Yuto explains an ancient Viking boardgame

Check out How to Play Hnefatafl by Jim George on Snapguide.

I held the camera! Yuto's homework last week was to read a good chunk of his reader about Vikings, use the vocabulary to figure out a puzzle which then explained how to play this traditional Scandinavian board game. Please watch him explain the steps in the game - I think you'll agree he did his homework really well!

We were both surprised that when we Googled this, a gazillion sites popped up...but then again, we shouldn't have been. It's an unusual game in that the two sides are unequal at the start, and obviously very strategic. I'm retiring as a champion (yes, beating a ten-year old lad does it for the 'competitive Dad' in me!), but I am sure Yuto will be playing all his friends now with his homemade board (also part of this homework) which was a lot cheaper than the boards we saw advertised at $29.50

Follow Yuto's excellent directions, and try the game for yourself? And please share your feedback his homework?

(You can make your own Snapguides by the way, online or with the app. Clearly very easy, if I can make it during class!) 

Changes to Cambridge English: Advanced from 2015 (video)

Tomoro reveals a magician's secret - Snapguide

Tomoro came to class with a pack of cards and a magic trick; flummoxed me!

So we made this easy to follow "How to" on the Snapguide app on my iPhone. Very easy - please excuse the typo (mine!) btw.

Check out How to Do a Magic Trick by Jim George on Snapguide.

What do you think of Snapguide? I think it's really cool for explaining a sequence of events.

How to make a Dvolver movie - backstage!

See one, make one, teach one

I thought you'd like to see the backstage activity that takes place in producing a Dvolver 'movie', such as my Monday girls have posted in the last week or so. Last week, only two of them turned up, so I plonked them in front of a PC each, in adjoining rooms, and put a whiteboard in the corridor.

On one PC I showed them "How to" through the pre-writing stages - choosing a scene & weather which was a bit like their holiday story; a scenario that worked - meeting a friend best as it leant itself to a chat; picking two characters (interesting that they all had similar self-images as 'character 1'!)

Little bit of team work goes a long way!

Then the girls asked how to say what they wanted to say, which I wrote on the board. We haven't done past tenses yet so this just sowing the seeds for them. I don't like 'copying, hence the board in an inconvenient place so they had to try & remember 'chunks of words/sentences. Then they switched rooms and became 'character 2', asking a question about their partner's holiday. Naturally, they had to ask each other what they'd just written too! We repeated the switches until we completed three cycles, then they chose their favourite (actually least disliked!) piece of music , added a title and their names, a credits style & bravely pressed 'enter'.

This week, my two 'originals' were the helpers as their classmates turned up, following the same steps but with some bolshie, unenthusiastic spellers! Beauty of this was having to shout over each other to be heard, repeating spellings and seeking confirmation etc. The youngest, quietest one finally found her voice - best speller and got fed up with her partners!

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