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!

A post for the little ones

Hi you all!

Muzzy is a lovely monster who loves eating clocks! 
I love chocolate, ice-cream and salad, but...can you imagine eating clocks?
In this chapter you can know the characters, check the parts of the day and some fruit.

Here you have the new Muzzy. I hope you like it!

Muzzy and his friends have been introducing kids to world languages for over 25 years! Who is your favorite MUZZY character? 

Tell me in a comment your favourite character!

Ex: My favourite character is _______.

Homage

I just lost my dad last week. He passed away from an ictus last April 5th and I often think of him everyday. I miss him. This song is dedicated to my dad and to someone who is grieving.

Competence exams

Hi there, 

all primary 6th graders at Catalonia will have their English competence exam next May 10th. So, if you are a teacher or a year 6 student, here you have some samples from different school years. They can be useful for being confident about yourself ;D

English exam 2011. Listenings

English exam 2012. Listenings

English exam 2013. Listenings

English exam 2014. Listenings

English exam 2015. Listenings
English exam 2016. Listenings
English exam 2017. Listenings

2017 whole English exercise

Refugees in the English lessons

Hi there,

The post today is about introducing Refugees in the English classroom. More than a million refugees have fled Syria and another war-torn countries migrate to the European Union in search of a peaceful, better life. As teachers we are comitted to help students to understand what's happening around us and the post today is about a demand that some students asked to me before Easter time. I have been working, reading and looking for some resources a long these days and I have found a video about a seventeen-year-old syrian refugee boy who traveled  across the Mediterranean Sea to Greece. His English is not very clear but students can understand him because they can read what he says.

Furthermore, his way of living can be comprehensible for children and they can emphasize with him because he is one from 50 million kids who are living as refugees or migrants. 

Focusing on why is the refugees crisis all over the news and why we should care it at all, here you have a video to help you with explanations in our lessons.
Furthermore, here you have another explanation of the European Migration crisis. 
After that, I think that we can work through this song. My idea is to give lyrics to children leaving some gaps. We will concentrate on new words like moving, minds, countless, roads, traces, memories, pains, dreams, someday and somewhere among the main ones.

After that, we can think some proposals for action!
Just you know, here you have some proposals by United Nations.

It's April 1st, what does it mean?

Today is April 1st, the day most commonly called "April Fool's Day" and it's celebrated in many countries by people in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Russia, Australia, South Africa, The Netherlands and other countries around the world. 

 It's a day

to practice jokes and play fun pranks on people around you. 

Nobody is exactly sure where the tradition started but nowadays it's an excuse to play silly jokes on friends. 

As it happens at Catalonia on December 28th, many newspaper, radio personalities, television shows, and internet web sites participate in the celebration.