MY COOL RAPPERS II

FOR AND AGAINST

It is on the news these days: a teenager has been expelled from school for wearing her hijab (Muslim headscarf)
The following short video shows you the discrimination a young Muslim girl, Fatima suffers in Madrid.
The film is by Xavi Sala.

Are you for or aagainst?

BOOK DAY II


Special thanks to Ocoee Middle School, Florida, U.S.A. and to Laura Navarro Cienfuegos who helped us so much with the dancing.
LYRICS

BOOK DAY I


Melissa Valdés is an English teacher and today ( the Book Day)she came to tell us the story of The Very Hungry Catterpillar by Eric Carle. We were excited and listened to her quietly. She was very kind and we just loved the book.

We also made a nice book with the pictures of the story. But what we liked the most was the following video:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY,WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE!



Shakespeare would be 445 years today, 23rd of April!!
Many people believe William Shakespeare is the best playwright (writer) ever. He wrote plays but he was also an actor and a poet.
He was born in Stratford upon Avon in 1564 although we don’t know for sure the exact date of his birth.
His mum, Mary Arden, was a farmer's daughter and his dad, John Shakespeare, was a farmer turned glove-maker. In 1582, he married Anne Hathaway when he was 18 years old.
He had three children - a daughter Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sadly, Hamnet died when he was just 11-years-old.
Shakespeare moved to London, where he lived for 25 years. He wrote most of his plays there.
He died at his home in Stratford on April 23, 1616, the same day as Cervantes ( he was 52 years old).



Shakespeare invented around 2,000 new words. For example:
  • flesh and blood
  • cruel to be kind
  • vanish into thin air
  • the game is up

SAINT GEORGE´S DAY

Saint George is on the 23rd of April and he is patron saint of England.
His emblem is a red cross on a white background :

Saint George was a brave Roman soldier. The Roman Emperor was a pagan who workshipped many gods, he began to persecute Catholics. He protested against the Romans' torture of Christians and died for his beliefs.
A story dating back to the 6th century tells that St George rescued a maiden from a fire-breathing dragon.

This painting is by Rogier van der Weyden (click here to make it bigger); see if you can find:
  • a skull
  • the dragon´s teeth
  • the reflection of the town
  • the horse´s tongue
  • the dragon´s scales
Can you answer these questions:
  • Describe the picture.
  • What is the princess wearing?
  • What emblem tells you the man on the horse is Saint George?
  • What is he doing?

ICELAND´S VOLCANO

The name pronunciation depends on whom you ask. Here's how a CNN Wire story put it in an editors' note: "AY-yah-FYET-lah-YOH-koot." And this from the Chicago Tribune: "EY-ya-fyat-lah-YOH-kuht."
And this from NPR: "AY-yah-fyah-lah-YOH-kuul."
FROM http://edition.cnn.com
It means island-mountain-glacier.



WHAT ABOUT YOU?
WHAT IS THE LONGEST WORD YOU KNOW?
  • Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch:
It is the name of a real town in Wales, UK.
It means “The church of St. Mary in the hollow of white hazel trees near the rapid whirlpool by St. Tysilio’s of the red cave”.

  • floccinaucinihilipilification (flocky-knocky nahiluh-piluh facation):
According to the Guiness Book of World Records, this is actually the longest official word in English; it means, "the act of estimating something to be worthless".

Ignacio, from Musical Blogies, has kindly sent us the following video where an  Icelandic musician sings a song to help us to pronounce the name of the volcano.

READING WORKSHOP


Today (April 20th) we had an activity sponsored by Oxford University Press. We read the following books in class. Baby Animals, Students in Space and Houses around the world (Dolphin Readers).
Paul came to our school and we played four cool games with him:
  • Write ten words about the book in groups.
  • Pictionary: we had to draw a picture of a word and our team had to guess it.
  • Odd word out (walking in a circle) and crying STOP to the word out.
  • And the coolest: Up the taxi- down the taxi-change taxi.
We enjoyed ourselves a lot!

3D TELEVISIONS

VOLCANOES

Click on the image to know what is happening in Iceland:

See how the plume is dispersed step by step here

MY COOL RAPPERS



This morning we had so much fun with this rap:

Thank you Dani, Esther and Dani for your work. I love the video...Yeah!
And thank you so much to Musical Bloggies for the idea, (although we didn´t manage to sing their rhythm).

COOL EMOTION


A 45 year-old Dutch sculptor Ap Verheggen have just installed two big steel sculptures atop an iceberg floating in the fjord surrounding Uummannaq, Greenland, North Pole.
Uummannaq is an Inuit village where the ratio of humans to sled dogs runs 1:2. This culture depends on dog sled travel for winter hunting, transportation and tourist trade.
This project wants to study the climate change and its impact on the Innuits. But the best part of it is that we can follow the iceberg's drift, thanks to some (e)- technology that was installed along with the sculptures.
You may follow the Dogsled Riders on the map and the live cam here:


DEMOLITION MAN

A young irish girl calls her local demolition firm to see if they could get her off school.... Permanently.
This is little Becky. Just listen!