Last week we celebrated el Dia de Sant Jordi by making dragon bookmarks/puppets I had found on Ideas Para Peques at http://ideasparapeques.es/category/sant-jordi/.
I went to Poundland where I got 48 wooden pegs for £1, and I found the rest of the "ingredients" in the school art cupboard: green and red paper, plastic eyes and paint/ felt tips.
I told them about Cervantes, Don Quijote and Shakespeare and the tradition of giving roses and books to each other on St George's Day in Catalonia.
The activity was useful for us because it helped:
taking turns, asking and answering questions - the dragons were our puppets and they could open their mouths and speak in Spanish (we even did some shadow role plays on the IWB)
reinforcing the place of the adjective: they had to write "un dragón verde" on the spikes or the wings
writing the date "23 de abril"- no capitals in Spanish!
"...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!
This week I am celebrating a birthday: my blog is half a year old!
When I started to write it in January, my goal was to show how I adapt other people's ideas, and I also wanted to share the activities that I had created and tried with my classes. The blog has had over 10000 views, which is absolutely fantastic (even if many of these views came from my mother in Hungary who likes looking at photos of her grandchildren :-).
On this occasion I am sharing some birthday activities with you.
1, The birthday song
¡Cumpleños feliz!
I play it from the Español, Español CD by Carole Nicoll (there are lots of other great songs on the CD, highly recommended!). It also has the karaoke version without the words. The song is on display on the wall in (almost) every classroom.... And here is a story for you: 5 years ago, in my very first Spanish lesson in my new job I wanted to show how well I prepare for my lessons and how much I care about the pupils. I had asked for a copy of the register with the birthdays on and noticed that a pupil celebrated her birthday on the day I started in this Year 5 class. The class teacher was in and a new student teacher came to observe this lesson as well. After introducing myself and doing a starter activity, I made the birthday girl stand up and encouraged the rest of the group to sing ¡Cumpleños feliz! to her. The pupils looked very confused and so did the birthday girl, the class teacher and the student teacher. I repeated the instructions again in English only, just in case they didn't get what I was saying the first time. Inmediately, the class teacher said to me "Miss, she doesn't celebrate birthdays". Then I looked very confused and felt awful I did something terrible right in my first lesson in my new job. I pulled myself together and taught a good lesson still, but I blamed myself for months for not finding more out about the group. After this lesson, the class teacher told me that the pupil was a Jehova's witness, and didn't celebrate birthdays (and Christmas). Well, I am still at that school, I teach Jehova's witnesses in almost every year group and learnt my lesson by now!
Another good song is the months song on the CD "Let's sing and Learn in Spanish", it is a very catchy one, the children love it. They raise their hands or jump up when they hear their birthday months.
Ear-pulling
After the song, I ask the birthday child:
¿Cuántos años tienes?
And then, I pull the child's ear as many times as corresponds to his/her age, and encourage the rest of the pupils to do the same in the playground later (after asking for permission, of course:-). While I pull the ear, we all count in Spanish! The question/answer on the slide is a great introduction to the Spanish letter "ñ",the upside down question mark, and the accent on "cuántos".
Piñata:
I don't do this all the time, because I teach over 200 children, but occasionally I take my Piñata in, and while we sing a song, the blindfolded birthday pupil(s) have to hit the Piñata I hold with the fly swats. I stick the bottom part loosely with tape and after hitting it for 3-4 minutes the bottom will come off and guess what falls on the floor...... Spanish homework sheets:-) And some sweets for the birthday people.
This year I planned to make one in Spanish club but ran out of time unfortunately.
We practised at home, and we will definitely make one next year.
Thank you for reading the blog, here is a cake for you!
Next week we are going to include some Sanfermines activities in our lessons. Here is a quick video that explains the festival:
I can't offer first hand experience like when I invited my friend Becky to talk about La Tomatina, so I persuaded my puppet teaching assistant Valentín to help me with the illustrations and borrowed my daughter's bull from her playfarm:-)
The cape - mystery voice
Instead of the blindfolds or my Spain football scarf, we will use my cape to cover the face of the volunteer who has to guess which classmate says the word/sentence in a mystery voice.
