Dept2esma - Germânicas: 2013

terça-feira, 24 de setembro de 2013

WELCOME BACK!

Just wanted to share one of my favourite sitcoms when I was a teen "Welcome Back Kotter"! Although more modernized, with new technologies, SCHOOL is basically still the same! HAVE A GOOD YEAR!

Here is a cute clip from the show. Enjoy! (You can always see more on Youtube.)

sábado, 4 de maio de 2013

     Mother’s Day is a holiday honoring motherhood that is observed in different forms throughout the world. The American incarnation of Mother’s Day was created by Anna Jarvis in 1908 and became an official U.S. holiday in 1914. Jarvis would later denounce the holiday’s commercialization and spent the latter part of her life trying to remove it from the calendar. While dates and celebrations vary, Mother’s Day most commonly falls on the second Sunday in May and traditionally involves presenting mothers with flowers, cards and other gifts.
     In Portugal it went through changes too. Originally, it was held on December 8 (Imaculada Conceição) but changed to the first Sunday in May in honour of The Virgin Mary.
   If you want to know more about the history of this day, please check out this site:
http://www.history.com/topics/mothers-day

Also, here is a Special Mother's Day recipe. Surprise your mom and enjoy this delicious cheesecake together!

Raspberry & milk chocolate cheesecake

Ingredients

180g digestive biscuits (or Bolacha Maria)
75g butter, melted
100g milk chocolate
300g cream cheese
200ml cream
75g sugar
150g raspberries, fresh or frozen and defrosted
icing sugar, to dust
chocolate melted, optional, to serve

Cooking time: Less than 60 minutes
Serving size: Serves 4-6

Method

Crumble the digestive biscuits in a food processor, add the melted butter and mix together well. Place in a 20cm flan ring with a loose base and pat down with the back of a spoon.

Melt the milk chocolate in a microwave, or in a glass bowl set over a pan of simmering water.

Mix the cream cheese, cream and sugar together until smooth. Add the raspberries and stir in, then add the melted chocolate and quickly swirl through. Spoon into the flan ring and smooth the top with a palette knife, then place in the fridge and chill for 2 hours.

Serve dusted with icing sugar and a little melted chocolate, if you like.

Cook's tip Leave the raspberries out or use frozen if you want to make this at other times of the year.

If you don't have raspberries, you can use strawberries, blueberries, blackberries...

BE INVENTIVE!

World Dance Day (29 April)!

As you all know, Monday was World Dance Day and our community started presenting dance groups as early as last Thursday. Faial danced up a storm! It went from Kindergarten children to Senior Citizens. Fantastic turn out!!!

For those of you who did not get a chance to head over to the Sport's Pavillion, here are videos of two groups from our school. One with the girls (Dance)and the other with some of our teachers ("Pinchos")from the CDE (Clube Desportivo Escolar)! COMING SOON!

“Dance is the hidden language of the soul”
Martha Graham

“Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.”
Voltaire

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like there's nobody listening,
And live like it's heaven on earth.”
William W. Purkey

quinta-feira, 25 de abril de 2013

Red Carnation Day!

Also called GRENADINE, OR CLOVE PINK, this herbaceous plant is a native to the Mediterranean area. These fringe petal flowers often have a spicy fragrance that lingers...

The red carnations in course of time became the symbol of wishing a mother love. Perhaps, red, the colour of blood and heart, was thought to be more suited to represent life and love.

25 April -The red carnation, or cravo in Portuguese, is the symbol of the revolution against the 40-year dictatorship which took place on 25 April 1974.

Here it symbolized FREEDOM, HONOR, LOVE FOR “MOTHER” COUNTRY…

The RED CARNATION – SYMBOL OF PEACE AND LOVE, NOT WAR!

quarta-feira, 27 de março de 2013

The budding trees, the new flowers,

And the birds that sweetly sing,

Whisper to me that it’s EASTER!

Here is wishing warmth for your soul

At EASTER and always!

terça-feira, 26 de março de 2013

EASTER, the holiday of CHOCOLATE...

STOP THE TRAFFIK

You don't have to eat this Easter egg for it to make you feel sick

A CHOCOLATEY MESSAGE THIS EASTER

Easter is linked to new beginnings, new seasons, hope and for some, chocolate! Whatever it means to you, we can bring hope for change if we remember to choose certified chocolate Easter eggs. Look for the Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance or UTZ certified logos: they are certification marks and their stamp on a chocolate product means the cocoa has not been harvested by trafficked children.

This is one of the topics talked about in our English classes (remember grade niners?!) and if you want to help follow the instructions above and think before you buy!

Check out the STOP THE TRAFFIK site for more information and cool initiatives for all!

domingo, 17 de março de 2013

HAPPY SAINT PATRICK'S DAY!

