New Year's Resolutions

Hi there, here you have some of my students' New Year's Resolutions. Which ones are yours, too? Do you have new ones? You can add them in the padlet below just by tapping twice.

Holy Innocents' Day!

We celebrate the Holy Innocents' Day today. Some people use to play all kind of jokes and foolishness. However, the most famous tradition in our country says that you have to hang a "llufa" on the friends' and people's back. But, do you know how to make one? It's very easy, you need a newspaper and scissors.

First, take out a page from the newspaper and fold it as an acordion. Look at the pictures:

When you have the acordion made ready, it is time to cut the "llufes". When you open the "acordion" you will have a "llufes" chain. Now you can use it as you want: you can decorate your bedroom or you can cut the chain and you will obtain lots of "llufes".

Winter time!

Today is the first day of Winter.

If you want to explore Peanuts Worldwide's board "winter" on Pinterest, click on the pic below.

Chocolate covered anything day!

If you are a chocolate lover, today is your day (my day ;D) !  If you could cover anything in chocolate, what would it be? There are so many foods that are improved by covering them in chocolate, I do not have time to list them all but here you have two delicatessen I tried at home: orange peels and cashews.  So go ahead, and try new chocolate covered dreams. By the way, here you have other important days in December to celebrate or to share in your lessons. 

Besides that, if you want to link the day with Roald Dalh famous book, here you have a digital short presentation about the characters. 

Roald Dalh And Chocolate Factory

Furthermore, here you have an easy presentation about chocolate

Where does chocolate come from?

Another badge achieved

Hi there, the post today is related to a NOOC INTEF badge that I achieved. It's related to the net and how we can teach children about security in it.

An easy Christmas song for young students

Hi there,

the post today is about a Christmas song for young children. It's "I'm a Little Snowman!". It's an easy song to learn to describe a snowman and to teach the vocabulary the song shows related to the famous character. Also, it helps to teach parts of the body vocabulary to young learners. It uses simple words (eyes, hat, scarf, buttons and nose) and is done at a pace young children can follow and sing along, too!

What's going on?

Hi everyone! If you are a follower of this page you know that, in general, teachers always try to make our job better and improve things in and outside the classroom. That's the reason because I keep on doing training courses. In e-Twinning network you can find interesting ones and the post today is because I finished an amazing one. It made me think about education today, apps, new technologies...among other issues that are changing our enviroment. They are in our lifes, so why don't we reinforce English with them? Looking on the bright side always seems to help me make things better! 
Nevertheless, I want to introduce some tools you can download in your device. They will allow very young children to learn the foreign language by themselves. 
The first one is the AR Flashcards Animal Alphabet app. It is a new way to interact and make flashcards more entertaining for children. You will find the link to the website by clicking on the monkey below. 

Other apps:
Alphabet and English. Learning English spelling words.
My life in English (crosswords, wordsearch, searches, find and match...)
Little smart planet (different grades for children and parents)
Pet desk (related to pets and their care)
Creapp cuentos (first writings)
ABA English (3rd cycle: listen, speak, read and write in English)

Who am I on line?

Hi there, the post today is related to a NOOC INTEF training course  that I am doing nowadays. It's related to the net and how can we teach children about security in it. Here you have a mini project for year 6.

Think before you post!

Finally, just to say that I am also at the end of @decodeproject (DIGITAL COMPETENCE) seminar. In this point, one of the activities that is required is to make an input in the net reflecting my thoughts. So here you have mine:

My teaching practice takes an account, among other aspects, the use of new technologies but becoming aware of what digital teaching competency is about with this teaching digital competence seminar, it has opened up new approaches to the present and the future. I am lucky to work in a school that works for projects, involving living and cooperative methodologies, where children take part in their learning process. I would add, as very important, that education professionals have to ensure that technology has not to be decontextualized, I mean, the sense of its presence has to be understood.

December&Alice!

