Category: ideas

Image from wikipeques – click for site

Ever since #ililc5 when Janet Lloyd introduced us to this French song for gaining attention and restoring quiet in the classroom, I’ve been searching for a Spanish equivalent. So far I’ve not found one but it got me thinking about using songs and rhymes to create calm.

I have to admit that I tend to use them to either create excitement and action – see posts about La Vaca Lola and Choco Choco la la, two of my favourite songs, or to teach vocabulary – for example, see these posts on Yo quiero ser by Nubeluz or La finca del Tío Ramón and Hojas Hojas that I subtitled using Amara. However, I began to use this song to start all my lessons in KS1 at the start of the year and noted that as well as signalling the start of the Spanish lesson, it focused us all and calmed everyone down.

Part of the appeal is the routine, but I also think that the actions help. And as I was searching, lots of the songs and rhymes I found were either about or used your hands so I thought that warranted a post!

 SONGS

I came across some lovely songs that I think would certainly work for restoring calm, focusing attention and creating a ‘brain break’ during class:

1. El pourri de las manos

I love this collection of songs which could be used separately or as a whole! Each is only about 40 seconds long and all can be sung/acted on the carpet as well as in seats. Some helpful (opposites) vocabulary too – content/triste, arriba/abajo, abre/cierra, allí/allá.

I also like the way that it starts very calm and then gets a little more animated but not too much!

You can find the lyrics for this song here.

2. Saco una manito

This is one of the songs included in the above video – I think the ‘band’ will be very popular, and it’s still very chilled with the saxophone and calm actions!

Saco una manito. La hago bailar, / I take out one hand. I make it dance.
La cierro, la abro y la vuelvo a guardar. / I close it, I open it, and I put it away again.
Saco la otra manito. La hago bailar, / I take out the other hand. I make it dance.
La cierro, la abro y la vuelvo a guardar. / I close it, I open it, and I put it away again.
Saco las dos manitos. Las hago bailar, / I take out two hands. I make them dance.
Las cierro, las abro y las vuelvo a guardar. / I close them, I open them, and I put them away again.

3. Dedos

A very very simple song in which you touch each finger together one after the other then all together.

4. El zapatero

This song about a shoemaker is the Spanish equivalent of Wind the bobbin up with arm rolling forward and back, pull, pull and then ‘pan pan pan’ as you gently hammer the shoe.

Envolviendo, desenvolviendo,

estira, estira y pan – pan – pan

envolviendo, desenvolviendo,

estira, estira y pan – pan – pan

zapatero a remendar los zapatos sin parar

zapatero a remendar los zapatos sin parar

5. Arramsamsam

I’ve seen this rhyme before but had forgotten about it. A nonsense rhyme, but with hand actions that require some concentration.

Arramsamsam, arramsamsam

guli guli guli guli guli arramsamsam

Alamis, alamis guli guli guli guli guli arramsamsam

6. Con mi dedito

A calm song for saying sí and no, firstly with a finger, then a foot then the head.

  Con mi dedito, digo: si, si

Con mi dedito digo: no, no

Digo, digo: si, si

Digo, digo: no, no

Y este dedito se escondió.

  Con mi piecito, digo: si, si 

Con mi piecito, digo: no, no

Digo, digo: si, si

Digo, digo: no, no

Y este piecito se escondió

  Con mi cabeza, digo: si, si

Con mi cabeza, digo: no, no

Digo, digo: si, si

Digo, digo: no, no

Y esta cabeza se escondió.

7. Manos divertidas

Another song about hands with lots of actions to copy!

  Ya mis manos se despiertan y ten van a saludar,

se sacuden con gran fuerza y después se enrollan de aqui por allá.

  Son mis manos divertidas, siempre salen a jugar

suben por una escalera y después se tiran por el tobogán.

  Ellas tocan la bocina, ellas te van asustar

y después de tanto juego, cuando están cansadas,

te invitan a soñar.

If you’re interested in more traditional action songs, have a look at Diversión con juegos de mano which includes Dos manitas, diez deditos and Los deditos.

RHYMES

Continuing on the original thought of bringing the class together, this might work as I’ve yet to find a class that don’t want to wiggle their bottoms given half a chance!

