Snow

I got into poetic mood today while I was watching the amazing snowfall.

There was no wind. The snow was falling in slow, languid motion drifting past my eyes as I was looking through the window at the breathtaking beauty. The snowflakes were enormous and looked heavy but they landed one upon another more tenderly than the fluffy down.

Then I took some pictures of them but could not capture their ethereal beauty.

What is snow?

Snow is precipitation in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes. Since it is composed of small rough particles it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by external pressure. Snow is precipitation in the form of ice crystals, mainly of intricately branched, hexagonal form and often agglomerated into snowflakes, formed directly from the freezing of the water vapor in the air. Snow is ice crystals that fall from clouds and which may stick together to form snowflakes.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow)

I read a wonderful poem by Robert Frost and enjoyed the fabulous winter day.

DUST OF SNOW

The way a crow 

Shook down on me 

The dust of snow 

From a hemlock tree 

Has given my heart 

A change of mood 

And saved some part 

Of a day I had rued.

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.

The super book of web tools

This is a must-read book for every teacher who uses technologies or would like to start. Written by a team of highly-qualified and experienced tech profs, the e-book is a rich source of information and new knowledge.

Published on Free Technology For Teachers website by Richard Byrne, the e-book gained immense popularity overnight and I can confirm that it deserves it.


The Super Book of Web Tools for Educators

Mini-books for everyone

Mini-books are popular not only among younger schoolchildren but they are also fun for older kids. Even adults make scrapbooks or family albums. Various kinds of mini-books include pocket books, envelope books, accordion books, flip books, origami books, pop-up books and many others.

Until recently I had not paid particular attention to this kind of activity but having read several great articles and tutorials, I realised that the process of making a mini-book may result in a busy and active lesson.

Here is a mini-book I made for 12-13 year old students which has to be written, coloured and then folded into a booklet.

Download this printable from
http://www.scribd.com/doc/45227129/Christmas-Mini-book







If you are not familiar with the technique, watch this video which will show you how to prepare and fold the mini-book. You can use any paper to make it but for kids it would be better to use thinner paper which will fold more easily and the booklet will look neater. You can use coloured paper too but then the pictures won't look so good. This Christmas mini-book looks best on white paper coloured green, red, blue and gold.

Here is a fantastic collection of resources on all kinds of mini-books with tutorials, links and samples. You can download instructions how to fold the mini-books.
http://stamphenge.wordpress.com/minibooks/

Save the Words

I came across a truly fascinating site called Save The Words supported by Oxford Dictionaries (which is not new at all, as I found out later). You need Flash Player to view the site.

Its design is colourful and eye-catching, the background is a patchwork of English words which are no longer in active use and may soon be extinct. If you click the word, the site provides its meaning and gives an example of its usage.

The funniest part is you can adopt a word and get the certificate of adoption! You are asked to use the word as frequently as possible thus helping it return into active vocabulary.

The cause of the site is noble but dubious regarding its impact on saving the dying words. Yet it is a real gem for advanced students who are interested in lexicology. Might be used in classes as a fun activity.

http://www.savethewords.org

Games that teach geography

There are numerous sites which offer online games for checking your knowledge in geography.

One of the most popular kinds of quizzes is recognizing the flags of the countries like Geography Genius. You can choose the level and read the clues about the country. Great source of information!

Another popular kind of geography games is finding a place on the map. I love Geosense which asks you to identify the world countries. You can play the game alone or against someone on the net.

Finally, there are games which ask you to point at a specific location on the map as close to the actual place as possible. I love the one on the TravelPod website. Really challenging!
There is a variety of games about each continent, UNESCO sites, capitals and flags of the world in The Traveler IQ Challenge® and they even let you embed the games on your own website.
 

City Creator

City Creator is a cool application for building 3 versions of cities.

You can choose between a medieval city, a city in winter (great for Christmas) and a modern high-rise city.

The construction work is simple - you just drag and drop pieces from the palettes and arrange them on the field in the way you want. You can change the background until you get the one you like.

If you want to save your city, you need to register on the site.

Example:

How can you use it in the classroom?
1. Ask your students to build the city of their liking and describe it while showing the city on the screen.
2. Decide with your students on building the same version of a city, e.g. medieval, then ask them to describe it on paper. Give a copy of all descriptions to every student. Show each city on the screen and ask the students to guess which description fits.
3. Make a city yourself and ask the students to describe it on paper. Then choose the best description.
4. Teach vocabulary using the city image (directions, location, types of buildings etc).
5. Finally, it is great fun!

Quiz maker for online testing

Here is another great application Class Marker which lets you create quizzes online and use them with your students. It is free if you use the basic version.

You can create online tests with combined multiple choice, true false, free text, short answer, fill in the blank, punctuation and essay questions types.

It is possible to register your class or a group and invite the students to do the test online.


I have made a few sample tests and here you can have a look at one of them. (Don't take it seriously though.)

Test maker

A practical and easy-to-use test generator for creating online multiple-choice tests.
http://testmoz.com/. I first learned about it from the website Free Technology for Teachers.

There are several good things about this application. First, you do not need to go through the lengthy process of registration. However, the teachers will have to create two passwords - one for the students and another for themselves to see the test scores. If you decide to make the quiz available to anyone on the net, you don't have to create a password.

Great from the teacher's perspective (but not so handy from the student's) is the one-attempt limit per test. Students can't redo the test (using the same name) to get higher scores.

What takes most time for the teacher is to create the quiz but once you do it, you can use it as many times as you wish, provided you have not lost or forgotten the web address of the test. Each test has a unique address. The teacher can make it accessible to everyone or just send the link to a selected group of students.

Look at the short sample quiz which I made to test the tool. Use any name to enter the quiz http://testmoz.com/975.

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.