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!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXT9-V9AimA

Very creative and amusing too!

Thanks to a tip off by Jane Baybrook on MFLResources for this video.

Very catchy!

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

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!

Having just watched Les Mis 25 years old, I feel inspired to post some videos from the Spanish version –

Sale el sol (One day more)
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o5JeLsvkPs

Sálvalo (Bring him home)
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srcVrBvsyS4

Soné una vida (I dreamed a dream)
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz9DdvIFg5E&feature=related

And an amazing clip of 17 multi-national Jean Valjean’s singing Can you hear the people sing?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4924xJl38E

In what seems like a past life sometimes when I used to teach Spanish to secondary pupils, we used a text book called Vaya.  Apart from my gripe about their assertion that Spaniards have pets ‘grillos’ on their balconies (yet to meet one!), my other main problem with the book / course was the fact that the pictures looked nothing like what they were supposed to be illustrating, particularly the food.  The ‘churros’ looked like those posh butter curls you get on hoity toity places, and if I showed you the ‘paella’, you’d be hard pressed to identify it.

Not sure why I thought of it today (perhaps I had a nostalgic thought?) but I did, and it reminded me of this marvellous group on Flickr called Comida española which features over 2000 photos of Spanish food.

So much easier to explain ‘chocolate con churros’

or ‘albóndigas en salsa’

or the scale on which paella’s are sometimes cooked

when you have a decent picture to help you!

You can search the group – for example, ‘tapas’ or ‘garbanzos’ or ‘tortilla’

To finish, here’s a picture that might come in useful in the next week or so…

NB watch out for the CC license under which images are shared – some are All rights reserved which means they’re copyright.  Look for CC Attribution Share alike that you can use as long as you say to whom they belong.

PS if anyone has ever met a Spaniard with a pet ‘grillo’ could you please let me know!

Today is El Día de los Santos Inocentes in Spain and other Hispanic countries, their equivalent of April Fools Day.  But it goes deeper than that as it has its roots in the story of Christmas when Herod ordered the killing of all baby boys, and Mary and Joseph escaped with Jesus having been warned in a dream to flee.

Find out more here in English or here in Spanish

Here, a man who runs a joke shop talks about the types of jokes people buy

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaBAZjr3tFA

And this clip shows an ‘inocentada’ involving a mouse!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTZirr32zGM

Even the Simpsons get in on the act!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9EotIriEOo

A lovely app for iPad from Kumquat in Argentina, featuring Christmas carols in Spanish.  Beautifully and quirkily illustrated, you can choose whether you want them sung to you, or if you’d rather sing them yourself! Although it’s possible to access many of these tunes on the web, I think it’s well worth £1.79 as you get everything in one place – lyrics (which highlight as they are sung), sound files and illustration!

Shame I discovered it too late to use in school, but I know it’ll be a hit as my ‘testing panel’ love it!

¡Feliz Navidad!

Screenshots from the app.

This clip combines two of my favourite things  – Spanish and iOS devices.

Made completely on iOS devices like iPhones, iPods and iPhones, here is NorthPoint Community Church wishing you a Merry Christmas.  Funky and fun!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcexJQM-8W0

And here’s more Christmas music from the same place if you enjoyed that.