stories – Page 3 – ¡Vámonos!
 

Tag: stories

As promised, my presentation from Stafford last week! A quick whip through some of my favourite activities with a view to inspire and also keep everyone awake after lunch 😉

Links –

Rachel Hawkes’ phonics

Music for Los vocales D.I.S.C.O.

Rhabarberbarbara

Jo Rhy Jones phonic activities 

Oso Pardo pdf

Boowa et Kwala – Peut tu marchez comme un canard? Fingerpaint song

Padlet.com – for collecting ideas (online post it notes)

Storybird – make up your own stories using illustrators images. MFL Storybird wikispace

I also mentioned Tellagami, Pic collage and Book Creator app. Check out this post for more details!

Again, if I’ve forgotten to upload something that I promised, please let me know!

 

*This is one of a series of posts about some of my favourite story books for Primary Language Learning*

One of my favourite occupations in Spain or France – and now Switzerland/Germany – is sitting on the floor of bookshops, supermarkets and any other likely looking shop, poring over children’s books. I could – and often do – spend hours searching for gems that I can use in the classroom. I consequently have a large collection of books but many are either out of print or “don’t exist” in searches as I bought them in supermarkets. De quelle couleur est ta culotte (shared earlier this week) is one such out of print book – you can get it but it costs a week’s wages! Two of today’s books belong to another category – they ‘exist’ (obviously as I have copies!) but can’t be found for love nor money! However, I’m still going to share them as the ideas can be used with other books of a similar vein, or with homemade presentations instead of a commercial book.

Image 9

I found ¿De qué color es Elmo? in a shop in Benalmadena about eight years ago and it instantly became a favourite, particularly with Nursery/Reception. The book poses the question ¿De qué color es Elmo?  and each double page spread offers a suggestion as to his colour on the left hand page with the response on the right hand page indicating that another character is that colour as well as an object in the picture, before finally suggesting the correct colour on the final page!

Image 10The book is popular for a number of reasons

It’s repetitive – it’s easy to respond to the question with a loud ¡NO! however old you may be! Or join in with the suggested colour when I pause ¿Es Elmo….? by looking at the colour of the writing!

Sesame Street is always a winner as the characters are so friendly. Many younger learners don’t know the English names for all characters but they do know Elmo! And those that recognise Big Bird are quite happy to accept that he’s called Paco Pico, or that Grover is called Coco!

The pictures are clear and interesting. Once we’re familiar with the book we look for other objects in the pictures that are the colour suggested. For example, the house – la casa – is suggested on this page. Then we turn the page and look in other pictures. And then we start looking around the room for more ideas. Sometimes we play “Traeme algo ….” – this worked really well when the age of my pupils spanned 1 – 3 years as the little ones were happy looking and pointing whilst the older ones needed a bit more challenge! As a follow on activity we might build up a collage of images in the different colours, like mini mood boards with a character at the centre of each. Older learners might label them.

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Someone recently said on a forum that they didn’t like little books as not everyone can see them in a class situation and that is true (although it’s a good way of staying warm as everyone squishes up close…) However, there is a very limited supply of big books, particularly in other languages. To get around this problem, I photographed each double page and blew it up to A3 size and laminated it, making my own ‘big book’. If I had had a projector in the room, I’d have simply projected the images from my computer onto it, straight from the photogallery  (the quick answer) or in a presentation (the longer lasting solution!) Lots of classrooms have visualisers now so why not use that to show the book? (Alex shares here how you can use a USB webcam as a  really cheap visualiser!)

As I said, I bought this book years ago along with another called ¿Qué oye Epi?, a lovely story about what Epi (Ernie!) can hear as he sits by his window. Unfortunately that book went missing and I can’t replace it. Fortunately I had ‘blown it up’ into a display so can hopefully find where that is (I’m a bit of a hoarder!) and use it again.

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Another book I have that is good for very little ones is Descubre y aprende los colores con Fido. I found this in a discount bookshop in Spain along with Descubre y aprende los números con Fido for 2,95€. I’m sure that there are many equivalent books out there!