Hi everyone! December is here and, as most of you know, I love traditions and Alice in Wonderland. For that reason, I decided to mix Alice with Christmas and here you have the result: Alice Advent Calendar. Hope you like it! By the way, do not open all the windows. Just one by one.

Story time

Hi there,
I designed this story from a Teacher's magazine's issue. If you are a teacher, you can use it with very young learners. It's related to dinosaurs and parts of the body.

Autumn poem for very young students

Down, down,

yellow and brown.

The leaves

are falling

over the town.

City project

Hi everyone,

this is a ppt about our city or town.

It describes basic vocabulary to check with students.

Useful for English lessons!

After that, students brought shoe boxes to the classroom and they built the city they wanted. Here you have some photos.

Halloween fun art

Hi there, Halloween is coming and there are lots of fun activities you can do with kids but the one I introduce in this post is a fun one related to the celebration.
In this one, they had to use two hands using different coloured felt pens. This activity is a great way to exercise the brain as it uses both sides of the brain simultaneously. Here you have two examples.

Another open badge achieved

Hi there, INTEF created some training courses to enable teachers to build up our projects and share them through a web. You can have a unique collection of badges. Each of them contains data about some skills and the issuing organization within a portable image file. This data can be viewed when you display and share our badges. So, after doing a new eTwinning training course, here you have my new badge. 

A new training course

An eTwinning project is a collaborative work between two or more European schools on a previously agreed subject, topic or issue. The collaboration is carried out through a virtual platform and the use of different web tools. 

Normally, there are some administrators in a project who agree the theme, the duration and the students that will participate in, the competences that they will develop, the final product or products they wish to obtain and the language they will use, etc. Good planning and communication between partners are key factors for the success of a project.  I would recommend to participate in a training course about all of those points, and the best I have participated is the next:

My tools for eTwinning projects

An open badge

Hi there, INTEF created some training courses to enable teachers to build up our unique collection of badges and share them through a web. Each badge you earn contains data about some skills and the issuing organization within a portable image file. This data can be viewed when you display and share our badges. So, after doing a new eTwinning training course, here you have my new badge. Hooray, I have new mates to work with!

A song for October

Students in year 5 are reading/listening to the teacher reading Wonder. Also, they will watch the movie in the classroom. Because of that, I want to introduce this old song that tells the story of meeting a new friend at the beginning of a school year. Auggie, the main character in Wonder the movie, makes some new friends at the camp when you listen to this song.Through its lyrics, it is able to remind childhood.

Also, I want to share this stop motion that Alison Work made for her interactive media class in high school. Congratulations Alison!


I want to work the lyrics with students in year 5. It will be their first listening activity, filling the gaps and learning the song at the same time.

Kahoot, Quizizz, Quizalize or Plickers?

Hi there,

I have just found this inphographic about which tool is the appropiate in each activity and I thought of sharing it due to the clear ideas it give to us, as teachers, when we plan a lesson. Thanks a lot to Matt Miller, an educator, a texbook ditcher a blogger and a speaker.

Prepositions with Quizizz

Hi everyone! Some of my students are going to work around prepositions and I have prepared the activities below to dive into that word category.
My very first activity, would be a memory game: by looking at the mind map below and trying to keep the prepositions in mind, students will try to say all of them in the pic with no names. Do you remember all of them?

Besides that, I have designed this quizizz. If you want to play it, click on the pic below and introduce the code 595734.

European Union Gamification

Hi there,

I have just designed an excellent activity that can be used as an assessment tool. This is the European Union jigsaw. It has been designed with the jigsaw planet. This is a free tool and it is not strictly necessary to take an account, but if you do, you can store your jigsaws and edit them later if needed. Click on the pic and have fun trying your own designs!

EU

Happy European Day of Languages!

