EVERYTHING WE HAVE LEARNT

Welcome to my last post…

It has already finished. The last week of the career is almost here. I am sure that most of you think that it has passed too fast, just like in my case. But it does not have to be something sad, on the contrary, now begins our adventure, everything we have learnt, all the works and homework we have done or the exams we have passed, they all now are going to be relevant for us. They are going to mark our path.  From now on everything is up to us; we must do our best to be the best teachers in the world! We have won it.

So, in my last post I would like to have a look about what we have learnt in this subject as well as, since my personal point of view, the best resources and methods to use in class.

When we see the picture and read all those things maybe we think:

Wow! There are too many things! It can’t be possible! 

And our face will be like…

Although it seems impossible, it is! We have got it, we all now know all that content.

I have really enjoyed with this subject and I have learnt lots of new things that I ignored or I didn’t know. But if I had to choose the content and methods that I like the most I would choose…

Because it is very visual, easy and simple to do, in addition it is attractive and you can adapt it to any topic. Children have fun watching it and it is easier that they acquire a knowledge by using it!

This is a storytelling we did, talking about the different types of instruments for the music subject.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFWy_ZKy0Bg

Because it is a good method to make the students memorise, remember or get a new knowledge. They can learn through scenes of a film, story, tale or even contents of a subject. Also I think it is so fun and enjoyable. 

Here you have an example of frozen frames. We are Clara and me imitating a famous scene of the ghost twins of the film “The Shining”. We are identical, aren’t we? 

Because it is one of the best ways to develop the students’ creativity and imagination. As well as improve the reading comprehension. It is the perfect tool to exercise the memory. Moreover you can use it to guide the students’ knowledge. And there are lots of resources to use poetry! And it also can be used for all the subjects.

Here I show you my riddle poem, can you guess what the answer is?

Because I love it since I was a child and I have practised it for many years. In my opinion I think that teach trough the theatre is a fabulous way to improve many skills.  It foments the imagination, and improves things like reading, comprehension and memorising. Moreover it covers the 4 Cs: content, culture, cognition and communication. As you can see, it is a perfect and a complete method to use in class.

This is an example about what we did in our last seminar.

Which are your favourite methods to use in class?

I hope you have enjoyed with my blog and with all the posts I have written with all my affect and effort. Thank you guys for reading me and writing here. It has been such an amazing activity!

See you soon.

Good evening everybody! How are you? Are you ready to finish the classes? I don’t think so…

But, on the one hand, I am sure that the best is yet to come! 

Today I would like to talk about the “I Can Tell it” workshop we did last week with the pupils of the Daoiz and Velarde Bilingual School, of Alcalá de Henares. But, first of all, what did we pretend with this activity? And, why that name?

• -          Children were advised in their school that in the University there were lots of Fairy Tales characters that had lost their memory. This way, they didn’t remember who they were! So, children had to help them to memorise everything by playing games with them, singing songs, dancing, making puzzles…

• -          If you pay attention to the sentence I Can Tell it, you will see that if we link every capital letter of each word it will form ICT, which is an acronym that stands for Information Communications Technology. It is an useful resource that helps us to work with the new technologies.

Once the students were in the university, they had to pass through the different groups of tales that there were placed in the different classrooms.

  

  In my group we were María Salazar, Clara García, Natalia León, Andrea Sáez, Rocío Martínez, Sonsoles Torres, Carla Hernández, Marta Muñoz and me, and the Fairy Tale we chose was The Three Little Pigs. The main reason why we decided to choose this tale was generally, that most of us love that story, and as the children were from the first cycle, they were going to need repetition and an easy and familiar story.

  Now I am going to explain you what we did with the students.

  First of all, when they were inside the classroom, the three little pigs (Carla, Sonsoles and me) were singing the famous song of the film “Who is afraid of the big bad wolf?”, however, we made a little change with the lyrics, being this:

Look at this rounded nose, rounded nose, rounded nose

                    Look at this curly tail, curly tail, curly tail

                    Look at this little ears, little ears, little ears

     This is the representation of the song:

  As we didn’t remember who we were, after that song, the children had to help us to remember our identity. Once we knew who we were, we discovered a poster with the face of the big bad wolf, so we asked them if they knew who he was. 

  Then the wolf came in the classroom but he fast fell asleep in the floor. 
   
  After this, we used in the digital board the program JCLIC in order to make children use the new technologies and recreate the story of the Three Little Pigs through some activities.

