I’ve recently started a Pinterest of Spanish resources and came across some lovely maps as I was pinning. None of them would actually serve to guide your way so no good for directions really, but they sparked a few ideas!
This map is a composite of a number of graphics used in an article on Spain. I like the stylised topography and selection of places of interest in various towns.
Possible activities
Name the monuments on the map of Spain.
Assign each group a monument to research.
Identify the mountain ranges. Which is tallest? What activities can be done in the mountains?
Give learners their own blank map of Spain and ask them to select places of interest, features such as rivers or lakes etc to mark on their own infographic map.
This isn’t an infographic, rather a site that is packed with interactive maps looking at the geography of Spain. You can try to name the rivers, mountains, autonomous regions, provinces and so on. I particularly like the provincias one above as the shapes give you a clue – they’re quite tricky puzzles!
This map of Barcelona gives the vague geographical layout of several monuments and places of interest.
Possible activities
Find the date that each of the monuments was built (practice of large numbers!)
Challenge learners to plan a visit that includes all or a selection of the places on the map using public transport.
Draw a map of their town or a large city in the same style.
And this map of Madrid has even less geographical information but also includes some phrases that you might hear / use, and some ideas of things to do as well. There’s a similar map of Paris.
Possible activities
Design a similar map for your local area; which places would you recommend? what would you do? which phrases might sum up your area?
Compare the above with a plan of Madrid. Is it accurate? Discuss the differences using Group Talk phrases of opinions and agreement/disagreement.
And then there are maps of Spanish speaking countries. This one of the Dominican Republic is possibly the nearest to an accurate map here.
Possible activities
Where is the Dominican Republic? How did it get its name?
There are ‘doodles’ all over the map. What are they?
Use the Mexico map to recommend activities to -a wildlife lover -a history buff -a thrill seeker
Make your own tourist map in the style of either map – off the beaten track activities, food you mustn’t miss, insider knowledge of the best coffee and so on.
Devise a slogan for your area like ‘Pura Vida’
And if you don’t want to do activities with the maps, they makes lovely displays! I have a feeling that I’ll be coming back to other infographics soon with more ideas …
Reading Los mellizos del tiempo got me thinking about integrating language learning in the Primary curriculum. As I mentioned in my previous post, it links so well with the ‘topic’ of Egyptians, or under the ‘learning journey’ of Treasure taken in Year 4 at WCPS. So I had a bit of a look around and came up with the following ideas, resources and links that might be of use to anyone who wants to do just that!
General information
Egipto para niños – collection of fairly simple texts on a number of areas of Egyptian life including the Pyramids, food, manners and mummies as well as a bit of geography. This text is in fairly short chunks too. And Blog de los Niños has some short chunks of information, particularly about Egyptian gods and the meanings of the various crowns.
Here are some longer texts about various Egyptian ‘misterios’ including the Mummy of Pyramid KV22.
Historia Simple has some short-ish historical summaries of the various phases of the 2500 year long Egyptian era including a section on the Pyramids. There’s also some information on El Historiador.
And of course there’s Wikipedia – you can translate the pages back and forth between languages so you could have some fun with picking out key items of vocabulary.
Slideshare has some presentations for ideas and information including this lovely one from some young learners which is beautifully simple and asks some good questions on slide 4 that could be used for investigation.
And this blog has two simple presentations by Dora la Exploradora and friends, and Hello Kitty covering some of the basics of Egyptian geography and history in words and image.
However, my favourite find is from Junta de Andalucia. This site is a one stop shop about Egyptians, written in simple language and presented in short paragraphs with lots of visuals, making it really accessible. There is a dictionary of key terms as well as the facility to click on highlighted words for an immediate ‘pop up’ definition. Lots of interactive maps and also a hieroglyphics maker within the site also make it a great place for young learners to find out about Egypt. There’s also a webquest that guides learners through the site, posing questions that can be explored and investigated. (There’s another more complex webquest here along with other Egyptian resources shared on the Tiching site.)
A close second goes to a resource from Gobierno de Canarias that takes an interactive look at the Pyramids with extra information, again simply presented, appearing as you click on specific areas of the pyramid.
Videos
Videos are another source of information that can often be more accesible than just text.
And then there are these cartoons, the first from a series called Érase una vez.. and the second from a series called Martín Martín.
And here’s another I’ve just found which is a short video about the Egyptian pyramids:
You might also like to try the Barrio Sésamo approach with this video in which Lola visits the Pyramids or this video which presents images and name of the animals of Egypt before moving on to images of buildings and then some short snippets of information about Egyptian life.
