Another of today’s discoveries was a bit of a surprise.

In amongst the Spanish rhymes and songs, I came across some videos with the prefix ‘NannyMóvil’. Reading the ‘About this video’ information I discovered that educamobile is someone called Alfonso from Barcelona and makes ‘Animaciones, canciones y cuentos en los teléfonos móviles de los padres, para distraer a sus hijos pequeños.‘ (children oriented songs, animations and tales for parents’ mobile phones to distract small children.)
You can watch an interview with educamobile explaining and demonstrating the idea here – it’s in Catalan though! – I knew it was worth learning :o)
He has posted some of the videos on Youtube and they do look interesting. You can download the animations and songs etc to your mobile in Spain at a cost of 2€ +IVA (although there is a promotion at present to get ‘la granja’ free)- there’s an SMS number to contact. Doesn’t seem to work from England – I’m investigating how you might be able to download here. giving access to the menu of downloads – There’s also a wap address http://wap.nannymovil.com – can’t make it connect on my phone though :o(
So, I have another plan! Using Zamzar, I’m going to convert the videos from Youtube and then Bluetooth them to my ‘phone. Working out the format is the fun bit!

But even if that fails, the videos could be useful in class. The animations are cute and there are several types. There are the Nannyanimaciones that could be used to present vocabulary. There’s one of ‘bichos‘ (bugs) that would capture the imagination of some of the little lads (and possibly a couple of the young ladies!) I teach, and then there’s ‘animales de la sabana‘ featuring wild animals. Below is the ‘la granja‘ video.

I do think that to maintain attention you would need to selectively show the clips as they could become quite monotonous unless you play a game with them or just show a bit of the video – and the music could be a little more varied.

Then there are Nannycanciones like Que llueva and then Nannycuentos.

The cuento I found on Youtube was Caperucita Roja.
As the ‘blurb’ says –
‘Aquí mostramos a los personajes del cuento de Caperucita: el lobo, la abuelita, el cazador, y la caperucita. El cuento del móvil es mucho mejor. En este video no figuran ni los efectos especiales, ni los diálogos y algunas de las escenas que figuran en el móvil’ –
Because there is no dialogue, this would be a great inspiration/backdrop for pupils to retell the story in as simple terms as they wish – could be just naming characters for younger pupils up to older pupils (beyond primary) using more complicated language; perhaps it could be used to inspire a cross Key Stage / transition project? See what you think – I like the bold characters, especially the wolf dressed as Grandma!

You can find out more on the website – http://www.nannymovil.com
On the site you’ll also find some print and colour sheets and dice to download and make linked to videos. It’s new site so some parts are under construction – I’ve emailed about the possibility of downloading outside Spain so will keep you posted!

My current fascination with Youtube continues! There will be no doubt be more posts later in the week with more of my discoveries, but here is the first ‘joya’.

The ideal for Primary Language Learning (PLL) is that the learning is embedded in the curriculum.

During my browsing, I discovered some lovely little videos of tables in Spanish. Some are chants and some are drills, ranging from 47 seconds to 1 minute 55, but all have captured the interest of my 6 year old – ‘I don’t know my tables’ – as well as 9 year old who is a maths whizz.

They cover the 2 to 10 times tables, multiplying by up to 10.

See what you think! My particular favourite is ‘tabla del 5’ but I’ve embedded all the videos in a custom player (fancy eh?!)

For more ideas on using Maths in PLL, check out Jo Rhys-Jones’ post on Talkabout Primary MFL.

I’ve had my boys with me all day – their school was shut due to industrial action but mine wasn’t so they spent the afternoon helping me teach Year 2 Spanish. Actually Isaac was so excited last night that he declared ‘I won’t be able to sleep cos I can be your TA!’ Jude just wanted to hand out books but Isaac was up for teaching – and he did, leading a rousing chorus of El granjero tiene una granja, complete with finger puppets of various farm animals.

As we have been looking at farm animals today, I was amused by this video I found on Youtube called La vaca Lola.
It’s really simple and very catchy! See what you think!

The words are –

Twitter strikes again!

