Green Screen in our Spanish lessons

Inspired by Joe Dale (of course), here is a photo journal of our green screen adventures. We used the Do Ink app and a big piece of green  muslin to create videos (role plays and weather reports).
This is the beginning of a journey... we are making mistakes but we will get better!:-)

My QR code adventures

I like the mixture of old and new, traditional and new technology, so after the playdough post, here I come with my iPad and some QR codes we created recently. These are my first experiences, and my knowledge is very limited but I thought that by simply describing what I have done might encourage others to have a go.

Mother Day’s Cards:

There is no time to do “app testing” in the lessons but I always have pupils asking me if I need help during the break, so I caught 2 girls in the corridor who volunteered to make a video. I

• recorded them saying “Te quiero, Mamá” on my iPad.
• converted the video into a Youtube one (unlisted).
• copied the link into the “QR code creator” app, which made a QR code and copied it on my camera roll.
• printed the QR code and glued it on the flower.
• Now if you scan it with the “i-nigma” app, you can see the video of the girls saying "Te quiero, Mamá."

Weather reports

 

In year 6 we covered the weather topic recently and the last lesson was about giving weather presentations. The pupils came out to the board in pairs, they said hello, introduced themselves and then said 2 sentences each about the weather in South America. We used a clapperboard, glittery microphones, a long stick to show the countries and spotlights, as well. We made a big fuss!

Following the description above, I created QR codes next to the photos of the pupils and put them on the display. If you happen to walk by with your smartphone or ipad, you can watch the weather reports!

On this blog I can't show you the videos unfortunately, but I promise to make some QR codes where I will ask the parents/school first for permission and copy them here in the next few weeks.

Thank you for your help, Joe Dale! (his article on QR codes: http://connectlearningtoday.com/exploring-the-educational-potential-of-qr-codes-3/)

eTwinning - tools for collaboration ( #eTconf14, Rome)

At the end of November I was invited to participate in the eTwinning annual conference in Rome (#eTconf14). It was an amazing experience, I learnt a lot, met wonderful people, came home really inspired and decided to share my experiences on my blog.This post is about a workshop called Collaborative Activities: the key to successful eTwinning projects.

The whole point of the workshop was that instead of just presenting ideas, slides and presentations, the teams should collaborate in the projects and produce something together using different tools.We all had iPads/laptops and had fun testing these websites.

You can introduce yourself using Padlet. We all said a few words about ourselves, and my UK partner Vivienne and I even linked a photo of  some conference dessert with our introduction. (Right at the beginning of the workshop, the presenters said that you had to be careful with projects including UK teachers, because they are always on holiday...:-) We clarified this little misunderstanding by pointing out that we only had 6 weeks in the summer, and longer breaks during the school year.)

You can find a name for your group in Easypolls, the participants can vote for the best one.

You can design a logo together using Draw It Live.

You can write a poem together using TitanPad, it was good fun to read it together.

  AnswerGarden  is a good tool for evaluating the project, not just at the end, but during the project, as well.

 "Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress but working together is success."  (quote from the workshop description)
Thank you Paraskevi Belogia and Irene Pateraki!

My iPad journey

I did my PGCE in Budapest (Hungary) 8 years ago and the only technology I used was a CD player. When I started to work in England in 2008,  I didn't even know what a PowerPoint presentation was and I was astonished to see an Interactive Whiteboard. When I got my first small job in a primary school I always made sure I stood a few metres' away from the IWB, it felt like being next to an alien. Because I was never taught with technology nor was I shown how to use it in the classroom, I didn't really understand all the fuss about moving images on the IWB or writing on it with those special pens. When I learnt how to make a PowerPoint presentation in 2008 I thought I had the world at my feet!

I am a visiting teacher, I fly from one classroom to the other with 1 basket and 2 bags, I meet my pupils once a week and spend very limited time with them. I teach with lots of props, PowerPoints, Youtube videos, CDs, craft activities, I do make sure we learn and have fun and I don't think anything will be missing if little Connor drops my iPad 'Dominic McGladdery' style....we will just shrug our shoulders and move on. 