Songs
You know how I love a good kitschy song! Here’s one called Momias de colores by Rockolate. When my hand is feeling better, I might try to subtitle the video using Amara or at least write them down!
(see also Fátima una momia responsable below under Stories for another song)
“Literacy” ideas
(see also Stories below!)
Perhaps with older, more advanced learners you could use some of the definitions from this ‘Glosario’ for a match the word to the definition. You could choose key words like Faraon, Esfinge, Obelisco, Momia, Papiro, Sarcófagos, Vasos canopos and so on.
And this vocabulary list gives you the Spanish word with the Arabic equivalent. Could provide an interesting language comparison activity.
And here’s an online hieroglyphics tool. Would be fun to write some words in hieroglyphics and ask learners to decode before they write their names. Or they could write key Egyptian vocabulary in hieroglyphics for display as well as in Spanish for a multi lingual display!
Maths ideas
The Egyptian system of counting and adding etc was very developed and you can find out all about it here (in more detail than I think I need to know but if you like Maths…)
This site has lots of writing at the top (useful information!) but the really ‘useful’ part for learners is the chart with the Egyptian number glyphs and the puzzles underneath, both for whole numbers and also for fractions. I foresee lots of fun with setting maths problems for each other… There are a few more maths problems here.
A document explaining that Egyptian numbers are not positional so you can write the units, tens, hundreds etc in any order! Un sistema aditivo – el egipcio
And of course there are all sorts of things you can do at a very simple level such as sequencing and using geometrical shapes when making Egyptian jewellery, and making pyramids.
Stories
I found this free video story about Egypt called El pendiente de la princess: Cuento de Egipto. Sadly it doesn’t go full screen but the man telling the story speaks clearly and fairly slowly so it could be used for a true/false activity or perhaps a multiple choice activity.
However, I found two more promising possibilities!
2. This PDF (rita_ladrones) has links to useful sites (some I’d already highlighted above before I found this!) and also some activity worksheets. Whilst the middle sheet on characters in the book would be hard without reading it, the first sheet (matching words with images and writing your name in hieroglyphics) needs no knowledge of the book, and I think that the third sheet which is a sequencing activity could also be done without reading the story, and actually gives a very simple synopsis of what happens!
3.Then I discovered that there is an online version of the CD rom of activities about the book, complete with Teachers Notes (in Spanish!) There are various activities including finding synonyms and antonyms, sequencing text and a wordsearch – see below image for contents. Some activities are quite challenging for primary learners; however, a bit of challenge can be a good thing!
Fátima, una momia muy responsable
Fátima una momia muy responsable is a lovely story about an Egyptian mummy called Fátima who wants to be a tour guide and keeps scaring people! She builds up a great collection of hats and torches by doing it, but one day…
It’s a narrated version of a book that has been used in many Spanish primary schools.
httpv://youtu.be/On5fNWq9N8w
Some ideas for using the story –
act out the story
talk about colours and sizes describing the hats that Fátima collected / was gifted
pretend to be Fátima and give a tour of a pyramid
one of the class blogs I discovered had a song on it about how Fátima dances which would be great fun, whatever your age! You can access the words here or here, and here is a recording of young learners singing it!
I love ‘being a magpie’ and collecting ideas, and here are some classes in Spanish primaries that have done an Egyptian topic and shared their ideas.
Mis cosillas de Educación Infantil – this link takes you to the posts for the entire project. I particularly like the concept map that they made which includes lots of important vocabulary organised systematically. I think that having a map of what is already known that is added to as time passes and more information is gathered is a great way of documenting learning and progress, especially if learners post questions that they’d like to investigate and see them answered as they explore and investigate!
E.I. 5 años Carlos Ruiz have been doing an Egyptian topic too and this is the first of a number of posts on what they have done. If look in the archive, there are further posts documenting their work throughout noviembre and diciembre 2012 including the sequencing activity referenced in the Maths section above and an interesting post giving instructions on making ‘papiros’.
La Clase de la Bruja Maruja have done a project on Egyptians too and have published some of their work as well as links on their blog. Of particular use I think are the simple worksheets they used that could easily be used in the primary language classroom. I also love the fact that they’ve been using the wonderful Woodlands site by Mandy Barrow using GoogleTranslate to put it into Spanish!
And the Egiptologia site has a number of resources from schools in their Trabajos en colegios e instituciones section as well as Tus trabajos escolares. Lots of the resources are written by students making them suitable for learners to access themselves as well for use by teachers as information sources and inspiration!
So, I hope you’ve find the above useful. I know that there are many more things that could be done; for example, I haven’t even started on the possibilities for art projects! If you have any ideas or resources, please leave a comment – it’s good to share! And even if you haven’t, leave a comment! Its good to know that people are reading!