Each double page focuses on a colour – verde, azul, rojo, amarillo and marrón (not an obvious choice for me but it works!) – and has a number of things to do.

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  • three examples of e.g. brown things (adjective after noun isn’t something I’d point out but sometimes a bright spark points it out for me!)
  • ‘point to the colour’ on the colour grid
  • turn the wheel to find the e.g. brown object
  • other labelled items that ‘go with’ the object on the wheel – in this case, things in the garden around Fido’s kennel.

This book works best with small groups of children or as a book for independent learning although you could use a visualiser to share it with a whole class, inviting individuals to point/turn the wheel whilst everyone else watches on the screen.

 

Image 7My final book (for now as I haven’t found them all yet!) on the subject of colour is Harold y el lápiz morado. Harold is a little boy (in a onesie!)  who decides one night, after much thought, to go for a walk in the moonlight. But there’s no moon… so he draws one with his purple crayon. And then he draws the path and the adventure begins as the purple crayon brings Harold’s thoughts to life.

Image 6Whilst it has lots of words in it and I wouldn’t necessarily read it all to the class in one go, I love the idea of “taking a line for a walk” (not quite in the same way as Paul Klee!) guided by your imagination! Added to that, it’s very visual as the drawings are clear you can follow what’s happening without understanding every ward. So I’d read it as an experience of listening to a story in Spanish, deciphering meaning from pictures, gestures and tone of voice. And then we might take our own lines for walks to see where they might take us! Perhaps we might even take it in turns to add an image to the story that could then be narrated in Spanish by the teacher (or that convenient native speaker in my class!)

Harold y el lápiz morado is available from Abebooks and Amazon

 

Taking a break from my favourite books for primary language learning, I thought I’d share some ideas from someone else!

Screen Shot 2013-08-22 at 11.53.20On her blog, The Architect and the Artist, Debbie Palmer has written two posts about Learning Spanish with children’s books.

The first highlights a few series of books that she has found useful –

Froggy books by Jonathan London which are quite long but have good storiesScreen Shot 2013-08-22 at 11.54.22

Oso books (Barefoot bilingual series) for basic vocabulary

Dr Seuss – familiar and fun!

Eric Carle – timeless!

All the links are to the US Amazon store so I searched UK sites to see what was available.

There are Froggy books available on Amazon.co.uk; Froggy se viste, La mejor navidad de Froggy, Froggy juega al fútbol although I’m not sure that El Primer beso de Froggy is worth THAT much money!

The Oso series can be found on the Little Linguist site for £5.99 e.g. Oso en la ciudad and  are also available (for a reasonable price!) on Amazon.co.uk

Likewise Eric Carle books can be purchased from Little Linguist e.g. Oso pardo, whilst Un pez dos peces and Huevos verdes.. are only available on Amazon.co.uk.

Then I remembered Abebooks.co.uk which searches all over the place for hard to find books – and sure enough, up popped several of the titles including lots of Froggy books at much better prices (although watch out for shipping costs!)

 

The second post recommends book thematically e.g. colours, numbers, family, house and home, weather, prepositions.

Debbie lists several books for each category and stars some of her very favourites, some of which I haven’t seen before. She’s linked to where you can pbtain them if you’re in the US so I’ve looked for those and linked to sources for UK buyers.

NB I’ve highlighted books that I’ve read/used in RED; the others, I’m going on Debbie’s recommendations!

