New stuff on our Junior Stuff page! Learn the colours (or colors – American English) with songs, videos and a fun pirate board game!
New on Georgia’s Class: Junior Stuff!
Here’s a brand new page on this blog for our little friends, Junior Stuff! At the moment, you can find songs and read aloud practice for children who have just started learning English. Games, puzzles and many more things will be added soon! Check it out and come back for more!
Click here or on the menu on the right (Σελίδες>Junior Stuff)
Here comes the sun!
Exams are soon coming to an end, summer’s here! Get into a party mood with Oceana’s “Endless Summer ” while doing an easy gap-fill quiz to practise your English! If you like oldies but goodies, you can listen to all-time jazz classic ‘Summertime’ or ‘Here Comes the Sun’ by the Beatles. Don’t forget to do the quizzes!
‘Endless Summer’ & quiz
‘Summertime’ & quiz
‘Here Comes the Sun’ & quiz
Christmas fun!
Christmas Quizzes and Games
Christmas is coming, so let’s get into the spirit of Christmas by playing some games!
- If you think you know all about Christmas, check it out with this Christmas quiz!
- If you have a good memory, play this word-memo game.
- Are you fast enough? Find some more Christmas words by bursting the right balloons in this word game!
Christmas Songs
Do you like music? Listen to these Christmas songs and get into the mood!
- Listen to Lady Gaga’s version of White Christmas and fill in the missing words in the lyrics.
- Or how about Mariah Carey and Justin Bieber’s remix of All I Want for Christmas? Try out the quiz before you listen, then see how much you got right!
- If you think your English is better, listen to Shake Up Christmas by Train and do the multiple choice quiz below.
- For those of you who are a bit older, any Kylie Minogue fans out there? Listen to her singing Let it Snow! and fill in the missing words.
That’s all for now boys and girls! More Christmas activities coming up soon! Have fun!
How did Thanksgiving start?
Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated in the USA and Canada as a day for families and friends to get together for a special meal. It is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States and on the second Monday of October in Canada. The meal often includes a turkey, stuffing, potatoes, cranberry sauce, gravy, pumpkin pie, and vegetables. Thanksgiving Day is a time for many people to give thanks for what they have. Thanksgiving Day parades are also held in some cities and towns. But how did this holiday start?
A bit of history
The first Thanksgiving took place in 1621, in Plymouth, Massachussets, where the European colonists (often called ‘Pilgrims’) organised a feast to thank the local Indians for helping them produce their first successful corn harvest. For more than two centuries, different days of thanksgiving were celebrated by different colonies and states. It wasn’t until 1863, during the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held on the fourth Thursday of November.
If you want to know more about the history of the holiday, watch this funny video of Plymouth Rock (where the European colonists landed in 1960) telling the whole story!
Sources:
http://www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving/history-of-thanksgiving
Alphabet game
Do you have problems with the alphabet? Here’s a little game to help you revise it! Click on the correct letters to help the monkey escape the snake! First click on the letters to hear them. Then play the game. Choose your level: easy (εύκολο), medium (μεσαίο) or hard (δύσκολο). Enjoy!
Are you good AT prepositions?
Prepositions are one of the most difficult parts of English grammar and and certainly an exam favourite! If you want to see how much you know about prepositions in English, check out those exercises:
* These exercises are from englishpage.com
How to write an email or letter to a friend (learn the basics!)
In your exams you might have to write a friendly email or letter. Here are some basic things you should know!
Click here to see a plan, some useful language and example letters!
Click here to do an exercise (complete an email giving news)
More about emails/letters is coming soon!
Get ready for your English exams!
Exams are coming! Are you ready? If the answer is no, then you’d better start revising! Why don’t you check out my Language Lab page? Here, you will find lots of exercises to practise your English grammar and vocabulary. Keep coming back to this page, as more exercises will be added soon!
What are you waiting for? Start your revision here!
Lord Byron’s last poem: Missolonghi
If someone asked you to name a famous philhellene, the first name that would come to your mind would be that of Lord Byron. George Gordon Byron, one of the greatest British Romantic Poets, is also revered as a national hero by Greek people. On 4th August 1823, he arrives at Kefalonia, in the Ionian Islands, to join the Greek revolutionaries in their war of independence from the Ottoman Empire. A few months later, on 19th April 1824, he dies of fever in Missolonghi. Two months before his death, on his 36th birthday, he composes his last poem…
January 22nd, Missolonghi
On this Day I Complete my Thirty-Sixth Year
‘Tis time this heart should be unmoved,
Since others it hath ceased to move:
Yet though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love!
My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of Love are gone;
The worm—the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone!
The fire that on my bosom preys
Is lone as some Volcanic Isle;
No torch is kindled at its blaze
A funeral pile.
The hope, the fear, the jealous care,
The exalted portion of the pain
And power of Love I cannot share,
But wear the chain.
But ’tis not thus—and ’tis not here
Such thoughts should shake my Soul, nor now,
Where Glory decks the hero’s bier,
Or binds his brow.
The Sword, the Banner, and the Field,
Glory and Greece around us see!
The Spartan borne upon his shield
Was not more free.
Awake (not Greece—she is awake!)
Awake, my Spirit! Think through whom
Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake
And then strike home!
Tread those reviving passions down
Unworthy Manhood—unto thee
Indifferent should the smile or frown
Of beauty be.
If thou regret’st thy Youth, why live?
The land of honourable Death
Is here:—up to the Field, and give
Away thy breath!
Seek out—less often sought than found—
A Soldier’s Grave, for thee the best;
Then look around, and choose thy Ground,
And take thy rest.
Missolonghi, 1824
Source: The Longman Anthology of Poetry (2006)
For a Greek translation of the poem click here.
Listen to the poem here: