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History of English (Source: A History of English by Barbara A. Fennell) The English language is spoken by 750 million people in the world as either the official language of a nation, a second language, or in a mixture with other languages (such as pidgins and creoles.) English is the (or an) official language in England, Canada, Australia and New Zealand; however, the United States has no official language. Indo-European language and people English is classified genetically as a Low West Germanic language of the Indo-European family of languages. The early history of the Germanic languages is based on reconstruction of a Proto-Germanic language that evolved into German, English, Dutch, Afrikaans, Yiddish, and the Scandinavian languages. In 1786, Sir William Jones discovered that Sanskrit contained many cognates to Greek and Latin. He conjectured a Proto-Indo-European language had existed many years before. Although there is no concrete proof to support this one language had existed, it is believed that many languages spoken in Europe and Western Asia are all derived from a common language. A few languages that are not included in the Indo-European branch of languages include Basque, Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian; of which the last three belong to the Finno-Ugric language family. Speakers of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) lived in Southwest Russia around 4,000 to 5,000 BCE. They had words for animals such as bear or wolf (as evidenced in the similarity of the words for these animals in the modern I-E languages.) They also had domesticated animals, and used horse-drawn wheeled carts. They drank alcohol made from grain, and not wine, indicating they did not live in a warm climate. They belonged to a patriarchal society where the lineage was determined through males only (because of a lack of words referring to the female's side of the family.) They also made use of a decimal counting system by 10's, and formed words by compounding. This PIE language was also highly infl

Here are my choices for The Best Resources For Learning About Multiple Intelligences: For Students and For Teachers

""We should be teaching students how to think. Instead, we are teaching them what to think.""

Reflective Protocols for Literary Artifacts "# What do you see here? Describe the document/artifact in terms of content, without being interpretive. # What do you think you know about this document based on reading it and any previous knowledge? # What do you think the document reveals about its era/ What kinds of information can be learned from the document? (There might be more than one kind of information). # What don't you know about the document? What questions would you ask about it? # If you were going to do further research on this document on the World Wide Web or in the library, how would you go about it? # What knowledge or skills are you bringing to this course from other learning experiences you've had that help you make sense of these documents?"

Great article about how kids can help teachers when it comes to PD

A great collection of FREE and FUN vocab learning games and word lists organized by grade level and units

Great piece about what it truly means to engage kids with real world opportunities!

Children enjoy playing fun games and teaching them can sometimes be challenging. Why not let them do what they like and enjoy while learning takes place? This spelling games are good way to mix learning and playing.

The creative visual learning platform that every educator and student deserves.

Ryan Goble, who often coaches teachers in what he calls the "mindful" use of technology, has written today's guest post on user-friendly tools that enable the creation of student projects.

Fun for students learning about Anglo-Saxons, Old English, or the history of English.