A few years ago, I retired from my position as head of Modern Languages, a bit fearful of the "R" word. But to date, it has been nothing but fun! Canadian law requires school-aged actors to study with a qualified teacher when they’re off-camera. Many of our young actors are in immersion French so I've found a happy little niche, teaching a few days a week as an on-set tutor and moving in inspiring and creative circles! Furthermore, I get to share resources here! Vive la retraite!
A few years ago, I retired from my position as head of Modern Languages, a bit fearful of the "R" word. But to date, it has been nothing but fun! Canadian law requires school-aged actors to study with a qualified teacher when they’re off-camera. Many of our young actors are in immersion French so I've found a happy little niche, teaching a few days a week as an on-set tutor and moving in inspiring and creative circles! Furthermore, I get to share resources here! Vive la retraite!
Another five-minute filler for teachers. Embedded in this puzzle are eight words associated with the theme of 'winter' and 80 other general vocabulary words. Full instructions, templates in colour and in black and white, a thematic vocabulary and an answer key are included.
A tiny Christmas cracker of an activity for the weeks before the holidays. Challenge your students to decipher the lyric, “I played my drum for Him, parumpapapum”!
Merry Christmas, everyone!
If you’d like some more Christmas rebus puzzles, have a look at:
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/twelve-christmas-rebus-puzzles-11176843
FOUND IT! is a game inspired by Spot it™ or Dobble™. There is always one matching expression on any two cards. FOUND IT! encourages students to concentrate, to read attentively and to pronounce the thematic vocabulary carefully.
This deck comprises 31 cards with 6 expressions or pictures per card.
Here is the vocabulary featured in FOUND IT! (The Hallowe’en deck):
autumn leaves
bat
black cat
broom
cauldron
cemetery
coffin
danger
devil
disguise
frightened
ghost
goosebumps
hat
haunted house
horror film
jack o’lantern
makeup
mask
owl
party
scar
scarecrow
scream
shiver
spider
sweets
toilet paper
trick or treat
vampire
witch
When students match the sentence fragments printed on the edges of the triangles, they will reconstitute the 25 Easter facts and “sculpt” the Easter Bunny’s head.
Although designed as a co-operative activity, the EASTER TRIANGLE puzzle also works well as an enrichment task for individual students.
Here are 7 of the 25 Easter facts embedded in this puzzle:
• Monks made the first pretzels for Lent. They shaped them like arms crossed in prayer!
• A baby rabbit is a “kitten” or a “kit”.
• This is a moai: (image) a giant Easter Island sculpture.
• The Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny are imaginary characters.
• In the movie, HOP, the Easter Bunny’s son wants to leave the family business to drum in a rock band.
• North Americans eat 90 million chocolate bunnies every year!
• A Ukrainian Easter egg decorated with intricate traditional folk designs is called a “pysanka”.
The difference between homophones and homographs is (literally) illustrated in this homonym lesson camouflaged as a game. Students are asked to identify and write out the eighteen pairs of homonyms pictured in the puzzle:
ad add
ball bawl
bare bear
bat bat
bowl bowl
cents scents
dough doe
eight ate
eye I
flour flower
knight night
lynx links
moose mousse
pair pear
piece peace
pitcher pitcher
sow sew
waste waist
Black and white and half-sized versions of the game board are included.
In this co-operative review activity, students who have studied A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM match the texts on the edges of sixteen triangles to reconstitute the following quotes:
Sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow’s eye, seal me awhile from mine own company.
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
If we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended, that you have but slumbered here while these visions did appear.
The course of true love never did run smooth.
Things base and vile, holding no quantity, Love can transpose to form and dignity.
Never harm, nor spell nor charm, come our lovely lady nigh.
The best in this kind are but shadows, and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them.
Thus have I, Wall, my part dischargèd so. And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.
Come, blade, my breast imbrue. And, farewell, friends. Thus Thisbe ends. Adieu.
Hang off, thou cat, thou burr! Vile thing, let loose.
In the temple, by and by, with us, these couples shall eternally be knit.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet are of imagination all compact.
Never anything can be amiss when simpleness and duty tender it.
We cannot fight for love, as men may do;
we should be wooed and were not made to woo.
When in that moment, so it came to pass, Titania waked and straightway loved an ass.
Sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow’s eye, seal me awhile from mine own company.
Am not I Hermia? Are not you Lysander? I am as fair now as I was erewhile.