  So we asked for some help to our friends: Mr. Lion, Miss Fairy and Miss Mouse, always with the help of the children. But there were a problem… our friends were sleeping, and there was only one method to wake them up, using the magic words: Please, please, please, help me, please! They would help us to win the big bad wolf!

  The students were divided in three groups: the straw house, the wood house and the brick house. So each pig, with the help of the students and one helper, had to rebuilt their houses and think in a plan to destroy the wolf. Finally, when they had detroyed the wolf, all together danced and sang our song!

  It was a relly funny activity, we enjoyed it a lot, and also the children. For me, it has been one of the best activities that we have done during all the career! I will always remember that day.

  Here you can see some pictures of the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf.

   I hope you liked it!! See you soon.

POETRY

Hello mates and welcome again to my blog! Today I would like to talk you about POETRY. I guess some of you do not like it, because maybe you think it is boring… but, in general, how wrong we are!

Poetry is a valuable tool for the formation of Primary Education students (although it can be used in all the ages). We can use poetry with all the subjects we want, not only for language. At the beginning can be difficult to introduce poetry to the students, for this reason we should introduce it in a gradually way. From less to more. This way, little by little, the students will have a more familiar relationship with poetry.

Poetry has lots of values, feelings and contents. Therefore, as teachers, we have to consider that poetry is so important that it must have an important place in the classroom and be always present.

Two weeks ago we did with Raquel a practical lesson related to Poetry. It was really interesting and exciting. Since my own experience, poetry has helped me a lot of times: to study, to think, to feel thrilled… For me, writing poetry is not a difficult thing; the clues are feel what you are writing, play with the words and try to create a melody with the sentences to form a strong structure that, for you, has a special meaning. However, you also must get that the person who is going to read your poem feels what you feel and understands what you want to express. 

How to use poetry in the classroom?

Poetry is a way of communication, a way of expression, and it can be related to any topic. We should introduce it in class because it foments the creativity and helps to understand better the world where we live. Anybody can write a poem, it is not difficult if you feel it.

•  We could listen poems to learn how to recite a poem
• Write them in order to promote the reading and introducing poetry
• Learn  poetry in a free way
• Create a poem about whatever you want

Now I am going to share with you some poems about different topics. I hope you like it!

Science Poem – The bones

I use all my bones,

To keep me alive!

I need 206!

Not 205!

Give me my bone,

It’s calcium rich,

I’ve got a ball game,

I need it to pitch!

Supporting my body,

Protecting inside,

Where heart, kidneys, lungs,

And others reside!

Give me my bone back!"

I yelled at the thief,

And finally he gave it,

What a relief…

He gave the bone back,

And left without harm,

Now all the right bones.

 Science poem- The Seasons

In spring
The trees
Are a beautiful sight
Dressed in blossom
Pink and white.

In summer
The trees
Are full of treats
Apples and pears
And cherries to eat.

In autumn
The trees
Are red and gold
And the leaves full down
As the days grow cold.

In winter
The trees
Are bare and plain
waiting for spring
To dress them again.

Math Poem – How to make a rectangle

A long line at the bottom

A long line at the top

A short line to connect each side

A rectangle you've got!

Now a shot line at the bottom

A short line at the top

A long line to connect each side

A rectangle you've got!

As you will have checked, we can use poems for everything!! You just have to try it ;)

Finally, I would like to show you my list poem that I did for Raquel's class.

Thanks for your time, see you soon!! :)

Hello everybody! How are you? Last week Raquel gave us the marks of our reading maps. How was yours? I guess you had a great mark!!!

When we did the reading map museum I could see all your works and I have to say that all of them were amazing and really crafted so, congratulations for your effort.

Although most of you have already seen, I am going to show you my reading map, again ;)

For me, it was a very special work, but, personally, one of the most difficult ones. I explain everything in my reading map essay,however, as it is quite long, I prefer to explain it here.

Since I was a child, my parents have instilled my brother and me the reading. My father is a reading-lover; he reads at least 3 books a month, although he does not have too much time, he takes it even from under the rocks. He has hundreds of books, and loves all types of categories, he does not mind if it is a fantasy book, a terror book, or a love one.  That is why he has gave me lots of books.

At the beginning, I loved reading books like “Kika Superbruja”, “Los Cinco”, “Manolito Gafotas”… but everything changed when I started the High School.  I completely lost my interest in reading.That was because of my teachers, and the way they imparted the lessons.

