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!

I received an invite to the ‘Trade and Press’ preview of the Gadget Show Live, taking place today ahead of the ‘real’ Gadget Show Live that runs from tomorrow until Saturday at NEC.

I have to admit that I felt a little out of place as

a)I’m not a man

b)I wasn’t wearing a suit

c)wasn’t toting a huuuge camera

However, I had a very pleasant few hours wandering around, looking at all sorts of technology and taking photos of interesting things.

So – what were my impressions?

Firstly, it was great to be able to get near to things! We went as a family last year and struggled to see or try anything as there were so many people. I had a go on an electric bicycle – very slowly it has to be said as it took me a while to get used to the throttle, and the course was very windy – I’d never have managed to get a go on a ‘normal’ day.

I sat in the Hub Theatre and caught the end of a talk by people from Warwick University about robots used in emergency situations such as nuclear disasters and earthquakes toassess safety – fascinating!

Then I heard the whole of a talk by Tom Dunmore, ex editor of Stuff and now CEO of MediaBlaze about smartphones and apps. Very interesting – I captured a few of the slides below. Very interesting that the projection of smartphone useage in 2015 puts Android ahead of iPhones and Google on a par with iPhones…

Enjoyed meeting R2D2, seeing the Batmobile and seeing all the tech from 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

And texting a machine that then delivered me some Smarties, and then tweeting @mbedmicro for Billy the Bass to read it out.

I was particularly interested to discover Practical Action

Practical Action uses technology to challenge poverty, working with poor women and men around the world.

I enjoyed talking to the staff on the stand about their Zeer pot fridge – ‘a simple technology that brings new hope’ as they put it – and treadle pump. These are just a couple of their projects in the area of agriculture; they’re also involved in other areas such as transport, disaster risk prevention and new technology such as podcasting to support local dialects. And I’ll be having a closer look at the education resources on the site – especially the Squashed Tomato challenge and Small is… challenge (closing date 30th April)

So, that was the Gadget Show Live Professional. More pics here.

Image from superkimbo

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!

So – what will YOU do?

Image from ransomtech

A lovely song / rhyme about a little bear playing hide and seek. Not the best singer ever but a sweet song!
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/19335416 w=400&h=300]

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!

CC image by Lauren Manning

This afternoon I’m at Knox House at the Martineau Centre in Birmingham delivering the second showing of the Sound and Vision session I ran last week at Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School.

All materials from the sessions – presentations, examples, helpsheets –  have been saved on my wikispace for easy access.

Hope you enjoyed it if you came, and that you find the resources helpful even if you didn’t!

I think that’s fairly self explanatory!

for more reasons, have a look at Why study languages? and Why languages?

Image from acjeppo