Saint Valentine's Day History for Kids

Happy Halloween 2018

The moon has awoken
With the sleep of the sun
The light has been broken
The spell has begun!

Do enjoy a very spooky and witchy Halloween this evening!

Halloween 2018 Class Activities

Can you match these frightful, spooky idioms with their meaning?

1. I don’t recommend that horror film. It will scare the living daylights out of you!

2. My old car finally gave up the ghost, so I’ll have to buy a new one.

3. When she saw the dark shadow in the in the moonlight, she was scared stiff.

4. What’s the matter? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost!

5. Oh, don’t be such a scaredy-cat. Nothing bad is going to happen.

6. That spooky old house gives me the creeps.

7. I wouldn’t do that if I were you. It will come back to haunt you.

8. No one lived there anymore. It was a ghost town.

MEANINGS:

be a mistake
very frightened
coward
make (someone) uncomfortable
make (someone) scared
very white, pale
deserted
stopped working 

British Culture Millionaire Game

England's Literary Hotspots

Credits: Visit England

Boxing Day 2017

Boxing Day occurs every year on December 26th. It's a national holiday in the UK and Ireland. If the day after Christmas falls on a Saturday or Sunday, the following Monday is designated as the official public holiday. This year, Boxing Day falls on a Tuesday. December 26th is also the feast day of Saint Stephen, the patron saint of horses, which is why Boxing Day has come to be associated with horse racing and fox hunting. According to some Boxing Day can be traced back to the Victorian era when churches often displayed a box into which their parishioners put donations. Also in Britain, on the day after Christmas Day, servants of the wealthy were given time off to visit their families because their services were required for the Christmas Day celebrations of their employers. They were therefore allowed the following day for their own observance of the holiday and each servant would be handed a box to take home, containing gifts, bonuses and sometimes leftover food. It was also customary for tradespeople to collect 'Christmas boxes' of presents or money on the first weekday after Christmas as thanks for good service throughout the year.

Samuel Pepys mentions the practice in a diary entry from December 19th 1663: "Thence by coach to my shoemaker’s and paid all there, and gave something to the boys’ box against Christmas." Five years later Pepys was not feeling so generous. Complaining in a December 28th entry from 1668: "Called up by drums & trumpets; these things & boxes having cost me much money this Christmas."

Boxing Day is observed only in the United Kingdom, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and some other Commonwealth nations. The holiday was not perpetuated by the English in the American colonies.

Boxing Day is really 'St Stephen's Day' in Ireland, dedicated to a saint who was stoned to death for believing in Jesus. 'Wren Boys' were notorious for blackening their faces stoning wrens to death. They would then carry their catch around the town knocking on doors and asking for money. This distasteful act has now stopped, but the Wrens Boys still dress up and parade around town but collecting money for charity.

Hunts were a Boxing Day tradition but the 2004 ban on foxhunting put an end to all that. Despite this, 10 years later 250,000 people still regularly turn out to support hunting. Certain modified forms of hunting foxes with hounds are still within the law and hundreds of Boxing Day Meets take place every year.

What was once a day of relaxation and family time has now become a holy day of consumerism. The sales used to start in January post-New Year, but the desire to grab a bargain and for shops to off-load stock means many now start on Boxing Day.

Last year, Christmas Day itself emerged as one of the most popular days for online shopping, with consumers buying products in the afternoon - often after not receiving their desired gifts.

Source: The Telegraph

The Origins of Halloween

Halloween 2017 Class Activities

Can you match these frightful, spooky idioms with their meaning?

1. I don’t recommend that horror film. It will scare the living daylights out of you!

2. My old car finally gave up the ghost, so I’ll have to buy a new one.

3. When she saw the dark shadow in the in the moonlight, she was scared stiff.

4. What’s the matter? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost!

5. Oh, don’t be such a scaredy-cat. Nothing bad is going to happen.

6. That spooky old house gives me the creeps.

7. I wouldn’t do that if I were you. It will come back to haunt you.

8. No one lived there anymore. It was a ghost town.

MEANINGS:
be a mistake
very frightened
coward
make (someone) uncomfortable
make (someone) scared
very white, pale
deserted
stopped working 

IDIOMS ABOUT FEAR

If you want to get the full text by BBC Learning English, you can click here.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

London Bridges

How many bridges are there in London?

Thirty-four bridges span the Thames. The oldest is London Bridge, which was originally made from wood. It was replaced by a stone bridge with shops and houses along its sides.