Mis manos hacen clap clap clap

Mis pies hacen stamp stamp stamp

Mi boca hace la la la

Cintura hace cha cha cha

Other rhymes using your hands include Los dedos de las manos and there are several more here including Dedo pulgar (the Spanish version of Tommy Thumb) and Cinco ratoncitos in which one less finger or ‘ratoncitos’ comes out each time to play! And the ever helpful Spanish Playground has some other suggestions too.

I was going to talk about clapping rhymes but I think I’ll save that for another post as they aren’t really very calming 😉

I’ll try some of these out in class and let you know what happens.

PS Over the last two weeks Y2 and I have been exploring world dance and this week we did some ‘flamenco’ arm work. There was utter concentration so perhaps that’s another avenue to explore!

My idea to share at the Show and Tell was based on a post I wrote in August –

El que busca encuentra

The picture I shared is on that post (in two parts) and below I’ve uploaded it as one image. I’ve also shared another couple that don’t have questions.

Mujeres célebres

Grandes científicas

Grandes genios de la informática (arriba)

Grandes personajes de terror (abajo) – perhaps for next Halloween?

Apart from the ideas in the previous blogpost, I was going to suggest that any Where’s Wally?/Où est Charlie?/Wo ist Walter?/¿Dónde está Wally? could be used in a similar way:

1. explain where Wally is using prepositions/positional language.

2. provide descriptions of other characters to be found: could be done as a reading or a listening activity .

3. learners could do the above with a partner, or in small groups

4. learners imagine the life of one of the characters and provide a biography, or put themselves into their shoes and introduce themselves (a little like Janet Lloyd’s ‘In the picture’ activity)

and so on!

(Apologies for taking so long to upload – I’ve suffered severe post -#ililc5 exhaustion this week!)

My second session was all about cross curricular language learning; how languages support other areas of the curriculum like literacy and maths as well as how languages can be taught in conjunction with and through other subjects and vice versa.

I mentioned my Pinterest pages; here’s the link to my Roman resources for Spanish. And if you click through the presentation, you’ll find links to things like the music for The Carnival of the Animals, a slideshare of Querido Zoo, links to BuildyourWildself and Switchzoo for making hybrid animals and that cheesy song in Spanish about the planets.

Some resources I showed included:

Habitats matching activity sheets

LAT SP FR ROM NUMBERS 1-31

I also recommended looking at The Iris Project for  Latin/Greek resources, and LightbulbLanguages has some lovely Latin stuff as well as planets linked to maths and science, and much more. And check out TES Resources from Joan Miró resources from Helen Stanistreet and Rachel Hawkes.

I’d also draw your attention to the list of helpful sites and documents in the last few slides for further ideas!

It’s very tempting when you can’t go shopping to get the shopping bought to you. I’m being quite restrained but I have been ordering a few things…

One of my recent purchases is pictured below.

I admit that they’re bigger than I’d envisaged (they’re advertised as and are 1.5 inches/3.8cm but my spatial awareness is not good!)  and some of them aren’t exactly cubes, but they serve the purpose for which they are intended. Which was?

Well, they’re made of foam which will hopefully mean less noise, and their size and colour means that I’ll see where they are, they won’t get mixed up with the school dice and they won’t get lost under/inside books/pencil pots/pencil cases.

And I have several ideas for their use.

Playing board games

Well, obviously! You can make your own using Tools for Educators (see previous post), a template like the ones below or have a look at this site – I particularly like the daisy one!

Counting/Maths 

So many ways to use dice in this way! Here are a few – I’m sure you’ve got ideas of your own – feel free to add them in the comments!

• throw one die and say the number
• throw one die and double it, or multiply by 3 etc
• throw two dice and add the numbers
• throw two dice and multiply the numbers
• throw a dice several times, adding up the numbers are you throw and trying to score a perfect 21.

Here’s a PDF of Maths activities using dice for Kindergarten right up to year 8. Dice-Ideas

I particularly like Make 100/Cien challenges learners to throw dice and make 100 by using any  operation, and also Double half or stay (I shall call it Doblar, dividir por dos o ¡ya! as I am struggling to find a better way of putting it!) which is simlar to 21 but can be played with any number and you can, as the name suggests, double,half or stick with your number.

