A fastastic app

With the computing curriculum recognising the importance of children learning programming, the most common problem for teachers is having the necessary knowledge and confidence to deliver it. 

For that reason, I always try to search for new resources to try my best having confidence on myself. This time I want to share with you an amazing app:

 Lightbot is an important app that can be useful for children and adults because we will gain knowledge of key coding principles in an easy format. The objective is to lead the robot around various squares, lighting up set tiles.

Try it and you will see the advantages in our primary lessons.

Freedom for catalan political prisoners

Last October 2017 I gave my support to the presidents of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) and Omnium Cultural (OC). With all my sadness, today I DO the same for the catalan government people who are in prison. From Brussels we have some support but that is not enough. 
One more time, the post today is for all of them. I want to give my suppport to their families sharing this video in this blog.

 

My precepts

I'm thrilled to be able to share my favourite precepts. All started with Ted Talks blog question asking for favourite quotes and precepts. As you will read, I have a growing list of favourite sayings. All of them mean a lot of me. I hope they will to you.

1. The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up (Paul Valéry)
2. Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle. (Lewis Carroll)
3. Just be who you want to be, not what others want to see (?)
4. Don't dream it, be it. (?)
5. The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams (Roosevelt)
6. If you ever feel lost, let your heart be your compass. (Emily)
7. Keep a green tree in your heart and a singing bird may come (Chinese proverb)
8. It's not what happens to you, but how you react that matters (Epictetus)
9. Kind words do not cost much. Yet, they accomplish much (Blaise Pascal)
10. Superheroes are made but heroes are born.
11. Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.
12. Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
13. Thousand of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the single candle will not be shortened.
14. Be the person who can smile on the worst day.
15. Your best takes your time (Thomas)
16. You can do anything you want. All you have to do is believe. (?)
17. Live simply. Dream big.
18. Be grateful. Give love.
19. Laugh lots.
20. Try your best.

How to improve pronunciation?

Hi there,

as you know, I am always trying to improve my lessons so that my students have a good level of English. The post today is about an activity that I think is an excellent one due to its results. It has been easy to prepare and it had a positive feedback. Let me explain it. Just in case you do not know, I work through projects along all the primary levels. Most of the times, I participate in the classroom projects but there are many times that I include other activities to improve other dimensions of the language. The one that worries to me lately is the oral production. I listened to a person talking about a "Reading in pairs" activity and I considered as an excellent one. Attending that we have different audios in the classroom related with the tasks we do, I prepared some steps to show students how to follow the activity. 

If you are a teacher and you want to put in practice, you just have to prepare and audio, upload to your English blog and to organize the text in pairs.

Here you have the instructions: 

After doing it, I believe that this activity requieres students to read as well as listen to and correct the reading of a mate. Also, it allows students to compare the phonetics, the rhyme and the intonation. Finally, it helps students to be confident with oral language.

Valentine's Day!

Hi there,

we celebrate Valentine's Day today, but do you know the origins of this celebration? Here you have a video that tells you the story and the origin of this date. Have fun!

Treehorn stories for EFL

I feel that The Shrinking of Treehorn deserves its place on the list of books you should read and include in your aged 11-12 primary students' lessons. Like quite a few other books, I think it is one of those that really won’t be appreciated by children if they read it alone but it will be appreciated if their teacher read it to them.

For a lover of "Alice in Wonderland" as I am, I consider that this is another story that allows to talk about many topics because it is a lovely, magical story even if you only take its literal meaning. Furthermore, the illustrations by Edward Gorey mean that children will love it anyway.

Treehorn is the main character. He is shrinking. He wakes up one morning to find that his clothes are spooling off the ends of his arms and legs. He tries to interest his parents in his shrinking. His mother is more worried about the fact that her cake won’t rise. His father is more worried about the fact that he can’t sit at the table properly. So, how will he solve his situation? 
If you click on the first image below, you will find out an audio from the story.

The Shrinking of Treehorn is the first story of a trilogy. After that, you should read Treehorn treasure and Treehorn wish.

Dickens' Day

Today, February 7th  is the 206th anniversary of the birth of English author Charles Dickens! Celebrations and public readings of his work are being held all over the world. We won't read any of his books but we are going to remember his most famous ones:

Oliver Twist: most people know the story of Oliver Twist. It is one of the most favourite books for children mainly after the movie's production.
David Copperfield: it is the tale of David Copperfield from his birth through to his maturity, what obstacles he faces in life and what friends he makes. With great characters it was Dickens' own personal favourite of all his novels.
A Christmas Carol: it's the classic story of how a bitter miser ( Mr. Scrooge) gets re-habilitated after being visited by three ghosts. The Ghosts' of Christmas Past, Present and Future show him visions of his life and of his influence on the others' life. On seeing things as they truly are, Scrooge changes his whole outlook on the world.

So, from now on, try to remember these three books from this famous writer, Charles Dickens!

A useful stopwatch

Hi there,
one of the challenges to teach nowadays is to suprise students. 
Here is a stopwatch to show on a screen.
It can be useful for teachers and an engaged tool for students because
it just adds some extra fun to the usual coundown timers.
Can you imagine how useful can it be? games, filling the gaps activity and tiding up among others.
I find that it can motivate pupils and set clear standards on finishing times.

By the way, here you have a noisy one. It is amazing but so clatter for me

Happy groundhog day!

There's an important legend in Catalonia about "la Candelera" (February 2nd). It's celebrated just in the half winter and people say that "Si la Candelera plora, l´hivern és fora; si la Candelera riu, el fred és viu". So, this legend is about weather.

In Pennsylvania there's another one about marmots or groundhogs. It says that an early spring is on its way if you don't see this animal's shadow, but it's six more weeks of winter if you Do see.

Whatever the weather predicts, families will surely dig these adorable Groundhog Cupcakes. 

By the way, if you are a teacher, maybe you are interested in web. You will find some information to work this special day with your students.