Lambeth Bridge

Lambeth Bridge is the central bridge of the three bridges in the photograph on the left. Nearest the camera is Westminster Bridge and in the far distance is Vauxhall Bridge. Seen from the London Eye observation wheel.

Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge has stood over the River Thames in London since 1894 and is one of the finest, most recognisable bridges in the World. It is the London bridge you tend to see in movies and on advertising literature for London. Tower Bridge is 60 meters long with towers that rise to a height of 43 meters.

London Bridge is between the City of London and Southwark. It is between Cannon Street Railway Bridge and Tower Bridge. London's original bridge made this one of the most famous bridge in the world. The first London Bridge is thought to have been built by the Romans sometime in the first century, with several rebuilds over the centuries. Throughout its history, London bridge has been a busy thoroughfare, and was once lined with shops. The road over the bridge was only about 4m wide between the shops. It was so narrow it often jammed with people, horses and carts. The present London bridge opened in 1973.

London Bridge

The Millennium Bridge

The Millennium bridge is a pedestrian bridge erected to connect the Tate Modern Art Gallery to the City and St Paul's Cathedral. Almost immediately after opening the bridge had to be shut because of dangerous swaying. It has now been reopened. The bridge is about 320 metres, costs 16 million pounds to build and only takes pedestrians.

Southwark Bridge

Southwark Bridge is a road-bridge linking Southwark and the City across the River Thames. It was designed by Ernest George and Basil Mott and opened in 1921.

Blackfriars Railway Bridge

Blackfriars Railway Bridge is a railway bridge crossing the River Thames between Blackfriars Bridge and the Millennium Bridge.

Westminster Bridge is a road and foot traffic bridge over the River Thames between Westminster and Lambeth. The current bridge opened in 1862, is the second on the site and replaced an earlier bridge that had opened in 1750.

Westminster Bridge

A Joyous Thanksgiving to You!

Thanksgiving is celebrated today, November 24th, as always in the fourth Thursday of the month, all across the USA and Canada and precedes Black Friday, one of the busiest shopping days , mostly in the USA.

found pic @ Crosswalk

In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an Autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states. It wasn't until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November.

THANKSGIVIG AT PLYMOUTH

found pic @ mbeinstitute

In September 1620, a small ship called the Mayflower left Plymouth, England, carrying 102 passengers - an assortment of religious separatists seeking a new home where they could freely practice their faith and other individuals lured by the promise of prosperity and land ownership in the New World. After a treacherous and uncomfortable crossing that lasted 66 days, they dropped anchor near the tip of Cape Cod, far north of their intended destination at the mouth of the Hudson River. A month later, the Mayflower crossed Massachusetts Bay, where the Pilgrims, as they are now commonly known, began the work of establishing a village at Plymouth. Throughout that first brutal winter, most of the colonists remained on board the ship, where they suffered from exposure, scurvy and outbreaks of contagious disease. Only half of the Mayflower’s original passengers and crew lived to see their first New England spring. In March, the remaining settlers moved ashore, where they received an astonishing visit from an Abenaki Indian who greeted them in English. Several days later, he returned with another Native American, Squanto, a member of the Pawtuxet tribe who had been kidnapped by an English sea captain and sold into slavery before escaping to London and returning to his homeland on an exploratory expedition. Squanto taught the Pilgrims, weakened by malnutrition and illness, how to cultivate corn, extract sap from maple trees, catch fish in the rivers and avoid poisonous plants. He also helped the settlers forge an alliance with the Wampanoag, a local tribe, which would endure for more than 50 years and tragically remains one of the sole examples of harmony between European colonists and Native Americans.

found pic @ ucls-chicago

In November 1621, after the Pilgrims’ first corn harvest proved successful, Governor William Bradford organized a celebratory feast and invited a group of the fledgling colony’s Native American allies, including the Wampanoag chief Massasoit. Now remembered as American’s “first Thanksgiving”—although the Pilgrims themselves may not have used the term at the time—the festival lasted for three days. While no record exists of the historic banquet’s exact menu, the Pilgrim chronicler Edward Winslow wrote in his journal that Governor Bradford sent four men on a “fowling” mission in preparation for the event, and that the Wampanoag guests arrived bearing five deer. Historians have suggested that many of the dishes were likely prepared using traditional Native American spices and cooking methods. Because the Pilgrims had no oven and the Mayflower’s sugar supply had dwindled by the fall of 1621, the meal did not feature pies, cakes or other desserts, which have become a hallmark of contemporary celebrations.

