Thanks to @AliceAyel on Twitter for flagging up a great post on a blog called Teaching Spanish w/ Comprehensible Input by Cynthia Hitz. The post is entitled Using videos of children’s stories and lo and behold, there was my son’s favourite story as a child, playing to me in Spanish.

Entitled Click Clack Muu, Vacas escritoras (Click Clack moo, Cows that type) the story is set on a farm where the cows get hold of a typewriter and start sending letters to Farmer Brown demanding electric blankets. And then the ducks get involved… Isaac is now 14 and can still recite it verbatim. And so can I! So it’s great to see this post with so many ideas of how you might use it in the classroom. If only I had a class with whom to share it.

httpv://youtu.be/MQS-_5_MP-Q

I found these Resources from PBS  – they’re in English but there are some great ideas that could be translated into Spanish.

Gracias @sonrisadelcampo and thanks Isaac for the memories ;o)

Ages ago I bought a book of little plays and poems by Gloria Fuertes, and have to admit that I haven’t looked at it much since I bought it. However, I was reminded of it on Thursday at the ALL NorthEast Spanish day in Gosforth when Joaquín Moreno was talking about using poetry in teaching Spanish.

He mentioned using a particular poem by Gloria Fuertes to read aloud and act out in order to practice getting English mouths around Spanish sounds – in this case, ‘rr’ is particularly practiced.

The suggestion was to chorally repeat the odd numbered, repeated  line “Doña Pito Piturra” and for volunteers to read the even, varied line, with feeling and an action to accompany it.

A very simple idea that I shall be using in my classroom soon!

Below is the poem, and also a video of the poem being recited plus two versions, as a song!

DOÑA PITO PITURRA

Doña Pito Piturra
Tiene unos guantes,
Doña Pito Piturra
Muy elegantes.

Doña Pito Piturra
Tiene un sombrero,
Doña Pito Piturra
Con un plumero.

Doña Pito Piturra
Tiene un zapato,
Doña Pito Piturra
Le viene ancho.

Doña Pito Piturra
Tiene toquillas,
Doña Pito Piturra
Con tres polillas.

Doña Pito Piturra
Tiene unos guantes,
Doña Pito Piturra
Le están muy grandes.

Doña Pito Piturra
Tiene unos guantes,
Doña Pito Piturra
¡lo he dicho antes!

I had a lovely time with some delegates this morning talking about storytelling using ICT – ‘digital storytelling’

Here’s my presentation – possibly won’t make much sense until it has the sound added, but you’ll have to wait a bit for that until I get the file back from Joe Dale’s iRiver.

Also, there is a document containing all the notes from the session.

Tell me a story session notes

Tell me a story presentation

Links that I missed off the list – MFL animation themed!

Catherine Elliot – www.twitter.com/catherinelliott

http://ssclc.wordpress.com

http://bit.ly/efSmim – Joe Dale interviews Catherine

Oscar Stringer – www.twitter.com/ostringer

http://www.animationforeducation.co.uk/ – go to Film examples – MFL

Any questions or queries, feel free to contact me

Also as part of my presentation at ICT Links into Languages conference I’ll be mentioning ToonDoo so here are a few examples of how it’s been used in MFL.

Mi Vida Loca

Comparisons on Mandarin

In this Spanish story, Charlie and Bon QuiQui go out to lunch.

And some French comic strips on introductions

And a couple of German examples –

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!

Here is the Slidecast of my second presentation from Brighton.

Apologies for the audio cutting out before the end – no idea what happened there!  Perhaps the iRiver overheated!

Apologies to @wizenedcrone for forgetting her real name – it’s Fiona Joyce!!!

And the German site I mentioned was called GenkiGerman.

Just received an exciting email from Kathy Wickstead, National Subject Lead for Languages.

A great opportunity – sadly I have a meeting and should be teaching anyway so I’ll be unable to go. But if anyone does go, please be sure to share!!

I just have to share this lovely lovely storytelling clip that was brought to my attention by @mariefrance.

[blip.tv http://blip.tv/play/AYG_138C]

Following a Twitter conversation this afternoon started by @josepicardo, I remembered that I had taken screen shots of all my Storybirds and made them into Keynote presentations.