Tag Archives: fun
Happy New Year to everyone
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To my students in 1èreS
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This is just so tappy happy .. Lovin’ it !
A giant water slide in the centre of Bristol
Thanks to my nephew, Jamie, in the UK, I have heard about this giant project in Bristol, whereby the street is going to be transformed into a giant water slide today. It sounds like such a lot of fun. You can read more about it here : Bristol Park Street water slide project
For one day only, the giant slide will be installed the length of the main high street and the demand for tickets has been unbelievable. For 320 tickets, almost 100,000 applications were received and so only the lucky few will actually have the chance to take to the slide. The concept is part of a project to “Make Sundays Special” and I am all for that idea.
I don’t know about you, but in our household, fun on Sundays has for a long time meant washing and ironing, catching up on homework and watching the recording of Telefoot. As an avid fan of The Archers, I listen to the omnibus every Sunday morning (or nowadays, it can also very easily be a podcast), but I am the only one in our household to do this ! The idea of hurling myself down a 90 metre water slide in the city centre may not be my idea of fun, but fun it certainly is !!
The brains behind the idea set in place a “Pianos in the City” project five years ago and that certainly would grab me. 
As the mother of pianist sons, I absolutely love the sound of the piano and when we were in Paris this weekend, we spent a while in St Lazare station, listening to the young girl who was playing on the piano installed there.
How else to make Sundays fun ? Personally I don’t consider housework and chores as falling into the “fun” category. A trip to the cinema, a bike ride, a lunch party – those are more fun. 
And, as the weather improves, hopefully a spot of gardening. Not to forget, of course, the time spent in the garden chair with a good book, because the pile of books to read never seems to diminish, does it ? So much to read, so little time to do to it in !!
For anyone who hasn’t had the thought, where is Bristol ?
It is a city in South-West England, not far from where I was born and spent the first seven years of my life, in a small town called Trowbridge. Going to the big city of Bristol was a huge treat when I was a little girl !! And there were no giant water slides in my day !!!
To complete this post, a panoramic view of the city and an example of work by the Bristol artist, Bansky.
On-line play tools
I have been playing with language apps over the weekend. As you may know, if you have been on training courses with me, or in my classroom, I am an unconditional fan of Triptico.
I use it in virtually every lesson, for creating groups, for designating students, for modifying seating plans in the classroom, for testing vocabulary, for practising questions … the list is endless. I am still discovering the full potential of the package. I have also introduced it to many fellow teachers and also to our English language assistants on our training programmes. I hope that through the use of this tool, kids will be having more and more fun as they learn.
I have been playing with Quizlet over the weekend and discovering what I can do with this tool too, in ways that will be complementary to my use of Triptico. 
Quizlet is a vocabulary learning tool and it basically creates virtual flashcards which can then be accessed by others to practice the vocabulary in game form. Teachers can create card sets but also students. They can share them among themselves and when they play games, they are given a score. these scores can be collated into a table, with classifications.
There is a free version of Quizlet and a paying version. I have actually opted for the paying version because I wanted to explore the potential of the voice function, which is available in the paid version only. But that is my personal choice. If you want to know more about Quizlet, you can find some examples that I have prepared for my students HERE as part of our e-book project. If you are interested in the e-book project itself, you can click HERE. You would be welcome to visit and any feedback before I go live with the kids next week would be appreciated.
For more information on using Triptico and other tools in the classroom, you might like to check out my “Technology in the Classroom” pages HERE.
A joke
Thanks to my friend, Alison, for this English teachers joke …
Howlers
Just for laughs, I have started a page of Howlers, the little gems that I have collected over the years of pupil creations, ways in which they use and abuse the dictionary for my linguistic delight. This page will be a work in progress.
To read some howlers, click HERE.
The Cup Song
A special dedication to Akhésa and Cécilia from my L classes at school this year, who introduced me to the “Cup Song”. Congratulations to the pupils from the Collège Racinay and to my colleague and Twitter friend, Elisa for putting this together. I would so have loved to be part of it. I promised my girls to post on this topic and so here we are, with a little extra, a special tap dancing version too as a bonus.
The Big English Blog 