BOO! Have a spooky Hallowe'en!

In the past, people believed the souls of dead people appeared on Halloween. Halloween, or Hallowe’en, is an international holiday celebrated on October 31. On that night children dress in costumes and go from house to house asking for sweets, especially in the US and Canada - that's called "trick or treat". Other Halloween activities are ghost tours, bonfires, costume parties, visiting haunted attractions, carving jack-o'-lanterns, reading scary stories and watching horror movies. Irish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America in the nineteenth century. Other western countries embraced the holiday in the late twentieth century.

(Adapted from: http://en.wikipedia.org/ and http://www.ldoceonline.com/)  

Check out the following site for some fun Hallowe'en activities:

http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-central-themes-halloween.htm

If you want to know more about Hallowe’en traditions and how Hallowe’en spread around the world, just visit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween

And why don't you send your friends a Hallowe'en e-card? There are plenty to choose from at 

http://www.garfield.com/cards/card_holiday_halloween.html
http://www.care2.com/send/cathallow1.html

Grammar time - quantifiers

Here's a little quiz with quantifiers (much, many, a few, some, any, etc):

http://engli.webpark.pl/quantifiers.html

Did you know that...?

- "In Eastern countries and in South America many people wear shoes made from old car tyres.
- In 1897 a paper maker made horseshoes from recycled paper!
- In Trinidad, West Indies, old steel oil drums are used to play the local music.
- Each milk bottle brought by the milkman in Britain can be re-used 30 times."                                 Source: Teen Time 2, Porto Editora

Just in case you're interested in learning how to make sandals from car tyres, check out the following tutorial:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Blown-Tire-Shoes/

And don't forget that you can always make something useful or artisitic from recycled materials instead of dumping them. Just allow your imagination to run wild...

Image credits: 

 http://www.ecostreet.com/blog/eco-diy/2008/03/11/eco-diy-turn-your-old-tyres-into-new-sandals/

Grammar time - Have or Have got?

For those of you who still have doubts about the use of have and have got, here's an explanation provided by http://www.itests.com/

1. We use have to talk about routines.
I usually have a run before breakfast.
She always has a sandwich for lunch.

2. We can use have or have got to talk about possession of things or characteristics.
He’s got a lot of books about art.
He has a lot of books about art.
She’s got a good sense of humour.
She has a good sense of humour.

Note: We use have, NOT have got, in the past tense to talk about possession.
I had a job interview last week. (NOT: I had got a job interview last week.)
We had a meeting at 2pm. (NOT: We had got a meeting at 2pm.)

Note: We always use have got NOT have to ask questions about possession.
Have you got any books about art? (NOT: Have you any books about art?)
Has she got a bad temper? (NOT: Has she a bad temper?)

Source:http://www.itests.com/xg/editorial/public/about/79

Did you know that...?

"Scrooge McDuck or Uncle Scrooge is a fictional Scottish Glaswegian anthropomorphic duck created by Carl Barks that first appeared in Four Color Comics #178 published by Dell Comics in December, 1947.

Over the decades, Scrooge has emerged from being a mere supporting character to a major figure of the Duck universe. In 1952, he was given his own comic book series, Uncle Scrooge, which still runs today. As the character's popularity rose, he appeared in various television specials, films, and video games.

Scrooge's name is based on that of the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge, the main character from Charles Dickens' 1843 novel A Christmas Carol. Although never explicitly confirmed by Barks, it is theorized that Scottish industrialist Andrew Carnegie, who left his country for America at 13, served as a model for Uncle Scrooge.

Scrooge had worked his way up the financial ladder from humble immigrant roots. Born in Glasgow, Scotland he made a living shining boots, and was enraged when a ditchdigger paid him with a US dime. However, the coin inspires him to take a position as cabin boy on a Clyde cattle ship to the United States to make his fortune.

He keeps a portion of his wealth, that money he has personally earned himself, in a massive Money Bin overlooking the city of Duckburg, which he explains to his nephews, in the short Scrooge McDuck and Money, is "just petty cash.""