@acsutcliffe seems to be featuring a lot on ¡Vámonos! recently – perhaps it’s because we’re both language teachers. Except none of the Tweets have had anything to do with MFL! Anyhow, I saw the following last night –

Looked interesting so I investigated, reading the blog post Adam wrote and following the link to International Edubloggers.
I submitted my details, and lo! My badge (displayed above and right) arrived this morning, as did my details on the site. And I did make it to #22 – just pipped Alex Blagona!

It’s interesting to see the other bloggers registered on the site – several I’ll add to my Google reader. And registering also makes sense for me as it seems a good way of promoting my blog. Not something that I find comes naturally, but I’ve been thinking – if I’ve taken the time to blog it, I think it’s worth reading so why not?

Following on from my previous post, here’s the ‘end’ of the story of the Fall exchange of Hands across the World.

Having sent off around 500 handprints to Michelle Mock in USA, we had hoped to receive our return prints before Christmas. Unfortunately, post at Christmas is a fickle thing and whilst we did receive four envelopes, there were still 11 outstanding by the time we broke up.

Fortunately, when we returned from our Christmas break, the other envelopes had arrived.
Unfortunately, the envelopes were mislaid for a time.
Fortunately they were found and this week, after sharing some with the school in assembly, each class was presented with their envelope of prints to explore.

We had lots of prints from America, but also from Canada, India, Lithuania, Ireland, Austria, Scotland, Wales, Switzerland and , much to the bemusement of the pupils, from Birmingham. We even had half a dozen that had made the trip to America and come back to us!

I took photos of some of the hands and below is a slideshow showing the wide range of festivals and celebrations depicted on the prints.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

If you would like to find out more, visit the Imagiverse site – there is a Spring exchange about to start with the theme Hands around the BLUE MARBLE.

At 2.20pm today I Tweeted via my mobile –

‘Tearing hair out with yr5 – perhaps rewriting Machado’s Spanish poem Primavera was adventurous, but they only had to change 2 words!’

My words of desperation unfortunately did not arrive in the Twitterverse – Twitter seems to be having the sort of day I have – but by the end of the afternoon a new post had arrived on Vámonos proving that the lesson didn’t end as badly as it might have done!

The Scheme of work for Year5 this half term is based around Unit 17 of the QCA KS2 Schemes for Spanish – ‘El retorno de la primavera’. This covers the weather and seasons before looking at a poem by Machado called La Primavera and linking to the myth of Persephone. I’m trying to redo the KS2 scheme as I go along and thought I’d try out some of the QCA units to see what I thought – and also how the kids would like them!
Now, this particular class are lively and perhaps not your ideal ‘guinea pigs’ but nothing ventured…
The idea was to consider the poem La Primavera (not quite the same version but a lovely gerber daisy!), looking how we can work out what it means, and considering the rhythm and repetition, especially of the chorus

My BBC email alert once again gave me food for thought this morning – also noticed by @acsutcliffe who tweeted about it.

What makes a good teacher? asks the article by Mike Baker. The conclusions of research carried out by a group of experts at the invitation of Cambridge Assessment agency make interesting reading. You can read the article for yourself, but I found it interesting to read some of the conclusions.

Professor Patricia Broadfoot argued that
“the highest quality teaching and learning comes when we have the greatest autonomy for the teacher and the learner”. The good teacher, she went on, was someone who was “left to get on with what they think their students need”.
She goes on to suggest that child centred learning is the key.

Another expert Professor Debra Myhill pointed to the ability of the teacher to reflect on and change his or her performance as key.

And another, Professor Mary James commented
“If learners are not involved in their learning, they do not learn”.

My favourite phrase of the article is the call for teachers to be ‘creatively subversive’ – explained as not passively accepting Government initiatives and directives, nor dismissing them and refusing to comply, but instead, creatively adapting them.

Well – I agree with @acsutcliffe – there is a lot of relevant stuff here that the Government needs to note, and the conclusions of these experts make perfect sense to me. Subject knowledge is all well and good but it’s what you do with it and how you share it that matters.

The article concludes with the writer questionning whether there are enough teachers capable of ‘creative subversion’ after years of being told exactly what to teach and how.

I know plenty of people who are ready, willing, able, and in fact, downright excited about a bit of ‘creative subversion’ .

What do you think? Are you up for it?

I find myself unexpectedly in Starbucks, enjoying a gingerbread latte and staring at the wall.