"...understand basic grammar appropriate to the language being studied, including (where
relevant): feminine, masculine and neuter forms and the conjugation of high-frequency
verbs..."
To understand what conjugation is, we did different activities in Y6 last week.
We learnt an an action for each of the six verb forms.
We practised the different forms of the verb "tener" with games like the red herring.
In the second half of the lesson we had to use our imaginations to design either a conjugation bug, a conjugation dice or a conjugation creature with six parts.
The pupils' work is amazing, take a look! Thank you Kimberly Wirries (@SenoritaWirries) for the idea!
In April I went to Greg Horton's ALL Active Learning session, where he showed us fantastic activities for the languages classroom. I have already blogged about his tense dance before, now I will tell you about how I adapted the Mission Impossible conjugation for my primary pupils!
The new Languages Programmes of Study states that children should understand and apply high frequency verbs by the end of KS2. In Year 6 all my pupils know three singular forms of the verb "tener" (tengo, tienes, tiene), this week we added the plural forms. I made a PP with the following sentences:
Tenemos un canal. ( In Burscough there is one!)
¿Tenéis calor? ( We are in a very warm classroom in Year 6:-)
Tienen una playa. (Our penpals have one in Spain).
We have added some actions for the verbs : Tengo:we point to ourselves with one hand Tienes:we point to the one sitting next to us with one hand Tiene:we point to somebody who is sitting in the other end of the classroom with one hand
Tenemos:we point to ourselves with two hands Tenéis: we point to the ones sitting next to us with two hands Tienen: we point far away, to the other end of the classroom with two hands and think of our penpals who have a beach in Spain.
I played the "Mission Impossible" theme song and they had to walk around, do the actions and say the words. The first word (tengo) comes in the 23rd second of the video, then the rest follows with the same tune. You will understand me once you listen to the song! After the first minute I stopped the music because it changed and it was no use, and also, there was a bit of overexcitement in the classroom, and we needed to calm down. The pupils were allowed to shoot with their hands while pointing, they loved it, even in first person singular! It would work better with 4 verbs in each singular and plural, but I just let them do an extra shooting after tiene and tienen.
More Greg Horton on my friend Barbara's blog: Back to Back, a very entertaining way of "testing" the pupils.
Thank you Greg Horton, and also, thank you ALL (Association for Language Learning) for organising high quality CPD events! If you are not a member of the ALL yet, join now on their website: http://www.all-languages.org.uk/ , £36 only. Because I am an ALL member, Greg Horton's training session cost me £10 (a whole morning), and I learnt so much! What are you waiting for?:-)
Wednesday morning is my very official PPA time, my daughter is in nursery until lunchtime and I have about 4 hours to sort my lessons out. After finding my laptop in the most impossible places, like the ironing basket or behind the radiator,I spend most of the time on Twitter or Facebook, looking for new ideas and sharing what I can help with. Today I have realised that I no longer have Office on my new computer, and can't open PowerPoints, so I thought it was a sign that I had to do something completely different. I looked in my Twitter box (ideas taken from Twitter that need adapting to my groups) and found these buildings blocks I had put away after reading Dominic McGladdery's blog.
They will fit in with our activities very well, because at the end of the school year we are looking back at "old" topics and skills, and we create sentences. We come out to the front of the class and act out the different parts of the sentence, we change each other if we know a different or better word and we try to make the sentence as long as possible. The building blocks will be used as part of the "sentence celebration" activities. As I said, no Microsoft Office, so I invented the kitchen whiteboard Powerpoint, it is very easy to use :-) These are the sentences I have written on the blocks. After reading them and discussing them, the class went to sleep for a minute on their desks (they just put their heads down), and I put a block in front of everybody. When they woke up, they had to find where they belonged to and stay together. We did this activity in Year 6 only so far, but I will show you the Year 5 photos, too:
The activity went really well in Year 6, the pupils read the sentences first on the whiteboard, practised tengo/tienes/tiene, then they were given a block and had to find their sentences without the whiteboard. It was a bit messy and noisy but they were saying the words and trying to work out where they needed to be. We did the last few words together, as a class.I have blank blocks and next week we will add more words to our sentences.
Another possibility is to make our own movies on the iPads with "Lego movie maker", this was Joe Dale's idea on Twitter. I have downloaded it and we will definitely use the app once it is on the school iPads.
And if you are feeling sorry for my daughter/son because I have taken their toys away, I can assure you that they won't even notice, they have so many. And anyway, who do you think enjoys Lego most in my family? :-)
On a Saturday morning last month, I went to an ALL CPD event in Manchester called "Active Learning" by Greg Horton. It was absolutely amazing, he really got us out in the middle of the dance floor, we laughed and learnt a lot. We promised to try his activities immediately in the classroom, and I have included something "active" in most of my lessons ever since then.
The "tense dance" is suitable for secondary learners, you dance with a partner, who says a sentence in present/past/future and you have to move accordingly.
