National Creativity Day

 

This morning I found out via the Facebook page of Prinfab (the company that prints my fabric designs) that today, May 30th, is National Creativity Day.  You can find out more about the day here.

The main focus of the day is artistic creativity, although for me creativity is also pedagogical creativity, linguistic creativity and "crafty" creativity.  (Read more about creativity here.)

I engage my linguistic and pedagogical creativity by creating teaching resources for the languages community, which I put on Light Bulb Languages and my Sellfy shop.

I also spend a lot of tine (probably too much!) sewing language-based goodies and more for my Etsy shop, LumenMakes.

Today, as it's half term, I have been having a play with my Cricut machine.  I have been experimenting with printable vinyl to make acetate keyrings.  Now I am trying to find a way to protect the vinyl.  I have tried gloss Mod Podge, which is indeed glossy, but you can see the brush marks.  Any suggestions?!

Another creative thing I have on my list for this half term is sewing my younger daughter's prom dress.  I have until mid-July so it's not too urgent!

So happy National Creativity Day!  What do you do to be creative?

Mis vacaciones en España

A lot of my little students go on their holidays to Spain.  They often tell me about it and ask me about things that they can say when they are there.  When my girls were primary age, I used to "encourage" them to keep a holiday diary, where they would write about what we had done and stick in pictures and other souvenirs.

Inspired by these two things, I have made a booklet for children going on holiday to Spain.

It is designed to encourage them to practise a little of the language, to take note of the culture and sights around them, and it provides them with a record and souvenir of their holiday.

Here in the north-east, hardly any of the children go to France on holiday, so I hadn't thought about making a French version.  However, teachers from other areas of the country have said that some of their students go to France, so I will be making a French version.

Tarsia Maker

I've written a lot about Tarsia puzzles in the past, and have also made a lot!  There is now a new Tarsia puzzle maker on the block, which I have just been checking out.  It's called Tarsia Maker.

As you can see from this screenshot, there are four different puzzle shapes available:

1. little triangle - 9 pairs
2. big triangle - 18 pairs
3. "lozenge" - 11 pairs
4. hexagon - 30 pairs

You click on the puzzle shape you want to make, and then it's just a question of typing in your pairs of words or phrases.  You can toggle easily between the boxes by using the Tab button.  Once you've finished typing in your words, just click "Export to PDF" and your puzzle is ready.  The PDF includes the puzzle solution and a link to your puzzle if you want to retrieve and edit it.

So how does it compare to the Formulator Tarsia?  I've compared them and listed the advantages and disadvantages of Tarsia Maker.

Advantages	Disadvantages
Web-based – no need to download and install any software Much easier and less time-consuming to type in your words and phrases You can use the “shuffle” button to change the position in the puzzle of your pairs of words/phrases and randomise them.	Only one font (although it is a clear Arial-type font) Only 4 puzzle types Not possible to have red-herring or extension words/phrases on the puzzle edges Not possible to add images The PDF provides the puzzle and its solution but not the table that Formulator Tarsia provides. Not possible to create dominoes or “follow-me” activities

It looks like there are more disadvantages than advantages, but the advantages are significant and the program's convenience goes a long way to outweighing the disadvantages.

If you're interested in making Tarsia puzzles to use in language lessons, don't forget to have a look at my guide Ideas for using Tarsia.