Further ICT resources

Today I've hung a few ICT resources that the teachers of St. Mary's university (London) recommended me as a really good way to help shy children to speak. Most of them consist on some sort of digital puppets you can make talk.

The teacher's criteria to choose the apps are:
-It must be easy to use.
-It must be easy to share.
-It must be free (not having to pay for it).

I would , personally, add two more criteria:
-It has to be free (as in free software) if possible.
-It has to run in as many platforms as possible.

Unfortunately, many of the apps that they recommended are for Apple (ipad/iphone mainly) though not all of them.

GO TO THE ICT RESOURCES SECTION AND SEE THEIR MAIN FEATURES AND WHERE TO DOWNLOAD THEM.

Idioms and proverbs II

As I promised, here you have a few more examples of how not to translate idioms into a different language.
http://www.experiensense.com/lost-in-translation/ 
http://blogs.publico.es/strambotic/2014/07/the-painful/

Enjoy.

Nursery rhymes at the Natural History Museum

Nursery rhymes can be useful for developing a cross curricular approach too!!
Last week, while visiting the Natural History Museum, I found a new version of Itsy Bitsy (or Eensy Weensy) Spider in which the kids can learn to appreciate their beneficial role within a house environment.

Here you have the original version of the song (one of them)




And here the Natural History Museum's cover.

In case you cannot read it properly, here is the whole lyrics:

Insy-winsy spider didn't climb up the spout

She fell into the sink, now she can't climb out

If a thougtful person were to set this spider free

She would catch more household pests -and eat them eagerly.

Idioms and proverbs

A really good thing to do with your class, specially with the higher levels, is to show them some idioms, their translation to your own language and a brief explanation of why those idioms have that meaning. In my opinion, that helps to fade out the idea that languages admit direct translation out of context. The people from unadocenade.com have made a nice compilation of them in the following link.

Some hilarious examples of the opposite, such as the expression "from lost to the river" (and many others that you can find in the homonym book series), might be helpful (if used right) to create awareness on the uselessness of out-of-context-direct-translations.

I'll publish soon a few good examples. For now you can have thought on this translation that I found in a restaurant menu (I swear I'm not making it up): Pulpo/polbo a feira = Octopus on a party.
Would you actually know what are you ordering if you were an English speaker?
Would you order it at all if you don't know what is it?

English schools

I am participating in an exchange program between Spanish and English students so I can get to know the English educative system. So far, the experience has been really good. I have seen how things can be done in a really different way (specially when you don't lack human and material resources). I will try to post regularly about my experiences here (obviously without telling you the name of the school or any other information, which is of course confidential). In addition, I'll try to post some photos (without children) so you can see how their classes look like.

So far, the most remarkable thing I've seen is that for this children (for most of them anyway) getting to read a book is a reward rather than a punishment. This is very telling of what is the result of a very well done jog in reading promotion. My most sincere compliments to the teachers, specially those in the first years, that managed to seed such love for books in the children, instead of making them hate them.

A BROKEN TELEPHONE

This is a good pre/post-activity that can be easily adapted to nearly any story you can think of. First of all, you have to divide your class in groups, 2 to 4 depending on the amount of pupils and the way you normally work with your group. Here you have some tips for that. Once it is done, choose a phrase which has something to do with the story, e.g. "Goldilocks was very hungry and she walked into the kitchen". Tell the phrase to the first person of each group so they can whisper it to the next. The last student has to say it aloud. If he or she is right, they would have won the round. After every round, the students who had received the phrase from the teacher will have to go to the back of their group, ensuring a proper rotation.

Its main advantage is that, besides being an amusing game enjoyed both by children and adults, it can be adapted to any level and background and therefore it should be challenging and motivating without being frustrating.

Dramatization of a story

It is an interesting technique as it makes the students work and exchange information between them three times: firstly as they prepare it, secondly as they do it and thirdly when they talk and reflect about what they have just done. I think that this is an ageless activity, provided that any sort of scenic fear or shame has not been already developed in the children.

Tongue twisters: she sell seahells...

Tongue twisters are another excellent activity to for a lively English class. They are an enjoyable way of improving phonetic awareness while having fun. This was the very first activity I created for this class based on the fairly well known tongue twister: She sells seashells on/by/at the seashore.

