SAVE THE WORLD: ONLINE ESCAPE ROOM

4ESO’S

ONLINE ESCAPE ROOM

As we celebrated Halloween in October, we decided to play a little escape room game inside the computer lab!

The escape room consisted 6 different missions where each pairs or groups have to work together to solve the puzzles in order to progress to the end. Each missions were different from one another and were related to school subjects like Maths, English and Geography!

We had to read and select the correct clues for them to move on to different stages throughout the game.

Each completed missions yielded secret numbers needed for the final stage of the game where we needed to put a secret code.

Here we are trying to solve the escape room!

We got to learn about the internet, social media platforms, and many more!

We sure did learn a lot about the internet, cultures and fun facts from different English speaking countries as the clues were related to them!

If you want to give the escape room a try, click this link right here:

https://view.genial.ly/5efd9dff4bbaa20d5e6f9a4c

Halloween at Cabrini… BOO!


Halloween was a blast this year at Cabrini! We took a break from normal English class to have some fun, but not without learning!

I started off class with some Halloween-themed riddles. I think that riddles are a great way to practice a foreign language because they often involve puns (double meanings) and expressions. It gets you thinking about the language in another way.

Many of the riddles were even guessed by students, including the hardest one that two students guessed!

Why did the witch refuse to wear a flat hat?
Because it was pointless!

After that warmup, we played a game that involved rearranging the letters in jack-o-lantern to make other words. I was really impressed by the creativity of the students. Two of my favorite words I saw were nectar and tackle, but there were so many other words.


I’d like to mention the winners of each grade as well as in the whole school.

In 1st grade, Manuel from 1B had the highest score with 63 points!
In 2nd grade, Carlota from 2C had the highest score with 56 points!
In 3rd grade, Cielo from 3B had the highest score with 77 points!
In 4th grade, Eoin from 4B had the highest score with 77 points!

Cielo and Eoin tied as winners of the whole school.

After that, the fun was not over! We went on to play Halloween Taboo. Students were given a card with a word that the class had to guess and then a list of words that they could not say in their description. Imagine explaining what a jack-o-lantern is without being able to say pumpkin, candle or orange! Fortunately, the kids at Cabrini are on top of their English game and did an awesome job.


I’m looking forward to celebrating more holidays with the students at Cabrini. Christmas is right around the corner!

Hello, Cabrini!

Me Holding a Stray Kitten in Madrigal de la Vera

Hi, everyone! My name is Michelle and I will be one of your language assistants this year! I’m already enjoying my time here at the school and am so impressed with your English level. This is my fifth year as a language assistant here in Madrid. I’ve worked in both primary and secondary in the past. I’ve come to prefer secondary because everything is more interesting and intellectually stimulating.

As you may already know, I’m from Baltimore, Maryland in the United States. You might have heard of Baltimore from the musical Hairspray or the series The Wire. Baltimore is known for its freshwater crabs, which come from the Chesapeake Bay and are seasoned with Old Bay. I love life in Madrid, but I do miss walking along the waterfront.

Baltimore Crabs and Natty Boh Beer

I am looking forward to helping you all improve your English, because I believe that in addition to learning vocabulary and grammar to structure your speech, the most important thing you can do to learn a language is be exposed to it through native speakers. If you copy what we say instead of translating from Spanish, you’ll sound much better!

My favorite part about being an assistant is the individual support that I can give to each student. Feel free to ask me for any help you need or chat me up when you see me around!

Here’s to a great school year at Cabrini!

The Baltimore Inner Harbor

Hi from Apryll!!

Hello Cabrini!

Toledo 2020!

My name is Apryll and I am excited to be one of your English Language Assistants for the 2022/2023 school year. I’m from Jamaica 🇯🇲 which I adore a lot and am excited to share more about my culture with you. Jamaica is an island located in the Caribbean and, for a smaller country, we have accomplished a lot including starting the popular Reggae music (cue Bob Marley!). That, as well as having the fastest man and woman in the world. There is so much more, but I am happy for this year together where we can scratch on the surface 😊.

I also love travelling and learning about other cultures. I have been blessed to be able to travel a lot since 2017. From that, I have had the opportunity to meet some great persons. Some of which I am still friends with to this day. I have an interesting personality as well. You’ll find out that I am very friendly and kind while being quiet and reserved at the same time. Nevertheless, put on some good music and I come alive!