Running of the bulls - PACMAN revision game
We won't chase each other in the classroom and create complete chaos, but we can play PACMAN. 4 "toros" go in the corners of the classroom, they pretend to have bull horns with their fingers. 4 "mozos" go in between them, they put a red scarf on. The teacher or a pupil stands in the middle of the classroom and asks questions. The toros and mozos have to shout out the answers, the quickest one can move a place and "eat" the one standing next to him/her. The last one standing is the winner.
A song: Uno de enero... - dates
I use the CD/book "Preparados, Listos, Ya", I bought from Amazon, it has some good songs and there are great activities in the teacher's guide.
The same song is on YouTube:
And here is the rock version:
After the running of the bulls: at the doctor's - body parts
2 doctors race to the injured "mozo" and put a plaster on the sore body part. The slow doctor has to sit down and pick a new one. The patient volunteer says: Me duele la cabeza, el pie, la nariz, la boca, la mano, la oreja, etc.
It is interesting to hear the pupils' opinions on bullfights, and a good way to start discussions on other cultures and traditions.
You won't see a picture of me running in front of the bulls in Pamplona but a few years ago I went to Sevilla with my (now retired) puppet and signed up for a tour around the bullring to find out more about this tradition. I will definitely show some of my photos in class!
In year 3 we are learning about the weather, these are some of the activities we really like:
Weather props
These are my toys I use while practising the vocabulary. I blindfold the children, they have to pick one from the feely bag and guess the weather. They are good for "Heads down, thumbs up", and hiding games. A hiding game we like is when 2 detectives go out, and while they are out, I hand out some toys or props. Then I ask everybody to put their hands under the tables, regardless of whether they have a toy or not. The two detectives come in and they have 3 guesses each to find the toys. They have to ask "¿Qué tiempo hace hoy?" from pupils who look suspicious. The pupil who has been asked puts his/her hands up and says: "Hace frío/calor", etc. When the detectives run out of guesses we count how many toys they have found. And I forgot to say, the detectives have to wear those plastic rain hats:-) The boys love them!
Sensation...
This idea is not mine, I read it in an email by Alison McLucas, she was advising on how to teach PMLD children in the primary languages forum. This is how I used her idea: I took a water spray (Está lloviendo.), a fan (Hace viento.), cotton wools (Está nevando.) and a hair dryer (Hace calor/frío/viento) in the classroom, I blindfolded volunteers and made them a sensation challenge: they had to touch the cotton wools, feel the hair dryer blowing out hot/cold air, feel the fan near their faces and they even got a bit wet when I sprayed water on them! It is such a funny activity!
Playdough weather:
I am a big playdough fan, they are not messy (as long as they stay on the tables) and pupils love being creative with them. The children work in pairs, each make a weather statue/picture, and the partner has to say the sentence in Spanish. Here are some photos I took last year:
Weather report:
I don't call it a weather forecast, because we don't use the future tense yet, but it looks exactly the same. Years ago, on a CPD event, I was given a pen that I can pull out to make a long stick, the children love holding it while standing and speaking in front of the class. I have a big South America map I found on the TES website ages ago (sorry, don't know whose it is, if you recognize it, let me know) and I put it on the IWB. The pupils come out in pairs, with 30 children it takes a while, we usually do the reports in two lessons. We video the reports, and we have lots of fun watching ourselves later! A typical weather report looks like this:
Buenos días!Me llamo Amy.
Buenos días! Me llamo Joe.
Hoy hace frío en Argentina. Hace calor en Perú.
Está lloviendo en Ecuador, y está nevando en Chile.
¡Adiós! Adiós!
As an extension activity, they can say the temperatures: Hace 20 grados en Ecuador.
Mini book
I came up with this idea when I found a long forgotten mini book templates folder I had printed out from Clare Seccombe's blog. The template had the umbrella in it already, but I wanted to add more pop up pictures, and looked for instruction on the internet here. Scroll down a bit to see how to make the middle of page, where you will glue the images.