Present: one step to the side
Past: one step backwards
Future: one step forwards
Opinion: twirl:-)
In primary school we only speak in present tense, so I came up with different challenges for my classes today.
Year 3
Weather sentence with a silent letter: one step forwards!
Weather sentence without a silent letter: one step backwards!
Weather sentence with an adverb: one step sideways!
Weather question: twirl!
Year 4
Sentence with a feminine noun: move forwards!
Sentence with a masculine noun: move backwards!
Sentence with an adjective: move sideways!
2 verbs in a sentence: sentence: twirl!
Year 5
Sentence "on the hour": move forwards!
Sentence with "half past": move backwords!
A question: move sideways!
Opinion: twirl!
It was a loud and messy activity, we loved it! I demonstrated the dance beforehand with a volunteer, and it was so funny:-) I even put some background music on ("Jota de los toros", our eTwinning partner Natalia sent us from Valladolid), so the noise level was similar to a Saturday night in the disco! I walked around, helped out with the sentences and danced with the shy ones.
The PowerPoint was up for support, but I made it clear that they could use their own sentences. They took turns saying a sentence each. The classroom was just about the right size, but next week I will take them to the hall for the dance.
Thank you Greg for this fantastic idea, I remember you travelled for 5 hours to get to Manchester, but it was well worth it, you made about a hundred children laugh and enjoy their active learning today!
If I had to choose a favourite topic from my long list, this would be my first choice, it is fun and challenging! Depending on the year and the length of the lesson, I combine this topic with descriptions.
Mr. Potato Head(s) for vocabulary practice
I have quite a few in my house, I wanted to take a picture of three but my daughter ran away with one....We play the hot/cold hiding game with the individual body parts, it is a good way to practise "j" in "las orejas" y "los ojos". If I take all the bits off the heads, then we can do a "Who is quicker?" competition in front of the class, the two volunteers have to find the body parts from the pile and put them in the right place.
The display
This skeleton comes from the Halloween sales.It looks great on the display with the Spanish vocabulary on. We learn body parts in Year 4 and the pupils are getting familiar with genders and plurals by then, that is why my labels are colour coded. So far we have played the "Who is quicker?" game with the skeleton (show the body parts), but I have just read a very good game and I will recycle it. There will be two doctors (yes, I have the outfits:-) competing to cure the poorly skeleton. They will get small plasters and the voice of the skeleton (teacher/pupil)will say: "Me duele la boca." or "Me duele la nariz", etc. The doctors will have to race to the patient and put a plaster on the sick body part. This idea was inspired by Susan Thomas on the Facebook page "Fun for Elementary and Early Spanish Teachers".
Tiene....
To introduce describing somebody with "Tiene...", I use my teddy monster, or a pupil with the monster hat on:-) After talking about the differences in "Tiene..." and "He/She has got", we practise the verb with María:-).
"Tiene" practice with María
She is called María, she is a puppet head from Cuba, I got her in a carboot sale. I blindfold a volunteer and give María to somebody in the classroom who has to shake her (she is full of rice). The blindfolded pupil has to guess who has her and says: "La tiene Amy", "La tiene Connor", etc. You can play it with a rattle or anything noisy.
Monster beauty contest
Now it is the children's turn... they have to design a monster or an alien! I give them big sheets of paper and they can work in groups of 2 or 3. This activity is about 15 minutes long during 3 weeks (I have 1 lesson a week with my classes).They have to design a monster or an alien, label them and colour them in. Then the pupils come out to the front of the class and talk about their monsters: "Tiene 3 orejas", "Tiene ocho ojos", "No tiene boca", etc.... They get a number from me, and at the end of the activity we vote for the best one. The winner's piece of art will be displayed on the wall. But of course we are all winners because we all talk in Spanish in front of our class and we are very proud of our work. I take a photo of the monsters, label them in PowerPoint (to be clear and easy to read) and laminate them. They can take them home for placemats, and I keep the originals on my living room wall ( well, this is what I tell them:-). Laminating pouches are very cheap in Home Bargains, I prefer laminating at home as I have a very quick hand held laminator.
Those who finish earlier than the others can practise writing sentences about playdough monsters:-).
The blindfolded artist
Pair work on small whiteboards, or 2 pupils can come out to the big whiteboard and we all have a laugh. The blindfolded artist follows the instructions of the partner who says sentences like: "Tiene una boca", "Tiene 3 ojos", "Tiene 5 orejas". When the picture is finished, the blindfolded pupil can have a look at his/her masterpiece. It is a hilarious activity! Sometimes we play it as a "beauty contest" between the boys and the girls in the class and the class teacher has to decide whose monster is more beautiful, which is quite challenging as they haven't got any body parts in the right place!
Chuchua
Just follow the instructions, it is hilarious. The actions are tiring, so be prepared! The lyrics are here. ( The video is a bit different, it says "hombros en alto" and "culete atrás".)
Con mi dedito
A lot quieter than Chuchua:-) You can add more body parts to the song. I used it in KS1 many times before, they loved it.The lyrics are here.
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