Some of my other hobbies include reading, handcrafts and content creation (it’s so weird to call myself a YouTuber but here we are). I started documenting my ESL teaching series but eventually involved into productivity which I am passionate about. I feel that we all have greatness in us but the process of it being developed takes consistent effort and balance. This is not to say I don’t believe in downtime though, because we all need our rest.

Along with the many things I’ve done. I have also taught conversational English to people all over the world. I enjoyed getting to know them and their different cultures while sharing mine. I have found that developing your speaking skills in another language can be quite fun.

I am honoured to be a part of developing your bilingual skills and hope it will serve you for many years to come. Let’s have a wondeful school year!

Thank you!

Welcome Back!

Hello, and welcome back to the new academic year! You remember me from last year—my name is StephAnn, and I‘m one of your Language Assistants. I’ll be with you in History this year.

I hope you had a good summer, despite this pandemic that we are all experiencing. I had a really wonderful summer— I spent most of it reading about the protests in the United States, learning how to produce music, and sitting by the Rio Mao in Galicia meditating and writing songs.

I hope we can have fun this year in the new normal. We’ll do our best and we’re all in this together!

Here is one of my favorite songs from this summer:

Creating Our Own Newscast of History

The students of 4 ESO showed off their cinematography chops by creating video presentations of different sections of the chapter we’ve been studying—the build up to World War I, what life was like during the war, and the Russian Revolution.

Considering that they only had a week to prepare, many of the videos the students presented were very creative and excellently done. One group showed how they interviewed different people on the street, asking people what they thought the most significant moment in history was. Another group used a good use of voice dubs, and all the groups had students who impersonated various historical figures hilariously!

19th Century Imperialism

Studying history thus far has more or less followed a timeline—from the Ancien Regime to the Enlightenment to the Industrial Revolution. Continuing with this timeline, we have learned about 19th Century Imperialism. In this part of history, European powers searched for new markets and areas of control in order to gain more power relative to other European countries. A major part of this was the so-called ‘scramble for Africa’, in which European powers gathered at a conference to decide what pieces of the continent of Africa they wanted. This conference and it’s immediate results has had consequences still felt to this day. 

To drive home this concept, we created an activity in which the class was divided into groups, and within each group each student became the representative of a European power.

In groups comprising of different countries—Great Britain, France, Portugal, Belgium and Germany—they had to divide a map of Africa among themselves.

Part of this exercise required the students to give thought to their country’s motivations, military power and alliances with other countries. All of these things, along with their ability to negotiate, would affect how much territory they could gain.

After the activity, we asked the students to give thought to how the natives of Africa felt about their land being divided without their consent, and how the students themselves would feel if this was done to their own country. 

19th Century Classism

UNSPECIFIED – CIRCA 1865: Karl Marx (1818-1883), philosopher and German politician. (Photo by Roger Viollet Collection/Getty Images)

History class had a round of presentations to finish out the year. The students took the role of the teacher and presented on the Industrial Revolution and class-based societies of that era. Some groups presented on the origins of working class politics and others defined the concept of a class-based society while analyzing the differences between the social classes. 

We learned that the class-based society originated from the effects of the French and Industrial Revolutions. These Revolutions resulted in a society where people’s class was determined by their wealth, and that though all citizens were to be equal before the law, the fact was that there were great economic inequalities between classes. We also learned that life in the different classes were vastly different from one another. 

Groups also presented on the revolutionary ideologies of the 19th Century, including Marxism and anarchism. These ideas were revolutionary because they promoted working-class interests and aimed to transform society through a workers’ revolution—a far cry from the Ancient Regime in which only the nobility and clergy had any power.

Spanish War of Independence

In History class, we´ve transitioned away from the Ancién Regime. We spent time learning about Napoleon Bonaparte and his part in ending the French Revolution. By 1804, Napoleon had absolute power in France. (Incidentally, this was also the year that the Haitian Revolution ended and Haiti gained its independence from France. It was the first European colony to gain independence, and some academics argue that this was the beginning of Haiti’s suffering.)

Anyway, in the context of Napoleon, we learned about the Spanish War of Independence. 

Essentially, Napoleon took advantage of a treaty with Spain by invading Spain instead of simply crossing it to conquer Portugal. And, of course, the people of Spain rebelled, and the first Constitution was born.