THANKSGIVING TRADITIONS

found pic @ fashionpill

In many American households, the Thanksgiving celebration has lost much of its original religious significance; instead, it now centers on cooking and sharing a bountiful meal with family and friends. Turkey, a Thanksgiving staple so ubiquitous it has become all but synonymous with the holiday, may or may not have been on offer when the Pilgrims hosted the inaugural feast in 1621. Today, however, nearly 90 percent of Americans eat the bird—whether roasted, baked or deep-fried—on Thanksgiving, according to the National Turkey Federation. Other traditional foods include stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. Volunteering is a common Thanksgiving Day activity, and communities often hold food drives and host free dinners for the less fortunate.
Parades have also become an integral part of the holiday in cities and towns across the United States. Presented by Macy’s department store since 1924, New York City’s Thanksgiving Day parade is the largest and most famous, attracting some 2 to 3 million spectators along its 2.5-mile route and drawing an enormous television audience. It typically features marching bands, performers, elaborate floats conveying various celebrities and giant balloons shaped like cartoon characters.
Beginning in the mid-20th century and perhaps even earlier, the president of the United States has “pardoned” one or two Thanksgiving turkeys each year, sparing the birds from slaughter and sending them to a farm for retirement. A number of U.S. governors also perform the annual turkey pardoning ritual.


THANKSGIVING IN THE UK

photo credits: US Embassy in London

Thanksgiving Day in the United Kingdom is celebrated as a harvest festival. This day is a religious honouring to convey a feeling of gratitude to God for the year's plentiful and fruitful harvest and thanking family and friends for their love and support. The day is celebrated by preparing a special meal of large roasted turkey, which is a native American species, along with cranberry sauce, stuffing, with veggies. A variety of different pies with apple, mincemeat, pumpkin and pecan form the dessert menu. Gifts are also exchanged on this day which include flowers, jewellery, baked cookies, candy and wine. 
Many towns and cities stage spectacular parades on this day. Many people are on the roads to enjoy the decorated floats, the costumes, the music and the heavy balloons.

Source:  The History Channel (abridged and adapted)

You may also check relevant multimedia resources on this topic @:

• Bet you didn't know: Thanksgiving;
• History of Thanksgiving; 
• Thanksgiving becomes a holiday;
• Thanksgiving foods;
• Teaching History;
• The Learning Network by NY Times.

You can get ELT resources (further info, lesson plans, printables, posters, slideshows, recipes, graphs, crafts, colouring pictures and greeting cards) on the topic @:

• British & American Festivals and Holidays;
• We are Teachers;
• Scholastic.com;
• Thanksgiving on the Net;
• Teacher Vision;
• The Teachers Corner.

Happy Halloween 2015!

A very eerie and sweet Halloween for all T&L followers and readers. 

A sweet "witchy hug" for my friends, who made my best Halloween moments ever. 

Below you can watch the story of Winnie, the Witch. Hope you enjoy it!

Happy Thanksgiving!

To know more about Thanksgiving, its history and traditions, read T&L here. You may also check some relevant multimedia resources on this topic @:

• Bet you didn't know: Thanksgiving;
• History of Thanksgiving; 
• Thanksgiving becomes a holiday;
• Thanksgiving foods;
• Teaching History;
• The Learning Network by NY Times.

You can get ELT resources (further info, lesson plans, printables, posters, slideshows, recipes, graphs, crafts, colouring pictures and greeting cards) on the topic @:

• British & American Festivals and Holidays;
• We are Teachers;
• Scholastic.com;
• Thanksgiving on the Net;
• Teacher Vision;
• The Teachers Corner.

Web 2.0 Tools applied to Primary School Teaching

Teaching English, and even History, to Primary School children doesn't have necessarily to be primary and Web 2.0 technologies applied to class activities and tasks may well be the answer to put it together.

This cute and interesting video was created from drawings by primary school children from Shapla School and special effects by young people from the Renaissance Foundation.

On Saturday 31st May 1533, Anne Boleyn was taken in procession from the Tower through London to Westminster where she was crowned the following days, find out what happened on that day! ;)

The Time Traveller’s Guide to Elizabethan England

Ian Mortimer takes us back to Elizabethan England and reveals, in vivid detail, a living, breathing Tudor world in the Golden Age. Viewers learn how ordinary Tudor housewives turned plants into medicine, how the middle classes kept themselves clean using linen cloths, how the poor made pottage, how cooks of the rich devised recipes for new ingredients, and how Tudors learned to read and write. Two incredible episodes by BBC.

