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!

What are your hopes for Primary Languages in 2011 and onwards?

Would you like to make your voice heard by ‘important people’?  By that I mean people who make policy and decide what the really important people ie the pupils get to experience at school.

In response to the White Paper released last week which more or less fails to mention Primary Languages, a number of people started a discussion about how we should respond to the invitation to comment.  One of those people was Catherine Cheater who sent a list of her hopes for the future of Primary Languages.  So well did she express the views that many held, she was urged to make an ecard that we could send to Michael Gove et al.

Here’s her message to us –

Dear colleague,
If you feel that our children in the UK deserve access to language and cultural learning during their primary school years, you might wish to send a message to:
•    Michael Gove (see www.michaelgove.com/contact)
•    Nick Gibb, Schools Minister (see www.parliament.uk/biographies/nick-gibb/25544)
•    your local MP (see www.parliament.uk/about/contacting/mp/)

Please write a message from your heart.
Please say in the message why this is important to you.
Please say how you contribute to this already (e.g. teacher, trainee, LTA, parent, publisher, LA adviser, organisation).

You may wish to include the following link in your message:

http://www.4d-studios.co.uk/primary_languages/card.html

Best wishes,
Catherine Cheater.
(With thanks to Richard Tallaron for designing the e-card)

So if you want to add your voice, the ecard link is above.

Last one – for now anyway!

A Colombian Old MacDonald called Tío Ramón.

You know the drill – click the picture and it’ll take you to the song!

And thank to 123SpanishTogether for the wonderful songs!

Another subtitled video – for those of you still hanging on to Autumn!

Hojas, hojas, again from 123SpanishTogether, is a lovely simple song about falling leaves and colours.

Click the photo and it’ll take you to the subtitled video.

Today I delivered a day of training entitled ‘Creative and motivational language learning in the primary classroom’ for AQA.

What a lovely hotel and wonderful people!

The materials were prepared well in advance, and things change from day to day let alone from month to month, and I am prone to spontaneity and tangents.  Therefore there are a number of things we discussed or I referenced that were not included.

Where possible, the link is below!

CILT statement – ‘Making Primary language learning compulsory.’ You can download the statement and also the full report here too.

TDA version of QCDA schemes of work – French, Spanish and German downloadable here

DFE statement (August 26th 2010) on the future of primary languages.

People recommended resources –

Linguascope

Tout le monde

Education City

Espresso

If I’ve missed something, please leave me a comment or use the contact form!

I’ve just had a go at sub titling one of my favourite Spanish kiddies song – La Vaca Lola.

What do you think?

I used a tool called Universal Subtitles that allows you to subtitle videos in a variety of formats.  Looks rather interesting – and useful!

I can’t seem to make it embed in WordPress so here’s the link!

30 minutes later – I’ve done another one – here’s Juguemos en el bosque.

I’m on a roll of finding little gems on Youtube!

Here’s an alphabet rap in Spanish – and it has a section on vowels too which I particularly like.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK8HBnUcbuQ

Here’s another rap that ‘me chifla’ – this one is about personal descriptions.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxWugQUw2us