Firstly, we started forming a train and imitating its sound using the sounds we produce in English for S and SH. S-SH-SH-SH-SH  S-SH-SH-SH-SH  S-SH-SH-SH-SH S-SH-SH-SH-SH  S-SH-SH-SH-SH

Once we gain familiarity with the sound we change to a different pattern, that of the tongue twister itself
SH-S-S-SH-S-SH    SH-S-S-SH-S-SH     SH-S-S-SH-S-SH   SH-S-S-SH-S-SH.

After playing for a while with the sequence we are ready to attempt the tongue twister.

The following pictures can be used if we want to paint a few shells as a post-activity.

As a general consideration when using tongue twisters, we must try to make them challenging, but not frustrating. For instance, in the picture you have an extended version which is slightly more difficult and can be used once the children domain the previous one.

An example of progressive level in a tongue twister:

Easy
Three Swedish witches
watch three Swiss watches.
Which Swedish witch
watch which Swiss watch?

Medium
Three Swedish switched witches
watch three Swiss Swatch watches.
Which Swedish switched  witch
watch which Swiss Swatch  watch?

Hard
Three Swedish switched witches
watch three Swiss Swatch watch switches
Which Swedish switched  witch
watch which Swiss Swatch  watch switch?

And as a final thought: is this or or is this not a much nicer way of learning English phonetics?


If you liked it, the British council offers a selection of them to be used in your class.
And her you have a few more.

Creating expectation and other elements for atrezzo

The way in which you start a reading promotion session has an outstanding importance as the first impression the children get is going to have a huge impact on their attitude, attention, interest and general behaviour.

I, personally, haven't paid much attention to this in the past and I think it is one of my weakest points. However, there are a number of different things that you can use in order to create that sensation of thrill, of expectation that will give us our group's full attention, at least for a while.

For instance, one of our most famous local storytellers has a suitcase full of stories: La Maleta de Leocadio. This is a fairly simple element, but as children are used to have a storytelling session every time you use it, it fulfills its purpose really well.

Other things one might use is a decorated bag, a story box, a balloon piñata, crackers or any other similar elements. Sometimes those elements can serve you to form groups later on, like using different colours for the balloons, or placing different colour papers or numbers, or animals or whatever suits the activity in the cracker. This is an intelligent way of improving your time management.

In addition, one might use other kind of elements that, when used in a recurrent basis, allows the children to anticipate what is going to happen next. Among other elements we could go for a story hat, a story jacket, the story telling staff (as a magician cane), etc. Its strength is taken from the way you use it.

Finger puppets: They can be made with the children as a pre-activity, we can have them made ourselves or we can even paint a rudimentary one with a pen or fine marker on our fingers or thumbs. Even if you have your own, it is still a recommendable pre-activity as it allows the children to participate further later on.

Nellie the elephant

This is not an easy song, it has quite a few difficult words and structures and it might be a bit too long for children at the first grades. Nevertheless we can teach them the chorus (or the first two verses with the chorus) at the beginning and subsequently teach them one verse at a time, always providing a context. I like this song particularly for several reasons: First and foremost, it talks to the children about an animal that does not want to be chained or showed in a circus (which I think is an important lesson to learn). Secondly, the first two verses and the chorus are not too difficult if a good context is provided (mimics, silent drama, a video). Thirdly, it can be used year after year and when we achieve the point when children are not interested in nursery rhymes anymore, we can provide them with a punk cover by The Toy Dolls which many adults love and which was indeed a great hit during 84's christmas.

To Bombay
A travelling circus came
They brought an intelligent elephant
And Nellie was her name
One dark night
She slipped her iron chain
And off she ran to Hindustan
And was never seen again

Ooooooooooooo...

Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk
And said goodbye to the circus
Off she went with a trumpety-trump
Trump, trump, trump
Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk
And trundled back to the jungle
Off she went with a trumpety-trump
Trump, trump, trump

Night by night
She danced to the circus band
When Nellie was leading the big parade
She looked so proud and grand
No more tricks
For Nellie to perform
They taught her how to take a bow
And she took the crowd by storm

Ooooooooo

Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk
And said goodbye to the circus
Off she went with a trumpety-trump
Trump, trump, trump
Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk
And trundled back to the jungle
Off she went with a trumpety-trump
Trump, trump, trump

The head of the herd was calling
Far, far away
They met one night in the silver light
On the road to Mandalay
So Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk
And said goodbye to the circus
Off she went with a trumpety-trum
Trump, trump, trump

Ooooooooooooo...

Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk
And said goodbye to the circus
Off she went with a trumpety-trump
Trump, trump, trump
Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk
And trundled back to the jungle
Off she went with a trumpety-trump
Trump, trump, trump

Using the song:

Like I said before, I think a good way to introduce such a complex song will be to focus on the first two verses and the chorus. To start with we will listen to the song together with this video to provide some context. Subsequently we will listen again, but adding some mimics for the chorus (packing, saying good bye, the trumpety -trump etc.). We can finish by making a small dramatization in which the first two verses are performed.

In case we are working with older people, we can continue by playing after a few times the Toy Dolls cover in two different videos: one containing the lyrics and the official video.

Activities related with special days or dates:

Quite often we are able to use special days, celebrations, the change of the season, etc. as a topic to link a sequence of activities. The fact that we are talking about something that is happening here and now makes it motivating and relevant to the children.

In our class we did several activities related to autumn such as:

Autumn rhymes

Autumn acrostic poems

I must say I've never particularly enjoy this kind of activity. I find them as boring as I did as a child. However, there are several authors, such as Gianni Rodari, that recommend this kind of activity to promote creativity. This is a selection of what was written in class.

Created with Padlet

Created with Padlet

Halloween activity

The last one is the one I really liked here are a few tips to organize it:

1-Introduction and motivation:

                Halloween e-card. 

In the following link you will find an amazing Halloween e-card. In addition, you here it is a compilation of pages that gives you tips both for digital and classic Halloween cards for children.

                Pumpkins, candles and further atrezzo.

This kind of elements help you to create expectation. Use them for introduction and motivation and use them to link with the next activity by means of lighting them and asking for a spell.

You can create other elements to provide background such as magic potions (with soda powder, vinegar, a bit of soap and cupcakes colourant) which as you will see later on in the video can be used for amazing tricks that can be related with your science class.

2-Writing spells

                Children have to write their spells and hung them on a Poplet wall, for example:

Frog leg and owl feathers or

Wolf fang and skin of snakes

Cast a spell over this `potion

That will charm you anyway.

Later on you can put them all together like we did here.

Created with Padlet

3-Reading the spells aloud around the candles while we watch the potions.
This is a good way to work things as stress, rhythm and other phonetic aspects of the language while doing something fun. The teacher might start reading aloud so the children are presented with a quality input to replicate and later on different groups or individual students will recite their own spells as well as their mates.
At the same time this works really well as a context for the following activities.

4- We finish up with the first chapter of Meg and Mog  which is available as a normal video or with texts to read.

There are many pre and post activities related to Meg and Mog available. Here it is what we prepared for the 4th grade children of La Salle.

 

MEG AND MOG

Ø  Activity 1: Brainstorming.

What do you know about witches?

1.      We ask the children to say aloud words that they know about witches. 

2.      We draw a table on the blackboard and we organize the words in groups.

WITCH’S THINGS	WITCH’S PETS	WITCH’S BODY	WITCH’S CLOTHES
Cauldron	Frog	Wart	Hat
Broom	bat

3.      We teach them to build a mind map with it by using a popplet.

http://popplet.com/app/#/1420658

Ø  Activity 2: Introducing the characters.

We show the children the following flashcards and we ask them questions about them.

JESS	TESS	CRESS	OWL
BESS	MEG	CAT

~        What is this? Is it an animal? Is it a witch?

~        Is it a cat? Is it an owl?

~        Is she Jess, Tess, Cress, Bess or Meg?

~        Has she got a frog? Has she got a spider? Has she got…?

Activity 3: Guess who.

1.      With the questions we organize a ‘Guess who’ game in groups with the information about the witches. It has the only purpose of teaching them how to play. To do that we ask one group to leave the class. We choose one of the flashcards. When the pupils come back into the class they have to make questions to guess the flashcard that we are talking about.

2.      Once they’ve learned how to play we start a new game using new questions and with the pupils in the class

What’s she wearing?

