Have you discovered the Noticias Locas site? As the name suggests, it’s a collection of mad news items that makes a change from politics, crime and sport. Not just good news stories like Martyn Lewis‘ ‘And finally…’ but some absolutely bonkers ideas. Whilst some are of a slightly risqué nature (I’m amused by the kama sutra illustrated by sock monkeys but not sure I’d be thanked for bringing it to the attention of a class!) I think that many could be used in the KS3+ classroom for reading – they’re certainly  “short texts” – and would certainly raise a smile or an eyebrow!

Some examples –

Si son de esas personas que no pueden parar de tuitear, aún estando de vacaciones, este nuevo hotel, ambientado alrededor de Twitter, en Magaluf, España, es perfecto para ustedes.

La cadena española de hoteles Meliá, tuvo la brillante idea de abrir un hotel en donde, quienes allí se hospedan, interactúen entre ellos y con el personal del establecimiento a través de Twitter.

Gonzalo Echeverría, gerente general del hotel, explica que ¨es un nuevo paso que da nuestro hotel para satisfacer las expectativas de la gente¨, considerando que las nuevas tecnologías ya son parte de la vida cotidiana de muchísimas personas.

Dentro de la comunidad virtual creada dentro del hotel, también se ofrecen juegos y distintos modos de entretenimiento, siempre dentro de las redes sociales.

Así que si quieren conocer mucha gente nueva, pero a través de una pantalla, este hotel es para ustedes.

 

*********************

Tony ¨Heladera¨ Phoenix-Morrison recorrerá 1.053 millas con una heladera de 42 kilos y medio en la espalda,, desde John O’ Groats hasta Land’s End, en Gran Bretaña.

Esto quiere decir que este hombre de 49 años, con cuatro hijos y dos nietos, correrá el equivalente a 40 maratones, durante 40 días seguidos, acarreando un peso similar al de 40 ladrillos.

Pueden pensar que está loco, pero ésta no es la primera vez que Tony corre distancias enormes con una heladera atada en la espalda. Ya varios lo conocen por las maratones que corrió juntando dinero para misiones solidarias.

Aunque ya lo ha hecho antes, Tony admite que ésta será probablemente ¨la última maratón que corra con la heladera en este país¨, razón por la cual quiere que sea especial. También aclaró que ¨no está asustado en lo absoluto, pero hay algunas montañas y subidas en el recorrido que serán brutales¨.

Ésta última carrera será en beneficio de la fundación Bobby Robson, así que le deseamos a la ¨Heladera¨Phoenix la mejor de las suertes.

*******************

And one for cat fans…

Luego de recaudar más de 100 mil libras en el sitio de financiamiento colectivo Indiegogo, Lauren Pears anunció que el 1 de julio abrirá su esperado ‘Cat café”. Aunque estos bares felinos son muy comunes en Japón, será el primero en Londres, por lo que Pears aprovechará la ansiedad de los miles de colaboradores y cobrará cinco libras por entrar al café, aunque no especificó si habrá tarifas para acariciar a las mascotas.

La ‘loca de los gatos’, que tiene 30 años, dijo que “el plan es tener entre 10 y 15 gatos en el lugar, con un máximo de 40 o 50 personas al mismo tiempo y que la gente disfrute de un café en la compañía de un felino”, y agregó que tiene “más de 300 aplicaciones de interesados en trabajar en el local”. Por otro lado, la emprendedora no realizó comentarios sobre la caja de piedras que necesitará el nuevo café.

I’ll leave you to discover other marvellous news stories such as the unusual chocolates produced by one UK company, the alarm clock that shocks you out of bed and the thieves that stole a goat just to give it a pedicure.

I’ve blogged about César previously and linked to his Soundcloud – previously Cesar a Chinchila and now renamed Lalalingo.

César emailed me recently to say that he was trying to ‘kickstart’ a new project with his songs that involves animating the songs and making a DVD, and I’m doing my bit to spread the word. If you click on the image below it takes you a video in which he explains the plans for the project. (Afraid I can’t get the iframe to embed here!)

You can also check out the blog for videos songs and worksheets, or Like their Facebook page. They also a Youtube channel singalingua Spanish and on Vimeo they are Lalalingo.