Screen Shot 2013-08-22 at 10.52.40 Elefante tiene hipo (out of print but available from Abebooks if you’re willing to pay the postage!)
Screen Shot 2013-08-22 at 10.57.07 Demasiados globos (Abebooks once more!)
Screen Shot 2013-08-22 at 11.09.23 Salí de paseo (Abebooks and Amazon)
Screen Shot 2013-08-22 at 11.14.10 Go away big green monster/ Fuera de aquí horrible monstruo (LittleLinguist and Amazon)
Screen Shot 2013-08-22 at 11.16.45 De la cabeza a los pies (Amazon and Abebooks)
Screen Shot 2013-08-22 at 11.23.09 Ruidos en la casa (Amazon – with Kindle edition!)
Screen Shot 2013-08-22 at 11.30.23 Si yo tuviera un dragón (Amazon, Abebooks)
Screen Shot 2013-08-22 at 11.31.24 Yo tenia un hipopótamo (Abebooks)
Screen Shot 2013-08-22 at 11.35.17 Chumba la cachumba (Abebooks – Amazon only have it at a ridiculous price!)
Screen Shot 2013-08-22 at 11.36.32 Azul el sombrero… (Little LinguistAbebooks, Amazon)
Screen Shot 2013-08-22 at 11.40.36 Los animales no se visten (Amazon, Abebooks)
Screen Shot 2013-08-22 at 11.44.15 Un recorrido por las estaciones (Abebooks, Amazon)
Screen Shot 2013-08-22 at 11.47.42 Quiero más fideos (Amazon, Abebooks)

 

So now I have a list of books to investigate to add to my library! I hope that’s helpful to someone – and obviously thanks to Debbie for the ideas!

PS If you’re not in the US or UK, Abebooks does have other “nationalities” of site as does Amazon of course!

Screen Shot 2013-08-22 at 11.57.16

*This is one of a series of posts about some of my favourite story books for Primary Language Learning*

Following on from yesterday’s post , my other Imapla book is Tú, ¿Qué quieres ser?

Image 1

This has the same quirky style of drawing and poses also poses a question; in this case, what would you like to be? Each page responds with the same structure:

Yo quiero ser (profesión) para ver el (color) de (sitio)

Image 2

There are some of the usual professions to which we often aspire as children like bombero (fireman) and pirata, and then some more unusual ones like bruja (witch) and extraterrestre (alien). I like the eye holes that peek through the book and form part of each of the images.

The simple structure means that it’s easy to substitute the three changeable aspects of the sentence to make new ones about professions chosen by the learners. For example –

Yo quiero ser JARDINERO para ver el VERDE de LA CÉSPED Screen Shot 2013-08-20 at 15.45.18
Screen Shot 2013-08-20 at 15.45.43 Yo quiero ser ENFERMERO para ver el ROJO de LA SANGRE
Yo quiero ser MECÁNICA para ver el NEGRO del PETROLEO Screen Shot 2013-08-20 at 15.47.09

 

Another book on the subject of future plans/jobs is Cuando sea grande

Image 10This is one of the Scholastic Rookie Readers series A and is again very simple.

It opens with the statement Cuando sea grande, podré ser lo que quiera and the little girl goes on to dream about the job she might have with each page featuring a different job.

Una doctora, una granjera,or even la presidenta. Image 12

The thing I like most about this book is the final page that recognises that the little girl is still a child and just wants to play!

Image 9

 

One final book on a similar subject is Yo astronauta, a lovely book in which a child dreams about what they would do if they were an astronaut. As the setting is space with the child visiting various planets before coming back to earth to see the sun set with friends, it’s a book I might share when looking at Los Planetas or discussing the solar system.

Image 11

 

For more ideas on jobs and professions, see also these posts

Los oficios

How I might use Yo quiero ser by Nubeluz

*This is one of a series of posts about some of my favourite story books for Primary Language Learning*

When I was in Barcelona a couple of years ago, I found a couple of books by Imapla that I loved, both very simple but also quirky.

Screen Shot 2013-08-19 at 21.17.38 Screen Shot 2013-08-19 at 21.17.50Tu ¿cómo estás? is one of them, a large board book about how people are feeling, using ESTAR. Each double page has just three words – name + está + ’emotion’ adjective and a  drawing of the child in question. The quirky drawings  show the emotion but so does the font in which the emotion is written. And the final page asks the question of the reader with a mirror.