They always wanted us to read books, make summaries and do exams.  This finally discouraged me to read.  In addition, at college, I had to read really boring books like “La Celestina”, “Nada”, "La casa de Bernarda Alba”, “Don Quijote de La Mancha” and so on, and I suppose that you all too. 

Honestly, I have read very few books for myself. Maybe it is because I have never found a book that fits my interests…

Nevertheless, when I started the University, I totally changed my mind when I had to read children books. They really like me!!! I have fun while reading them, they are interesting, almost all of them have morals and they are educative. I love children’s literature and it is fantastic. On the one hand, it is sad that I do not like reading books like most of you, but on the other hand I am happy to find something that I love.

What about you? You like reading? Which type of books do you prefer? I would like to read your opinions and your likes and dislikes.

Thank you, readers! See you soon.

                                       

   SONGS FOR CHILDREN

Welcome again! Today I have an important question for you all… Do you like music?

I leave you some seconds to think

..............

..........

.......

Ok, I am pretty sure that your answer is YES! Of course, everyone likes music. It forms part of our life. We have music wherever we are: in the street, in the university, in the car, at home, in the school… 

Moreover, we can use it for everything: to make a video, to show pictures, to dance, to sing, and, why not, to teach.

In this post I am going to talk about Educative Songs.

As you all know, nowadays we can use any resource we want to impart a class, like we have seen in the university we can use reading maps, storytelling, nursery rhymes and so on. Then why don’t use a song to make the students learn? It’s a really simple way to facilitate the learning.

We are lucky to live in the XXI century, and have Internet, because if we search on Youtube we will find lots of videos for children. When I did my second training period I saw plenty of children songs with the students of the first cycle. There were songs to learn the colours, the routines, the animals, the numbers, the hobbies…

The best singer of educative songs, since my point of view, is Matt R., an American musician from New York. He has written every song he has, especially for children, because he loves them and he enjoys doing this work. Raquel showed one video of him some weeks ago, and I knew him because of my last training period (my tutor loved his songs).

I am going to show you my favourite videos and, I think, most useful to teach.

This is to learn the daily routines

To learn the days of the week

  

                                     To learn the parts of the body

                       

                       

If you visit his youtube channel, you will discover all of his videos and I imagine that you are going to like them! In addition , he has a webpage where there are lots of songs and resources to use with the students :)

Let's try to use music to teach! It will be funny

I hope you like this post and be useful for you! See you soon

Hello mates and welcome to my blog!

Do you remember the other day in class when Raquel told us about Storytelling? I have to say that I enjoyed a lot (I guess that you all too). It was very funny and it made us to involve in. 

First of all I am going to explain what Storytelling is…

/Storytelling is a strategy to capture people.

The main objective of this is to thrill them./

It always follows four basic steps:

  


Approach  -->  Development  -->  Outcome   -->   Moral

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Knowing the meaning of Storytelling, I would like to show you my favourites children’s books. I am sure that the first one will rings you a bell, this is because Raquel showed it in class.

“The very hungry caterpillar”

It is a very special book for me, because it was a present from my tutor of the school where I did my second training period. I love it and I have used it a lot with my youngest students (I am teacher of private lessons). The methodology I use with this book is very simple and similar to how Raquel taught us:

• - First I read it while they listen and see the pictures
• - Then I let the student read by himself/herself, and I try to help him/her with the pronunciation
• - After read it, I make him/her some questions about the book to check if he/she has understood everything
• - Finally, I ask him/her If he/she has liked it and has enjoyed with the book, and what he/she has learnt with the story.

In my opinion, literature is one of the best ways to learn English, because children (and adults) not only learn new vocabulary and practice reading, but also learn pronunciation and practice speaking. Storytelling makes children love reading because they have fun and they often get into the role.

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The following book is more difficult to read than “The very hungry caterpillar”. It can be used with children of second cycle of primary education. It is called “Captain Gamma, mission to Mars”, written by Alec Sillifant. 

I have to say that I really like this book because I see that children enjoy reading it, and they laugh, besides, the illustrations are fantastic!

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Finally, these two books written by Miles Kelly can be used for the third cycle of primary education, because they are more complex and they contain a lot of text.

 "The King of the Polar Bears and other magical stories" and 

"The Three Wishes and other magical stories"

They have many short stories inside, and although it seems that there is so much text, they are fun and easy to read. 

Here it is finished my first post, I hope you like it and this be useful for you, mates. Thank you for reading me! ;)

A simple book can be a great resource.