HALLOWEEN.

Hi everybody! Today I'm going to show you how we have celebrated Halloween in my school! 

But, first of all for those who don't really know what's this party or where did it start, let's tell them that Halloween is a holiday that's celebrated annually on the night of October 31. It originated in Ireland, and is celebrated in quite a few countries including Ireland itself, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Sweden among others. It's celebrated in a variety of ways and activities including trick-or-treating, ghost tours, bonfires, costume parties, "haunted house" tours, carving pumpkins (Jack-o'-lanterns) and reading / watching scary stories / movies. 

This party is just one day, but its preparation takes a little bit more! In my class we were doing things related with it since two weeks before. Here are some of the activities that we did:

We decorated our class with the letters and pumpkins (image above), and the children did their own costumes and two cutouts to decorate, one was a skeleton and the other one was a black cat: 

The teachers prepared some real pumpkins and a photo call:

On Friday 31 of October, the teachers prepared some activities to do outdoors:

The last activity was in the afternoon and the children went class by class dressed singing a song that they have learnt:

It was, definitely, a wonderful day! And children loved it!

Enjoy teaching,

Laura.

TRICKY WORDS!

First of all, let's clarify what tricky words are. Tricky words are those words that are written in a manner but you have to read them otherwise, like:

If normally our children have to be careful not mixing Spanish and English pronunciation, tricky words turn them crazy! But they have an advantage: they are children! And they have more flexibility and adaptability to learn new things, so it's the perfect time to teach it. We just have to care the way we do it!

I'm going to show you how we do it in my school:

Here are some pictures of the different worksheets that we do in class with each tricky word, we use different materials to let the children experience the texture and the way they can work with them:

But not everything are worksheets! Children need to play and enjoy what they are learning! So, let's explain and show you a couple of games to do with this:

The first is to glue a piece of sheet with a tricky word written on it around the class, the teacher will say a tricky word and the children have to run and touch the one that they think it is. With this activity we work the listening.

In the second game called "Tricky words hunting game", the children have to make and paint a "magic camera" to find the tricky words!

Once we have it, we will have prepared in the playground the tricky words pasted in different places, like we're going to see now, and children will have to go and take one of them and give it to the teacher saying and pronouncing fine the tricky word that they have caught. With this activity we work the speaking!

I hope you like it!

Enjoy teaching tricky words,

Laura.

WE ARE GOING ON A BEAR HUNT - ACTIVITIES.

I found some nice activities related to the video "We are going on a bear hunt" that I posted in the Unit 2 of EFL. I leave them here in case you can do this story in the school it would be niece to do this activities too!

PRE-TEACHING.

First of all, this activity is to learn the vocabulary that it's going to appear in the story, the children will have to cut and stick all the pieces and put their names below the image:

ACTUAL TEACHING.

POST-TEACHING.

Now, I'm going to publish two different options to work the sequence of the story, vocabulary and fine motor skills.

1.- The children will do their own book coloring, cutting and putting in order the bullets.

2.- The children will do something similar, but instead of a book they will do a craft with the pictures to tell the story, they will color, cut and stick in a cardboard the images in order:

I hope you like and use it!

Enjoy teaching, 

Laura.

GOLDILOCKS.

PRE-TEACHING.

If we're going to perform the story we can use the stage to teach the main words that appears in the play. For example, if we have a table with three bowls, we can print the words "cold", "hot", "nice" or "natural" and stick them in each bowl to reinforce then the vocabulary. And we can do the same with the chairs and the beds.

ACTUAL TEACHING.

You can take the story from here:

The Story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Play it:

Or use flashcards:

POST-TEACHING.

I'm going to post several activities to do, depending on the age and the time you have yo can choose the one is better for you!

The children will have to paint the pictures, remove them using a bradawl and stick them in a different page.

They will paint the pictures, and draw something inside the bowls.

They have to link the characters with their objects, or the can paint them using the same color.

The children will cut the medals of each picture and they will stick them into another page gathering the objects with their owners.

This activity can be used to work the moral of the story.

The children will paint and cut it and then, using toilet paper roll we will stick them to do the puppets.

The children will colour only the ones that goldilocks uses in the story.

I leave the link to a web that has a very nice activity to work the different moods using this story, it is called:

Goldilocks expression cards

I hope you can use some activities!

Enjoy teaching,

Laura.

BREMEN TOWN MUSICIANS.

PRE-TEACHING.

To catch the attention of the children we can start talking with them about their pets or their favorites animals. They love talk about their likes and experiences.

When we have their attention, we can prepare some images according to the page with the main words of the story (posted below) and work the vocabulary that we're going to find in the story.

ACTUAL TEACHING.

We can print the story, or use one of these two resources:

Digital book with video.  or

POST-TEACHING.

As possible options for post-teching, we have these two pictures to colour:

Related to maths area:

Related to listening, reading and writing: 

The children can cut the names and stick them in the correct place or copy them to practice writing.

And, finally, I leave the link of a funny game which enhances memory and auditory discrimination.

GAME.

Thanks for your time!

Enjoy teaching, 

Laura.