My second presentation at ILILC3 was called Let out for good behaviour.
The blurb said
Let out for good behaviour? refers to leaving the classroom being (often) seen as a treat. There are many ways to ‘break free’ of the walls of your classroom, both physical and virtual, and this session will involve both. Participation is required as we explore activities and games, that will enhance teaching and learning whilst bringing a breath of free air to a stuffy classroom. Technology will be involved but you don’t need anything but your imagination and sense of adventure to enjoy the activities.
Although my presentation was somewhat spoilt by the weather meaning we couldn’t get outside and make a mess with chalk, there was much giggling as we played Punto de contacto, went on a QR quest to solve animal riddles, went Placespotting and tried to win chocolate by solving dominoes. And much more of course! It’s great to know that some of the ideas I shared have already been used in classrooms!
I prepared a wikispace instead of a handout which gives links to activities as well as further ideas, and the presentation makes much more sense if you read it in conjunction with bit.ly/lisibobehave (like the bit.ly link?)
I was really pleased at the end of the session that my Swiss QR quiz has gone to a good home in Switzerland class! If you want to have a go at it, you can download the codes, questions and answers from here!
If there’s anything that needs explaining/clarifying, please leave a comment and I’ll get back to you!
Inspired by ideas from Jan Lewandowski and Sandra Longden on the CFBT Primary forum for snow related songs, I was reminded of a previous post in which I shared a song about Un muñeco de nieve that I had subtitled using Amara (previously called Universal Subtitles.)
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I’ll be in the UK in February to attend ILILC3 or to give its full name, the ICT Link into Language conference taking place at the University of Southampton on 9th and 10th February.
The theme of the conference is Jailbreaking the MFL classroom and there are sessions on
Mobile technologies Social Media Making the most of Web 2.0 Technologies The Global classroom Developing Speaking Closing the gap (SEN, SOLO, supporting learning etc)
In I want to break free we’ll be looking at ways to break away from ‘chalk and talk’ and involve learners, encouraging them to interact with and demonstrate their understanding as they learn using (mobile) technology. We’ll investigate some ways of doing this using tools such as Nearpod, Socrative and Memrise and whilst I’ll be using my iPad and Mac to present, that doesn’t mean you need a fruity device to join in as some tools are web based and others are both Android and iOS. And on top of that, we’re a friendly bunch so I’m sure people will share!
Let out for good behaviour? refers to leaving the classroom being (often) seen as a treat. There are many ways to ‘break free’ of the walls of your classroom, both physical and virtual, and this session will involve both. Participation is required as we explore activities and games, that will enhance teaching and learning whilst bringing a breath of free air to a stuffy classroom. Technology will be involved but you don’t need anything but your imagination and sense of adventure to enjoy the activities.
On top of the conference, there’s the Show and Tell on Saturday night at which ANYONE is encouraged to share a snippet sized piece of good practice, song or activity. Everyone has a good idea and has something to say so it’s great to hear from new people each year. You can sign up for it here.
Why should you attend?
it’s excellent value CPD
the speakers are excellent
you’ll learn so much
it’s the friendliest funn-est conference you are ever likely to attend
you’ll learn as much from conversations as from the sessions
And, back to the song at the start. Whilst I’m sure not everyone is at the end of their tether (at least I hope not!), it’s good sometimes to ‘breakout’ from things that are just not working for you, or your learners, look at things from another perspective and find a new ‘way’. Come to ILILC3 and you might just find the inspiration, support and encouragement that you need!
Great way to start the school year – an inspiring INSET day with not a dress code, health and safety lecture or mission statement in sight.
Alan Peat, addressing the subject Raising writing standards and motitvating reluctant writers was EXCELLENT! He engaged the room all day long; noone was muttering, noone was fidgetting and at the end of the day there was unanimity about the value of the day (rare indeed as every group has at least one or two cynics)
I tweeted all day – here are (most of) my tweets. Unfortunately they start at the end and work back through the day! But I think you can tell my thoughts on the day by the final tweet – which appears first!
And here are my notes – do they make sense? Possibly! I’ll attempt to expand!
A blank sheet is scary
Games based approaches are not a waste of time – they are vital.
Bite sized chunks are best and *DBW and decontextualised drilling should be avoided at all costs (* death by worksheet)
Brainbreaks or brain warm ups are anything that has nothing to do with the task – NOT braingym which is a big fib.