I love reading it as a bit of over acting is ‘required’, and learners love joining in. After the first reading, I reread it substituting the names in the book with those of members of the class; as a child is named they get to act the emotion or feeling. On the final page, I ask individuals to respond by choosing an emotion from the story. I model the first person ‘Estoy…’ with my response but don’t necessarily expect it to be used in responses. We might then add more emotion words to give more choice, then make our own versions. We might make a storyboard with 6 boxes, the final being the question. Or a mini book from a single sheet of paper. We might take photographs of learners demonstrating emotions and make a big book with the photographs. Or we might use BookCreator app on the iPad to make an ebook with photographs or drawings, text and embed audio as well.imaphoto

 

This book is a great one for linking with PSHE about feelings – many classes have a board on which pupils indicate how they’re feeling at certain times of the day by moving their name to an emoticon, and having read this book, this activity could be done in Spanish too. And another aspect of the book, the use of calligrams (writing the word to show meaning), links well to word processing and ICT, or alternatively art if you do it by hand!  Nervioso might be quite straightforward, but how might you show enfermo or celoso? Would you use colour, shape, texture?

Screen Shot 2013-08-19 at 21.09.17

(examples in English from Twinkl)

So, lots of ideas from a very short, simple book!

20/08/13 – I’ve just recalled this Storybird that I wrote that. although not all the feelings go with ESTAR, fits well with this story.

Screen Shot 2013-08-20 at 16.24.18

In this Youtube video Imapla shares another of her books – I haven’t found that one in print. Yet! But I’d like to use it as it challenges the colours we normally associate with objects like the sun and the sky and gives colours to things like the wind and holes.

I’ll share the other book tomorrow in my next post.

*This is one of a series of posts about some of my favourite story books for Primary Language Learning*

 

When I first started teaching Primary languages, I went on a course run by LFEE in Salignac for French teachers (thoroughly recommend it – I worked hard but had the time of my life and rediscovered a love of French that I’d lost when I was made to start from scratch at secondary school.)  During my time there we went on a trip to Souillac and several of us spent a while in a bookshop looking for suitable books to use in our classrooms. And this was the one we all loved.

IMG_0037De quelle couleur est ta culotte? is a lift the flap book that poses the title question to a series of animals.

Each animal has a name that rhymes with its species e.g Lucie le Brebis, Mumu la Tortue and Émile le Crocodile

IMG_0038

and you lift the flap to find the answer:

IMG_0039

At the end there’s a big surprise as Armand l’elephant is a little forgetful…

I’ve used this story with EYFS – and younger in fact. They love the animals, recalling their names, and the colour of their pants. And everyone giggles hysterically in mock horror as the surprise is revealed – because we are, of course, surprised every time we read it ;o) I ask questions e.g. Valentine a la culotte rouge ou bleu?   Qui a la culotte rose? De quelle couleur est la culotte de Aimee? offering choices if needed and then we read it again with choral responses as we lift the flaps; sometimes a particularly confident child will want to ask the question too although it’s more usual to just say the name of the animal. When I shared it in Reception, we drew a washing line of pants and coloured them in for the animals. I’d probably make it into a game now, either on the IWB with a race to match the animals and pants, or as a team game with images of the animals and coloured underwear. And I’d also look to make the story our own, perhaps not about pants this time but about another item of clothing: De quelle couleur sont tes chaussettes? perhaps or a teddy bear: De quelle couleur est ton nounours? or even change it a little and ask Comment est ton chapeau? which could be answered with adjectives other than colour.

I used to teach Kindergarten at the (Catholic!) school with children from 18 months to 3 years, and was sharing this book with them when an inspector arrived. My momentary fear that the inspector wouldn’t share my love of the book, and that of the Kindergarten head who had a great sense of humour, was unfounded as she was giggling along with all the children and said she thoroughly enjoyed the French lesson!

I’ve found a sound file of someone reading the story too! De quelle couleur est ta culotte? sound file

 

*This is one of a series of posts about some of my favourite story books for Primary Language Learning*

Moving to Switzerland added German books to my book case where previously there had only been French and Spanish. Not very many as books are exorbitantly priced  (I mostly borrowed them from the library) but some.

I love books. I am indeed a bookaholic and whilst I am very fond of my technology (and this series will feature ebooks), I’m not sure I’ll ever stop preferring the smell and feel of a ‘proper’ book to swiping an electronic device. So I had to purchase this book –

IMG_0041Esel (Donkey) asks Was hast du denn da?

