Category: ideas

Just discovered this ‘channel’ on Youtube – coloradolibraries. It’s the site of Colorado State Libraries and features several clips of people reading stories.

A Colorado Storytime includes read-alouds of childrens books along with literacy tips. It includes different types of short books, in English and Spanish, with colorful pictures, related in some way to Colorado through publisher, author, illustrator or theme, and read by Colorado personalities.

Over the next 4 posts I’ll be sharing some Spanish ones and making the odd suggestion about how they might be used.

The first is a story about Cucumber soup – Sopa de pepino – a great story about working together (think The enormous turnip) featuring minibeasts!

Linda Owen has some lovely ideas about using minbeasts in primary languages and here are some resources (in French I think but they could be adapted!)  and there’s a wonderful song about a labybird on this page (scroll down the page)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRRWnRO7dm0

Yes, I’ve been to IKEA again in search of a blind and more inspiration in the form of squishy things!

You’d think I’d bought up the whole shop by now but I did purchase this set of farm animals.

How might I use them?

Well, I’ve thought of the following-

a) colours –

Busco algo negro.

Busco un animal de color rosa.

¿De qué color es la vaca?

¿El cisne es amarillo?

b) size/shape

Busco algo negro y pequeño.

Busco algo blanco con un cuello largo.

Althernatively, you could give half the information and the pupils to ask for more information.

Busco algo grande.     >    ¿Es negro?

No, es marrón y blanca.    > Es la vaca

c) a song (there’s always a song involved isn’t there!)

El granjero tiene una granja or En la granja de mi tío or En la granja de Pepito or whichever version you sing would work well!

d)looking at names of baby animals –

una oveja – un cordero

una vaca – un ternero

un cerdo – un cerdito

leading into the use of -ito to mean little  (cf un pollo – un pollito)

(btw – if you fancy a giggle, have a look at this for finding out how to say little baby cow in different languages!)

e) storytelling

Una vez había un grupo de animales en una granja había una vaca y su ternero, un cerdo y sus tres cerditos, una oveja y su cordero negro y un cisne.  Su vida era perfecta aparte de una cosa… en la granja también había un toro gruñón..

I’ll leave you to finish off the story!

So, there’s a few ideas. Perhaps you could add your own in the comments below?

PS I was very taken with these wonderful large squashy fruit and vegetables. I resisted the temptation to buy them though!

Flickr CC by jurvetson

Supporting the ‘less confident‘ is the theme of my 7 minute presentation.

Some ideas I may or may not throw out there!

1. embed sound in presentations

eg El granjero tiene una granja

El pequeño petirrojo final

2. make sound files – and encourage their use

eg BGFL website

3.have ‘expert’ pupils who you train to support

4.point out ways of teaching languages that are less stressful

eg Ideas for support and embedding of language learning by class teachers

calendar

5.use  websites to ‘present’ things

eg Babelzone; LanguageNut; BBC Primary Languages site; Lingo Show; favourite games

As I’m full of cold I may be more random than normal so this is just a guide ;o)

My two minute presentation is about Postcrossing. I have mentioned it before but it’s worth mentioning again as it’s always so popular when I do!

In its simplest terms, you “send a postcard and receive a postcard back from a random person somewhere in the world!”

Really easy! Writing a postcard is a short focussed activity that can be done anytime there’s a spare five minutes – even the most reluctant writer can manage a few lines. Pop it in the postbox and off it goes. Then you wait – and you receive a postcard from somewhere in the world! It’s a surprise!

We made an actual display of all the postcards with pins on a world map – but as we have 3 buildings at our school this was a bit ‘exclusive’ so we made a virtual map too on Google Maps.

And the postcards themselves are artefacts that we have used for all sorts of activities to enhance international awareness and ICU. One example is year 6 making fact files based on the cards with famous people from tht country, language, music and so on, plus an impression.

And I LOVE the motto!

Thanks to a lovely FLA (foreign language assistant) who attended my course yesterday I’ve discovered Semillitas de Aprendizaje. And I love it!

Semillitas de aprendizaje (little seeds of learning) is part of RiF (Reading is Fundamental), a non profit organisation with the aim of nurturing a love of books and a rise in literacy across America.

OUR VISION:
Our vision is a literate America in which all children have access to books and discover the joys and value of reading.

OUR MISSION:
To motivate young children to read by working with them, their parents, and community members to make reading a fun and beneficial part of everyday life. RIF’s highest priority is reaching underserved children from birth to age 8.

 

Semillitas de aprendizaje is a bilingual site – in English and Spanish – aimed at children 0-5 years old and their parents. It’s full of games, stories, songs, rhymes and activities in two sections – 0-36 meses and 3-5 años.

Favourites so far include

Explorar where you can find out about animals in short clips with simple notes down the side

Juegos digitales which doesn’t mean digital games but finger rhymes! Particularly like the fact that the girl presenting them isn’t a’professional’ singer – much more appealing. My favourite is Las ruedas en el bus.

Cuentos – some very simple stories – particularly like La mascota perfecta (link to Querido Zoo?) and No me quiero bañar – a common cry in many homes!