Counting/Maths games

Activity Village suggests a very simple game called Mountain o Sube la montaña which has the aim of reaching the summit of the mountain first by throwing the numbers in order. So you have to throw 1 to start then 2 and so on. Players say their numbers as they throw the dice so plenty of repetition. Have a look at the site  for more detailed rules and variations.

Here are  the downloadable mats to play the game 

 Mountain dice game printable 1 (1-6)

 Mountain dice game printable 2 (1-9)

 Mountain dice game printable 3 (1-12)

For subtraction, here’s a game I found on eHow.com called Pennies (although could be called cents or Euros instead of peniques 😉 )

This is an ideal game for younger players. Stack 20 pennies in the center of the table. The first player rolls one die and takes the number of pennies shown. Play passes to the next person and continues until the pile is gone. An exact roll is required to take the last of the pennies. The winner is the person with the most pennies.

Language used would be very simple – Tengo 2.  Hay 20 euros.  Tomo 2. Restan 18.

I like this idea from Activity Village too  called Beat That! (¡Superárlo! or ¡Superar eso!) that reinforces place order and practices 2 , 3 (or more!) digit numbers.

Roll the dice and put them in order to make the highest number possible. If you roll a 4 and an 6, for example, your best answer would be 64. Using 3 dice, a roll of 3, 5 and 2 should give you 532, and so on. Write down your answer, pass the dice, and challenge the next player to “Beat That!”

Play in rounds and assign a winner to each round.

You can also play to see who can get the lowest score!

Mathswire has several games that look at probability – I especially like the Cookies game where you throw two dice and add the numbers to decide which cookie can be packed away – or perhaps eaten! 😉

Download the  Great Cookie Contest Cookie Sheet Mat

A variation on this I’ve played is for outdoor fun using chalk as I shared at #ililc3

You draw a grid in chalk on the ground with lanes of 10 squares for numbers 2-12 (when I saw it played with Kindy in Switzerland they used 1 which wasn’t fair!!) Pupils choose a lane and they are the ‘caballo’ or ‘caracol’ that will race in that lane. They take it in turns to throw two dice and add the numbers together. That decides who can move forward; so if 2 and 3 are thrown, caballo #5 can take a step forwards. The idea is to “llegar a la meta” first. Lots of number language involved, and it’s an activity
that can easily be played as one activity in a carousel. (There’s a board game called Snail Pace Race that is similar but uses colours)

Another probability activity from Maths is fun would be a great way of supporting the Maths curriculum using más probable and menos probable.  Clare Seccombe has done a whole presentation on Supporting Maths through language learning – it’s well worth a look for further ideas! (Sadly now that Slideshare has stopped slide casts the audio is no longer embedded 🙁 )

Grammar

Six sided dice are great for conjugating verbs as there are six “persons” 1st 2nd and 3rd singular and plural. Throw the dice to decide the person of the verb

1=yo

2=tú

3=él/ella/usted

4=nosótros

5=vosótros

6=ellos/ellas/ustedes

You could combine this with a board game featuring verbs like the one I made below for M and M, my Spanish English students in Switzerland to practice the past tense. Or

You could also assign parts of speech a number – learners throw the die a number of times and “collect” parts of speech according to their roll and then make a sentence using that combination of words. You could restrict the choice of vocabulary with cards, or allow learners to use dictionaries to make a unique sentence!

1=noun

2=verb

3=adjective

4 = adverb

5=connective

6=free choice

Speaking

Similar to grammar games, you could play a speaking game as suggested here

The teacher brings a large soft dice to the classroom. Students sit in a circle and take turns rolling the dice. Each time, a student throws the dice. The student who rolls the dice uses the number that shows up on the die to say some things about himself or herself. For example, if the number 2 shows up, the student will have to say two things about himself or herself.

Another variation would be for the student to ask the class the number of questions according to what number shows up on the dice. Equally, you can make the class ask the number of questions according to the number on the dice.

You could also use two dice and challenge learners to make a sentence with that many words, a phrase with that many syllables or think of a word with that many letters. 

