THE BEST WAY TO WORK WITH 8, 9, 10, 11 AND 12 YEARS OLD CHILDREN.

In college we have seen that to work with elementary students must perform more complex activities in which students are able to think for themselves, where the habit of reading is encouraged and use the new technologies to attract them. A good way to create projects are using ICT's like Glogster, Goanimate, Vocaroo, Voki, Mindomo, Linoit.com, etc. To work all these aspects I decided to create two different tasks from a film and a book.

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"GRU, MY FAVOURITE VILLAIN" (8-10 years old)

PRE-TEACHING

First we will see the film: "Gru my favorite villain", then we should discuss among all analyzing the content. We will aim the things we liked most write them on a cardboard and the less ones in another. After that, I will give them a glossary which is going to contain some words about personality, physical, behavior and personal tastes. 

ACTUAL-TEACHING

Each student must choose the glossary words he/she prefers to create his/her own minion. Once they have thought about it, the next task is to prepare an essay explaining how will be the minion. For that, we are going to use a computer program that will give life to the minion that they have been described. 

POST-TEACHING

Finally they have to introduce their minion into the story and to create a vignette with five clouds.

"MATILDA" (11-12 years old)

PRE-TEACHING

To work book Matilda let's talk about the good deeds. Because the protagonist is a girl of good heart trying to help others, who likes to read books, study and research. So I'll give a glossary containing the names of different cities. 

ACTUAL-TEACHING

Students should wonder about the problems in these cities, look up information on the Internet and choose the three issues they consider mostly relevant. 

POST-TEACHING

After that they must invent spells to end these social problems. Spells must be written in English.

I hope you enjoyed this educational proposals!

Created by: MªJosé Inestal Santolaya.

WORKING THE EXPRESSIONS

In college we watched a video of a man telling a story about a chocolate cake. It was a simple story: 

"There was once a mother who made some delicious chocolate cakes, and every day she gave his son a piece for lunch. But one night, the child, hungry, got out of bed and went down for a bit more and eventually eat it whole. The next morning he had no lunch and his mother was angry". 

 

As you can observe it is a simple story, fantastic characters, magic and imagination. The point of this story is expressiveness. So I like to work it in the classroom, because I consider it of great importance.

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 We can use music videos to teach the different gestural expressions and then working them through games.

 

  

               

We may also teach them idioms and common expressions.

1. Más vale tarde que nunca: “Better late than never”
2. Me importa un bledo/un comino: “I don’t care"
3. Meter la pata: “Mess up/screw up”.
4. Se me ha ido el santo al cielo: “It totally slipped my mind/I completely forgot”
5. Enamorados como tortolitos: “Like lovebirds”.
6. Feliz como una perdiz: “As happy as a clam”.
7. Menos da una piedra: “Like squeezing blood from a stone”.
8. Más vale pájaro en mano que ciento volando: “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”.
9. Hacerse el sueco: “To blow somebody off”.
10. Irse a la francesa: “To sneak out without a peep/without so much as a word”.
11. Esto está donde Cristo perdió la zapatilla: “This is in the boonies”.
12. Tener más cuento que Calleja: “To be a drama queen/to be more trouble than your worth”.

The 10 Most Common Expressions in English 

I hope you enjoyed this educational proposals!

Created by: MªJosé Inestal Santolaya.

TALES TO ENJOY READING!

In college we were talking about the importance of reading during the primary stage. Because the stories develop imagination, reduce misspellings and create confidence and creativity. That's why I decided to bring here some examples about how I would teach the tales in my class.

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"Goldilocks and the Three Bears"

We can We can use parts of the story to relate to some everyday things and thus encourage students to talk and express themselves.

For example:

Bears in the story have a hot breakfast cereal bowls called 'oats'. Tell us about your breakfast. 

-> What do you usually eat for breakfast?

-> Do you eat anything special for breakfast on weekends? 

-> What is your favorite breakfast?

"The Valiant Little Tailor"

With the story of the brave little tailor we can teach different types of clothing as the seasons. Being useful gloves, scarves, wellies and umbrellas in winter; sunglasses, bathing suits and flip-flops in summer; fall jackets in autumn and dresses in spring.

"The Little Mermaid"

To tell the story of the Little Mermaid we can choose one of the songs featured in the film and work it with our students. We can choose the characters, good costumes and act out the song the best as we can, putting emphasis on rhythm and intonation.

"Pinocchio"

Apart from the values ​that the tale of Pinocchio teaches us (like don't say lies), I find interesting the idea of ​​teaching children the different materials from which objects are made. And as Pinocchio is made of wood, to allow them to be able to recognize other materials, know their names in English, from which texture they are, etc.

I hope you enjoyed this educational proposals!

