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!:-)

ALL Primary Languages Hub - Stories and Poems

The Primary Languages hub is back! As we agreed last time, we will share our favourite books and poems.
Come and share your thoughts with us! Here is the flyer with my book shelfie and fridge selfie:-)

But when will I blog?

This is the question!

In March I started to work more or less full time.

In weekly numbers this means 27 classes, 27 classroom changes with all my teaching props and more than 700 pupils. 

I truly enjoy my job and I have lots of ideas for blog posts, but at the moment I don't have the time to write. I will catch up with blogging at the end of July!

Even my boots gave in last Friday:-) 

Celebrating Mexico

I recently found out that it was the Year of Mexico in the UK, (http://www.britishcouncil.org.mx/en/2015). The British Council designed some exciting activities for schools to celebrate Mexican culture, click here to see a PowerPoint, lesson ideas and an art activity!

I always mention el Cinco de Mayo in my schools to talk about Mexico. Read Carolina's blog post about this celebration here (and in fact, read all her blog and join her Facebook group: Fun for Early and Elementary Spanish Teachers, she is awesome:-)).

This year my plans include:

• look at the British Council PowerPoint (link above)
• colour Mexican flags and put them on our display 
• watch these videos about piñatas

• make  piñatas (we have been practising at home:-)

•  or just take mine in and play with it (it has homework inside, not sweeties!:-)

• do vocabulary activities with jalapeños, chocolate, chili, tomato: (Me gusta/No me gusta with pero/porque, shopping role play)
• look at pictures and murals by Diego Rivera, they will fit in well with our clothes topic
  
• encourage the children to participate in a Diego Rivera colouring competition (the images are from here)

• look at Mexican football players in the Premier Leage: there is a list on Wikipedia

Mexico [edit]

• Pablo Barrera – West Ham United – 2010–11
• Jared Borgetti – Bolton Wanderers – 2005–06
• Nery Castillo – Manchester City – 2007–08
• Giovani dos Santos – Tottenham Hotspur – 2008–12
• Guillermo Franco – West Ham United – 2009–10^{[Note 49]}
• Javier Hernández – Manchester United – 2010–
• Carlos Salcido – Fulham – 2010–11
• Carlos Vela – Arsenal, West Bromwich Albion – 2008–11

Any other ideas? Please leave a comment here or tweet me (@Erzsiculshaw)!

Sant Jordi crafts

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!

The activity took us about 15-20 minutes.

Conjugation bugs and dice

The KS2 PoS mentions that the pupils should 

"...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.
• We sang the verb forms to the tune of Mission Impossible.

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!

ALL West Lancs Primary Languages hub meeting- songs

In March our primary languages meeting was about how we use songs in our teaching.

Here are the suggestions of the participants, who were all given a microphone for their contributions:-)

• Take Ten in Spanish, French or German (http://www.take10.org.uk/) - fantastic DVDs showing dances and songs, and the book is full of great ideas! We watched Jean Petit qui danse with the dance, a similar video is here:

• Grupo Encanto: there are lots of videos on Youtube here. At the meeting we did the actions for "Soy una taza"- food or restaurant topic and "Chuchuwa" - body topic and "Este puente..".

Other suggested songs by Grupo Encanto: "Con mi dedito", "Vuela la luna", "Había una vez un avión".

• Boca Beth on youtube

• Ay las frutas

• To practise vowels: Un burriquito como tú by Peret

• Los Trotamundos: we watched a number song and "Un limón y medio limón". The songs come with karaoke versions! We didn't find a web link during the hub, but I managed to find one at home later here.
• a French one: tchik et tchak for body parts

More suggestions:

• sing new vocabulary to familiar tunes 
• do a military march with the new vocabulary

KS1 songs on my previous blog post here.

More ideas on Sue Cave's page, she runs the Thames Valley Primary Hub and they had a songs hub the day after ours! http://www.cavelanguages.co.uk/thames-valley-primary-hub

Before the meeting, I asked the Facebook LiPS (Languages in Primary School) group about their favourite songs and groups, and here are the answers:

French:
(Sylvie Bartlett Rawlings)

•  Français! Français! and ¡Español! ¡Español! By the Language Factory. Not their whole programe but the ones with the 3 music CDs: http://www.little-linguist.co.uk/.../francais-francais-3... they are fabulous. The children have adapted the songs and the dialogues at the start have been really useful.
• Take 10, singing French, à l'école (for every day use).
•  http://comptines.tv for authentic French lullabies and le monde des petits on You Tube: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WjhQvv9kexk (free)
•  for KS1 we Love: http://youtu.be/2AxuWAFqCjQand http://youtu.be/mEBi4yooJUI

(Vikki Bruff)

• Alain le Lait is fantastic - songs sooo engaging! Can buy , but loads of free videos by him on you tube. I down load with ilivid & keep

(Helen Boddy)

•  My P5 class is loving La Vie en Couleur http://comptines.tv/la_vie_en_couleur - not the easiest lyrics, but raised the roof on the classroom singing it this week. Lots of fabulous songs on this site.

(Lisa Adams)

• My year 3s are loving Léon le Caméléon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHII3ydsL8U

(Barbara Cheded)

• Le robot dans mon chateauhttp://pinterest.com/pin/313211349058236499/
•  2 patates for Ks1http://pinterest.com/pin/313211349058127539/
• Je suis maladehttp://pinterest.com/pin/313211349057053701/
•  j'aime les fruitshttp://pinterest.com/pin/313211349058249992/
• Le boogie woogie des chiffreshttp://pinterest.com/pin/313211349059050641/ 
• dans ma salle de classe http://pinterest.com/pin/313211349057098666/
• Mon sac a dos http://pinterest.com/pin/313211349057373014/
• Quand Je vais a l'école http://pinterest.com/pin/313211349057373017/
• Quel temps fait-il? http://pinterest.com/pin/313211349059027644/

(Laetitia Le Moal Davies)

•  Ratounet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce_aFZR3xQA&feature=youtu.be

In Spanish 

(Sylvie Bartlett Rawlings)

• Español Español CDs
• Grupo Encanto 
• http://www.rockalingua.com

(Lisa Stevens)

• All time favourite that has become synonymous with lisibo - La Vaca Lola https://youtu.be/mQmsLqVXMa8 See blogpost here for the actions!http://lisibo.com/2013/09/baila-la-vaca-lola/
• Also like the songs on Canciones populares infantiles from the Consejería 
• For whole class fun and involvementhttps://youtu.be/8_RWPLfo8Xg Chuchuwa is always great...
• And then there's the Choco Choco La La song I shared at the#ililc5 Show and Tell http://youtu.be/lFWysdCgVNg Here's a post to explain why http://lisibo.com/2015/02/ililc5-show-and-tell-song/ Sylivie's addition to the Choco song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcq02eoALDc&feature=youtu.be
• Just written a post about calming Spanish songs! Might be useful? http://lisibo.com/.../las-manos-spanish-songs-and-rhymes.../

(Laetitia Le Moal Davies)

•  My year 6 like this one http://youtu.be/9ZKw5IldE9Y (Buenos días song)
• This one to introduce yoursel fhttp://youtu.be/ij5R1YTG48Q
•  http://youtu.be/6FEyfy5N3Nc (learn to count)

(Letizia Mendez Tiley)

• Hola, hola buenos días = Early Start Spanish; Nos. 1 - 10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETgyBQDY4Bg
•  the Months of the Year:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKznbHvPFwc
•  For prepositions in Spanish:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uzfwLKevUU