Hi there,

today is the DAY! I was looking forward to celebrating this important day because children and I are excited to participate in the tongue twister competition. We have prepared some presents for the winners and also an awesome certificate. Here you have it:

Tongue Twisters

Hi there,

a tongue twister competition can be an excellent activity to engage children and help them to improve their pronuntiation and having fun at the same time. It's an activity that can be done in all the levels . Along the week we will practise them in our English lessons. 

Methodology: I will pronounce first very slowly to make children familiarise the sounds. After that, we will work on their meaning, making sure that students understand them. Finally, all together we will repeat each of them as many times as we need.

By the end of the week, we will play and repeat them with cards: picking cards by turns and repeating them without making mistakes. If the student say the tongue twister in the card correctly, this student will keep the card with him/her. If not, the card will be tidied at the bottom of the deck of cards.

Engage language learning!

A lot of adults regret not having learned another language different to the mother tongue or the foreign language learnt at school. Personally, I think that language teachers have the advantage of encouraging children learning languages. We have many resources and technology to engage children in a flash, but specially in September, at the beginning of the school year, we have the opportunity to inspire them and get them excited about learning languages planning activities to celebrate the European Day of languages (September 26th). So, if you are a teacher and you want to plan some activities for that celebration, here you have some resources from TES.

A new school year starts!

Welcome back everyone! I am sure you all had a very well deserved holidays. Now it is time to think about the new course and get fresh ideas for our lessons. If you are a teacher, here you have an excellent web page to recommend your students to check grammar when they play...but, if you are a student and you want to practise a little bit of grammar, click on the picture below and have fun with lots of activities. Pay attention on the left and decide if you want to play with nouns, adjectives or verbs among others. Click on the one you choose and have fun!

Summertime with Lana Del Rey

Hi you all!

to celebrate summertime, click on the image below and you will open the lyrics training page. There, you have a song about that topic. 
Remember to choose the beginner level.
If you think that this is too easy for you, try a harder one.
You can repeat the missing word by clicking on the BACK BUTTON. If you don't understand the word, just jump the word with the TAB BUTTON and the web page will write the missing word for you.

Enjoy your summer listening to English songs!

A magazine for young people

Hi there,

I have had some requests from families about how to engage children reading in English. My answer is always the same, the book, the magazine, the comic, the story...that each child chooses. However, some kids need our guide and this is the reason of the post Today. 

When my daughters were young, I bought an excellent magazine for them. After that, I introduced the same magazine at school and children were passionated in reading each time a new magazine arrived at school. That is "I love English junior" from Bayard R. 

If you tap on the pic, you will read on line a free sample.

Welcome summer!

Hi there,
today is an important day!
Summer is here and it's also the end of the school year.
Here you have an energic summer song:
enjoy this time of the year with the summer jive!

Resources for teachers

Hi there,

here you have the top 10 digital resources I have used this school year.

Click on the pic below and have a look. 

They are awesome!

Creative writing with Alice

Hi there, do you know what ARC is?

ARC means "Aplicació de recursos al currículum" in catalan and, as you can imagine, it is not only a worthy space where you can find different proposals for your lessons but also you, as a teacher, can share quality teaching and interesting proposals associated with basic competences and the curriculum. The post today is because of that. Some activities that I used in my lessons have been published . If you want to find them out, click on the pic below.

After a period of time working full time, here I have the results!

My symbaloo

Hi gorgeous! 

there are lots of resources and links I need to have in mind. Symbaloo is perfect for this issue. Here you have my personal symbaloo:

How to improve listening and writing skills

"We are the world" is a song written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie in 1985. If you click here, you will visit the Lyrics training webpage where you can practise listening and writing. Start on BEGINNER level. You will find the lyrics with some gaps where you have to type the words that are missing.

You can press the BACKSPACE button to listen to the last sentence again. After that, you will have to type it correctly !

Otherwise, If you want to jump the gap, press the TAP BUTTON and you will have the solution. Hope you like the song and the activity!

Learning kind words

Hi everyone! 

