minibooks – ¡Vámonos!
 

Category: minibooks

Thanks to Russel Tarr for capturing me telling a  story!

My session at #PracPed18 was entitled Tell me a story! You can find the Slideshare below.

In it, I shared some ideas about the use of stories and books in the languages classroom. Beginning by discussing why you would use stories, we moved on to choosing books, and then some ideas of how you could use stories in the classroom to enhance language learning. Finally we talked about how to write your own stories; this part was a little shortened so I have added some notes below. You’ll also find links to some helpful posts and bookmarks below. I hope those that attended found the session helpful, and those that didn’t feel able to ask questions! Please feel free to leave a comment on the post if you have questions or comments!

Helpful links:

Pictocuentos website – stories told with widgets to support understanding.
The German Project – German stories online
 Talk for Writing – accompanying storytelling with actions and storymaps.
Link to resources for El artista que pintó un caballo azul as a text to discuss diversity.
The book I mentioned that was recommended and demonstrated by Nathalie Paris at Language World was called Poux by  Stephanie Blake– check out the sketchnote of her session here, and follow her book blog and podcast here for more great book ideas!
My primary language book collection, classified by language type and theme.

The Storybird wiki   has been shut down but you can access the links etc here. mostly Spanish with a couple of German ones.

My Storybirds mostly Spanish with a couple of German ones.

ALL Literature Wiki

Pinterest links to research on Storytelling and stories in language learning

Pinterest board of online stories

Blogposts on books on ¡Vámonos! – lots of posts including book reviews, ideas for using stories and how to write your own!

Thanks for your participation and questions.
Photo credit – Russel Tarr

Notes:

Slide 18 – I skipped this one in my presentation as time was flying. This week, Merriam Webster shared a “time machine’ dictionary that tells you the words that were put into the dictionary during the year of your birth. I wrote a story using just nouns from my birth year, shared via tweet. This gave me the idea of giving children a list of words and challenging them to write a story with those words. A good way for more advanced pupils to practice verbs. I will share further when I have developed that thought!

Rewriting a familiar story. Photo credit – Russel Tarr

Acronyms:

GPS – grammar punctuation and spelling

PSHE – Personal, Social and Health Education

ICU – Intercultural Understanding

Key Stage 1 – children aged 5-7

Key Stage 2 – children aged 7-11 (languages are a compulsory part of the curriculum in English state schools)

WBD – World Book Day (April 23rd)

As promised, here are some of the trioramas made by Y6 at WCPS on the subject of Mi pueblo. The pupils were very excited about making them and whilst one class did a better job than the other, there were some excellent examples created. Each classroom has a (static) Spanish display and I’ve added some of the trioramas to the border of them. I was going to attach them like a row of houses but decided that it was batter with the writing flush to the wall and the townscape facing the floor so that they could be read!

Why spend the time making them?

  • Yr6 needed a bit of motivation!
  • It encouraged them to do their best work and take pride in presentation in a way that writing in their books doesn’t.
  • Their work is now on display, or has been taken home (I took photos of them all to stick in books.)
  • Others within school have commented on the work; again this would not to be true if it were in their books.
  • It celebrates all the work that they have put in over the previous few weeks.

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.

lisa planets Lisa spread planets
Lisa planet writing lisa pluton

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.

photo 2-2 photo 4
 photo 1 photo 3
 photo 2 photo 3-2

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

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