Is she tall/ short?

Has she got long/short/ curly/straight hair?

Activity 4: Reading.

We read Meg and Mog’s book.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56KgadehXg8

 Video.

Now, in small groups the children have to take the video home and record their voices as if they were the characters.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti_9JEHTZZs

Activity 5: A cauldron party.

In a circle, each student will have to say what she/ he is going to put in into the cauldron.

‘As I’ve been invited to this cauldron party, I’ve brought this_____ in case we get hungry hahaha’ (flashcards with strange animals)

Activity 6: Role play.

There is a witch in the village and she’s putting spells on the village people. We need to catch the witch together before she puts everybody under her spell.

Characters: A director (the teacher), a witch and the rest are the villagers.

Rules of the game: We sit on a circle and we deal a card to each player, one of the cards is the witch and the rest are the villagers.

This is an amazing dynamic to practice conversation. It allows children to speak to each other, as they have to decide who the witch is in order to try and execute it.

Some of the structures they can practise are:

‘I think that she is the witch because’...         ‘She spoke first’...    ‘she didn’t speak...

‘She is the witch because’...    ‘she moved’...            ‘she is silent’..

Once everyone has their card the director (or teacher) will ask everybody to go to sleep, so everyone will look down. Subsequently, the director will call the witch to wake up, put a spell on a villager (by means of pointing or looking to its victim), and get back to sleep. Then the villagers will wake up and the director will inform the victim of his or her condition. Immediately after, people will speak against each other for a few minutes- For instance Pedro may say: ‘I think that Manolo is the witch because I saw him moving a little when the witch was cursing’. And Pedro might reply: ‘I think the wolf is Pedro because he accused me first’. After a while there will be a poll. Whoever is voted witch will be executed (loses the game), and therefore will turn his or her card facing up. If it is the witch (the real one,) the round is over and we shall assign new roles. If the person chosen is a villager, the whole process will start again.

We can adapt the background of the dynamic to whatever text we are working with. The characters could be animals, villagers, courtier, or whatever suits us; in the same manner the witch could be any antagonist that appears in our story.

 And this is the video of what we finally did.

Many of my classmates did their activities base on Meg and Mog for different grades within the same school. Here there are a few videos on what they did.

I particularly like the one my mates did for nursery school children because despite having too far too many children for the activity they are performing, they successfully maintain their attention at all times while they manage to make them say the names of many ingredients.




On the other hand I must say I didn't like that much the final activity they did based on this one as I did not really grasped what the whole point was, besides making a brownie. In this sense, I have observed that too often (not this particular group, I'm talking in general) the input that we are offering the children is wrong (e.g. talking about a cooking receipt instead of a recipe) and that makes me wonder what is the use then. I mean that I might be doing and amusing activity in which the children are going to relate certain concepts with its representation in English verbal language through and input that we are providing. But if the input is not correct, the children are learning something wrong and we might be creating problems for the future.

Noah's Ark

Noah's Ark is ready to sail, but most animals run away last night. You have to find them as soon as possible. The team that finds them first will get a free ride in the Ark.


This is a really good post-activity to be used after a song or a story related to animals. It consists on writing animal names that the children may know (be careful to adapt it to their level so it is fun rather than frustrating) in small cards, divide them between two or more teams and allow them to describe the animals to their own team so they can guess which animal it is and go to the next. If somebody doesn't know the animal they have to describe they can skip their turn after placing that card in the last position.

This is an activity that can be adapted in many different ways:
-Normally you are not allowed to describe an animal by its sound or using not verbal language, however, this might be very recommendable when doing it with small children.
-If you do so, you might like to use pictures instead of cards with the names written on them (or both things).
-You might decide not to form teams in case you want to have a better control over the class as a whole.

-If the activity is based on description by verbal language a few posters that provide with the most essential vocabulary such as this one.