A new month is here and finally it seems that spring is definitely with us.

The weather warms, flowers blossom and students of all ages look forward to have their "colònies" and the summer break. 

For those reasons, they are sometimes excited. Working on poetry and values can help them to remind some rules for living all together and having good relationships.
Here you have an activity that I will introduce next week.

Only for Alice's lovers

Alice in Wonderland may well be the most interpreted book in history, but there are always new depths to dive. The book below is one of those books that I highly recommend to you if you are an Alice follower. I am and I am very glad to read it. 

Here you have another link about Alice philosophy you cannot lose. Enjoy it!

Reading on line

Hi there,

here you have an amazing webpage to read thousand books and lots of magazines. You can also recommend videos and quizzes.

The video below shows you how it works. It is free for educators. Hooray for Epic. 
Thanks to JJ for the information. Visit it.

Happiness and frienship

Has anyone ever inspired you to change your life in a signifcant way that made you happier?  Study after study shows us that friendship boots our happiness and even our health. 

I have worked many times this issue in my English lessons but after going to a trip with some friends and their children this last weekend, I have a new book. This is "Be Happy!,a little book for a happy YOU". Surprisingly, I have found an excellent singer who turned it into a book song. Here you have. Enjoy it!

Simple grammar: verbs

The verb is the king in any language, so in English too. The shortest sentence contains a verb. You can make a one-word sentence with a verb, for example: "Go!"

Verbs are sometimes described as "action words". This is partly true because many verbs give the idea of action, of "doing" something. For example, words like run, fight, do and work all convey action.

But some verbs do not give the idea of action; they give the idea of existence, of state, of "being". For example, verbs like be, exist, seem and belong all convey state.

A verb always has a subject. (In the sentence "Peter goes swimming", Peter is the subject and goes is the verb.) In simple terms, therefore, we can say that verbs are words that tell us what a subject does or is; they describe:

• action (Paul plays basketball.)
• state (Susan seems cheerful.)

There is something very special about verbs in English. Most other words (adjectives, adverbs, prepositions etc) do not change in form (although nouns can have singular and plural forms). But almost all verbs change in form. For example, the verb to work has six forms:

• to go, go, goes, went, gone, going

Of course, this is still very few forms compared to some languages which may have thirty or more forms for a single verb. 

Activity to introduce verbs: 

First of all, introduce or review the concept of verbs.

Give students a few minutes to share examples of different action verb.

Allow them to work in groups or with partners to complete this activity. 

     Give students time to look through old newspapers and magazines to cut out pictures and words that are examples of action verbs.

     Allow each group to share an example of action verbs they were able to find.

    Material you need:

Cardstocks

Magazines

scissors

Felt pens/ markers/ crayons

;

Question words

Invite your students to try this simple and funny game. It's a good way to review question words. I'm sure they will find it great. 

Vocabulary game for young learners

Hi there, 
here you have an easy way to play with language. Tap on the image below and you will be able to answer questions related to different topics. 

Excellent for young learners.

Writing skills

Hi there,

it's the first week of May and our year 6 students are ready to do the Basic Competences exams. They know that this year they will have an extra day to cope with science. This will be on May the 8th. After that, May 9th, they will have Spanish and Mathematics and finally, last day, May the 9th, our students will have Catalan and English language (two listenings, two readings and a writing activity). I disagree with that planning because English is the last day exercise and students will be exhausted  after three days trying their best. 

Anyway, in order to practise structures and connectors I gave an interesting homework to them last weekend. Students had to choose three important personal objects and they had to introduce them in a writing activity. 
I had the opportunity to listen to a group of 26 students this morning and the experience has been very cool. All the students have been engaged by homework and they said that they enjoyed doing it. Amazing, fantastic and wonderful. ;D

By the way, the current English curriculum at Catalonia establishes three competences that students must acquire during their primary stage related to writing. The competences relate to the planning and analysing of texts as well as the production. I think that my students produce and interpret their mates' texts in a properly way. The production of a text requires the application of higher order skills (HOTS), following Bloom's taxonomy and that is what we promote in our lessons through topics that engage and motivate them. That's the way that it works.