Beetle 

Throw the die to win body parts. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a beetle you build; it could be a monster, a clown, a person or something completely different. Activity Village suggests Mouse  or Ratón

6 = el cuerpo
5 = la nariz
4 = bigotes
3 = un ojo
2 – una oreja
1 = la cola

Art

Here’s an idea to make a Joan Miró style painting using a die…

…and why not have a look at one of these ideas to make a Monster,  a Picasso painting  or a Miró Skyscape.

In fact, you could make anything with components using a dice… or randomise anything in sets of 6 using dice!

Dressing up

Assign a number to items of clothing with the aim of creating an outfit for a teddy bear, cut out person, or even your partner. You could end up with far too many jumpers and no trousers!

Directions

You could use dice to decide directions that people should take. You could use the classroom, a map or an assault course!

In it’s simplest form you could just use left and right

a la izquierda – impar (1,3,5)

a la derecha – par (2,4,6)

or you could add todo recto by assigning opposite numbers to each e.g. 1 and 6 = todo recto; 2 and 5 = a la izquierda; 3 and 4 = a la derecha

or even have a different direction for each number, including ‘darse la vuelta’, volver al principio or reaching your destination if you throw a 6.

And there are so many more things that you  can do!

Here are some links I’ve found that might be of interest.

Juegos de dados games to play with up to 5 dice

Cómo jugar al juego de dados de los diez mil or Reglas para juego de dados 10000

Juego mueve dados online dice game – not really for using my dice, nor a language activity but I thought I’d share as it made my head ache!

And then, of course, there are dice that don’t have numbers on them but colours, images or words!  MES Dice games has some ideas that uses vocabulary dice too, and Crazy faces  looks fun too – I might come back to that and write another post on non-number dice! And then there are dice apps…

Plus I love this game!

Being stuck with my foot up is giving me plenty of time to read, think and play with my tech, and this morning a combination of the three inspired this post!

I was pinning away on Pinterest when I came across this ‘Pin’

I followed the link and as I looked at the article, I started thinking “How could I use this?”

So I started making a list

1. Compare the sweets eaten in France and UK. Are they the same?

2. Look at the names of the sweets e.g. les bouteilles de Coca, les bonbons au caramel. Could you understand these names without seeing the pictures? Test it by giving learners the images and the words separately and see if they can match them. Or ask “Qu’est-ce que c’est ‘Bottle’ en français?”

3. Look at ordinal numbers “le bonbon en première position est…?” “Dans quelle position est la fraise Tagada?” “Quelle est le bonbon en huitième place?”

4. Discuss likes and dislikes – “Tu aimes les bouteilles de Coca?” ” Tu préfères les Dragibus ou les Chamallows?” “Quel bonbon aimes-tu?” Encourage use of connectives e.g. “Je n’aime pas le Reglisse mais j’aime beaucoup les Schtroumpf”,  “J’aime les Chamallows mais je préfère les bouteilles de Coca.”

5. Conduct a survey. You could use the French sweets or find out about the learners’ likes and dislikes by asking for example “Tu préfères quel bonbon?”

6. Make a bar graph of the results and discuss “Combien d’enfants aiment les bonbons au caramel?”

7. You could use the above graph to talk about plus / moins (more and less) “Les Schtroumpf sont plus ou moins populaires que le nounours à la guimauve?” “Quel est le bonbon plus populaire?”

8. Talk about the colours of the sweets. I also found these really colourful lollipops that would be good.

Or you could use a packet of Smarties and count how many of each colour you get in each tube. (More opportunity to use plus/moins que)

9. Learners invent their own sweets! This could lead to recipes, labelling colours and shapes,  craft as they could make them out of clay/playdough, coloured paper, and even trying to sell them to their peers using persuasive language “Mes bonbons sont délicieux” “Oui, mais les sucettes sont plus savoureux” and so on10. And finally, as healthy lifestyles are important, perhaps linking sweets to thinks we should and shouldn’t eat, and foods that “bon pour la santé” Perhaps use a food triangle to add foods in the correct proportions with sweets at the very top! There are Spanish examples on my Pinterest Or you could make a poster  like this Spanish one  using Moins and Plus. And here are a few examples in French.

Click to download.

A collage of food.

This made me laugh!

I looked for a similar article in Spanish but couldn’t find one. However, I did find this video of Spanish sweets and chocolate

httpv://youtu.be/sFR82CUeDLI

I also came across this article that gives a list (and description) of types of sweets in Spanish and information on how to start a sweet shop!