If you want to support financially, that’s great. However, you can support in other ways by sending a message, sharing the idea or using the resources. I’ve embedded one or two of the songs here to give you an idea of what Lalalingo looks like.

httpv://youtu.be/-t03JNus1vI

httpv://youtu.be/lEnuVL7shBY

I’ve recently started a Pinterest of Spanish resources and came across some lovely maps as I was pinning. None of them would actually serve to guide your way so no good for directions really, but they sparked a few ideas!

This map is a composite of a number of graphics used in an article on Spain. I like the stylised topography and selection of places of interest in various towns.

Possible activities

Name the monuments on the map of Spain.

Assign each group a monument to research.

Identify the mountain ranges. Which is tallest? What activities can be done in the mountains?

Give learners their own blank map of Spain and ask them to select places of interest, features such as rivers or lakes etc to mark on their own infographic map.

This isn’t an infographic, rather a site that is packed with interactive maps looking at the geography of Spain. You can try to name the rivers, mountains, autonomous regions, provinces and so on. I particularly like the provincias one above as the shapes give you a clue – they’re quite tricky puzzles!

This map of Barcelona gives the vague geographical layout of several monuments and places of interest.

Possible activities 

Find the date that each of the monuments was built (practice of large numbers!)

Challenge learners to plan a visit that includes all or a selection of the places on the map using public transport. 

Draw a map of their town or a large city in the same style.

And this map of Madrid has even less geographical information but also includes some phrases that you might hear / use, and some ideas of things to do as well. There’s a similar map of Paris.

Possible activities

Design a similar map for your local area; which places would you recommend? what would you do? which phrases might sum up your area?

Compare the above with a plan of Madrid. Is it accurate? Discuss the differences using Group Talk phrases of opinions and agreement/disagreement.

And then there are maps of Spanish speaking countries. This one of the Dominican Republic is possibly the nearest to an accurate map here.

Possible activities

Where is the Dominican Republic? How did it get its name?

There are ‘doodles’ all over the map. What are they?

The maps above and below come from a site with lots of map /infographic images of Spanish speaking countries.

I like the use of colour in these maps.

Possible activities

Use the Mexico map to recommend activities to -a wildlife lover -a history buff -a thrill seeker

Make your own tourist map in the style of either map – off the beaten track activities, food you mustn’t miss, insider knowledge of the best coffee and so on.

Devise a slogan for your area like ‘Pura Vida’

And if you don’t want to do activities with the maps, they makes lovely displays!

I have a feeling that I’ll be coming back to other infographics soon with more ideas …

Spanish Playground is a great site packed with ideas, and their latest post is full of ideas for celebrating National Poetry Month – April. (It may not be where you are but I like poetry and any excuse!) I liked their suggestions and was inspired to share a couple of their ideas, and a couple of mine!

I particularly like Idea 6 which suggests using ETTC’s Instant Poetry forms. Once you get the idea of the structure, there’s no need to use the site although I like it for the reminder about structure. I had a go at a few…

A Lune (using the 3 word, 5 word, 3 word structure)

La primavera viene  Corderos nacen y flores crecen  Hay vida nueva

A 5W, or in Spanish 5Q poem (each lines answer a question who, what, where, when, why)

Pocoyo  Juega con Pato, En el campo, Después del cole, Porque sí.

A Quinzaine (7 syllables, 5 syllables, 3 syallables = 15 syllables)

Me gusta el helado  ¿Chocolate o  vainilla?

And a Verb Verse (think of something you do and six verbs that go with that activity.)

Respirar, esforzarse, disfrutar  Subir , seguir, bajar  Corriendo en el bosque

I also liked Idea 10, using ReadWriteThink’s Theme poem tool. I used the sun as my inspiration (hopeful, aren’t I?)

I took a screenshot but you can save the poem as a PDF and also share it via email.

An alternative to this would be to write the words in the shape of the subject as a calligram like the cat one below (from here)

I also like the idea of using Wordle or Tagxedo with poetry, either to create word clouds of existing poems or to give shape to new ones. Here’s an example below that I made using Tagxedo and ‘A Mexican Night before Christmas’

About 18 months ago, I posted about a lovely poem by Gloria Fuentes called Doña Pito Piturra and she has many others that could be used for reciting, learning and also making presentation/slideshows with narration. There’s a link on the Spanish playground post to a PDF of activities too!

I also wrote about the QCA unit La Primavera and taking part of the Antonio Machado poem La Primavera and rewriting it. This would be a simple activity to do as a celebration of National Poetry Month too. We posted our on a Padlet (was called Wallwisher) wall so we could share it with a wider audience.