A long the school year, and always giving some language support, they have written about:

1. Personal descriptions.
2. Their best friend.
3. Their school.
4. Daily routines.
5. Important women in their lifes.
6. Mobile phones and teenagers.
7. Three personal important objects.

For tips on encouraging children in creative writing, take a look at creative writing page. Worthy to visit it!

Empowering kids to find their own way

Hi everyone! 

Most of you know that I decided to move from my old school to a new one which works through projects along the school year. This methodology is applied not only in kindergarten but also in primary where projects are focused on student learning goals and include different types of activities.

So after working in a new methodology I want to reflect what have been my feelings about Project Based Learning.

Adopting the PBL approach has produced a change in my way of teaching. I have to improve the presence of different levels of learning and special needs, the competences and social skills. It makes that students have to work in their own way to solve problems, to think and to access to information, processing and learning. 

Personally I think that this way of working has enriched me as a teacher because I have the challenge of improving my lessons every day through individual work but most of the times through cooperative teams by asking questions and doing research as well and making the students decide by themselves. The video below explains the most important aspects and elements of PBL. Worth watching! 

Lyrics training

Hi everyone!
If you are a follower of this site, you know that I am a lyricstraining lover. If you are not familiar with it, I would say that it is a site with easy access for children. It's a gap-fill exercise which can be motivaing for them in a flash giving different levels of difficulties. They can use it to learn and practice their English.

I have chosen lyricstraining web page today to celebrate the transition between winter and summer with a song that I love.

 Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here....
   

Click on BEGINNER. You can press the BACKSPACE button to listen to the last sentence again and type it correctly !

Happy St. George's Day!

Today is a special day. I really like it because I enjoy walking a long my town and having a look on all the places with books, roses and lovers as well. The Book Day becomes a romantic festivity.

On one hand, it matches with the fact that Sant Jordi has been the patron saint of Catalonia since the 15th century. On the other hand, it comes from the famous 

legend of St. George and the dragon:

Once upon a time there was a small village with a big castle. The village was quiet. 
It was in the mountains.

The castle was big.
In the castle lived the king and a princess. The princess was pretty.

A dragon arrived at the village. The dragon had big eyes, big nose and big mouth. The dragon was very strong and bad. It had long tail and big ears.

The dragon was dangerous and he was hungry. He wanted to eat the princess. The princess was scared.

Saint George arrived at the village. He was brave, he was a knight, he came to kill the dragon.

Saint George fought the dragon. He killed the dragon. From the dragon's blood grew a red rose.

Saint George gave the red rose to the princess.

Saint George gave the red rose to the princess!
and that is a true story...and if it isn't, it should be ;D
Snip, snap, snout, this story's out!

HAPPY EARTH DAY!

As you may have known when you visiting goggle, we celebrate the Earth Day today !
What does it mean? It means that people around the world are becoming more and more conscious of the urgent need to reduce pollution and save the environment every day.
Earth Day is not just a celebration, it is a call for action! 
Then, here we go!

5th graders had three lessons on this topic last week and we established some categories in the school and some in the classroom to analyze our immediate environment.
Children concluded that there are lots of things we can do in the school and also at home. 
Here you have some of the main ideas they said:

• To take shorter showers.
• To turn off the tap while you are brushing your teeth.
• To turn the lights off when you are not using a room.
• To walk or cycle more.
• To take public transport.
• To reduce plastic.
• To reuse more.

Also, I want to share with you this green memory game.
By the way,do you know what the 3R's stand for?
Here you have this funny video to use in our lessons. It's clear for everyone and easy to understand.

Finally, I want to add in this post this amazing song for working  and being engaged with 3R's. Children love it!