Being allowed to play computer games in school lessons - sounds too good to be true.

Being allowed to play computer games in school lessons - sounds too good to be true!

But more than 200 UK schools are using a specially adapted version of the popular game Minecraft to help pupils to learn.

Minecraft is set in a virtual world where players build with blocks of different materials.

At one school, children play the game and then write stories inspired by their experience.

Teachers using the game say it can help get kids who don't like books to do more reading and writing.

Computer games have been blamed in the past for causing violence and addiction, but now some schools are encouraging children to play them in lessons to help with more traditional subjects.

So could "Angry Birds" help with trigonometry, or "The Sims" with social science?

Tim Muffett has been to a school in Barnsley which is using Minecraft in its English lessons.

From CBBC newsround

Past Simple of the verb "To Be"

http://www.inglesvip.com/grammar/simple-past-verb-to-be.html

http://suz.digitaleschulebayern.de/english/grammar/was_were1.htm

http://www.montsemorales.com/gramatica/Pastsimplebe.htm

http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/simple-past/exercises?03 (Affirmative)


http://suz.digitaleschulebayern.de/english/grammar/was_were1.htm (Negative)


http://s.mound.free.fr/skyblues67/simppast/wascloze.htm ( Aff./ Neg./Interrogative)


http://www.myenglishpages.com/site_php_files/grammar-exercise-simple-past-be.php ( Affirmative)

http://www.carmenlu.com/first/grammar/pastbe1_3.htm (Negative)

The 40 years of the Rubik's Cube

             Rubik's Cube is a 3-D combination puzzle invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. Originally called the Magic Cube,the puzzle was licensed by Rubik to be sold by Ideal Toy Corp. in 1980 via German businessman Tibor Laczi and Seven Towns founder Tom Kremer, and won the German Game of the Year special award for Best Puzzle that year. As of January 2009, 350 million cubes had been sold worldwide making it the world's top-selling puzzle game. It is widely considered to be the world's best-selling toy.

In a classic Rubik's Cube, each of the six faces is covered by nine stickers, each of one of six solid colours: white, red, blue, orange, green, and yellow. In currently sold models, white is opposite yellow, blue is opposite green, and orange is opposite red, and the red, white and blue are arranged in that order in a clockwise arrangement. On early cubes, the position of the colours varied from cube to cube. An internal pivot mechanism enables each face to turn independently, thus mixing up the colours. For the puzzle to be solved, each face must be returned to consisting of one colour. Similar puzzles have now been produced with various numbers of sides, dimensions, and stickers, not all of them by Rubik.

Although the Rubik's Cube reached its height of mainstream popularity in the 1980s, it is still widely known and used. Many speedcubers continue to practice it and other twisty puzzles and compete for the fastest times in various categories. Since 2003, The World Cube Association, the Rubik's Cube's international governing body, has organized competitions and kept the official world records.

There is only 1 correct answer and 43 quintillion wrong ones for Rubik's Cube. God's algorithm is the answer that solves the puzzle in the least number of moves. One eighth of the world's population has laid hands on 'The Cube', the most popular puzzle in history and the colorful brainchild of Erno Rubik.

From Wikipedia

Simpsons get a Lego makeover for a new episode

Cartoon family The Simpsons have had a Lego makeover.

Marge, Homer, Bart, Lisa and Maggie will all be Lego versions for a new episode.

An advert for the new look edition of the show has been released and it will be shown later in the year.

From CBBC newsround