And this board – Postres y dulces de España – on Pinterest so check it’s not blocked in school before you rely on using it in your lesson! It shows an example of a pastry or sweet from many regions and cities of Spain. Mouthwatering!

Whilst I didn’t find the 10 most popular sweets in Spain, I found some dangerous ones – Los 21 dulces más peligrosos (from USA so I hadn’t heard of lots of the sweets) talks about the sugar/fat/carbohydrate content of various sweets as well as hidden nuts and so on, and also this article on Halloween sweets

And I did find some popular Mexican ‘dulces’ (not quite the same as it includes all sorts of sweet treats not just sweets/candy)

5 dulces mexicanos más populares includes recipes as well as details of palanquetas, alegrías, glorias, ate and cocada.

And Los 10 dulces más típicos de México expands on the above giving some further examples of Mexican treats like cacahuetes garapiñados and mazapán.

So – what would YOU do? Please leave your ideas in the comments, or via Twitter @lisibo

Off to have dark chocolate Bounty now 😉 Délicieux!

Update!

I’ve made a PDF/PPT of the top ten French sweets-

Les top 10 bonbons PDF   Les top 10 bonbons PPT

Your ideas!

See slide 37 of Clare’s presentation for an idea of how she uses this site to support Maths skills.

And Erzsi replied too. I had to look up why she took in a Chupa Chup for Dalí so I learned something new too!

@lisibo excellent! I take a Mars bar in to intro days of the week, it links with planets. And a Chupa chups to talk to kids about Dali.

— Erzsi Culshaw (@Erzsiculshaw) April 25, 2014

And my husband has just come back from Mexico with these!

As it’s World Book Day or El Día del Libro in Spanish, I thought I’d share some ‘books’ written by year 5 at WCPS. After a session by Clare Seccombe on Minibooks at #ililc4 and a circular “All about me” mini book I saw on Pinterest, I came up with the idea of making a planet book.

Originally I’d planned on making it with lots of circles and a split pin like the Pinterest example, but my idea developed and I decided to use a paper plate to keep the book stronger and more rigid. The lines around the edge of the plate also made me think of the rays of the Sun so it seemed a perfect idea! I made a prototype, drawing around numerous circular objects to make the different sized planets (vaguely the correct proportions!), colouring the front of the circles and writing sentences in Spanish on the back. I punched a hole in each planet and joined them to the plate using a split pin.  However, I found that whilst the split pin joined all the parts together, it was impossible to read the writing on the backs of the planets. So Mark 2 used a treasury tag as they have a longer ‘stem’. Below are images of my example.

I shared the idea with Year 5 who had spent a few weeks on their planets unit. Unfortunately I was ill the penultimate week of term and they therefore had less time than I’d envisaged to complete their books but below are some pictures of their efforts – made, written (they had practiced some sentences in previous weeks but put them together in this lesson) and constructed in an hour. I’m really pleased with their efforts and how they tried to use vocabulary they knew in new contexts e.g. talking about the Sun which is not a planet, using negatives and looking up words in a dictionary.

Here’s a link to the cheesy song with which I always start the Planets unit! And below that, some links to helpful material on Los Planetas

httpv://youtu.be/qE78tXPYb-Y

My Pinterest board

Quizlet flashcards

LightBulbLanguages resources 

Planetas del Sistema Solar

El sistema solar infantil 

Poemas y adivinanzas sobre los planetas

Discovery Channel – Los Planetas

I found this video via Pinterest – a short video that explains Semana Santa in Sevilla using animation and real footage. You can switch on the subtitles to have the English appear across the bottom  although the two finger puppets explain well with key words appearing behind them.

httpv://youtu.be/kYR30iZwJdo

I also like these images (and more) found on their Pinterest page Semana Santa Cultura Española and also Semana Santa Sevilla

There’s a whole channel of videos like this explaining Spanish festivals as well as other channels from the same source. Something to explore whilst I’m sofa bound with my fractured ankle ;

My FB wall reminded me this morning (edit – was yesterday now!) to wish Happy birthday to Bev Evans and I sighed. She passed away a few weeks ago so it’s another sad day for her family and friends. Her husband Paul tweeted

@bevevans22 birthday girl tomorrow, why not celebrate and plan a lesson using one of her great resources.

