Summer holidays!

Hi there!

How is your Summer going? 

I have been in Menorca with my daughters for some days. We went walking "Camí de cavalls" where we met English people who asked us different things about the place. 

English is important wherever you go or travel!

By the way, here you have some activities to help you with English.

But remember...it's always up to you!

By clicking on the links below you can download and print some activities to practice a bit of English.

Summer activities for 1st and 2nd grade

Summer activities for 3rd and 4th grade

Summer activities for 5th and 6th grade

I want to wish you a Great Summer and....don't forget English! 

See you in September.

Kideos

Hi there,

here you have an incredible web page where you can find different songs for primary children (kids+videos=kideos ;D)

It offers your kids fun and safe videos with themes and music they love.

Click on the pic below and sing with children!

On line activity

Hi there, 

this is a good on line activity to review grammar. 

Click on the picture, read the question and choose the correct answer!

A magic tool

makeagif.com offers you a tool which makes your photos alive just adding some movement. Look at the example below, I just wanted to add two different images and "voilà" they became a gif in just 15 seconds.

You have to register if you want to tidy your creations.

This is my nephew last July 5th, when it was his 14th birthday ;D 

A game & song for these days

This is a super simple, super fun colors song for kids. They can play it at home or when they travel by car. It's a great way to pass the time and talk about all of the things they see around them. They can look for the coloured objects with their family as they drive through the countryside. 

Some thoughts about dubbing films

Hi there,
as a teacher of English I recommended to my students to listen to English music and to watch original films in Summertime. However, an essential element that acts against the whole educational system is the systematic practice of dubbing into Catalan and Spanish languages of ​​almost all audiovisual material, mainly cinema and television. As there are no movies or programs in original subtitled language for them, children do not have to make any effort to read in their own language and it is said that, because of this, children do not learn easily foreign languages. 

Although economic and social needs have communicated that it is necessary for the population to master languages ​​especially English, the authorities have collected the glove and the educational policy is to define the school as the responsible of this issue. I mean, the school will have the obligation to teach a second or third language, but the socio-cultural context will act against this obligation, because the student will not be immersed in that new language in a continuous way throughout the day, just only the English hours at school. Then, how can the school deal with this situation? Personally I speak English 100% at school and out of it if I have kids around me (p.e.Colonies period) because as always we say, we have to teach by example. How can I say to a kid that English is a communicative language if I don't use it to talk with the school community? In fact, I pretend that, whenever students see me, they use the foreign language to talk with their English teacher. I have to say that it is easier with the big ones because they have more structures in mind to use but you will be impressed listening to the youngest students asking to me different questions or just saying hello or good morning. But not only students practise English but also families and colleagues try to use it.
I have to say thank you to those mates and families who have encouraged themselves to use English with me and with kids because we can lead by example and feel that English is around us! Well done! It is a good way to go. A big hooray for all of YOU and ME! 
WE ALL ARE CHAMPIONS. WDW

Quality Label

Hooray!
I have participated in different eTwinning projects and I have just received a Quality Label from the one I shared with Italy, Greece, Romania, Serbia and Albania (tapping on the pic below you will see it). Really proud of my students and school. We have worked hard along the year and this is a present for our task. I cannot be HAPPIER ;D

If you want to read our writings and ebooks, click here.

Colleagues

Hi there,

along the school year my colleagues and I are very busy because, as other teachers, we plan, organize, prepare, have meetings and inteviews, coordinate, discuss and agree different issues about our job among other tasks. We link together students, other mates, school administrators, families and community members to foster the learning process of our students. However, we must not forget our relationships as teachers and colleagues and, personally I think that we have to include activities that build and foster our relationship in our plannings. As it happened yesterday. It was fun to do a trip to Viladrau with colleagues and live with them in a different context from the school one.

Look at the photo below. It was taken yesterday when we organized a warm farewell to three colleagues who are going to retire next August 31st. Building relationship between teachers is important but it is much more when we have to say goodbye to so outstanding professionals. 

Thank you to Carme, Lourdes and Eulàlia for sharing your last school years with us.

For sure, we will miss you a lot!

                             Some of the colleagues and "Les Agudes, El Turó de l'home&Matagalls"

PBL, Project or Problem?

Hi there,

if you usually visit this blog, you will know that I often work through Project Based Learning and many times I have read some articles about Problem Based Learning (Leggett, A. (2014). Active learning pedagogies). 

Both have the same acronym and sometimes I confused them. Because of that, I decided to find information out about the second one and I found this easy and clear video where it is explained. 

After watching the video above, I would like to conclude with some ideas as far as I am concerned:

Both focus on an open question or task.

They are authentic because both are real content.

They build 21st century skills.

They emphasize student autonomy

So, the main difference between them may be lengthy because problems tend to be shorter that projects. Moreover, they follow specific steps meanwhile Project BL follows different steps. 

I hope that these conclusions will help you to difference them.

Favourite activities

Hi there,
before introducing children's favourite activities, let me say to you that this school year I taught English from 2nd to 6th grade and the foreign language participated in different classroom projects. Moreover, English was the language to develop more activities, so in June, I worked with the classes asking them which skills, games, songs, chants, readings and role-plays (among others) they liked most.

I list them in this post so that you, as a reader or teacher, consider that they can be useful for your future lessons. Here you have them:
- 2nd grade_ chants and froggy the frog story
- 3rd grade_ the animal alphabet and Please Mr. Crocodile game
- 4th grade_  the Shirt of a happy man Story and the activities we developed after going to the theatre and the hot potato game (look at the end of this post*)
- 5th grade_ The research about sharks and songs, specially You've got a friend in me. Students were so enthusiastic that they wanted to illustrate the song as an activity inside an English space
- 6th grade_ to write different stories coordinated  with another school using Story Jumper

* How to play Hot potato.
You need a ball or a soft toy for this activity. The class forms a circle and you give out a ball, which they pass from one person to the next. After a few seconds you shout "Hot potato" and the class start to count down from ten to one. The person who has the ball (potato) when you reach number one has to go down on one knee and say a word related with the topic you decide. If this person is caught out again, then he/she goes down on two kees.

Classroom layouts

Interesting brief overview of seating arrangements and how they define teacher's 
personality , by tes

I'm an inspirer teacher:
Means that I'm a natural public speaker (I can't believe it ;D)
Big groups are my thing!!!
I get people excited