My iPad journey started after a Show and Tell event in Manchester last October where almost all the presenters  mentioned their twitter names. I had no idea what they were talking about, but I couldn't sleep that night and joined Twitter, which was probably my smartest move of 2013. I saw loads of iPad questions and advice on my timeline  for weeks but was completely immune to them, just scrolled them down until one day I saw a tweet from Joe Dale (@joedale)  who made a picture of himself in ComicBook and wrote some lines there, too. I found it so funny that I immediately downloaded the app on my iPad; which until then, I had only used to go on Facebook or read the news. I took my iPad to my lesson the following week and with shaky hands gave the ComicBook task to a couple of children as an extension activity when they finished their writing.

Since then I have challenged myself to try something new, that I see on Twitter, every week, and I am getting really excited. Yesterday I even bought myself a VGA adaptor so that I could use the big screen as well.

Here I am listing the apps we have used so far. I can't show children's images from the classroom so I just took a few selfies for illustration, sorry:-)

 

ComicBook

 

Great to practise the Spanish question/exclamation marks and the accents.

 

 

Whiteboard

 

Just like a whiteboard, good to draw favourite numbers, pets etc.  and let the others guess it.

 

 

Tellagami

 

After writing 7-8 sentences about themselves, the pupils can make their own 'gamis' then read out what they've written, making an audio recording of this. Very engaging, motivating and funny!

 

 

AutoRap

 

Even the shyest pupil will speak out loud to my hand holding the iPad and then will listen to the rap proudly. This one is called "Me pongo...".

 

http://www.smule.com/p/173506830_34553514

 

 

 Thank you @EWoodroffe and @ SylvieBRawlings for the idea!

 

Morfo

 

Based on your own photo, you can make funny faces with different themes and then record a message.

Thank you for the idea @lisibo! Here goes a smile for your blog!

 

 

 

 

Make Dice Lite

 

You can write your own sentences on the 6 sides, a volunteer rolls the dice, if somebody from the the rest of the class can guess where it stopped, he/she can roll the dice next. It really motivates the children to speak!

 

 

Decide Now!

 

A volunteer spins the wheel, if somebody from the the rest of the class can guess where it stopped, he/she can spin the wheel next. Just like the previous app, it gets the pupils to speak easily.

 

 

YAKit Kids

 

Put eyes, nose and mouth on your face and record your message, the mouth will actually talk!

 

 

 

Thank you @joedale and @Nieves_Sadullah!

ToonCamera

 

We made "daily routine" short movies with it, there is a wide range of pictures you can use, it is really funny to look back and show the children the movie again at the beginning of the next lesson to remind us of the vocabulary.

:

Using the iPad in the classroom makes my pupils very excited, they all have their hands up to talk, sing, or have a go. They love looking at themselves on the screen and listening to how they speak in Spanish. I can't put much interesting technology in my bag but the iPad and the adaptor are really small to carry around, get out and set up. 

Thank you #mfltwitterati  and @joedale:-)

 

 

This is where it all began, and who knows where it will end? :-) I am looking forward to the iPad workshop next Saturday at ALL Languages World in Lancaster!



 



La Tomatina

 

On Wednesday morning I visited Becky, a friend of mine I hadn't seen for ages. We were chatting and having a cup of coffee when she casually mentioned that she had been to the Tomatina last August. My pulse  immediately went up, I  got very excited and invited her to my Spanish lessons to talk about this great festival. She said "All right, and when?", I said "TOMORROW!!!" Becky is off to Spain next week for a long time so there was no time to waste... Becky said she could come to both of my morning classes, a Year 5 and a Year 6. They are my longest sessions, 60 minutes each with lots of possibilities:-)

 

The right atmosphere

 

Early in the morning I went to Tesco to get some soap and a packet of ham to create our own "palo jabón". Finally these ugly posts in the classrooms gained a real purpose (we keep bumping into them when we play the lighting house directions game). The looks on the children's faces were priceless while I was sticking my ham up on the post before the lesson.Then Becky and me covered the post in soap, a very strong coconut one, the only kind they had in stock in the supermarket that morning:-)

 



I had asked the men in my family to make me a Lego truck and I filled it with tomatoes. I put the truck, diving goggles and swimming goggles in the middle of the classroom before the lesson started.