I’ve found this post about Spanish poetry by Federico García Lorca, Jorge Guillén and Rafael Alberti (for older learners I’d say!) and these are more suitable for younger learners. And this post about using poetry to look at rhyming is also very interesting, using one of my favourite little poems –

And to finish off, as a 15 year old I was captivated by Joan Manuel Serrat singing poems by Antonio Machado so Dedicado a Antonio Machado (Cantares)

If you teach children aged between 6 and 11, why not encourage them to enter the bSmall Little Linguist competition.

As the bSmall website explains;

We would like you to write and illustrate a short story in a foreign language on any subject you like. We will pick two winners from the entries and publish the winning stories as e-books on our website. Each winner will also receive a b Small library worth £100 for your home or your school.

The story should be no more than four pages and you can use lots of illustrations to help tell your story. You must write your story in one of the following four languages:

– French
– German
– Italian
– Spanish

The website offers two templates for the stories, a comic book and an illustrated story book, and there’s a list of words to help as well.

There are two categories – 6-9 year olds and 9-11 year olds, and you can write a collaborative story with classmates (hence the overlap in age categories) The story can be about anything, and the closing date is June 1st with winners announced on July 1st. Entries can be sent via post or electronically, accompanied by an entry form.

Find out more on the bSmall website and happy story writing!

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!

Cómo hacer  un Árbol de Pascuas

httpv://youtu.be/YOcd1M6oXl4

Cómo hacer un Pollito dulcero

httpv://youtu.be/s80TiWuckyU

Aquí está la plantilla para hacer los pollitos.

También se puede hacer una Gallina de Pascua

Cómo hacer un Huevo de Pascua de Chocolate – paso a paso

httpv://youtu.be/xJexlxFw0Fk

Algo un poco diferente – cómo hacer Angry Birds para Pascaus

httpv://youtu.be/0cY2Wb7B7w8

Cómo hacer Huevos de Pascuas

httpv://youtu.be/4f9fzlTZYgc

y después, una canasta para los huevos de Pascua!

httpv://youtu.be/sJtp2JvDmQM

Cómo hacer Conejitos con huevos de Pascua

httpv://youtu.be/tSdaomBU9NE

Y por los ‘más avanzados’, dos maneras de hacer una Corona de Pascua – con la técnica de Patchwork sin agujas o con agujas y costura.

It’s lovely when someone leaves a comment on my blog as it tells me that I’m not writing into a vacuum, and whilst people share my posts often on Twitter and/or Facebook, actual comments are more rare.

So I was really pleased that my last post received one from César in USA. And it lead me to his Soundcloud and some wonderful songs for teaching and learning Spanish. I love the clear repetitive lyrics, and also the ‘sound’ – it reminds me of Los Nikis which is not your usual vibe for ‘educational songs’.

I particularly like Colorin colorado which features numbers 1-10 and colours, and has a Western feel to it with the song galloping faster and faster like a horse as the song progresses; the ‘punked up’ alphabet in ABC cantando en español; and Los partes del cuerpo which instructs you ‘Las partes del cuerpo vamos a cantar y tú las tienes que tocar’. There are 13 songs and I can see them all being very popular in the classroom and at home – I’ve got Colorin Colorado stuck in my head…

¡Muchas gracias César!

My second presentation at ILILC3 was called Let out for good behaviour.

The blurb said

Let out for good behaviour? refers to leaving the classroom being (often) seen as a treat. There are many ways to ‘break free’ of the walls of your classroom, both physical and virtual, and this session will involve both. Participation is required as we explore activities and games, that will enhance teaching and learning whilst bringing a breath of free air to a stuffy classroom. Technology will be involved but you don’t need anything but your imagination and sense of adventure to enjoy the activities.

Although my presentation was somewhat spoilt by the weather meaning we couldn’t get outside and make a mess with chalk, there was much giggling as we played Punto de contacto, went on a QR quest to solve animal riddles, went Placespotting and tried to win chocolate by solving dominoes. And much more of course! It’s great to know that some of the ideas I shared have already been used in classrooms!

Below are my slides from the session.

[slideshare id=16644981&style=border: 1px solid #CCC; border-width: 1px 1px 0; margin-bottom: 5px;&sc=no]