martes, 13 de octubre de 2015

HALLOWEEN SITCOMS


Halloween & sitcoms II

It's Halloween Week !!!!

Here's a selection of popular world wide TV shows in their Halloween episodes.
Below the selected scenes and a quick activity which is a treat.

Firstly, some background information on the celebration. If possible students can scan the qr code below and have the infographic in their handheld device. Trivia on halloween history, tips and costumes.
                        Great Halloween Infographic







                                                The Big Bang Theory (Halloween Prank)




 
 Activity: Students watch this hilarious scene and match the typical Halloween pranks.
They use the words in the box to complete the pranks mentioned by Sheldon.

  witch’s     blood    haunted    walls      ghostly


A ________ moan
The  _______cackle
_________house
The ________dripping _______
How are the people who play tricks on Halloween called ?      P_________


   



 

Halloween: The Big Bang Theory

SAMPLE SCARY STORY FOR TEENS

“Do not make me call your name a third time, young lady!”

Colleen held her breath, motionless, eyes wide open. She wouldn’t go without a fight this time.

“You have until three to get out here, Colleen! If I have to come find you, you’re going to be in big trouble! One...two...three! That’s it!”

Colleen’s heart raced as she heard her mother’s footsteps getting louder. She was starting to deeply regret hiding in the same spot she used last time. Why not under the bed? Why not in the cupboard? Why—

“Got you!” her mother shouted as she swung open the closet door.

Colleen yelped in surprise and tried to make a run for it. She was an easy catch, though, and her mother scooped her up in one swift move.

“Angela, you put me me down now!” shrieked Colleen.

“You’re going to be grounded until you’re 30 if you think you can shout orders at me...and stop calling me Angela. It’s Mom to you, missy.”

“What kind of mother puts her child in such danger?” Colleen shouted angrily.

“You should really audition for the school play,” her mother grunted dryly as she struggled to hold on to a squirming Colleen. “You are the most dramatic child in existence. It is just a bath. Enough!”

Colleen froze as she saw the bathroom come in sight and began to tremble. Her mother shut the door behind them and began running both taps.

“No!” Colleen screamed as her mother unscrewed the lid to bubble bath. “I need to be able to see!”

“Fine!” her mother snapped. “Just get clean. It has been two days. This is ridiculous. You’re way too old for this. You have ten minutes. Not a minute more, not a minute less.”

Colleen felt her stomach lurch into her throat as her mother plopped her into the water and walked away, shaking her head and muttering something about hosing her down in the backyard next time. Her eyes immediately fell on the drain. All seemed normal, calm, and quiet—but that was how it had seemed last time, too.

The big white squishy loofah dangled from the hot water knob, just over the drain. Colleen reached her hand out and slowly inched closer and closer, her eyes locked on the drain. Closer, no sign of anything yet, closer, the loofah just a few inches from her tiny fingers now. She pinched the sponge and pulled until she heard a noise that made her whole body freeze.

A loud groaning of pipes ran loudly through the wall to her right, making Colleen jump and splash water all over the floor. The creaking grew louder as it travelled up the wall and over her head in the ceiling, then down the wall to her left, then beneath her, louder still, until it she heard it stop just below the drain.

Colleen panted, gripping the sides of the tub, her eyes fixed on the little black holes of the drain, waiting.

“Colleen.”

Her eyes widened. She heard her name whispered and then a solitary bubble pushed through one of the little black holes, slowly floating to the surface. It hit the surface, lingered, and then, just as it popped, Colleen felt a rush of water behind her, like what she felt in the lazy river at the water park. The water grew murky and starting pulling her toward the drain.

“Angela! Mom! Anybody! Help!” Colleen gasped as her clawed uselessly at the slippery tub surrounding her. “No! Not down there! Please!”

The pull grew stronger and Colleen gripped harder to the sides of the tub. She slowly inched closer and closer and closer, kicking and shouting and flailing in vain. She pulled her legs in tight to her body, doing anything she could to distance herself from the terrifying fate waiting for her down the pipe. She would get sucked down, and there was nothing she could do.

In a final desperate attempt to save herself, she grabbed hold of the towel on the rack, but the tension rod slipped and gave way, crashing down. That was it. Her last hope, destroyed.

“I am not going quietly!” Colleen bellowed as ferociously as her tiny lungs could manage.

“That is for sure!” her mother shouted back, bursting into the room again. “Wh—...Ugh! What is in the water! Colleen get out of there!”

She scooped up Colleen and wrapped her up in a towel.

“It was sucking me down! It got me! It was dragging me down the drain again! You see? It won’t stop! Just like like last time! Don’t make me do this again!” Colleen sobbed hysterically.

