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.

AUTUMN IS HERE!

Hello everybody! Autumn is here! And, can you think a better way to welcome it that decorating our class like the season? So, that's what we have done. Take a look!

First of all, we drew a huge, bare tree; and the children painted it with finger paint:

Then, they made their own leaves with pieces of tissue paper and they stick them in our tree:

After that, they did their own autumn trees, and we paste them on windows.

Once the decoration was finished, we learnt a song:

Have a nice autumn!

Enjoy teaching,

Laura.

SUPERHEROES AND SOLAR SYSTEM PROJECT.

In the school where I do my practices we work the content that we have to according to the age, but we develop at the same time different projects related to various topics. This time it was about Superheroes.

1.- The first activity that we did was about creating their own superheroe, with his own name, clothes, favourite food, pet, hobbies, fears, etc.

2.- After that we played the following video to learn a new song and give some ideas about the possible super powers they can have.

3.- We did a brainstorm to now what they think and which knowledges they have about superheroes.

4.- After that, we explained that some superheroes only go out at night. We took advantage of this to explain the concepts "day" and "night". We went to the nap room to live the "day" and the "night".

5.- Following the previous activity, we took the concept of "night" and we explained the different moon phases. And we did a worksheet related to this.

6.- To live the different moon phases, we did an activity with soap bubbles, and depending on how much you blow you got a different moon phase. 

Although the end was inevitable, the kids enjoyed it a lot and they experienced the moon phases. Now each time that they wash their hands and do bubbles with the soap they say which phase is.

7.- We asked the children to bring some paperboard boxes to create a spaceship and a robot to send them to the space.

8.- In the space we have the moon, but we have too the planets and all this forms the solar system. So, we did a picture about the solar system:

9.- We played them a video related with the planets:

10.- We did a mural with the solar system:

11.- And we made our own planets with newspaper, recycling the paper:

12.- We did superheroes costumes for the kids and they had a meeting with a "real" superhero. (Using the whiteboard, we established connection with the concierge disguised like a superhero who spoke to them and said them to be  good and help everyone they can, at home and to their friends at school).

13.- And finally, we sent the spaceship and the robot to the moon!

As you can see this project has a lot of activities, we did it in five weeks more or less, attending that it was a parallel project apart from the activities that we did everyday in class.

I hope you find it useful and you can use some ideas.

Have fun teaching,

Laura.

MAGIC E SONG

Today we've worked the magic E sound that makes some words sound different.

For the children is difficult to read english if it isn't their mother language, but if we told them that some words are pronounced different when they have an "E" at the end, they will be confused.

The best way to learn it, specially at this early ages, is just repeating and remarking it when we see it in a word. But other resource could be a video, I post this because I think is easy, repetitive, it has some examples and rhythm is catchy.

I hope you like it and use it! See you soon!

Enjoy teaching, 

Laura.

THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR - AT SCHOOL

Hello again!

Two days ago I published some activities related to two videos, one of them was "The very hungry caterpillar". 

I have had the opportunity to play them the video and do the activity of "Favourite Bar Chart". I have to say that it was really good, you have to be consistent in the fact that they have to keep silent when it isn't their turn to talk, but it's amazing how interested and involved they are in activities that motivate them. At those ages one of the things they love is to talk about themselves, their tastes, their experiences ... so the activity was great.

After that they painted some drawings of a caterpillar to decorate the class and made a worksheet with finger paint, another thing they love. I leave you some pictures of the drawings and the worksheet.

If you don't know what do you have to do in the activity "Favourite Bar Chart" I leave you the explanation below, you can also take a look to the post called "Activities from videos", there you have more exercises related to this video and another one.

1.- FAVOURITE BAR CHART.

We will draw a table on the blackboard with the fruits that the video name and we will ask for the children one by one which is his favourite fruit from all of them and we will see which one is the most popular.

I hope you find it useful and you feel encouraged to do it!

Enjoy teaching, 

Laura.