Created by: MªJosé Inestal Santolaya.

GREAT VIDEOS TO TEACH

In college we saw some interesting videos that can be useful in the classroom. We tend to give more importance to the video, but from it you can teach the students new vocabulary about the topics that had appeared. So my proposal is to create a workshop of textures and learn new vocabulary in a fun and dynamic way to be sure the students will not forget it!

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"THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR"

The story of the caterpillar is about how a little caterpillar grows up and gets fat while he eats. Every day he eats a little bit more until he is enough fat to make a cocoon. After some weeks he turns into a beautiful butterfly that comes out of the cocoon.

After seeing the video of The Very Hungry Catepillar, we would make a textures workshop in which students should touch the skin of the fruits, separate them by colors and smell them. Also, we will do the day of the fruit, where they will taste a piece of fruit for lunch.

"SIMON SAYS"

Simon Says is a game for three or more people. One participant is "Simon"which directs the action. The others must do what Simon says.

The trick is to listen to the magic phrase that is: "Simon Says". If Simon says "Simon says jump", players must jump or get out. If Simon says simply "jump" shouldn'tjump or you will be eliminate. In general, it is the spirit of the mandate that matters, not the actions; If Simon says "Simon says touch your toes", players must only show that you are trying to touch your toes. What is at stake is the ability to distinguish between valid and invalid requests, rather than demonstrate the physicalability to do so. Simon is up to everyone to try to get left out as quickly as possible, and work of each stay 'inside' as long as possible. The last of the followersof Simon on keeping gains (although the game does not always play to the end).

With this video we can teach the parts of the body. It can be useful to show the students a song and then we can create a mural all together. 

I hope you enjoyed this educational proposals!

Created by: MªJosé Inestal Santolaya.

MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCE

We were talking about the theory of multiple intelligences by Gardner in college.

Howard Gardner has argued that the traditional notion of intelligence is too limited and we have multiple intelligences (see table), all of them important, that education should be considered equally for all children to maximize their individual capacities. In practice, not all learn the same way or have the same interests and in a changing world like today, where the diversity of information is a reality, the choice is inevitable.

The educational implications of the theory of multiple intelligences are enormous. He is suggesting teachers need to implement pedagogical strategies beyond the linguistic and logical that predominate in the classroom and creative approaches that depart from traditional distributions tables in rows and columns with the teacher in front (and often above), slates or excessive reliance on textbooks. New times require environments that foster creativity and collaboration.

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To introduce the Multiple Intelligences, we are going to watch a great video:

After seeing it, we should have understood at least the names of the different Multiple Intelligences:

Let's go on to see the different meanings in a schedule:

Our main interest as teachers is to developt the Multiple Intelligences in our students. That's why we have to prepare activities whhich developt the Verbal-Linguistic, Mathematical-Logical, Musical, Visual-Spatial, Bodily/Kinesthetic, Intrapersonal, Interopersonal, Naturalist and Existential.

I can recommend you a web page:

EscuelaConCerebro

I hope you enjoyed this educational proposals!

Created by: MªJosé Inestal Santolaya.

FONETICS FOR CHILDREN!

At the university we've been telling twisters and erasmus' students have been very helpful. We have realized about the difficulty of phonetics and we have been seeing the spellings. I found that class more theoretical than the others, but also very necessary and important to me. That's why I inquired about how to treat phonics in the classroom. I think the best way is singing, so here you have songs that I really liked.

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At first, we need to pay attention to the International Phonetic Alphabet. Later we will see some videos that we can use to teach the children.

Here we have some song that can help the students to clarify the phonetic of the alphabet. Also, these videos are great because they use a high quantity ofiImages, colours and sounds.

I hope you enjoyed this educational proposals!

Created by: MªJosé Inestal Santolaya.

LET'S GO TO DO THE GROCERY!

At the university,we were taught about the difference between teaching English by listening and teaching English by imitation and repetition. It has been an interesting class because it was a new knowledge for me, that I had never seen before. To put the theory into practice, we talked about making a class dictionary with the words that we are learning and activities like making the grocery. Also, we talked about the most appropriate expressions for each situation, needless to say that we always teach with a suitable level for the students.

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For teaching the students to make the grocery, we can divide the class into groups, some will be the vendors and the others the buyers. With toy's fruits and paper tickets we can recreate the activity of the grocery.

It would be nice to put a song of food for the students,because they need to learn the new vocabulary.

We can also teach them the answer's expressions like yummy or yucky, yes, I do or no, I don't.

A good idea will be to make a schedule of the meals. The students have to draw their meals into the holes. We can mix this with the days of the week and the hours.

I hope you enjoyed this educational proposals!

Created by: MªJosé Inestal Santolaya.