Games based approaches Staircase
Build a chain as a staircase
Lateral thinking – bans the obvious Across word
Sets of letters – first and last
1 pt for adding one letter; 2pt for 2 etc
*the anecdotal sticks in the mind* makes the less engaging more palatable Glidogram
1st letter, 2nd letter, 3rd letter, 2nd letter, 1st letter
Aardvark
pArrot
snAke
jAguar
Antelope
rally
Like a staircase but harder! Last 2 letters of the word – you need to think ahead so you don’t break the chain
I found the OULIPO concept by Raymond Queneau fascinating. The idea that constraints are needed for creativity seems very contrary but when you think about it, some constraint actually makes you think! Some examples follow –
lipogram – ban a letter of the alphabet
eg ban the a in
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall …. All the King’s horses and all the King’s men
and it beomes ..
Humpty Dumpty perched on the brick construction … Every one of the King’s horses plus every one of the King’s men.
I like sausages becomes I really like juicy, sizzling sausages. Great for recognising syllables as well as being creative with language. And an activity that could easily be used in language teaching – in Spanish, syllables are different!
Rashomon effect
examples include Akutagawa – At the grove ; Anthony Browne – Voices in the park; Hoodwinked
Same story from different perspectives
Beyond acrostics
Where do you go from basic acrostic? Hidden acrostic– word as 2nd letter Telestich– word as last letter Tele-acro – word as start and finish of sentence
(I tried these out on my son when he was bored the other day – he loved the challenge!)
Genre modification
See below.
I loved this idea as it is very supportive, is a useful ‘working wall’ with context, and also because it provides assessment at start and finish without fuss!
Wordless storybooks
I loved this too as one of my favourite actvities as a kid was making up stories about what’s happening in a picture – in fact, i loved the bit of my Spanish exam. where I had to do that!
Monosyllabic – rewrite texts in monosyllables – it’s very tricky. We tried with Little Red Riding Hood. Again, constraint lead to creative thinking as we thought of ways to avoid syllables!
Yoked sentences – last word of first sentence starts second sentence then last of second the third etc A good tool for persuasive writing.
One word at a time storytelling
Like storytelling ping pong! Yout hink you know where the story is going then your partner throws in an unexpected word and you need to rethink! Makes you listen! http://www.alanpeat.com/resources/listening.html
Plot skeleton – using one skeleton ie the bare bones of the story, and adapt for another genre – genius!
If you Google Citation of a phrase / word, it gives usage and when first used v useful!
7 key pedagogical approaches which underpin effective teaching of non-fiction writing
1.linked to real experience GGM – growing going and making
2.fictionalise it
3.link to books being read in class
4.link to pupils’ interests – know your pupils
5. Use talk/oracy as start
6.maximise cross-curricular links
7.ensure breadth of real purposes and audiences
A quotation I loved from the day was
“to be creative you need a body of knowledge to accept modify and reject”
I (sadly) got over excited with the quotation and didn’t note down who said it :o(
And also sadly, at this point I became so engrossed in the course that I stopped taking notes digitally and started scribbling!
However, one thing I’ll share is that the nailing down of level appropriate prompts for genre types was a very valuable activity – a good point that learners shouldn’t have to relearn the structure of genres according to their teacher’s way of putting it – why not have a common lexis?
Another thing I thought was great – and would again be easily used for language learning, is the sentence structuring activity Alan described for use with those who aren’t yet reading.
You pick a card from each envelope to ‘write’ phrases – and then sentences.
And another activity I loved was based on The Ultimate Alphabet by Mike Wilks.
Look at the image below. It is the B page. How many things beginning with B can you find? My partner and I got 70 in our 3 minutes.
And finally – it wouldn’t be at all like me if I didn’t mention technology of some kind – and Alan was on my page. He mentioned Twitter – and made me blush by mentioning that i followed him and had loads of followers! And Wordle – www.wordle.com – so excited when staff around me said ‘Oh, you showed us that Lisa!’ – hurrah, I’m not a freak now! E-pals – www.epals.com was another recommendation – look for classes around the world studying the same things as you and share your learning. Alan also advocated using Skype – tick! And then a new one on me – Padworx. Checking that out now!
To summarise my thoughts – I thoroughly enjoyed the day because it challenged, encouraged, inspired and confirmed. Alan obviously believes passionately in learning being an enjoyable activity and that that is the best way of getting the best out of learners. I admire the fact he is inspired by and champions ‘normal’ teachers who are in the classroom, and that he is obviously an practical educator at heart rather than a theorist. I loved the fact that so many of the ideas were so easily transferred to learning languages. And he loves his iPad too so must be a good bloke ;o)
One of the aspects of our Comenius Regio project that I have particularly enjoyed and that has given me great pleasure is the change in perceptions about being ‘foreign’ and by extension different.
