Caroling differently

This year I wasn't really equipped with fancy Christmas lesson plans due to very unfortunate events... We had a school trip to Vienna which ended pretty badly for some students thanks to mulled wine. :) So I had a lot of non-teaching related things to sort out at school.

Hence, I simply asked my students what they wanted to do, what they most favoured for 'pre-Christmas school-time'. Much to my surprise, even the older ones wanted to listen to and sing Christmas songs. I gathered up some songs suitable for younger-beginner(ish) Ss and some for older-pre intermediate (or above).

Christmas songs for the wee ones:

Number one is of course Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the Ella Fitzgerald version. I also tried this KARAOKE version and it went pretty well!

Next one is of course Jingle bells, the Frank Sinatra version followed by Alvin and the Chipmunks's Christmas Don't Be Late. They seem to enjoy the latter one the most, yet it is so very annoying :)

Christmas songs for the more mature ones:

12 Days of Christmas by Relient K, it's a pop-rock version of the original with a very funny (and very true) extra verse in it - I'm not going to tell you what, I'll just let you explore ;)

Or: I've recently came across with Straight No Chaser and I'm absolutely fond of this jam version of several Christmas songs, actually.

Next one is Santa Baby, Pussycat Dolls version.

Tomorrow and Tuesday: New Year's Resolutions :) I'm planning to make a list of the best ones and post it before Christmas. Stay tuned!

Ideas for a terrific Halloween party :)

It's a pity that at our schools the autumn break makes it impossible to celebrate Halloween at Halloween, but never mind!

At many schools it's before the the holiday breaks out but we couldn't start the arrangements in time (due to my illness and my boss's absence), so it's going to be after the autumn break.

1. The obvious: Jack-o-Lantern carving competition. Here you have to consider who's going to bring what... I'm not quite comfortable bringing all the knives and carving tools, so I'm going to ask one of my colleagues who is responsible for the students' kitchen ('tankonyha') if she has any.
2. Costume competition: in Hungary we dress up in fancy dresses at 'farsang' so it is possible that the students will not understand why they should wear a costume; therefore, I'm not sure anybody will wear one. If yes, definitely must be rewarded :)
3. Quizzes and other round games: these are good if the students had already learnt something about Halloween so I like to deal with Halloween traditions and customs preceding the actual party. In our school the whole thing must be held in Hungarian because not everybody learns English :( So make up a quiz plus/or word-search puzzle, maybe some arts and crafts and games and there you have it! We'll see how many of them turn up but I'd like 3-5 groups and they could compete at the different games.

Some material I found quite handy can be found on...

Larry Ferlazzo's collection

Family Fun Halloween Ideas

Happy Halloween everyone and

Stay tuned for pics and other goodies of our Halloween Party! ;)

Btw! What do you think about my perfect pumpkin? :)

Technological problem, need help asap

I wanted to run 'Second Life' on my laptop and I got this error message, what do I do with it? :)