One of our favourite games in the classroom is red herring - avery engaging and competitive reading activity! We play it in groups, girls against boys most of the time. It works on a word level (list of numbers, etc) sentence level (list of 6 weather sentences, etc.) and text level (a postcard, role plays....).
The girls close their eyes and put their heads down on the tables (to resist the temptation to cheat...).
I pick a volunteer boy who comes to the board, and points to a word or sentence. That will be the red herring.
The girls wake up and put their hands up to say the words or sentences. Every time they say one that is not the red herring, they get a point.
But as soon as they find the red herring, the game is over, I count the points and the boys go to sleep.
An advice: write the answers down ( at least the initials), because they might try to say the same word/sentence twice by mistake or to gain more points.
It is a very useful reading activity, the pupils are really engaged and they all look at the board, you can easily praise the pupil for not saying the "h" in the word , for remembering what sound "j" makes or just to remind them of the upside down exclamation/question marks.
Because of the mystery and excitement, they are all motivated to speak and don't get shy because I make them read in front of their classmates.
This game was also shared in my hub meeting in October, Janet my colleague likes playing it with her pupils and calls the game pommes empoisonées.
The new KS2 Programme of Study states that the pupils should "read great literature in the original language" and "appreciate stories, songs, poems and rhymes in the language."
A few weeks ago I started to prepare myself for this new challenge: I went to the Cervantes Insitute in Manchester, because I remembered reading a very good poetry methodology book during my teacher training years in the Cervantes Insitute in Budapest, and I was desperate to find it. After sitting on the carpet for a long, long time and taking each book off the shelf, I finally found THE ONE! It is full of great ideas for intermediate and advanced learners; I have adapted some and will use them in my primary teaching from September.
I teach everybody from Year 3 to Year 6, so in the following weeks I will blog about a "great literature" piece for each group. I have my pupils and their previous knowledge in my mind when I share my ideas, hope you can use them and adapt them!
The first one is for my Year 6 classes, who will be learning about "places in the town". For this topic, I have chosen La plaza tiene una torre by Antonio Machado.
Here is my list of possible activities after the presentation of the poem:
1,Mix it all up!
While the children listen to the poem with their eyes closed and heads on the tables, the teacher gives out a word from the poem to each pupil. When they "wake up", they have to find their sentence and stay together. Alternatively, a group of pupils can be given a line from the poem and have to line up in the right order in front of the class. I have done this before with different sentences and kept switching the IWB on and off to offer help but to stimulate dialogue and thinking at the same time. You can read the poem or listen to the YouTube video (see at the end of this post).
2, Run, read and recite!
The teacher sticks a copy of the poem on the wall and asks for two volunteers from the two competing groups (boys and girls in our case). They will be the runners, and they will have to dictate the poem to representatives of their groups, sitting in the far corners of the classroom with their whiteboards. The runners will run back and forth until the poem is completed, the winner is the quickest group.
3, Act it out!
A volunteer acts a sentence out, and the class has to guess which one it is. The pupil who guesses it right can come out to the front next. This activity can be done in pairs, as well. Here is an example of the actions rom YouTube.
4, Build the sentence!
There are a million building blocks in my house, I literally stumbled over this idea the other day. A volunteer calls out a sentence and the pupils have to build it as quickly as they can. The winner is the quickest. This activity can be done in pairs, as well. Here are the possibilities! (I have enough building blocks to give out, if you need some I can recommend charity shops or carboot sales. You can use them for building blocks sentences I have blogged about.)
And the last line:
5, Make a movie!
The pupils in small groups can film the scenes of the poem, using themselves, play figures,or playdough people. You can use Lego Movie Maker on your iPads to "build" the poem.
6, Guess the emotion!
A volunteer says a sentence with a chosen emotion (happy/sad/disappointed/angry..etc.) and the rest of the class have to guess it. (Again, you can do it in pairs).
7, Steal a vowel/consonant!
The pupil picks a letter from the alphabet bag, doesn't show it to anybody, and then starts to read the poem omitting the letter. To make it more dramatic, the thief could wear a false moustache (from the Pound shop) or a pair of sunglasses. The one to guess the missing letter correctly is the next thief.
8, Add/change a word!
The pupils have to notice the mistakes and then they have to make up their own versions adding or changing words.
Examples:
tiene un balcón grande, ha pasado un caballero en motocicleta, el balcón no tiene una dama
la plaza tiene un supermercado, el balcón tiene un gato, la dama una negra flor
9, Make up your own poem!
Give the pupils a card or a piece of paper, that will be the "plaza". Tell them to draw a building in the centre and make up their own poems.It is a great opportunity to use the dictionary.
10, Listen to the song or create your own tune!
The poem has a song version, it is a very catchy tune, you will find it easy to sing along. For some reason I can't link the YouTube video here, but you will find it on this blog.
Or ask the pupils to sing the poem. They can prepare in pairs and present it to the class for a small prize. If you have iPads, use Autorap to make the sentences into a rap.
11, Make a mini-book!
There are lots of mini-book ideas on Clare Seccombe's blog. I am thinking about making a triarama book based on this poem.
12, Make a role-play!
Imagine a dialogue between "la dama" and "el caballero".There are so many questions they could ask each other!
Please add your suggestions as a comment or tweet me at @Erzsiculshaw!
I am writing this post because I promised world fame to two of my Year 5 pupils.
