Seasons of the Year

Summer

Summer is the warmest time of year because the top part of the Earth is facing the Sun. The longest days of the year occur during the summer months. June is the time of the summer solstice, the longest day of the calendar year. The time of the solstice is determined by the location of the Sun which is directly over the Tropic of Cancer on that longest day.  

Autumn

This is one of the two in-between seasons. During summer, the North Pole is leaning towards the Sun and the South Pole leans towards the Sun in winter. In Autumn, the Sun is directly over the Equator during September. Autumn events include leaves falling from trees, shorter days than summer, and harvesting summer crops. 

Winter

This is the season where the Earth is tilted way from the Sun and the South Pole is getting all of the light. In December, the Earth hits its next marker when the winter solstice occurs. That shortest day of the year happens when the Sun is directly over the Tropic of Capricorn at noon. From that point, everything starts to change again. Winter events include colder temperatures, snow and winter storms, the shortest days of the year, and the hibernation of some animals. 

Spring

Spring is a time for rebirth and emerging from the short and cold days of winter. March is the time of the vernal equinox that signals the official start of spring. As far as the position of the planet, it is a bit of a mirror image to its position in autumn. The Sun is directly over the Equator. Spring events include blooms of wildflowers, new leaves on trees, warmer days that winter, and wetter weather. 

Activities:

• Seasons of the year - exercises
• Drag and drop
• The four seasons
• Seasons: Hangman game
• Match up 1, 2 and 3
• A matter of time
• Months and seasons, 1
• Months ans seasons, 2
• Months and seasons, 3
• Months and seasons, 4

Christopher Columbus' Life & Discoveries

Two different visions about Columbus' life and facts:

This first one is a clear way to understand the explorer and his discovery.

The second one is a classic cartoon with a musical approaching to a Columbus' discover of America.

Dafoe's Robinson Crusoe

The first English novel?

Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe, published in 1719. It is a fictional story about a man who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island after his ship sinks. Many people think that Robinson Crusoe is the first novel in English. There are many film versions of the book.

Daniel Defoe (c1659-1731)

Defoe was an English writer and journalist. He wrote hundreds of books on different topics, including politics, crime and psychology. He is famous for Robinson Crusoe and for making novels popular in Britain.

Dafoe’s inspiration

Alexander Selkirk was Scottish sailor who lived on an island near Chile four years. After his rescue, his story was in British newspapers. Defoe probably got the idea for his story after Reading about Selkirk.

Exploration and discovery

In the 18th century, Europeans travelled all over the world exploring its oceans and continents. They began to produce much more accurate maps and this helped to increase trade. Their expeditions helped to expand scientific knowledge in areas such as geography, astronomy, anthropology and mathematics.



More information on Defoe and Robinson Crusoe:

• Bio.com
• Wikipedia
• Cliff's Notes
• The Defoe Society
• The Literature Network
• Biblio.com

The Fonix 2.016: The Die Is Cast

That is! The Fonix exam has already been done. We can only wait for the results next April the 9th. Hope our students will have luck.

Unfortunately, 4th ESO student, Hizer, hasn't taken part in the exam as expected due to illness. We all wish he gets better soon!

Enjoy some pics taken before and after the exam:

Leap Day

Leap Day is February 29, which is an extra day added during a Leap Year, making the year 366 days long – and not 365 days, like a common year. Nearly every 4 years is a Leap Year.

A leap year (or intercalary or bissextile year) is a year containing one additional day in order to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical or seasonal year.

A person born on February 29 may be called a leapling or a leaper. In common years they usually celebrate their birthdays on February 28 or March 1. In some situations, March 1 is used as the birthday in a non-leap year since it is the day following February 28. People born on February 29 are all invited to join The Honor society of Leap Year Day Babies.

Folk traditions:

• In Britain and Ireland, it is a tradition that women may propose marriage only on leap years.
• In Denmark, the tradition is that women may propose on the leap day, and that refusal must be compensated with 12 pairs of gloves.
• In Finland, the tradition is that if a man refuses a woman's proposal on leap day, he should buy her the fabrics for a skirt.
• In Greece, marriage in a leap year is considered unlucky. One in five engaged couples in Greece will plan to avoid getting married in a leap year.
• In Scotland, it used to be considered unlucky for someone to be born on Leap Day.

The Most Frequent Collocations in Spoken English

A collocation is two or more words that often go together. These combinations just sound "right" to native English speakers, who use them all the time. On the other hand, other combinations may be unnatural and just sound "wrong". 

Why learn collocations?

• Your language will be more natural and more easily understood.
• You will have alternative and richer ways of expressing yourself.
• It is easier for our brains to remember and use language in chunks or blocks rather than as single words.

"The Chaos" by Dr. Gerard Nolst Trenité

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world

After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud, and we’ll be honest with you, we struggled with parts of it.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

From Your Valentine

Saint Valentine was a bishop who lived in the third century in Rome who fight against Emperor Claudius II who banned marriages.