful pics, go to http://www.pixdaus.com/
- one of my favourite sites for nature photography.

Happy Valentine's Day!

 

Ladies and gentlemen, Leonard Cohen! 

DANCE ME TO THE END OF LOVE

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love

Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love

Happy New Year

It is the 31st December, 2009. I am living through the last hours of this year, and then... everything starts again?... or just goes on ... because nothing has stopped?
I love what Frost once said:

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.
/Robert Frost/

Halloween

˙ƃuısınƃ oƃ llıʇs uǝɹplıɥɔ puɐlʇoɔs puɐ puɐlǝɹı ɟo sʇɹɐd ǝɯos uı ˙uǝʌıƃ sı ʇɐǝɹʇ ou ɟı ʎʇɹǝdoɹd ɹıǝɥʇ ɹo sɹǝuʍoǝɯoɥ ǝɥʇ uo ɟǝıɥɔsıɯ ɯɹoɟɹǝd oʇ ʇɐǝɹɥʇ (ǝlpı ʎlʇsoɯ) ɐ oʇ sɹǝɟǝɹ ,,ʞɔıɹʇ,, pɹoʍ ǝɥʇ ,,¿ʇɐǝɹʇ ɹo ʞɔıɹʇ,, 'uoıʇsǝnb ǝɥʇ ɥʇıʍ 'ʎǝuoɯ sǝɯıʇǝɯos ɹo ʎpuɐɔ sɐ ɥɔns sʇɐǝɹʇ ɹoɟ ƃuıʞsɐ 'ǝsnoɥ oʇ ǝsnoɥ ɯoɹɟ ǝɯnʇsoɔ uı oƃ uǝɹplıɥɔ ˙uǝǝʍollɐɥ uo uǝɹplıɥɔ ɹoɟ uoıʇɐɹqǝlǝɔ ʎɹɐɯoʇsnɔ ɐ sı ƃuıʇɐǝɹʇ-ɹo-ʞɔıɹʇ

Could you read this? Did you think it was Arabic?
Take a closer look. It is just a good-bye from Halloween!
Here is a 'normal' version of the text. (If you got interested in how I did it, here is the link to a very simple tool - Flip Text.)

Trick-or-treating is a customary celebration for children on Halloween. Children go in costumes from house to house, asking for treats such as candy or sometimes money, with the question, "Trick or treat?" The word "trick" refers to a (mostly idle) threat to perform mischief on the homeowners or their property if no treat is given. In some parts of Ireland and Scotland children still go guising. In this custom the child performs some sort of show, i.e. sings a song or tells a ghost story, in order to earn their treats.

On Halloween night I had some unexpected guests in disguise, I did not recognise anyone but they must have known where I lived. Luckily, I had prepared a bowl of sweets beforehand, so I treated them and was spared tricking but got thanks instead!