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Stop Ebola! Learn And Talk About It.

knowledge quote

You probably have been hearing a lot of alarming stories about Ebola lately. There is an outbreak of this virus disease in west Africa and it seems to be spreading, infecting thousands of people. A number of them unfortunately have died. There have also been confirmed  transmission cases in the USA and Europe.

Although these facts create a lot of fear and anxiety, the truth is that people all over the world are taking measures to stop it and treat those who are sick. According to the World Health Organisation there are currently no licensed Ebola vaccines but two potential candidates are undergoing evaluation.We can also protect ourselves by taking simple steps like washing our hands regularly. The best thing to do is get informed, because “false knowledge is more dangerous than ignorance”.

Read some relevant articles at

dogonews.com    (there are comprehension and challenge questions at the end of this article)

kidshealth.org

student.societyforscience.org    (there is glossary for relevant vocabulary)

timeforkids.com

Lesson plan for teachers at pbs.org

Poster: ebolaposter_dosanddonts-update_unicef_final_16042014   from  CDC.gov (www.cdc.gov)  is your online source for credible health information and is the official Web site of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

 

 

From Ancient Greek Theatre and Drama to ESL/EFL Classroom: Kick Off with These Resources

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Fully into summer holidays and ancient Greek drama festivals are being held around the country. Watching at least one ancient Greek drama performance has always been in my summer holidays agenda as a natural part of it, since my hometown is close to an ancient Greek theatre with a long festival history.

Walking on the sleekly eroded stones, along with the flow of  spectators, I cannot help but think of a similar procession some two and a half thousand years ago, only not for an evening’s entertainment but for an all day experience. Ancient Greeks came to watch three entire tragedies, followed by a comedy play as this was the scheme for the drama contest taking place.

There is no contest in our days, but it is definetely considered great honor  for directors  and actors as well to have the chance to present their work in one of these theaters. As for the audience, I am sure they share a similar attitude towards the didactic nature of ancient drama with their ancestors. The theatre in ancient Greece was regarded as a place of instruction, an educational institution.

These thoughts triggered my desire to scan the web in connection to esl/efl and here we go:

ANCIENT GREEK THEATRE AND DRAMA

bbc.co.uk           photos, facts, activities, games for children

greece.mrdonn.org        information, clip art for children

youtube.com      tragedy and comedy

theatrefolk.com         who,what, where, when of ancient greek theatre and drama

artsedge city dionysia

artsedge.kennedy-center.org           historical development of theater in Ancient Greece for high school students along with a “Stage your own Tragedy” online application

Δείτε το στο slideshare.net

odysseus.culture.gr            theatres and odeums in Greece

whitman.edu      a virtual reality tour of ancient theatre in Greece

youtube.com     the ancient Greek theatre – the theatre of Epidaurus

greekfestival.gr           Epidaurus festival 2014

 

MAKE ANCIENT GREEK DRAMA MASKS AND COSTUMES

activityvillage.co.uk    mask craft

education.scholastic.co.uk   mask craft

hunkinsexperiments.com    dress up in a Greek chiton

 

LESSON PLANS ON ANCIENT GREEK DRAMA

childdrama.com   a Greek play project

brighthubeducation.com       Greek Theatre history in a fun way

incredibleart.org   art lesson plan: Greek Theatre  Masks

ket.org          characteristics of Greek Theatre                                           logo_atk_2

Role-playing is essential for children. Drama is a wonderful way to introduce language learning , letting kids improvise, assume roles and use the language in an entertaining way. Explore some of the thoughts and research bibliography about the use of drama in the EFL/ESL classroom in Chris Boudreault’s article at iteslj.org and also check Using Different Forms of Drama in the EFL Classroom at hltmag.co.uk 

For a quick brainstorm about the different aspects concerning drama in the classroom go through this presentation:

Δείτε το στο slideshare.net

 

PLAYSCRIPTS, IDEAS AND INFORMATION ON DRAMA AND LANGUAGE LEARNING

freeeslmaterials.com      an extensive list of links

shellyterrell.com              ideas, improvisation games, resources

esldrama weebly

esldrama.weebly.com      play resources

freedrama.net                   free playscripts

childdrama.com                lesson plans 

kidsinco.com                      playscripts

one-act-plays.com           browse this site for one-act playscripts

 

 

“All come true, all burst to light!” Oedipus

So, what can come true on your classroom stage?

End of School Year Activity-Δραστηριότητα για το τέλος της σχολικής χρονιάς

kitties patternhappy pattern
Simple, Free Image and File Hosting at MediaFire
There are so many creative people out there and I’m thankful that I am able to reach their work and ideas, especially when these are kindly offered and can really inspire me and  my work! Such is the case with  patternsforcolouring (the first two pictures) and doodle-art-alley  (the third picture belongs to this site), where amazing colouring pages can be spotted. All you need to do is choose a pattern you like, download it, print it out and start colouring. The colouring pages in  patternsforcolouring are offered under a Creative Commons licence (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 UK).