— Paul Evans (@Tuck5131) April 14, 2014

and I thought – why not?

Bev set up up Communication4all  in 2006 to share all the resources she had made to enable inclusion within her own school, and continued to share there, and then latterly on TES Resources where she was @tes_SEN.  Her resources have been downloaded 4.5 million times in 248 countries. Amazing lady – and very much missed.

One of her legacies is her website. There is an MFL section containing numbers,  days, months and seasons in French, Spanish, German and Polish as well as multilingual greetings and a few French resources on animals transport and colour. Very attractive and clear – well worth downloading.

However, there is a wealth of other stuff on the site that could equally be used in primary languages.

For example, the Spring time dominoes feature no language and could be used to practice numbers and spring vocabulary: for example in Spanish

un pollito     un pato       un nido      un huevo    un cordero    un conejo

uno dos tres cuatro cinco seis

For Christmas, why not try this activity that uses 2D shapes to make Rudolph, Father Christmas an angel and a Christmas tree; not only is it themed for a season/festival but it also allows you to discuss colour, size and shape.

Take Rudolph.

¿Cuántos rectángulos hay? ¿y círculos? ¿De que color son los triángulos? El círculo marrón ¿es grande o pequeño? and so on!

Getting away from festivals, Bev made lots of colourful board games, often with a literacy theme, that I;ve used before in the language classroom.

Her bright bold snakes and ladders board can be used for any topic; simply have a list of questions or instructions for each number to which learners refer, changing the list according to the theme. Or you could make question cards (perhaps the same ones you use for QuizQuizTrade) and learners pick one up when they land on an odd square. (The link is to the numbered version – picture is linked to unnumbered version)

Where in the world is Barnaby Bear? is a good game to link geography to knowledge of the world. It’s in English but you could discuss the languages spoken in the countries visited, the flag and talk about colours (Clare Seccombe has some great resources for this on LightBulbLanguages) and perhaps some discussion of transport.

 I love the Catching flies game for counting and as an introduction to who eats what for young learners, and also Build your own Gruffalo which could easily be adapted to another language and used when talking about facial features – great for our unit of mythical beasts! Likewise, Elmer’s Colour Collecting game is great for colours and Build a bigger caterpillar for numbers!

The Hungry Caterpillar is a story that I use in Spanish and there’s a good healthy eating game linked to the story; great opportunity to use food vocabulary as well as ‘es sano’ / ‘no es sano’, and ñam ñam / beurk! or ¡Qué rico!/¡Qué asco!

Likewise, the Handa’s Surprise resource is a data handling one, reinforcing maths skills and asking children to make tactical decisions too! And there are more games/activities too based on other stories such as Dear Zoo, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Hairy McClary.

Then there are all the editable labels – great for labelling table groups, making displays, creating flashcards on topics, creating clues for treasure hunts and generally making colourful resources. I particularly like the handprints and the wild animals!

One final thing I love – the colour sums in the Art section, and also the colour dominoes; love a good paint splat!

And that is only the things directly from the HOME page. I haven’t begun on the resources accessed via the sidebar. I’ll save that for another day, although feel free to explore before then. In fact, I’d encourage you to do so, and share with your primary colleagues as there is such a wealth of high quality resources’ hidden’ here.

One last thing – I am particularly nostalgic about the international rugby balls, originally created for 2007 Rugby World Cup and updated in 2011; that’s possibly one of the first times I ‘spoke’ to Bev and, having made them in English and Welsh, she made them in French and Spanish because we asked her. That’s the kind of lady she was!

Thanks to Joe Dale for the photo (and video later)!

I had the privilege on 28th March to speak at the South West London Primary Languages Conference #SWLPLC. My talk was entitled There’s more to PLL than ‘that donkey’ (Tip Top Tips for Primary Language Learning) and took inspiration from my son who when asked what he’d done in French usually replied “oh, we did that donkey again”. I have nothing against Mon âne but there’s more to PLL than singing as I went on to explain, sharing some of my favourite activities and ideas. Below is my presentaion and links to resources I used and sites I referenced.