“Last time?” her mother asked puzzled. “Oh...oh!” she said with a wave of realization. “That’s why you’ve been so scared? Honey, you just had to explain this to me and I would have been able to give you a logical explanation! I take showers, so I wouldn’t know about the bath situation. It seems some pipes got crossed somewhere. That would explain the murky water and the suction. It’s not a monster! I can fix this, don’t worry. I’m so sorry, honey, there’s really nothing to be afraid of. You can take shower from now on, okay?”

Colleen was skeptical, but she felt immense relief to be out of the tub and have a new explanation for the monster. She trudged to her room, exhausted, and collapsed in her bed, still wrapped in her towel. She felt herself starting to doze off as her mother’s explanation ran through her head. Her eyelids got heavy, and just as she felt sleep trying to take her, she shot upright like a bolt.

“But...but who—” she thought to herself, eyes widening. “Who whispered my name?”

Vampires: Folklore, fantasy and fact - Michael Molina

HISTORY OF HALLOWEEN

History of Halloween
Halloween falls on October 31st each year in North America and other parts of the world. What do you know about Halloween? Do you celebrate it in your country? Here is a little history about it. Vocabulary
to evolve (v)- to change little by little
spirit (n)- ghost, some people believe the spirit and body separate when a person dies
holy (adj)- sacred, very good, related to religion. Hallow comes from the word holy.
saint (n)- an honored, holy person
evil (adj)- very, very bad
lantern (n)- lamp or enclosed light that can be carried around
turnip (n)- a purple and white vegetable that grows in the ground
Like many other holidays, Halloween has evolved and changed throughout history. Over 2,000 years ago people called the Celts lived in what is now Ireland, the UK, and parts of Northern France. November 1 was their New Year's Day. They believed that the night before the New Year (October 31) was a time when the living and the dead came together.
More than a thousand years ago the Christian church named November 1 All Saints Day (also called All Hallows.) This was a special holy day to honor the saints and other people who died for their religion. The night before All Hallows was called Hallows Eve. Later the name was changed to Halloween.
Like the Celts, the Europeans of that time also believed that the spirits of the dead would visit the earth on Halloween. They worried that evil spirits would cause problems or hurt them. So on that night people wore costumes that looked like ghosts or other evil creatures. They thought if they dressed like that, the spirits would think they were also dead and not harm them.
The tradition of Halloween was carried to America by the immigrating Europeans. Some of the traditions changed a little, though. For example, on Halloween in Europe some people would carry lanterns made from turnips. In America, pumpkins were more common. So people began putting candles inside them and using them as lanterns. That is why you see Jack 'o lanterns today.
These days Halloween is not usually considered a religious holiday. It is primarily a fun day for children. Children dress up in costumes like people did a thousand years ago. But instead of worrying about evil spirits, they go from house to house. They knock on doors and say "trick or treat." The owner of each house gives candy or something special to each trick or treater.
Happy Halloween!
Check Your Understanding
True or False. Check your answers below.1. The Celts thought the spirits of dead people returned to the earth on October 31st.
 True
 False