Although pupils at WCPS are bright, and have had some contact with children in Spain previously, many still thought that every town in Spain was near a beach, that it was always hot, and that everyone steak and chips whilst speaking English. Their idea of a Spanish person was a lady with dark hair wearing a sevillanas dress or Lionel Messi (who isn’t Spanish!)
As one of the strands of the project was Intercultural Understanding, challenging and changing these perceptions has been key to the success of the project.
As pupils have met teachers from Barcelona in person, and children from Els Pins via Skype, and asked them questions, many things have dawned on them – for example,we all wear similar clothes, our food isn’t so different although we eat at different times and that we have many interests in common like sport and the environment. It’s also been noted that, whilst they do speak English quite well, people in Spain speak Spanish , but people in Barcelona also speak Catalan.
Now that we’re more aware about Spain- and India through Connecting Classrooms, being ‘different’ has become cool and there are several pupils who would never have ‘owned up’ to having another first language who are now wanting to share.
There’s always further to go of course and whilst this infographic is deliberately provocative, how many of the ‘perceptions’ can be identified as not just being held by Americans?
If we were to draw a similar map based on our perceptions, what would it look like?
Might be interesting to ask learners what they know and think, and then set about challenging the accuracy of their perceptions.
Languages MiniOlympics packs – Bringing together the two threads of KS2 teaching and languages and the International Dimension – presented by Michaela Howard and Jo Darley
Jo and Michaela – having marvellously overcome technical issues- presented their ideas for how to use the Olympics as the inspiration for language learning activities that are clearly linked to the KS2 Framework and specifically for the class teacher to deliver.
1. GETTING TO KNOW YOU
Take 6 athletes from around the world –
look at their photographs
looking at names and have a go at pronouncing the names,
are they male or female? which country?
present countries in original language – can you decide which country it is?
look at different script
pause for thought – what was hard / easy?
greetings in their own language – which is which?
flags of countries – research?
sports on each day – who will be doing which sport? by process of deduction, decide!
customs and cultures to finish – which fact belongs with which athlete?
2. SPORTS
short activities that fit well into the school day
adapt the sports chart (containing all the sports in 5 languages) to individual needs – use one column or all five columns but just six sports to group etc
perhaps cut up into chunks to match up, compare languages, describe their decisoon making
then look for the symbols for sports
tailor it to the interests of your learners
make links – ask partner schools to tell you about their sports
3. DESIGN AN OLYMPIC EVENT
Michaela suggested challenging pupils to come up with their own Olympic event by posing the following questions –
Design a mascot with 2 places to look for inspiration – info on Beijing mascots and how they were conceived, what they represent etc and from London Olympic mascots – very visual labelled diagrams. (Didn’t manage to note the URL but found the picture!)
A mascot for YOUR area – black cabs are specific to London perhaps – what would eg Lincoln have?
How might you use the job of promoting the Olympic games as a task?
In Y3 with the objective “to copy words” you might
design a ticket
label a map of the event
simple bilingual dictionary to find your favourite sport
make a welcome flag
In y4 with the objective “to write some simple words and phrases using model and some from memory” you might make
programme cover
logo and label it
whole class poster advertising all sports
simple menu for food stand (healthy lunchbox)
In y5 with the objective “to write words, phrases and short sentences using references” you might design a cartoon strip
In y6 with the objective ” to write sentences on a range of topics” you might
write a paragraph to describe how you feel about games
discuss where the games should be in 2020 – make your case
produce tourist information for another country
6. ON YOUR MARKS
Going back to the 6 athletes and using these two sites, find out the distance the athletes have to travel to London (assuming they live in the capital city of their country!) How long will it take to travel? what time is it in their city when it’s x o’clock in London?
Sorpresas y sonrisas – tips and ideas on how to keep everyone enthused and engaged in the Primary Languages classroom was th title of my contribution to the ALL NE Spanish day at Gosforth High School in Newcastle.
I had the daunting task of starting the day, and if that wasn’t enough, I was sharing the bill with Rachel Hawkes, Neil Jones, Joaquín Moreno and John Connor. No pressure then ;o)
Having got everyone moving with Uno de enero from Take ten en español as it was the last day of San Fermín, I launched into my presentation (see below) punctuated by a quick game of puntos de contacto and el Baile Olímpico (hope the Youtube link works in Slideshare!)
Hope it was useful to everyone, even if they weren’t primary teachers. I certainly enjoyed presenting and the rest of the day was awesome – more of that later!
And thanks to ALL NE for the wonderful book. I am SO excited about it!
This map is a composite of a number of graphics used in an article on Spain. I like the stylised topography and selection of places of interest in various towns.