A lovely day and well worth the early morning; great to see Joe, Rachel, Carmel and finally meet Ceri and Sue, and also to have so many positive comments about Primary Language learning flying around the room.

Habitats matching activity

worksheet LAT SP FR ROM NUMBERS 1-31

el nabo enorme

Oso Pardo pdf

Oso pardo

blank brown bear

Simpsons song

Que colores hay

Links from presentation

Rachel Hawkes’ phonics

httpv://youtu.be/seW6lf_9pSk

Music for Los vocales D.I.S.C.O.

@lisibo teaching Spanish vowel sounds! #SWLPLC http://t.co/KDZAJhpDPd

— Joe Dale (@joedale) March 28, 2014

 Rhabarberbarbara

Jo Rhy Jones phonic activities 

I didn’t get to share my Pinterest pages as they were blocked by the firewall, but here’s the link to my Roman resources for Spanish. And if you flick through, resources for lots of other topics/themes too.

I also recommended looking at The Iris Project and LightBulbLanguages (formerly MFL Sunderland) for other resources that I have found useful for Latin/Greek (former) and Latin, Planets and much more (latter) And check out TES Resources from Joan Miró resources fromHelen Stanistreet and Rachel Hawkes

Boowa et Kwala – Peut tu marchez comme un canard? Fingerpaint song

Padlet.com – for collecting ideas (online post it notes)

Storybird – make up your own stories using illustrators images.

MFL Storybird wikispace

I also mentioned Tellagami, Pic collage and Book Creator app. Check out this post for more details!

Again, if I’ve forgotten to upload something that I promised, please let me know!

(Sorry it’s taken me so long to post – illness, work and OFSTED held me up!)

Last Friday (21st) saw me charging from Stafford to Marston Green, and then running at high speed (wearing inappropriate shoes obviously!) from the carpark to Hall3 for TeachMeetEdShow.

Fortified by hugs from various people including Simone (who is as bonkers as me which helps) and Buncey (who is exceedingly clever but also daft as a brush) as well as a bottle of beer, I soon recovered and managed to speak (sort of) coherently for 2 minutes and then 7 minutes.

My slides are shared above – I’ll summarise what I said as the slides alone don’t really speak for themselves (especially the first part)

Keeping in touch

In my two minute presentation I shared the importance of staying in touch at a time when teachers feel very ‘got at’ and need all the support they can get. I shared how social media was wonderful when I was in Switzerland as distance didn’t matter; I knew what was going on, and felt included despite my physical distance. I talked about the support and advice offered, and the care given by people who you’ve never met but feel know and understand you, who notice when you’re a bit quiet or disappear for a while and send a quick “you OK?” message to check. As a community was laugh together, rant together and we cry together. And in the week that we lost Bev Evans, the most selfless caring generous positive star, I encouraged others to join in the community of support, on Twitter (or anywhere else actually) and look out for each other. I’m @lisibo if you fancy following! (Seems very appropriate that I post this on the day that we say #goodbyetoBev)

Felt a bit shaken after that and the discovery of a half eaten dark chocolate Bounty didn’t help. However, I blew my nose and the evening continued with great presentations about exciting science, reuseable QR codes and Whipsnade Zoo. And a real hedgehog.

Using the right tool for the job

My seven minute presentation was about choosing the right tool for the job. I shared the series of lessons with Year 3 Spanish on the theme of Mythical Monsters. We began with learning parts of the face with a song – and I made everyone sing which was amusing! I explained how song is a great tool for learning as, combined with gestures, all the learners could recall the words simply by singing in their heads and gesturing to bring the word to mind before sharing the book that inspired the next part of the sequence. Based on Go away Big Green Monster, I wrote  a simple story called Señor Cabeza Naranja using auto shapes on Smartboard which repeated greetings, parts of the face and adjectives. From this learners used 2D shapes to make their own Señor and Señora Cabeza (insert colour) on large paper, photographing each step with an iPad and annotating the picture as they went along. We then used BookCreator app to create eBooks; we imported the photos, added the text that learners had rehearsed on the large paper, and then added sound as the pupils told their stories. The result wasn’t perfect but that wasn’t the point. It was a journey that continues using the right tool for the job to move forward.

I also managed to win the raffle (a Hue webcam) which was nice with my Twitter comment about the event