Category: stories

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.

Here are a few information videos:

El Antiguo Egipto para niños

Egipto, Documental sobre una civilización – this one is quite complex but has good information. From the same people, there are videos about specifics like Los pirámides and Las tumbas egipcias which are shorter.

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!

Great for an assembly perhaps?

httpv://youtu.be/VkFxB8MbLs0

And then there’s El rap del Faraón Kamon

You can listen here and also access the sound file and lyrics here.

(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!

 Rita y los ladrones de tumba

I also found some activities to accompany a book called Rita y los ladrones de tumba.

1. If you purchase the book (Amazon,  Casa de los libros, Barnes and Noble), you can read it in 3D via Rita’s own website – watch this video to see how! Want to know if it’s a good book? Here’s a video book review on  by Helena who’s read it!

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!

Activities

Some fun puzzles and colouring sheets from Yodibujo based on Egyptian art and gods and goddesses.

There are more colouring activities in El Sarcófago de las diversiones.

There are lots of activities on Educaplay – I think that the Mapas Interactivos are particular useful; for example, here, here and here. 

How to make Los escarabajos de la suerte

Ideas from other schools

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!

LaEduteca’s post on La Máquina del Tiempo is also very helpful, especially the ‘láminas’ used in the topic.

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!

Although I love a good book, eBooks are increasingly becoming part of my life for a number of reasons. One of those reasons is that, in an educational / classroom context, an eBook projected onto a IWB / via AppleTV or Reflector app is so much easier to share than a printed text.

I’ve previously written about Calliope, Queen of the Zebras, an iPad app story, and Soy demasiado grande and Le facteur spatial in I can read..eBooks, so I was interested to have a look at some of the more advanced books by bSmall .

Los mellizos de tiempo is one of their original eBooks in the Let’s read series, aimed at older learners who can read independently. This series are bilingual parallel texts with Spanish on one page and English on the other. (Also available in French!)

“The twins’ grandfather has invented a time-travel watch. Whoosh! The twins suddenly find themselves in Ancient Egypt. But will they ever get home again?”

Having used the CDRom versions of the I can read books, I’m familiar with the double page spread with colourful illustrations. The eBook preserves this and also the ability to have the book read to you. What I like about this book is that there is a separate audio control for Spanish and English text so you can choose the language you wish to hear, unlike the I can read books that I’ve seen where both texts are on the same control. There’s an image scrubber at the bottom of the page that means you can move smoothly from beginning to end of the book or home in on a selected page. Wonderful!

As to the story, it’s quite simple and easy to follow, especially as there’s the support of the English text too. It’s short enough to be used in one go but also long enough to be read in a few ‘episodes’ to a class. I think it would be great to use in the primary classroom as it links so well with the ‘topic’ of Egyptians, or under the ‘learning journey’ of Treasure taken in Year 4 at WCPS. And that got me thinking…

In the next post I’ll be sharing some ideas about linking Spanish and the Egyptians!

httpv://youtu.be/d_smmARX-TI

Cuento de Navidad. Matias ha pedido un tren a los Reyes Magos. Matias sabía que los Reyes Magos no dejan regalos a los niños que están despiertos pero esa noche le entran unas ganas terribles de hacer pis. Un cuento divertido para disfrutar con los niños esta Navidad.

Beatriz Montero cuenta una adaptación del cuento “Cuando a Matías le entraron ganas de hacer pis en la Noche de Reyes”, de Chema Heras, Ed. Kalandraka.

A great story for tonight! You can see the original story here and here’s a lovely little song to go with the story!

Today in Waterstones in Coventry, Maria Alexander aka @IamMariaAlex has been holding a book signing for her first book – very exciting! Entitled Welcome to Planet WizZ, it is the first of a series of books ‘Teaching children Spanish the WizZ way‘, and Maria kindly let me have a pre-launch look!

Planet WizZ is ‘a mysterious little planet..that never stays still and keeps whizzing among the other planets.’ The planet is inhabited by wizzes, including Marrón and Naranja who are twins and the ‘stars’ of the story, along with Señor VerdeRojo who runs the only school on WizZ. Spanish is the official language on Planet WizZ and, whilst the book is written in English, there are Spanish phrases in the text besides the characters names. Each chapter (five in this book) has a theme in the form of a question e.g. ¿Qué hay en tu mochila? ¿Cuántos años tienes? ¿Cuándo es tu cumpleaños? and within the chapter, relevant vocabulary is used which is then listed at the end of the chapter.

I enjoyed the story – the characters are amusing and you quickly get to know their personalities and traits. The Spanish does not detract from the story by which I mean that the story doesn’t seem stilted as you switch reading between the two languages, and there aren’t too many new words introduced in each chapter. All the Spanish is highlighted in bold so it’s clear to the reader when the Spanish is coming, and the characters’ names are also written in the colour of their name (as I wrote the names above!) I loved the graphics – simple but very amusing and appealing. (I think all teachers could do with 5 eyes like Señor VerdeRojo) And I particularly liked the little bits of incidental ICU that appear as you read such as information about Spanish speaking countries, and also the ‘valuable lessons’ that the characters often learn by the end of the chapter! The page of vocabulary at the end of the chapter promises sound files for the pronunciation of each item on www.planetwizz.com – you can currently register for future updates and I sure that this will follow soon along with other supporting resources as soon as website glitches are sorted out.