 

 

At the beginning of the lesson I asked the pupils whether they had noticed anything strange about the classroom, they mentioned the ham, the truck, the tomatoes and the "GIRL"(Becky:-). In year 5 we had never mentioned La Tomatina, in year 6 we had, so they could name the festival based on the clues.

 

Tomate, tomate, quiero tomate...

 

 

Becky gave her presentation, it was fantastic! We saw photos of her with her friends getting soaking wet, sticky and red! My favourite picture was Becky's hair after the Tomatina, she needed 4 washes to get all the bits off! She taught a chant: "Tomate, tomate, quiero tomate.....", this is what everybody shouts while waiting for the tomatoes to arrive. She reminded the children of the "ñ" in Buñol, taught us words like " los mozos", "el camión"  and "el cohete" and answered all the questions we had.

 

Me gusta la Tomatina PORQUE....

 

After the presentation we asked the children "Te gusta la Tomatina?" and they answered "Me encanta/Me gusta/ No me gusta la Tomatina." Then I said that now we are going to learn to give reasons with our opinions ("Es una fiesta estupenda/divertida/aburrida/sucia"). Those who could say their opinions with a reason were given a tissue tomato or paper tomato and could participate in the tomato fight at the end of the lesson. Obviously everybody's hands were up to express their feelings so we listened to about ten and then just listened to the rest while the children were doing pair work later. The tomatoes have to be squashed before throwing, so it was all right for me to prepare them quickly with tissue paper and not worry about the looks:-)

 

 



 

YO!!! We are rapping!



 

The day before the lessons I came across my friend Emilie's rap song on twitter and really  loved it, I downloaded  the app AutoRap and was desperate to try it with the pupils asap. We created a song with our opinion sentences and we found the rapping hilarious.

 

http://www.smule.com/p/173506830_34053417/frame

Mini books/Posters

 

We had about 10-15 minutes left and the pupils were given a choice: make a tomato shaped mini book or design a Tomatina poster for this year's tomato throwing festival in Burscough!!! In Spanish of course, because we will send the posters to Buñol:-) They are not finished yet, we will spend about 15 minutes on them next week and will put more images up then.

 

 

 

La Tomatina in the classroom

 

Our last activity was to actually throw the tomatoes at each other! I gave them a whole minute to go totally crazy and they loved it! I will have to use 1 minute of "Tomatina time" as a reward in my lessons in the future:-)
 

 

 

(And I am inviting you to a REAL tomato fight if you  think that Intercultural Understanding doesn't bring progress....:-)

 

 

 

 

Number games

This half term we will practise numbers 10-20 in year 3 and I have chosen a few activities to share with you. Please feel free to comment, add your suggestions and correct my mistakes!



 

 

I love playing table tennis. When I was in primary school I even went to competitions and won some medals, that is why I am very attracted to ping pong balls and keep a lot in my house.

I use them in the classroom, they are excellent in "Pass the parcel", "Bingo" or "Lottery".

The following ping pong ball hunt needs some preparation. Before the lesson while the classroom is empty, I hide 10 of them in the classroom and write their numbers on the whiteboard. I place some blu tack by the numbers and tell the children to look for the balls. They love walking around and having a look everywhere. When they find one, they have to stick them by the corresponding numbers. There is a powerpoint up with the numbers for those who need more support.

This activity takes about 5 minutes in year 3, it is a good plenary and it gets them up from their seats.

 



 

The next game was inspired by my mother in law's charity stall at the church fair, I saw these blindfolds and decided that they would be great for a mystery game. They are special because I can write numbers on them with a whiteboard marker and wipe them off easily for the next player. The player comes out in front of the class, another child writes a number on them (between 10 and 20) and the blindfolded one has to guess what the secret number is. He has 3 guesses and if he says the right number, he gets a sticker, if he doesn't, the partner who writes the number gets it. This game could work with simply lifting number flashcards up above the player's head.

 

I am a beginner ipad user and everything I do at this point has to be 100% foolproof. I have downloaded the Whiteboard app and a volunteer in front of the class will have to write his/her favourite number  on it between 10 and 20. Whoever guesses the number from the class is the next one to come out.

Apart from these, we are going to play
"The secret signal",

 
Who is quicker? with my fly squatters,

 

And make "El hámster" repeat the numbers with his very funny voice!