I didn't find the template online any more, but here is a photo of it, that is where you will have to draw/cut the umbrella in your mini book. The small papers will be the pop up pictures.
We could add the months and the seasons, as well.
Song: Sol, solecito.... A very good song to sing in the cloudy England, we always want more sunshine! We do the actions while singing the song, the lyrics are here.
Another good song is ¿Qué tiempo hace? on the Español, Español
CD by Carole Nicoll. We sing the first 8 lines and do the actions at the beginning of the lessons, as a warm up activity.
Muical intstruments from Spanish speaking countries:
The windpipe is from Peru, and it imitates the sound of the wind. We look at the Andes on the map and listen to some panpipe music from YouTube. The rainstick is from the Atacama desert in Chile, it is made of cactus. I ask the pupils to make one at home (plastic bottle with rice in for example) for a small reward, but also tell them not to shake them too much as it rains enough in England!
Behind the scenes:
This is how mini books are really made in my house:-)
In our last lessons of the term we will use eggs, chicks and bunnies to help us remember what we have learnt so far this year. Hiding and racing are all time favourites is my lessons!
Egg hunt in the classroom
I will hide these eggs in the classrooms before the school day starts, the children will have to find them and stick them on the board next to the right numbers.
The card eggs are from Asda, £1 for about 30 of them.
Egg race
A pupil will say a number and the two volunteers standing by the whiteboard will have to pick the number as quickly as they can. I always make them put their hands behind their backs first.
To practise the place of the adjective, a child or I will say sentences like "Tengo un huevo naranja". The 2 volunteers standing by the board will have to race to pick the right egg.
What is the sound?
A game in pairs: the pupils will work in pairs, they will be given 2 different lists and they will have to challenge each other to recognise the sound and point to the right egg. The eggs will be hanging in the corners and on the walls of the classroom. If they point to the right egg, they can go to the next one, if they don't, they have to sing/rap the word, or sing/rap a sentence with the word! I will have a sentence written next to each word to help those who need more support.( My list will have words like amarillo, me llamo, rojo, perro, España, verde, junio, julio, jueves, viernes, hace calor, hace frío, está lloviendo, está nevando, hace viento, el hermano, la hermana, etc.)
Egg and spoon race:
I will put laminated flashcards around the classroom (different topics in every classroom: in the school, in the town, transport... etc). The two volunteers will have to race from one place to the other holding a spoon with an egg on it while saying sentences in Spanish (Voy al supermercado, Paso por delante del restaurante, Llego a la iglesia... etc.). If they can get to all the places without dropping their eggs they get a sticker.
Egg head families
I bought these eggs from one of the pound shops. In year 6 we are learning qualities and how to describe ourselves and others, this will be a good activity to finish the term. We will decorate them and describe them , and have a contest at the end for "la familia más mona" . There are four tables, they will each work on a family. I used the back of cereal boxes for the descriptions and I connected the egg and the card with a cocktail stick.
Chicken/Bunny Pacman
4 chickens stand in the 4 corners of the classroom and 4 bunnies stand between them by the wall. A volunteer will ask questions in the middle of the classroom and the quickest chicken or rabbit to answer right can move up a place, eating the one standing in his/her way. They move in a clockwise direction, if there is a gap they fill that. The last one standing is the winner. I learnt this game from my colleague Scott Davenport long time ago, he played it with "toros y gallinas".
This is for my Year 6 pupils and Spanish club only, I am not prepared to feed 200 pupils:-) They will have to work hard before they can eat them, because the plastic eggs have Spanish words and sentences inside that will need to be put in the right order. If we have time, we will decorate the cakes with ready made cake icing , I have got lots of half packets left from my son's home made birthday cake. We did some baking on this rainy Saturday afternoon:
Los pollitos dicen...
A song to learn an animal sound: pío pío and to say "I am hungry" and "I am cold".
