Stefan's Blog for Kids: October 2014

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Present Simple or Present Continous

Oxford's Grammar
Present Simple Positive with 'be'
Present Simple Negative with 'be'

Present Simple Form (with the verb 'be'):

Present Simple Form (with all verbs except 'be'):

Mixed exercises with all verbs (be and other verbs):

Mixed exercise 1 with be and other verbs (fairly easy) (download in PDF)

Here's an exercise about spelling changes in this tense:

Spelling changes (easy) (download in PDF)

Practice exercises about how we use the present simple:

How to choose: Present Simple or Present Continuous?
Practise making 'wh' and 'yes / no' questions (exercise 1)
Practise making 'wh' and 'yes / no' questions (exercise 2)

Mixed Exercise 1 (includes positive, negative, and questions)
Mixed Exercise 2
Mixed Exercise 3

Click here if you'd like to learn how to USE the Present Continuous

Saturday, October 18, 2014

Christopher Columbus- What Really Happened

Children in the US learn that Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492 but since there were millions of people living on the American continents when he arrived what is Columbus's real importance in history this video will show what really happened during his voyages between two worlds and how they helped shape the two worlds we know today 1451 Columbus was born in the Republic of Genoa. there his sailing career but in 1477 he was hired as a merchant mariner or King John second of Portugal. Portugal steam power on the seas colonizing Atlantic islands and establishing trade with African kingdoms but the 1480s there naibors found out the Indian Ocean was on the other side in Africa. This discovery gave them a fast and cheap route to the rich goods of Asia. During Portugal's rise in power a curb of European scholars Stobbart was smaller then what previously believed this man one could reach Asia by sale West because in the newly invented printing pres.Columbus read about these recent theories and wasn't thrilled with the idea of sail for riches. He tried to get funding for an expedition from Portugal, but king John didn't believe in theory. He then tried France, England and Spain. No luck until 1492, when the Spanish sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella decided to help find three ships for a voyage. They saw Columbus as a means to compete against Portugal susses. The NEA Peter and Santa Maria set sail on August 3rd 1492 after stopping gran canary the rest of the trip took five weeks on October twelfth land was spotted it was an island and at dawn Columbus wanna sure because he believed in the small earth theory Columbus thought he was near Japan 's he called the natives the silent Indians because India was what many Europeans called Asia at the time the natives who really called but I emailed Taino . Trade began between the two parties but it was clear that the taino did not possess the fabled britches of East Asia however some of them were called this jewelry Columbus 's hungry for gold to bring back to Spain.He wandered around searching for large amount of gold to the Santa Maria until it crashed into a reef Hispaniola. Columbus left 39 men at the site to build a colony.
He promised that he would return for them and sailed back to Spain.
When he arrived in Europe he was famous. He had sailed into the unknown and returned to tell the tale

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Vasco de Gama

Vasco De Gama, The 15th Century Mariner

Listen here
Vasco de Gama is representing the Portuguese exploration. A couple of things about Portugal in the 15th century.
1. It was resource poor.
2. It had a fair bit of coast line.
This meant that Portugal relied upon trade to grow.
Also the Iberian peninsula was the only place in Europe where Muslims can be found in large numbers in the 15th century, which meant that the Christian Crusading spirit was quite strong there, presumably because Muslims had brought so much stability and prosperity to the region.The chief among these would-be crusaders was prince Henry the Navigator. And all that knowledge gave Portuguese sailors a huge competitive advantage when it came to exploration.
He was, however, a patron not only of sailors themselves, but of a special school at Sagres in which nautical knowledge was collected and new maps were made and all kinds of awesome stuff happened.
Henry commissioned sailors to search for two things. First a path to the Indian ocean so that they could get in on the lucrative spice trade, and second to find the kingdom of Prestor John, a mythical Christian king who was supposed to live in Africa somewhere, so that he could have the help of Prestor Johnn in the crusade.
The Gama was the king Henry's protegese to make it around Africa and into the Indian Ocean. In 1498, he landed at Calicut, a major trading center on India's West coast. And when he got there merchants asked him what he was looking for.
He answered with three words: Goald and Christians, which basically sups up Portugal's reasons for exploration.
So once the Portugese bridged the Indian Ocean, they didn't create like huge colonies, because they were already powerful empires in the region. apparently they sat in the middle of the Indian Ocean doing nothing. Actually they were able to capture and control a number of coastal cities, creating what historians call a "trading post empire". They could do this thanks to their armed ships, which captured cities by firing cannons into city walls like IRL Angry Birds.
So since the Portuguese didn't have enough people or boats to run the Indian Ocean trade, they had to rely on extortion. So Portuguese merchant ships would capture other ships and force them to purchase a permit to trade called a cartaz and without the cartaz, a merchant could not trade in any of the towns Portugal controlled. To merchants who sailed the Indian Ocean for years in relative freedom the Portugese were just glorified pirates, extracting value from trade without adding to its efficiency or volume. So the Cartaz strategy worked for a while, but Portugal never really took control over the Indian Ocean trade. They were successful enough that their neighbors Spain, became interested in their own route to the Indies.

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