Pancake Day 2014

photo credits: The Telegraph

Pancake Day, also known as Shrove Tuesday in Britain, is the day before Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent. 'Shrove' stems from old English word 'shrive', meaning 'confess all sins'. It is called Pancake Day because it is the day traditionally for eating pancakes as pancake recipes were a way to use up any stocks of milk, butter and eggs which were forbidden during the abstinence of Lent.

The traditional pancake is thin and crepe-like and is eaten sprinkled with sugar and a squeeze of lemon. However, serve as you like with jam, Golden Syrup, honey, chocolate spread, whatever takes your fancy. In some places pancake races are held, where participants run along tossing a pancake as they go.

photo credits: Nick Hopper
for Hemsley & Hemsley

Another name for Shrove Tuesday is Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras, so called because of the tradition of eating rich food before fasting for Lent. The famous New Orleans Mardi Gras is celebrated on this day.

Here you will find a wide variety of ELT activities on Pancake Day that can be printed out and worked on with your class under the signature of Encyclopaedia Britannica, which has created a spotlight on the topic with colouring drawings, puzzles, games, crafts and even recipes and tips, so that you can cook a perfect pancake!

Black Friday 2013



For millions of people Black Friday is the time to do some serious Christmas shopping, even before the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers are gone. Black Black is the Friday after Thanksgiving, and it's one of the major shopping days of the year in the United States, falling this year on November 29th. While it's not recognized as an official US holiday, many employees have the day off -except those working in retail.

image credits: Infographic Journal

The term “Black Friday” was coined in the 1960s to mark the kickoff to the Christmas shopping season. “Black” refers to stores moving from the “red” to the “black,” back when accounting records were kept by hand, and red ink indicated a loss, and black a profit. Ever since the start of the modern Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1924, the Friday after Thanksgiving has been known as the unofficial start to a bustling holiday shopping season.

In the 1960's, police in Philadelphia griped about the congested streets, clogged with motorists and pedestrians, calling it “Black Friday.” In a non-retail sense, it was originally used to describe something else entirely — the September 24th, 1864, stock-market panic set off by plunging gold prices. Newspapers in Philadelphia reappropriated the phrase in the late 1960s, using it to describe the rush of crowds at stores. The justification came later, tied to accounting balance sheets where black ink would represent a profit. Many see Black Friday as the day retailers go into the black or show a profit for the first time in a given year. 
The term stuck and spread, and by the 1990s Black Friday became an unofficial retail holiday nationwide. Since 2002, Black Friday has been the season's biggest shopping day each year except 2004, according to market-research firm ShopperTrak. Nevertheless, retailers continue to tie one-day in-store sales to Black Friday. In the Internet era, bloggers race to obtain leaked circulars and post them online weeks in advance of Thanksgiving. Many forums  and websites  chart the deals, helping shoppers make a plan of attack for the big day. And attack they will — the National Retail Federation anticipates 134 million people will hit the stores on Thanksgiving weekend.

Why did it become so popular?

photo credits: Time

As retailers began to realize they could draw big crowds by discounting prices, Black Friday became the day to shop, even better than those last minute Christmas sales. Some retailers put their items up for sale on the morning of Thanksgiving, or email online specials to consumers days or weeks before the actual event. The most shopped for items are electronics and popular toys, as these may be the most drastically discounted. However, prices are slashed on everything from home furnishings to apparel.

Black Friday is a long day, with many retailers opening up at 5 am or even earlier to hordes of people waiting anxiously outside the windows. There are numerous doorbuster deals and loss leaders – prices so low the store may not make a profit - to entice shoppers. 

Most large retailers post their Black Friday ad scans, coupons and offers online beforehand to give consumers time to find out about sales and plan their purchases. Other companies take a different approach, waiting until the last possible moment to release their Black Friday ads, hoping to create a buzz and keep customers eagerly checking back for an announcement.

More and more, consumers are choosing to shop online, not wanting to wait outside in the early morning chill with a crush of other shoppers or battle over the last most-wanted item. Often, many people show up for a small number of limited-time "door-buster" deals, such as large flat-screen televisions or laptops for a few hundred dollars. Since these coveted items sell out quickly, quite a few shoppers leave the store empty handed. 

image credits: CNNMoney

 

Sources: Black Friday, Time