It includes thematic puzzles for Hallowe’en, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Hannukah and
• full colour copies and B &W copies of each puzzle • a thematic vocabulary for each theme • answer keys • a “how to play” guide
Try the free TES activity, “Hippity Hoppity, Easter’s on its Way” to see if this activity is for you:
https://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/Hippity-Hoppity-Easter-and-39-s-on-its-way-boggle-6194577/
Here are 12 more rebus puzzles for students who enjoyed the free rebus “A little Christmas Rebus to decipher! (The Little Drummer Boy)”:
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/another-little-christmas-rebus-to-decipher-6454697
Thanks to their texting skills, today’s kids “get” the principle behind rebus puzzles intuitively.
The “Twelve Christmas Rebus Puzzles” start with simple thematic phrases like “baking gingerbread cookies” and builds to a 3-page invitation to students to make their own rebus. The invitation is, of course, in rebus format!
An activity tailored for the run-up to the holidays.
Engage your pupils in reading (and writing) through play by
printing and cutting out these puzzles for them to solve.
There are separate files for puzzles in upper and lower case letters.
I'm working on puzzle sets on other themes and would appreciate your feedback.
Another five minute filler for teachers.
Embedded in this puzzle are ten words associated with Autumn and 100 other general vocabulary
words. Full instructions, templates in colour and in black and white, a thematic vocabulary and an answer key are included.
If you were one of the first 8 people to download this puzzle, you'll notice that the answer key was for another puzzle. Mea culpa. The correct key is included now.
This is a five-minute filler for English teachers. Because I live in Canada,
I'm guessing about the proper curriculum level and would appreciate your feedback.
A B & W version for teachers who&'d like to photocopy a handout has just been added.
P.S. I've listed a number of possible answers but (prudishly? wisely?) I've avoided possibilities like 'lover' and 'loins'!
A Passover 'How Touching' or Boggle puzzle + solutions
This is a five-minute filler for English teachers.
The colours have flattened in the transfer from Pages to PDF. Does anyone know how to get around this, please?
Warning: This simplified word sudoku is for those who find the usual Valentine’s fare far too saccharine. It features 6 decidedly unsentimental Shakespearean insults:
1 Thou dost infect mine eyes! RICHARD III, ACT I, SCENE II
2 Light of brain! OTHELLO, ACT IV, SCENE I
3 Thou art a … plague sore! KING LEAR, ACT II, SCENE II
4 Foul fiend Flibbertigibbet KING LEAR, ACT III, SCENE IV
5 You bull’s pizzle. HENRY IV, Part I, ACT II, SCENE IV
6 Would thou wouldst burst! TIMON OF ATHENS, ACT IV, SCENE III
If your students like this kind of activity, please let me know and I will make more like it.
In this small-group activity, Fate (the dice) will determine which garment your students must describe. Express yourself! is a relaxed way to reinforce lessons on adjectives and to encourage your students to participate in class. If you'd like to extend the lesson to written work, just assign some dice co-ordinates
(ie: •• x •••• or •••• x •)
This small-group activity, originally designed for MFL students, encourages children to develop their descriptive skills. The dice will determine whom or what your students will describe. It's a relaxed way to reinforce lessons on adjectives and to promote speaking in full sentences. If you&'d like to extend the lesson to written descriptions, just assign some dice co-ordinates (eg: •• x •••• or ••• x •• ). But remind the class that the first co-ordinate is for the dice in the vertical column and the second is for the dice in the horizontal column.
I would appreciate your feedback.
Unlike Scrabble players, Scribblescrabblers can choose which letters to use for each of their turns. As in Scrabble, however, they will score the most points with the strategic placement of those letters.
You may ask your students to incorporate a thematic vocabulary list or to play using general vocabulary only. Either way, they will be engaged! In fact, very competitive students tend to want to play every possible open square.
This file includes English, French and Spanish versions of each grid and a blank grid for those of you teaching other languages.
If you’d like to view other Scribblescrabbles just enter “Scribblescrabble” in my shop’s search bar: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/Carlav
WORDOKU6 is a simplified version of my 9 x 9 word sudokus.
The challenge is to slot the following expressions into the 6 x 6 grid.
1 pumpkin pie
2 share
3 turkey
4 family
5 cornucopia
6 autumn
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Santa’s Resolutions for 2020 is an exemplar of a New Year’s activity.
I couldn’t resist making a list of resolutions on Santa’s behalf. It will give your students some ideas, a laugh and an opportunity to try their hand by filling in resolutions 9, 10, 11 and 12.
Note: This is not a new resource but an update of the resolutions
that I’ve been posting since 2012.