I have young children and many times my teaching ideas come
from playing with them:-)
Leaves from the park:
We like collecting leaves in the park, we put them in big
dictionaries for a few days and then we can make monsters with them.
These are my Year 4’s leaf monsters, they are learning body
parts at the moment.
Y6 are sending the leaf bunting to Spain, it will look
really good on our partner school’s classroom display. We have written a few
sentences about ourselves under the leaf people.
Nuts about numbers:
Before we eat the hazelnuts from my garden, I am taking them
to school to play with. We are learning big numbers in Year 5, they have a
laminated placemat with the numbers 1-100 in Spanish and they have to challenge
each other to say the nut number in Spanish and check if the answer is correct.
Bonkers about conkers:
One of my children’s favourite book character is Kippkopp,
the conker boy.On rainy Sunday afternoons we do crafty activities at home,
last week we made some conker people. I will use some of these to revisit
hair/eye colours and today we have made some comic book pages with them in Year
3/4.
I wonder what I will be teaching when my own two kids
grow up and won’t play with me any more...
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.
You can't get away without using playdough once every half term, all my pupils know that! Last week my Year 4 had to make a family of heads where they all had different eye colours. I took a picture of the family after they finished them and I put these photos up on the big screen so that they could talk about their families to everybody: "La madre tiene los ojos azules." They all love seeing each others' work, the heads are really funny. It's easy to make them talk if it is about their own work and if they can make the rest of the class smile.
Heads down, thumbs up
When I teach hair colours, I take my coloured pompoms in to school. In the first few years of my teaching I just pointed to the kids' hair when I was teaching "blonde" or "brown", but we spent so much time clarifying whether Amy is blonde, hazelnut or light brown and also, the red haired kids were often a bit embarrassed so I just assign them with hair colours and no arguments. They think the wigs are really funny! I cut eye shapes out and we use them for games.
"Heads down, thumbs up" is one of our favourites, the 4 kids standing in front of the class look so funny with wigs and big coloured eyes. The rules are:
-all the children put their heads down on their tables, with their thumbs up,
- the 4 wig kids walk around the classroom and squeeze one thumb once,
-these 4 go back to the front of the class, the rest wake up,
-those who have been squeezed have to stand up and guess who has touched them,
-they have to guess in Spanish, of course:-) "Tiene los ojos verdes y el pelo rubio."
-if they get the right person, they can swop.
Missing friends
I hide some dolls in the classroom before the kids come in. When they are in, I say that I have four friends who disappeared in this huge classroom, and can they please help me find them. I have written descriptions of the dolls, the pupils have to find them and match them with the descriptions. We play this in Year 4 and the boys are just as excited as girls, don't think that the dolls will put them off.
Wanted posters
After the "lost dolls" activity, we make our own "Wanted" posters. The pupils can look for a classmate, a teacher, a friend, or anybody they want to. They present them in front of the class and then we put them out on display.
Listening to the monster
This is a very scary listening activity, and I say that to my children, but after hearing the sound file, they just laugh at me! I have the body parts printed out and the kids lift these up while listening to the monster. There is a Powerpoint, as well if you want to practise reading with them. The Powerpoint and the sound file can be found on the Scholastic website, see the links below.