THE COLOUR GREEN, THE LUCKY SHAMROCK, THE SONGS AND THE MANY PARADES ARE ALL PART OF THIS DAY AND ITS TRADITIONS!

terça-feira, 8 de janeiro de 2013

FELIZ NAVIDAD

CURIOSITIES

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

Everywhere you go, you can hear about Two Turtle Doves, Seven Swans-a-Swimming and Eleven Pipers Piping. But what does any of this mean? What does a song about doves, hens and geese have to do with Christmas?The carol has its roots in 18th-century England, as a memory-and-forfeit game sung by British children. In the game, players had to remember all of the previous verses and add a new verse at the end. Those unable to remember a verse paid a forfeit, in the form of a kiss or a piece of candy to the others.
One theory, however, connects the carol to the era when Catholicism was outlawed in England, from 1558 and 1829. The carol, it is said, was a catechism song for Catholics to learn "the tenets of their faith," as they could not openly practice in Anglican society [source: Snopes.com]. While many still hold the idea of a coded hymn to be true, there's no substantive evidence that this was the case, nor is there any evidence that the verses contain anything uniquely Catholic.Here are the verses of the song, along with their supposed symbolism:
A Partridge in a Pear Tree - Jesus ChristTwo
Turtle Doves - The Old and New Testaments
Three French Hens - The three virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity
Four Calling/Collie Birds - Four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
Five Golden Rings - First five books of the Old Testament
Six Geese-a-Laying - Six days of creation before God's rest on the seventh day
Seven Swans-a-Swimming - Seven gifts of the Holy Spirit
Eight Maids-a-Milking - Eight Beatitudes
Nine Ladies Dancing - Nine fruits of the Holy Spirit
Ten Lords-a-Leaping - Ten Commandments
Eleven Pipers Piping - Eleven faithful disciples
Twelve Drummers Drumming -Twelve points of belief in the Apostles' Creed
The 12 days of Christmas, in fact, are the days from Dec. 25, celebrated as the birth of Jesus Christ, to the Epiphany, celebrated on Jan. 6 as the day when the manifestation of Christ's glory was realized.

OCTOBER - HALLOWEEN MONTH

"WITCHES"

Witches have had a long history with Halloween. Legends tell of witches gathering twice a year when the seasons changed, on April 30 - the eve of May Day and the other was on the eve of October 31 - All Hallow's Eve.

The witches would gather on these nights, arriving on broomsticks, to celebrate a party hosted by the devil. Superstitions told of witches casting spells on unsuspecting people, transform themselves into different forms and causing other magical mischief.

It was said that to meet a witch you had to put your clothes on wrong side out and you had to walk backwards on Halloween night. Then at midnight you would see a witch.

When the early settlers came to America, they brought along their belief in witches. In American the legends of witches spread and mixed with the beliefs of others, the Native Americans - who also believed in witches, and then later with the black magic beliefs of the African slaves.

"BLACK CATS"

Often used as symbols of bad luck, black cats grace many Halloween decorations. The black cat's bad reputation dates back to the Dark Ages, when witch hunts were commonplace. Elderly, solitary women were often accused of witchcraft, and their pet cats were said to be their "familiars," or demonic animals that had been given to them by the devil.

Another medieval myth told that Satan turned himself into a cat when socializing with witches. But nowadays, black cats aren't synonymous with bad luck and mischief everywhere — in Ireland, Scotland and England, it's considered good luck for a black cat to cross your path.

"TRICK OR TREAT!"

"Trick or treating" owes its existence to "souling" and "guising." What do they mean?

It’s one of a kid’s favorite parts of Halloween. There’s no feeling quite like waiting for a stranger to open his or her door so you can scream the words “trick or treat.”

But why do we say it? What does it actually mean?

The practice of donning a costume and asking for treats from your neighbors dates back to the Middle Ages. But back then it wasn’t a game.

During the medieval practice of souling, poor people would make the rounds begging for food. In return, they offered prayers for the dead on All Souls Day.

Modern trick or treating is a custom borrowed from guising, which children still do in some parts of Scotland. Guising involves dressing in costume and singing a rhyme, doing a card trick, or telling a story in exchange for a sweet. The Scottish and Irish brought the custom to America in the 19^th century.

The earliest reference of the term “trick or treat” in print was in 1927, in Alberta, Canada. It appears as if the practice didn’t really take hold in the U.S. until the mid-1930s, where it was not always well received. The demanding of a treat angered or puzzled some adults.

Supposedly, in a Halloween parade in 1948 in New York, the Madison Square Boys Club carried a banner sporting the message “American Boys Don’t Beg.”

Trick or treating today is now practiced in northwestern and central Mexico. But instead of saying “trick or treat,” children ask, ¿me da mi calaverita?, which means “can you give me my little skull?”

How did the Jack O' Lantern come about?

Every October, carved pumpkins peer out from porches and doorsteps in the United States and other parts of the world. Gourd-like orange fruits inscribed with ghoulish faces and illuminated by candles are a sure sign of the Halloween season. The practice of decorating “jack-o’-lanterns”—the name comes from an Irish folktale about a man named Stingy Jack—originated in Ireland, where large turnips and potatoes served as an early canvas. Irish immigrants brought the tradition to America, home of the pumpkin, and it became an integral part of Halloween festivities.

WHERE DID THE WHOLE "GIVE AN APPLE TO THE TEACHER" THING COME FROM?

According to aboutapple.com,
the juicy fruit is a traditional present for teachers in the United States,
Denmark, and Sweden. Some think the practice originated as a simple gift of food
for poorly paid teachers. Others believe the good health associated with applesmade the present particularly meaningful
.

INSPIRATIONAL / MOTIVATIONAL PROVERBS

In Languages we live...

A warm smile is the universal language of kindness.
William Arthur Ward

Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him. Maya Angelou

It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.: Confucius