Whilst the books are aimed at 6-9 year olds, as Maria says in this lovely interview by one of her pupils, Ellie, they can equally be used by older beginners as a starting point as the themes such as numbers and the alphabet, are ones you usually meet at the start of language learning.

The interview also talks about how some of the proceeds from the book will got to M.A.M.A., an organisation that uses art and music to make the world a better place!

According to the Bablake newsroom you can buy the book, priced £6.99, from Waterstones in Coventry (where Maria will be signing more copies  during late night shopping on Wednesday 19th), WHSmiths, independent retailers and on Amazon (although it says currently unavailable, they’ll have more copies very soon)and the Book Repository.

This is billed as the first of many Spanish books, and there’ll be more languages too…(see below!)

Good luck Maria! Looks great!

I came across this website earlier when searching for something else and thought I’d share it.

TuDiscoveryKids is the website for DiscoveryKids in Latin America and features all sorts of activities in Spanish linked to some of their programmes. I thought I’d highlight a few that you might find interesting!

Juego de los colores

In this game, learners are given five tubes of paint and challenged to make the colour indicated – in the example above ‘bordo’ or burgundy. They squeeze the tubes to squirt the paint onto the palette, use the paintbrush to mix the colour and then paint the picture with the colour they mixed. Great for linking to colour blending in art.

Fábrica de palabras

In this game, the crane challenges you to complete words by finding the missing consonants. The letters are then hoisted into the word and the crane repeats the sound and tells you if you’re correct. Then you are asked a yes/no question about consonants and vowels before being given another challenge. Great for looking at sound/letter link.

Todos a bordo

A game for dinosaur fans – and every class has them! The dinosaurs travel from Triassic to Jurassic to Cretaceous period and you are in charge of showing the dinosaurs to their seats, checking the tickets, feeding them and making sure that they get off in the correct period. As you go, you learn what type of food the dinosaurs eat and also in which time period they belong.

 Conoce los 5 sentidos

This game links to your senses and asks you to choose from three objects that match a description e.g. Algo que tiene olor – something that smells or algo brillante – something shiny, and then decide which sense you would use to find out. As you play, you can learn the names of the objects from which you select, increase your knowledge of adjectives, and also consider your senses. You need to be careful as well not choose the correct sense for the adjective e.g. I had to find something ‘silencioso’ (silent) which was ‘una pluma’ (a feather), and this linked to ‘Oido’ – hearing rather than touch which you might have chosen had the adjective been ‘suave’ – soft. A fun link to science!

Each game also has links to other activities that have a link – for example, a video called Masa repugnante is suggested for this game which links to a video about an experiment to make a gooey yucky dough!

And there are also articles that would be of interest to educators and parents. This one links to the game above.

  Así se dice

This is a very simple game that wants you to indicate the animal that makes a certain sound by clicking on the animal. This is made harder by the animals being in silhouette on what looks like a sight chart! A fun game that could be played when discussing animals as well as when thinking about how languages have similarities and differences.

 Leer es un juego

Our final example is accessed via the image of a library where you click on the book you’d like to read. The book is read to you but there is a missing word in the text. In the first example, there are three images from which to choose to fill the gap; in the second you have to choose the word that has the syllables correctly ordered. A fun way of keeping attention if you are using the story with the whole class as well as a little challenge for an individual reader.

I hope you’ll investigate the site more yourself – there are many more games and activities that merit attention. Perhaps I’ll come back with a follow up post in the future to explore further!

One final (for now!) Storybird, this time a little more complex than previously. This book is about animals and from where they come. It could be used as part of a cross curricular unit (geography /Science / Spanish). Whilst making it, I found a great website called Animalandia which has information in the form of short ‘fichas’ and a paragraph about over 400 animals and great pictures too. I particularly like the Carrusel de imágenes that can be set to flick through a certain animal group or just pop up images of random animals.
I wish I’d known of this site when I wrote this post about the QCA unit El Carnaval de los Animales, but it would certainly help with the latter tasks such as writing about an animal in the first person,  creating My Wildself and describing it.
¿De dónde viene el yak? on Storybird

PS I promise to get a new ‘obsession’ for November! ;O)

How many different ways can you answer the question ¿Qué tal? or ¿Cómo te sientes hoy? A story in Spanish about feeling happy and sad, angry and confused.

¿Cómo te sientes hoy? on Storybird

This book was never properly finished as I can’t go back to the pictures now to add more. However, it has quite a few ‘tener’ expressions even without being complete!
TENER. on Storybird

Not quite sure what to do today? Nor is our hero. Read on to find out what he decides to do.

¿Qué voy a hacer hoy? on Storybird

Continuing with my “Storybird collection”, here’s Los animales, a book that describes some unusual animals.

Los animales on Storybird