Population counters

Did you know that the world population is now over 7 billion?  In English, that means 7,000,000,000!



But what does that mean?  Watch this video for perspective.

How did we get so big so fast?



Here we can watch in real time how populations increase and decrease:

US and World population counter
Breathing Earth

Spain's population

What do you think the future will be like with so many people????

English test Unit 2

We have the test for Unit 2 on Wednesday.

You have to study:

--The vocabulary from the text (the words from Pupil's Book page 32 and workbook page 13)

--Words with soft "ch" (like chocolate, chicken. lunch)  and hard "ch" (k sound) like: chemical, school, anchor.  You need to know which words belong in each category.

Grammar:

The main grammar points from this unit are:

Infinitive of purpose. We use the infinitive form (with "to" to explain why we do something.)

I went to the shops to buy a new dress.

She phoned her classmate to ask about the homework.

Have to for obligation in present, past, and future.

Click here for a quick review.

You also need to review the grammar from last unit: 

While + past continuous, interrupted by past simple.




Used to for things that were true in the past but are not true now.  Remember the form:

I used to have a dog, but now I have a cat.

Also, be careful!!!  This time, I will take off points for errors in present simple (do/does, 3rd person "s", etc.)

Thanksgiving song

On November 26th (the 4th Thursday in November) people in the United States celebrate Thanksgiving. We are also going to celebrate at school, but this year instead of sharing food, we are going to share songs!  Here is the song we are going to sing in 5th grade:

Theo Jansen in El Hormiguero

We are going to see these sculptures!

Palaeolithic Thaumatropes, Moving images... and a surprise!

Last week we saw some examples of thaumatropes, and how they were popular in 19th century Britain. But did you know that prehistoric people made their own thaumatropes and even had early cinema?  This article explains, and you can watch the animation.




Now we have new ways of making moving images. Check out these animated GIFs by David Szakaly:






And the surprise!  Would you like to meet these creatures?????





 On November 20th (5ºB) and November 24th (5ºA) we are going to see them in Madrid!

Immigrant photos from Ellis Island

From 1892 to 1954, many of the people who emigrated to the United States came by ship and entered through Ellis Island in New York.  Here are some photographs of people arriving there in the clothes from their countries. These children are wearing the clothes of the Sami people from Scandinavia:

More photos:

A woman and children from Slovakia

A  man from Russia

A woman from Italy

Women from Romania

On this website you can take a virtual tour of Ellis island and read about some of today's immigrants to the United States.

Immigrants and emigrants project

In Social Science we will be studying population. We are going to do a project about immigrants and emigrants.  This is what you need to do:

Find out if anyone in your family has been an emigrant or immigrant at some time in his/her life. (If not, you can think of someone you know who is not in your family.) Ask these questions and make a poster (A4 size) with a photo or drawing of the person or country, a map, etc.  You can also ask other things about their experience.

Averigua si alguien en tu familia ha sido emigrante o inmigrante en algún momento.  (Si no hay nadie, podéis pensar en algún conocido, aunque no sea de la familia.)  Hay que hacer estas preguntas y hacer un póster (tamaño folio) con alguna foto de la persona, el país, un mapa, etc. Si hay alguno que no podéis contestar, no pasa nada. También se puede preguntar otras cosas sobre su experiencia. Pongo la traducción, ya que a lo mejor tienes que hacer las preguntas en español (o en otra idioma!)

But, the poster has to be in English!

If no one in your family has emigrated to another country, perhaps somoene has left the village to live in a city, or moved to a different autonomous community.  Let's see what you can discover!

Si nadie en la familia ha emigrado a otro país, a lo mejor se ha ido del pueblo para vivir en una ciudad, otra comunidad autónoma, etc. ¡A ver lo que podáis averiguar!

Name:___________________________________
Birthplace:________________________________  (país donde nació)
What country did he/she emigrate to?_______________________ (a qué país fue?)
When did he/she emigrate?_______________________________ (Cuándo?)
Why did he/she emigrate?________________________________(Por qué?)
Did the person return again to live in his/her birthplace?_________ (¿volvió a vivir en su país de origen?)
When and why?_________________________________________
What did he/she bring to the new country?_____________________ (¿qué se llevó consigo al país nuevo?)
What did he/she miss most?_________________________________ ¿Qué es lo que más echó de menos de su país de orígen?

What was the experience like?_______________________________ ¿Cómo fue su experiencia?