If you like Uncle Scrooge, then you can find more about him by visiting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrooge_McDuck

Text source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrooge_McDuck

Top image credits: "Scrooge McDuck, the Richest Duck in the World", by Carl Barks. Bottom image credits: A panel from an Uncle Scrooge comic by Jack Bradbury

Study this!

If you're an 8th-grader in the school where I teach, then you must study the following for this test:

Grammar:
- Simple Present
- Present Continuous
- Simple Past
- Future with "be going to"
- Question-tags

Vocabulary:
- holidays
- the environment
- animals

Grammar time - Simple Past

Check the following links for exercises on the Simple Past:
http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/pasted1.htm (Regular verbs)

http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/irpast1.htm (Irregular verbs)

http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/pastnq1.htm (Negatives)

http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/pastnq2.htm (Questions)

http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/330/grammar/pastnq3.htm
(Wh- Questions)


If you are still unsure of how to form the Simple Past, then you must visit these pages first:
Forming the Simple Past Tense (Regular Verbs)
Forming the Simple Past Tense (Irregular Verbs)
Negatives and Questions in the Simple Past Tense

Pay special attention to irregular verbs and try to memorise all of them!

Expand your vocabulary - British English vs. American English

Autumn or fall? Well, actually both words are correct when you want to refer to the "the season between summer and winter, when leaves change colour and the weather becomes cooler"(http://www.ldoceonline.com/)

However, British people say "autumn" whereas Americans usually say "fall".

Did you know that...?

" Every year an area of rainforest the size of England and Wales is cut down. This leaves local people homeless, drives animals and plants to extinction and releases more CO2 emissions, which cause climate change, than all of the world’s planes, trains and automobiles."
Source: http://www.rainforestfoundationuk.org/Who_we_are

Photo Credit: Early morning misty view of the forest of East Kalimantan, Indonesia, Borneo Photo © Mark Godfrey/TNC

photo retrieved from AP photo archive

In 1989 the British singer Sting his wife Trudie Styler founded The Rainforest Foundation "after they saw first-hand the destruction of the Amazon rainforests, and the devastating impact it had on the lives of the indigenous peoples who lived there." Do you want to know more about The Rainforest Foundation? Then go to http://www.rainforestfoundationuk.org/ (and don't forget to peep their photo gallery).

You can also help preserve rainforests by making free donations or by sending Endangered Species FREE e-cards to your friends.

If you want to know more about rainforests and the effects of deforestation, the following sites will interest you:

http://striweb.si.edu/rainforest/save_them.html - What to do to save rainforests

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/rainforest/ - All about rainforests (scroll slightly down to skip annoying ads)

http://www.ncusd203.org/prairie/PI/ECOLOGY%20WEBS/Conner/rainforest_deforestation.htm - How did deforestation start?

http://www.effects-of-deforestation.com/ - Deforestation effects, causes and solutions

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/forests - Protect ancient forests

Have a laugh!

These cartoons have just been emailed to me by a cousin of mine. Maybe you have seen some of them previously, but I think they might still help you exercise your English vocabulary in an amusing way... Feel free to make a comment...

Grammar time - Present Simple

If you still have doubts when forming the Present Simple (or Simple Present - it's the same), click on AFFIRMATIVE FORM or on
NEGATIVE and INTERROGATIVE FORMS.
At the bottom of the page you're invited to solve out some exercises. However, you can skip the explanations and go directly to the exercise pages by clicking Present Simple - affirmative exercises
or
Present Simple - negative and interrogative exercises

Did you know that...?

"Stonehenge is surely Britain's greatest national icon, symbolizing mystery, power and endurance. (...) some have speculated that it was a temple made for the worship of ancient earth deities. It has been called an astronomical observatory for marking significant events on the prehistoric calendar. Others claim that it was a sacred site for the burial of high-ranking citizens from the societies of long ago."

Source: http://www.britannia.com/history/h7.html

Besides visiting the link above, you can deepen your knowledge about Stonehenge by going to the following link:
http://www.jimboykin.com/london/stonehenge.htm
Check it out! It has some amazing photos!