March is such a busy month! We are celebrating World Book Day, Mother's Day and Easter, and we also have specific topics and different skills to learn. As my penpal Natalia wrote it in her email once : "Siempre vamos con la lengua fuera." I know that Mother's Day is celebrated on different dates in all the Spanish speaking countries; the reason why I am fitting it in now is because it would be nice if the children could take some Spanish gifts home. I teach 8 classes a week and run a lunchtime Spanish club, we will use the following activities:
A tongue twister
Many years ago around Mother's Day I was sitting in a Spanish restaurant where the laminated placemat said "Mi mamá me mima mucho." I am sure we will have fun repeating it and listening to each other!
Gifts to take home in Spanish
I bought a big bag of letter beads a few months ago in my favourite charity shop, I was hoping to use them in my classroom to practise spelling. But because the beads are "girly" I couldn't find any activities suitable for everybody until last week when I thought that we could make bracelets for Mother's Day! Even boys will enjoy this, because they can make a gift for their mums or they can make a flower instead / write a card in Spanish.
you can buy letter beads on ebay
There are two types of flowers: one is for Year 6 where we are learning "porque" and describing ourselves (adjectives), the other one is for the younger ones, we will learn to say "Te quiero, Mamá". The templates are here and here.
A song I love the animation, the tune and the fact that it is subtitled.
There are more ideas on Janet Lloyd's Mother Day's blog post! I am waiting for the postman to bring my "Mi mamá" book by Anthony Brown:-). I will let you know about it.
Update on 13/3/2014
I received the book, it is full of adjectives, a great chance to practise genders and agreement.
¡Feliz día de la Madre! from my garden...this hydrangea was my very first Mother's Day gift five years ago:-)
What a day! After the big storms last night there were fallen trees, road closures and diversions, I had to drive like James Bond to get to school in time, so I really had my heart in my throat, as if I was going on a date. I didn't have enough time to rearrange the classrooms, I managed to do half of one, I made up single tables with two chairs. I placed my home made little fortune cookies on the tables and put some heart balloons up for the right atmosphere:-) I put my PP up on the screen and we were ready to go....
Speed dating
The children had 2 minutes to ask each other questions, they could use mine or they could make up their own. I told them that they could change identities and I gave a demonstration at the front of the class: I was Dora the Explorer and my partner was Bob the Builder! They found it was hilarious to change names, they were Peppa Pig, Tinker Bell, etc. Some of them were 95 years old, some were just 1 or 2. I clapped every 2 minutes, they had to change partners then. When I asked for feedback, they said that it was a great activity because they spoke Spanish to each other. This made me realize that I don't give them enough opportunities to actually have conversations with each other, so I will make a great effort from now on to make sure they get to speak to their classmates. We play lots of games as a class, we write a fair bit, now the focus will be on conversations. There were lots of giggles while doing this activity, be prepared! Thank you for this idea, Creative Language Class!!! (fantastic blog here)
Fortune cookies and cocktail stick hearts
The preparation of this activity took me an hour and a half last night......guess what, I left half of the biscuits in my car, half a mile away from the school. I had to run in my short break to get them and just arrived in time for my year 6 class.
The learning objective for today was to create sentences with time expressions in our topics: daily routine (Year 5) and school (Year 6). I printed out 2 sets of sentences like "Me despierto a las 7." and "Leo en la biblioteca a las 11". I made fortune cookies for Year 5 and cocktail stick hearts for Year 6. At the beginning of the activity I told them that they had to find their better halves, or as they say in Spain, their half oranges:-) (la media naranja= the better half). They found that very interesting and funny!They walked around the classroom saying their sentences and when they found their better halves, they could eat the hearts. We laughed a lot, boys were with boys, girls with girls even though the cookies were given out randomly.
Love is in the air:-)
Everybody who came out to play or do an activity had to put my big pink sunglasses on or had to hold a heart balloon! We learnt to say "Te quiero", the kids wrote it down on small post it notes and they will give them to somebody tomorrow:-).
We haven't finished celebrating love yet, in April we will talk about "el dia de San Jordi", the Catalan Valentine's Day, when boys give roses to the girls and girls give the boys books. What a great opportunity to write our own minibooks!
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