International Women's Day 2015

Today's Google Doodle celebrating female achievement across the globe

Sunday 8 March 2015 marks International Women’s Day, an annual event that celebrates women’s accomplishments and promotes global gender equality.

This year’s theme is ‘make it happen’ and aims to encourage effective action for advancing and recognising women. It focuses on women in different professional sectors; the arts, female-owned businesses, in senior leadership roles, and all aspects of working environments where gender parity has still not been achieved.

Happy Day, Happy International Women's (Girls') Day if that's the case :=) 

Celebration of Love - Part II

As a follow-up of our last class post - namely the one by Carlos - here is a a beautiful video on LOVE, on Diversity and Inclusion.

Love has no labels - at all, don't you agree?

Celebration of Love

Hey friends !!!!!

On February 13, there was a party organized by our Evangelic class in the context of love.

There was food, music and socializing. This was to celebrate the "S.Valentine's Day" which would be the following day.

In this party, we wanted to share true love, the love of Jesus, the one who went to the cross for us.

And ready, time for our party !!!!!

Our party was planned by teacher Sara Ramalho, but some other contributors were Carlos Correia, Raquel Correia, Samuel Cruz, Carla Andreia and Carla Patrícia.

When time came, we even had a musician and, as you can see, many visitors.

To Our Joana

Joana has been having a tough year. She has been missing lessons to go to the doctor and, as you know, she has undergone a surgery recently.
However, she knows she can count on her awesome classmates for support and visits as well as on her teachers for any extra help she may need, right?
To let her know that, here are some nice messages recorded by classmates and myself:
By Diogo:
https://audioboom.com/boos/2912218-to-joana-by-diogo
By Verónica:
https://audioboom.com/boos/2919684-message-by-veronica-to-joana 

By João C:

By myself:

A walk in Paris

***Notre Dame***

***Mairie de Paris***

***Tour Eiffel***

***Hotel du Louvre***

 Paris est Charlie
Nous sommes Charlie

Selfie with my cousin
   ***TOUR EIFFEL***

Carnival

                                                            My carnival day          
            
On carnival day there was lunch for all the people of my village. Then there was a carnival parade with the election of the best mask. It was a fun day.

Carnival celebrations

The emergence of CARNIVAL ...

    
CARNIVAL appeared about 10,000 years before Christ when men, women and children would gather in the summer with masked faces and bodies painted to scare away the demons of poor harvest. These were the first carnival celebrations.

    

In the mid 600-520 before Christ, the Greeks practiced cult to the god Dionysus, in gratitude for soil fertility and production.

Already in Rome, a homage was made to the god Saturn; these feasts were so important that courts and schools closed their doors during the event.

The people left to the streets to dance and there were a lot of drinks, "allegorical floats" in ship format came out in the "avenue", with naked men and women. The euphoria was general. These were called the navalis carrum. Hence the carnavale expression, today carnival.

These parties were not accepted by the church, only with the passage of time has this celebration become accepted.

In Portugal, Carnival is known as Entrudo, a period before the Quaresma / Lent and that's how it was exported to Brazil, as entrudo. At this party people threw water, eggs and flour one another.

In countries like Italy and France, carnival was a parade through the streets, where people were using masks and costumes.

The Coolest French Baptism

French baptisms must always

 have CHEESE!!!

 Typical weddings

 and baptisms desserts ("piece montée" )

 and the champagne!!!

THE WHOLE FAMILY TOGETHER 

Let's celebrate LOVE!

What is LOVE?
We usually associate LOVE with "a strong feeling of affection and concern for another person accompanied by sexual attraction" (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/love) therefore (and usually) between two people of different genders, a boy / girl, man / woman. However, LOVE is much, much more than that! A broader definition includes all who surround us, religious devotion, even our pets, our preferences - who and what we do care for.
Below is a tempting invitation to celebrate LOVE - in Portuguese, yes, but Carlos will hopefully translate it for us all in the meantime ;)

Following this very first beautiful act of kindness by a new teacher and her students, how about spreading LOVE and KINDNESS yourself?
Here is also an inspirational video:

Your Take Away:
"If you give a little love, you can get a little love of your own" - don't always take everything for granted...

OMG, everything is flooded !!!

It is not the first year nor will it be the last!
Every year in the place where I am and live everything is flooded. 
I still remember that when I was at primary school, our parents sometimes had to carry us in their arms so that we could go have classes and not get soaked.




Childhood memories ...

Blog Anniversary #1

One Year, 365 days of hard work around a class blog that have paid off!

A year ago, I was attending a UO Teacher eLearning course with other incredible teachers from around the globe, led by an equally incredible Teacher Trainer, Donna. Both as a course challenge / task and a personal one, I created this blog with my form class, which I have had the privilege of having been given continuity.

Until this date and together, in a true TEAM (Together Everyone Achieves More) work spirit, we’ve already published 163 posts, have had 1004 comments, and visitors from 59 different countries, which is really a feat. Our posts have included introductions, hobbies, family ties and trips, religion, citizenship, readings and obviously, school activities using different 2.0 web tools, games, and more recently, flipped activities.

We’ve created a united and amazing real and virtual learning community, leaving a remarkable footprint, learning English and digital literacies, committed 21^st century learners as we all (including the teacher) are!

Yep, as a teacher, it’s hard for me to believe, but it’s been a year – a very successful year, with a national prize last October, thanks to this amazing class - 8ºA and their parents - and to all of you, who from far and wide, have visited, read and left your precious comments.

A huge THANK YOU!

70th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz

See more on: http://70.auschwitz.org

Unlike millions of others, Mr Radil survived the horrors of the Nazi regime.

Check some more pics from Auschwitz, too.

http://www.tsf.pt/Multimedia/Galeria/?content_id=4355168

The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas

Jan 27 marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and 2015 in particular, the 70th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp.

In order to remember that date, I chose an excerpt of a famous movie "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (Pajamas in AE) based on a novel with the same name by John Boyne.

There are many and awesome books and movies depicting this dark period of our recent History, but I chose this one because all the horror of that reality is seen through the eyes of two 8 yr-old boys, who have nohing else in common besides their age. It's indeed a fascinating historical drama, but I'm not going to tell you much else... it's up to you to find out by doing the activities at https://edpuzzle.com/ according to the instructions already sent to you by email.
Due Date: Fri Jan 30, 11:59 pm!!!

My catwalk

An unforgettable Saturday

On Saturday there was a social dinner that gathered the members of our local folklore group; I couldn't miss it for anything in this world and nor could my parents!

 Dinner is for the members of the group and their families. After dinner there is usually an entertainment time for all, and this time it was very different and I was really excited:

There was a fashion show in a very unique catwalk!!! Have a look:

   

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO)

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO) is a first-person shooter video game, which is a part of the Counter-Strike series. It was announced to the public on August 12, 2011, and is developed by Valve Corporation and its partner, Hidden Path Entertainment. The game was later released on August 21, 2012 for the Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows and OS X and Linux later as a downloadable title.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive uses the latest version of the Source engine and is not built out of Counter-Strike: Source. After the success of the previous game, Valve wanted the younger set to suit both casual and competitive community, including a matchmaking system and support for dedicated servers.
There are 8 new weapons in the new Counter Strike, and there are several changes to weapons returning, for the firepower, rate of fire, accuracy and speed of movement. They keep the same basic attributes and are officially considered the "successor".
At the launch of the Global Offensive had a total of 16 official maps: 8 updated classic maps and 8 new maps for the Arsenal game mode.

This is a game you play online; even though you have to buy it, I think it's worth it!
Just try it and you will see that you will love it ;)