Affe (Monkey) replies Das ist ein Buch.

Image

Esel has obviously not seen a book before and wonders if it texts, needs wifi or Tweets; Affe patiently replies Nein, das ist ein Buch until he decides that it would be best to let Esel read the book …

I love Das ist ein Buch because I’m Monkey when most people think that I’d be Donkey. I also like the ‘there’s more to life than swiping and tweeting and making noise’ message.

I think this would be a great story to share with a class, certainly the “Das ist ein Buch” refrain would soon be picked up, and the language is quite easy to decipher with clues from the pictures supported by actions from the reader. And it lends itself to adaptations with the scaffold “Kannst du…+ verb?”  with other things that a book might be able to do.

Below is an animated telling of the book and the whole book appears one one sheet here.

httpv://youtu.be/nYl_nyuyn5Y

My second book is Wo ist mein hut

IMG_0043

 

“Mein Hut ist weg. Ich will ihn zurück” says Bär. He patiently asks the other animals if they have seen his hat but noone has until the deer asks a good question that jogs his memory!

I like this book as it is again repetitive with Bär asking each animal “Hast du meinen Hut gesehen?” and thanking them politely when they haven’t “Schon gut. Trotzdem vielen dank” so lends itself well to class reading. It could also be developed into a game where learners hide an object whilst one of the class is outside for them to discover on their return (good question practice) or in small groups with cards, with question Hast du ……… gesehen? and reply Nein, ich habe……. nicht gesehen if they don’t have the card or Ja, es ist hier if they do. You could easily substitute the verb for gestohlen (stolen) gegessen (eaten) versteckt (hidden)and so on.

 

So that’s two of my favourite German books – others include the Lieselotte series about a mischievous cow, and all the Pixi Bücher that you can buy very cheaply wherever you see the stand below as well as in supermarkets. I’ll post again with my favourite ebooks another time!

Screen Shot 2013-08-16 at 12.24.36

 

 

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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!)

Image 1

 

“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!

Inspired by ideas from Jan Lewandowski and Sandra Longden on the CFBT Primary forum for snow related songs, I was reminded of a previous post in which I shared a song about Un muñeco de nieve that I had subtitled using Amara (previously called Universal Subtitles.)

Below is the unsubtitled version – subtitled version is available here (can’t embed it on my WP blog)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gb-KU3awXw

Then there’s this simple song to the tune of Frosty the Snowman – Mi hombre de nieve

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sESUMaLl2o

I particularly like this song too about winter becoming spring – Es invierno

httpv://youtu.be/ACvLQL0WqTk

La letra

ES INVIERNO Y HACE FRÍO.
EN INVIERNO, NO CALIENTA EL SOL.
ES INVIERNO Y CAE LA LLUVIA
Y EL PAISAJE PIERDE SU COLOR.

EL INVIERNO
EMPIEZA EN DICIEMBRE
EN MARZO SE TIENE QUE IR.
EL SOL CALIENTA,
LAS FLORES YA SALEN.
ES PRIMAVERA POR FIN.

And finally, here’s a simple story about a sad snowman- El Muñeco de Nieve está triste.

httpv://youtu.be/UuhuJJKKBCU

I also wrote a post back in 2008 about using The Snowman by Raymond Briggs using resources from HGFL.

Screen Shot 2013-01-21 at 17.31.23

Finally, it reminded me of this post from way back about snow!

 

httpv://youtu.be/d_smmARX-TI

Cuento de Navidad. Matias ha pedido un tren a los Reyes Magos. Matias sabía que los Reyes Magos no dejan regalos a los niños que están despiertos pero esa noche le entran unas ganas terribles de hacer pis. Un cuento divertido para disfrutar con los niños esta Navidad.

Beatriz Montero cuenta una adaptación del cuento “Cuando a Matías le entraron ganas de hacer pis en la Noche de Reyes”, de Chema Heras, Ed. Kalandraka.

A great story for tonight! You can see the original story here and here’s a lovely little song to go with the story!

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