Rimas infantiles is also a great section with lots of rhymes – and they’re read to you so you get the right rhythm which can be a bit of a problem.

Some lovely things to see and do on the site – also has pictures to download and colour (love the animals!)

And the adults section gives advice on good books, activities that you can do with your children and also general advice.

So, thanks for the tip off! I love it when other people share things with me!

Lisibo’s been shopping again.  This time, though, it’s not IKEA that has inspired her but TK Maxx that has come up trumps.

In the sale (!) I found this Very Hungry Caterpillar felt set.

Ideal for –

• telling the story to the class
• getting pupils to follow the story actively by adding / moving/ substituting the felt pieces
• animating – and because it’s a felt board, you can do it horizontally or vertically
• small group work
• independent play

Sad that Year 3 have finished with that story for the year and we’ll have to wait until next September to ry it out with them.  perhaps it’s time I invaded Foundation stage again…

The Hungry Caterpillar is a great story to use with kids as it’s familiar and repetitive.  The vocabulary is simple and everyday – numbers, colours, food – and it looks at healthy eating as well as the life cycle of the caterpillar / butterfly, so very cross curricular!

There are great resources all over the place for this story including

• videos on Youtube – one two three
• a whole series of lessons here
• a page full of ideas here
• a lovely song here – with music file too
• a powerpoint of the story in Spanish
• a PDF of a teaching sequence including cross curricular links
• another PDF with ideas and the pattern for a caterpillar mobile
• some art / craft activities to do with butterflies and caterpillars

And that’s just gleaned from a quick Google search!

A tweet the other day about a visit to IKEA and the purchase of hats and things reminded me that I hadn’t shared my latest purchase from the great Swedish home of fun!

Those who have been reading ¡Vámonos! for a while will know that I am a great fan of IKEA for resources that can be used in teaching languages (and other things too!)

Last time I went I bought a fruit punnet and vegetable basket and this purchase continues on the food theme.

How might I use this IKEA breakfast set?

Well apart from naming the items of food e.g. pan, un huevo frito, salchichas, queso, beicon – if that’s how you spell it now ;o) – etc, you could use this set to work on negative sentences ‘Para desayunar, tomo un huevo frito’ Para desayunar no tomo salchichas.’  Or you could introduce phrases of frequency  e.g. ‘Normalmente, como pan tostado para el desayuno’, ‘A veces desayuno un huevo frito y beicon’, ‘Nunca como tortitas/panqueques’. Opinions would also work.

Alternatively you could use it for some intercultural understanding and comparison of eating habits. What is a typical English breakfast?  What would an American eat for breakfast?  And in Spain? France?  And that allows opinions too!

Think they need to add some yoghurt, cereal and some drinks to the set!

Wonder what I’ll find on my next visit?

Found a Youtube clip of Ian Gilbert in action with a group of children, using thunks to get them thinking.

What’s a thunk?

A Thunk is a beguilingly simple-looking question about everyday things that stops you in your tracks and helps you start to look at the world in a whole new light.

Now I’m off to think up a few of my own for Wednesday.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0HrpGvAbxM

One of my favourite ideas from this morning has been the idea of making our brains work by posing unanswerable questions – or thunks.
There’s a whole website of them here but here are a few we’ve considered this morning.

What colour is Tuesday?

What is a tree? Is it less of a tree in winter when it has no leaves?

Is a broken down car parked?

Where do thoughts come from?

What is a third of love?

Is there more future or past?

I love this kind of activity that has no right or wrong answer, and makes you explain and justify your thinking. Needs a bit of practice to get it going but well worth the effort. One of the teachers with whom I work starts each day with a question like this – last week they considered ‘what can’t you doing sitting down?’
Provoked a great discussion!

And if you’re on Twitter and fancy receiving some thunks -called #twunks – follow @itlworldwide

Latest #twunk below!

Below is my seven minute micropresentation from Teachmeet styley thingy (I think that name could stick!) at the eTwinning Ambassadors meeting #etwpdw.

In my seven minutes (I think the lovely @digitalmaverick gave me a little longer….) I talked about

1. using Wallwisher to collect ideas, have asynchronus discussions and review learning / progress.  I set up an example Wallwisher just prior to my presentation and asked my Twitter pals to contribute.  Thank you!

2.using Google Maps to keep an online track of postcards being exchanged in our eTwinning project Greetings across the miles, as well as cards from Postcrossing.  The actual postcards are displayed on the school wall, but by plotting them on a Google Map pupils get an idea of how far the cards have travelled, the position of countries and much more that enhances and extends the experience beyond a piece of paper arriving in the post.

3.using Storybird to write collaborative stories.  I ran out of time at this point and had to be very brief but my idea was to use Storybird to write stories across countries as follows –

• agree on a set of visuals.
• each group writes the story in their own language -or in a common one.
• stories are shared.

I bet no two stories would be the same!

As soon as I liberate it from @digitalmaverick, i’ll upload the video of my presentation.  But until then, if you have any questions, please contact me.