I particularly like these sites, because there are artistic colouring pages, like the ones above, that can generate writing activities.  I am thinking of using the “kitties” one as a prompt for a cartoon-like dialogue among the kitties, after the pupils colour, cut and stick their figures on a seperate sheet of paper. I will ask my pupils to write summer themed dialogues and this is going to be a cute activity for the last days of this school year. 

I can do something similar with the “Happy” one. The children can assort their colouring with sentence completion:

In summer I am happy because…

Summer makes me happy because…

In summer there are a lot of happy moments. I like…I usually…

As for the underwater scene, it is a game itself since it belongs in the Blopper category, where the colouring pages hide irrelevant figures. When the students have spotted them, they can simply label them or even create a story according to their level.

Great! I have new activities for this year’s last class! What are you planning to do?

Farm Craft with the1st Graders-Κατασκευή Φάρμας με τα Πρωτάκια

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It has been a while, since the 1st Graders learnt, painted and played with the farm animals. The templates for the animals were provided in the curriculum pack and we followed most of the activities suggested.

The painted animals with the peg legs came out really cute and they needed their own stage to help the pupils role play some farm dialogues. Two pieces of polysterene foam, some crepe paper, two empty boxes of cereal and some internet search provided me with the materials to set up a farm scene.

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The pupils participated in twos to act out simple dialogues like:

– “Hello! I’m a cow. I’m black and white.”

– “Hello, cow.I’m a horse. I’m brown. “

– “How are you, horse?”

– “Fine, thank you.”

The barn template came from homemadebyjill.blogspot.gr and I found it here. It is for personal use only.

The farmer template can be found here.

More inspiration for farm craft ideas here.

 

Printable City Template – Εκτυπώσιμη Πόλη

city printable

I have recently stumbled upon this cute and easy to put up template at madebyjoel.com . I instantly thought how beautifully pupils could use it to create a small city and practise buildings vocabulary, prepositions of place and directions. Since there are little paper dolls included, pupils can grab their own and role play dialogues or follow directions.

I haven’t tried it, but I suppose this printable could be easily glued onto a  piece of cardboard so as to form a 3-D city. With a couple of multiple printouts, they can form their city the way they like and even put labels on the buildings and name their streets and avenues on the cardboard. This could be done as group work and when finished, pupils could start playing and practising the city related language.

I am sure the reality of the three diamentions will help pupils clarify phrases such as “opposite the cinema” or  “walk past” and “cross the street” as opposed to “go along the street”, not to mention the simpler ones like “left” and “right” which some children take time to tell apart.

You can find this template here. Craft and find your way in the city!

 

Easter Basket Crafts (not only) for EFL

easter-basket

Yes, I fully admit it! I have fallen into an Easter crafts hunt frenzy and guess what … I am tremendously enjoying it!

The thing is that I have mostly focused on Easter basket crafts that combine some english language use, so here are the results for some efl Easter baskets ideas. Note that even if some of the crafts that follow do not have any Easter message written on them, you can ask pupils to add an Easter wish on a little flag, ribbon, banner or egg as an extra cut out decoration for their basket. Another idea is to use the basket as a speaking prompt for the children to learn and use some Easter vocabulary by saying what they would like their basket to be filled with.

Actually, I have been inspired to create my own Easter basket craft worksheet, especially since I could not find all the characteristics I needed in just one single worksheet. Nevertheless, my web exploration cannot go unshared, so here we go.

read more

(περισσότερα…)

Unusual Greek Customs-Project by Grade E

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 The students of Class E1 prepared and displayed their project on “Unusual Greek Customs”. The customs chosen were “The Day of Babo” and “First Weekend of Lent”. It was an excellent activity for the students to investigate, learn new vocabulary, use the Present Simple, collaborate.

Here comes the procedure followed:

  1. introduction of the project topic
  2. assigning the students with the task of finding information in Greek about 2-3 unusual Greek customs
  3. having each student choose one custom and describe it in brief in class
  4. recording each custom on the board
  5. having the students vote for two of the most interesting customs
  6. assigning two different students with the task of writing a brief description of each custom and bringing it in the next class
  7. distribution of these descriptions in photocopies
  8. board translation of the descriptions by the whole class (great collaboration kids!)
  9. assigning different tasks to the students: bring stationary, engross text, find photos, write captions, help with the layout, etc.
  10. composing the final pieces

In order to help my students better understand and organise their information I also handed them the following questions to answer:

  1. Where does this custom take place?
  2. When does it take place?
  3. What does this custom celebrate?
  4. Who can take part?
  5. What do people do this day?
  6. Where does this custom come from?

Amazing work, dear students!