Using prezy and other slideshow tools

Prezy Prezy is a new tool which allows you to create more complex slide presentations than other software, and it allows you to collaborate with other people. I think that it can be a very useful tool. However, if we do not use it carefully it can be both helpful or harmful. Why? You might ask. Well, the following tips apply to most slideshow software:
-Do not put a lot of text together. Our mind can manage 7 +-2 elements at the time, so try not to use more than 7 lines and 7 words per line.
-Do not use pictures that do not provide any relevant information, as you are focusing attention somewhere else. As an example, in one of the recent presentations we had, most slides were full of pictures, gif's etc. which were as funny as irrelevant (even two ladybirds having sex on top of a road sign). Use images that provide information related to the matter (sometimes they give you much more than several slides of text) or, within a reading promotion context, use images that work as scaffolding, providing information that your pupils might not be receiving through verbal communication (and therefore helping them to understand).
-Try to use black letters over white background. I know it doesn't look cool, but it makes it accessible to everyone. If you are using a rainbow of colours, be ready to adapt it whenever is necessary.
-When using Prezy, try not to do sudden camera moves. It distracts people and makes the whole thing more difficult to follow. Some people have even reported cases of people feeling dizzy after watching a slideshow with this characteristics.
-Download a PDF version. Not everybody uses Microsoft software, and your internet connexion might fail. If you download a PDF version you will be sure you will have your resources available. As an example I'm going to show you two different presentations. The one that is in English is, in my opinion, the best (although I'm not entirely happy either) as the way the camera moves between rings helps to understand the relations between them (although like I say it has to be improved). The second one pretends to look somehow like a river that flows (it is a presentation about the quality of Burgo's main river water), but that makes the camera move constantly from one place to another.

What does the curriculum say about using short stories and other small texts such us songs or nursery rhymes?

What does the curriculum say about using short stories and other small texts such us songs or nursery rhymes? We have been looking into the Spanish curriculum to find out and we have made a mind map using Poplet. If you have any problems reading it, simply download it and use the zoom.As usual, your comments are more than welcome.

Using Glogster: an introduction to the Beatles

Among other ICT resources, we have been using glogster. This is a really interesting tool which allows you to create interactive posters. In this case our aim was to introduce The Beatles to the children and hopefully have them singing along with their families later on at home. As a pre-activity we have created this introductory play in which the musicians and their story are told. 

The Beatles (primer ciclo EPO) 

John is sixteen years old and he loves music. He goes to Quarry Bank High School every morning and listens to music in the evening. Paul is fifteen years old and he loves music too. In the morning, he goes to Quarry Bank High School too. One day, John starts playing music with his classmates, because they love music too. They start a band. Do you know what the name of the band is? Its name is the quarrymen because they all go to Quarry Bank High School and they are men. One day, John goes to a party after school and Paul goes there too. 

The Beatles

(primer ciclo EPO)

John is sixteen years old and he loves music. He goes to Quarry Bank High School every morning and listens to music in the evening.

Paul is fifteen years old and he loves music too. In the morning, he goes to Quarry Bank High School too.

One day, John starts playing music with his classmates, because they love music too. They start a band. Do you know what the name of the band is? Its name is the quarrymen because they all go to Quarry Bank High School and they are men.

One day, John goes to a party after school and Paul goes there too.

John says: Hello, my name is John, John Lennon. I love music and I have a band: the quarrymen.

 Paul says: nice to meet you, John. My name is Paul, Paul McCartney and I love music too. Can I be on your band? I love playing the guitar.

John says: Of course you can be on my band! Welcome to my band!!

Ringo and George love music too. Ringo loves playing drums and George loves playing the guitar, but they don’t know John and Paul.

One day, they start a new band together. The name of the new band is the beatles (explicar juego de palabras: sounds like beetles but you spell it like beat).

Do you know what the beat is? The beat is what you do when you clap your hands for a song.

In the new band, John plays the guitar and George plays the guitar too. Ringo plays the drums and Paul plays the bass.

Do you know what a bass is?

The bass is a big guitar with four strings that plays the rhythm of the song (pictures of guitar and bass).

And, do you know who sings in the band? Well, they all sing because they all like singing.

Do you want to listen to one of their songs? No? Nevermind, you’re gonna do it anyway!!!

(just kidding) Let’s see the wonderful poster we have for you!!!   

Later on we will explore the different features of our poster and we will sing altogether!!

As you can see, we have use the song Hello, goodbye to work the concept of opposite. However, its importance within the whole activity is really small and our main aim is to have our pupils singing and enjoying a real text.

In addition we can ask our students to create a Glogster about a story or a topic that we have been working on.