2. The Celts created All Hallows.
 True
 False

3. All Hallows is on October 31st.
 True
 False

4. The word Halloween comes from the word Hallows eve.
 True
 False

5. A thousand years ago Europeans wore costumes to get candy.
 True
 False

6. Americans still carve turnips to use as lanterns.
 True
 False

7. Today Halloween is especially for children.
 True
 False

8. Children get candy by saying "trick or treat."
 True
 False

Bet You didn't know: Halloween

lunes, 12 de octubre de 2015

History vs. Christopher Columbus

10 Things You May Not Know About Christopher Columbus

10 Things You May Not Know About Christopher Columbus

On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus set foot on the fine white sands of an island in the Bahamas, unfurled the Spanish royal standard and claimed the territory for King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Although Columbus thought he was in Asia, he had actually landed in the “New World.” History—for better and worse—would never be the same again. Here are 10 things you may not know about the famed explorer.
1. Columbus didn’t set out to prove the earth was round.
Forget those myths perpetuated by everyone from Washington Irving to Bugs Bunny. There was no need for Columbus to debunk the flat-earthers—the ancient Greeks had already done so. As early as the sixth century B.C., the Greek mathematician Pythagoras surmised the world was round, and two centuries later Aristotle backed him up with astronomical observations. By 1492 most educated people knew the planet was not shaped like a pancake.
2. Columbus was likely not the first European to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
That distinction is generally given to the Norse Viking Leif Eriksson, who is believed to have landed in present-day Newfoundland around 1000 A.D., almost five centuries before Columbus set sail. Some historians even claim that Ireland’s Saint Brendan or other Celtic people crossed the Atlantic before Eriksson. While the United States commemorates Columbus—even though he never set foot on the North American mainland—with parades and a federal holiday, Leif Eriksson Day on October 9 receives little fanfare.
3. Three countries refused to back Columbus’ voyage.
For nearly a decade, Columbus lobbied European monarchies to bankroll his quest to discover a western sea route to Asia. In Portugal, England and France, the response was the same: no. The experts told Columbus his calculations were wrong and that the voyage would take much longer than he thought. Royal advisors in Spain raised similar concerns to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Turns out the naysayers were right. Columbus dramatically underestimated the earth’s circumference and the size of the oceans. Luckily for him, he ran into the uncharted Americas.
4. Nina and Pinta were not the actual names of two of Columbus’ three ships.
In 15th-century Spain, ships were traditionally named after saints. Salty sailors, however, bestowed less-than-sacred nicknames upon their vessels. Mariners dubbed one of the three ships on Columbus’s 1492 voyage the Pinta, Spanish for “the painted one” or “prostitute.” The Santa Clara, meanwhile, was nicknamed the Nina in honor of its owner, Juan Nino. Although the Santa Maria is called by its official name, its nickname was La Gallega, after the province of Galicia in which it was built.
5. The Santa Maria wrecked on Columbus’ historic voyage.
On Christmas Eve of 1492, a cabin boy ran Columbus’s flagship into a coral reef on the northern coast of Hispaniola, near present-day Cap Haitien, Haiti. Its crew spent a very un-merry Christmas salvaging the Santa Maria’s cargo. Columbus returned to Spain aboard the Nina, but he had to leave nearly 40 crewmembers behind to start the first European settlement in the Americas—La Navidad. When Columbus returned to the settlement in the fall of 1493, none of the crew were found alive.
6. Columbus made four voyages to the New World.
Although best known for his historic 1492 expedition, Columbus returned to the Americas three more times in the following decade. His voyages took him to Caribbean islands, South America and Central America.
7. Columbus returned to Spain in chains in 1500.
Columbus’s governance of Hispaniola could be brutal and tyrannical. Native islanders who didn’t collect enough gold could have their hands cut off, and rebel Spanish colonists were executed at the gallows. Colonists complained to the monarchy about mismanagement, and a royal commissioner dispatched to Hispaniola arrested Columbus in August 1500 and brought him back to Spain in chains. Although Columbus was stripped of his governorship, King Ferdinand not only granted the explorer his freedom but subsidized a fourth voyage.
8. A lunar eclipse may have saved Columbus.
In February 1504, a desperate Columbus was stranded in Jamaica, abandoned by half his crew and denied food by the islanders. The heavens that he relied on for navigation, however, would guide him safely once again. Knowing from his almanac that a lunar eclipse was coming on February 29, 1504, Columbus warned the islanders that his god was upset with their refusal of food and that the moon would “rise inflamed with wrath” as an expression of divine displeasure. On the appointed night, the eclipse darkened the moon and turned it red, and the terrified islanders offered provisions and beseeched Columbus to ask his god for mercy.
9. Even in death, Columbus continued to cross the Atlantic.
Following his death in 1506, Columbus was buried in Valladolid, Spain, and then moved to Seville. At the request of his daughter-in-law, the bodies of Columbus and his son Diego were shipped across the Atlantic to Hispaniola and interred in a Santo Domingo cathedral. When the French captured the island in 1795, the Spanish dug up remains thought to be those of the explorer and moved them to Cuba before returning them to Seville after the Spanish-American War in 1898. However, a box with human remains and the explorer’s name was discovered inside the Santo Domingo cathedral in 1877. Did the Spaniards exhume the wrong body? DNA testing in 2006 found evidence that at least some of the remains in Seville are those of Columbus. The Dominican Republic has refused to let the other remains be tested. It could be possible that, aptly, pieces of Columbus are both in the New World and the Old World.
10. Heirs of Columbus and the Spanish monarchy were in litigation until 1790.
After the death of Columbus, his heirs waged a lengthy legal battle with the Spanish crown, claiming that the monarchy short-changed them on money and profits due the explorer. Most of the Columbian lawsuits were settled by 1536, but the legal proceedings nearly dragged on until the 300th anniversary of Columbus’ famous voyage.

 

COLOMBUS DAY


VIDEO EXCERPT ON COLOMBUS
It includes historical recreations might be good for my students to learn about Christopher Colombus's life.

 




ROUTINES QUIZ

Here you have a quiz to test your present simple knowledge