If you read my blog regularly you know about the 10-minute teachers: they are volunteer pupils (kind of...) who have to teach a mini lesson every week on a topic they like most. They revise vocabulary with the class, play a game with them and make them sing a song. During this time I sit with the other pupils and participate. I introduced this activity in two groups last year, and it turned out to be a success, a very anticipated part of the Spanish lesson. But the approach was different in Year 5 and Year 6, and not because I set the rules differently...while in Year 6 the teachers revised previously learnt topics (animals, transport, family...etc.), in Year 5 the pupils insisted on creating new topics, like computers, wild animals, sweets...etc. They were very excited about finding words in the class dictionaries and inventing new games! I even had a pupil who included his mum in this activity, they made the list of words together, which made me so happy:-)
So here comes the new game, it is called THE CUPBOARD!! (There is a cupboard/small room in every room where I teach.)
Here are the rules:
1, two volunteers go in and they close the door (one would be enough but they insist somebody has to open/close the door:-),
2, while the class is quiet, the person inside says a sentence in Spanish including the new vocabulary (I insist on sentences, not just words),
3, the class has to guess what the sentence is,
4, the person who guesses the sentence can go in THE CUPBOARD, with a pupil of his/her choice.
The class is so quiet during this activity you could hear a pin drop and they all concentrate on the sentence. Because it is very hard to hear the sentence clearly from the classroom, they come up with rhyming words, similar words, the right words but without plural, etc... It really makes them think!
By the end of the school year, it became the most popular game leaving all time favourites like "the secret signal" and the "mystery voice" well behind.
If you have a cupboard/small room inside your classroom, try it! And don't forget to credit it to the Year 5 pupils in Burscough Village Primary School:-)
In my house this game is called "the wardrobe", the big favourite for "hide and seek".
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!
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? :-)
Last week we had a lesson full of mystery games in a Year 3 group. Their topic for the term is "We are the detectives", so I planned the following activities:
There were 5 missions in 5 envelopes full of props. I will describe them in the order they appear in the photo, but it is up to you how you want to play them.
1, Un buen detective tiene que estar en forma. /A good detective has to be fit.
Exercise time with "Corners"! The teacher puts signs up for the four points of the compass in the 4 corners of the classroom. The pupils walk/dance to "Los puntos cardinales" by Los Pimpollos. They can point to the right corner when they hear the words in the song and sing Po po po pon chiqui pon chiqui pon pon pon :-) When the music stops, they have to choose a corner, and a volunteer picks a compass point word from the bag. Those who are staying in that corner leave the game. At this point I tell the children to sit well and sing, and the best singer can become the next one to pick a corner word from the bag. The video has an image of Machu Picchu, and Los Pimpollos are from Peru, so we tick the Intercultural Understanding box while dancing to this catchy tune. Beware! Once you click on "Play", the song will be in your head for a good few days!
2, Un buen detective tiene que reconocer la voz misteriosa. / A good detective has to recognise the mystery voice.
We play "the mystery voice" all the time! I am sure you all know this game, I have a Spain football scarf to blindfold the volunteer and somebody else says the word in a mystery voice. Our words were "norte", "sur", "este" and "oeste"; the mystery person had to hold a compass while saying the word and the blindfolded person had to wear a detective moustache on a skewer.
3. Un buen detective tiene que encontrar el objeto perdido. / A good detective has to find the lost object.
The classic hot/cold game: a volunteer hides something (in this case, a compass) while another pupil is out, when this comes back, the rest of the class whispers the word/sentence and gets louder as the pupil gets closer to the object. Our words were "norte", "sur", "este" and "oeste".
4. Un buen detective tiene que encontrar la señal secreta./A good detective has to find the secret signal.
Another favourite game we play all the time! It works really well with lists (days, months) and numbers. Two detective pupils (wearing moustaches) leave the room, the class agrees on who gives the signal (pulling an ear, winking, scratching the head etc.), and when the detectives are back, they have to guess who gives the secret signal, they have 2 chances each. The class can only say the next word if they see the secret signal.
5, Un buen detective tiene que reconocer las caras sospechosas. /A good detective has to recognise the suspicious faces.
This is a popular hiding game, two detectives wearing sunglasses go out, and the teacher gives out different objects to 5-6 kids. They all put their hands under the desks. The detectives come back and can ask 3 questions each (in any topic: ¿Cuántos años tienes,
¿Quédeportes practicas?...).The chosen children answer and put their hands up. If they have something under the desks, they have to give the object to the detectives. At the end everybody puts their hands up and we count how many objects the detectives have found.
6. Un buen detective tiene que hacer muchas preguntas. / A good detective has to ask many questions.
The pupils have to change identities and put a finger puppet on (good for the shy ones), then they have 3 minutes to ask questions to as many pupils as they can (and wait for the answer, of course!).
More ideas:
Poundland foam shape stickers could be used for giving and drawing a description about somebody who committed a crime (hair+eye colours, clothes).
For only description of hair/eye colours, you could use foam faces from Poundland. The blank jigsaw puzzle (Wilkinson's) would be good to play language detectives (write a sentence, mix the pieces and your partner needs to puts them together). The moustaches are from Poundland, too. I didn't want the children to stick them on, and glued them on skewers. I haven't decided what to do with the emotion face stickers yet.
For detectives and mentalists only: this is how my mind works when planning a lesson!
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!
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:-)
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