New school year

Hello!

I'm back to school , a new school, new students, new parents and colleagues to meet, so new challenges.

I'm excited to start a new school year and lots of new ideas are popping in my head.

Animals - Endangered species -4ºA

Hello!
Last week, as the 4th grade is learning about wild animals I thougt it would be good to talk about wild species that are in danger of extintion. One of the activities was to listen(without watching the video) to the song "I'll swim, i'll swim" by Kelly family and pay attention to the sounds of animals and try to take notes of their names

After that I gave students the lyrics but incomplete, the words missing were the ones that were related to what I wanted to talk about with the students (ex: rescue, swim,dream,children, killing, sea,) They listened to the song twice and completed the lyrics.As we corrected we talked about endangered species, the importance of keeping them alive, take care of them etc...

Finally I showed them a page about engangered species : http://www.enchantedlearning.com/coloring/endangered.shtml and in pairs they had to choose one animal and search some basic information about it  .  name/ where does it live?/ what does it eat?

Afterwards they presented their animal to the class.

Pets - 1ºA

Hello!
Yesterday, the first graders lesson started with the adaptation of the well known song "Who let the dogs out?" It goes like this:

"Who let the dogs out ?
woof, woof, woof

Who let the dogs out ?
woof, woof, woof

 Who let the cats out?

miow, miow, miow

Who let the cats out?

miow, miow, miow

Who let the hamster out?

hi hi hi hi

Who let the hamster out?

hi hi hi hi

Who let the bird out?

piu piu piu

Who let the bird out?

piu piu piu

After that I taught them a chant which involved more animal names and the body coverings.

They chanted and made some rhythm with clapping , tapping legs, tapping the table...etc

 The chant was like this:

Turtle , guinea pig , fish

Turtle , guinea pig , fish

Turtle , guinea pig 

Turtle , guinea pig , 

Turtle , guinea pig , fish

shell , fur and scales

shell , fur and scales

shell , fur

shell , fur 

shell , fur and scales

We repeated this faster and slower and afterwards we started another activity: I gave the students a milk carton and various materials and asked them to create an animal puppet.

Then they presented it to the class

At the end I presented an african musical instrument to the class, the calimba and we used/played it with the previous chant. I also let some students try to play the calimba

Game "Angry puffles" -3rd grade

Hello!
Long time no see right? ;) Well , here I am posting about my beloved students and how we have fun while learning English. Before the Easter holidays the 3rd graders tested a game I invented "Angry puffles" , an adaptation of angry birds. This game is more than throwing puffles (the cute soft furry creatures) , let me explain:

Before:
- Students are given a paper and they must draw a farm animal from the story "What the ladybird heard"
- Teacher writes numbers on milk cartons 
- Teacher puts some numbered cards on the table next to the milk cartons
- Students are divided in groups 

The game:
- A member from each group  at a time has the chance to throw 2 times a puffle to the pile of milk cartons
 - the milk cartoon that falls has a number and the group must pick the same numbers on the pile of cards.These cards have animals descriptions
 - Teacher reads the description on the card and the group must guess what animal is it
- Finally students use the cards with drawings of animals to stick on the milk cartons that fell of the pile

Goal: 
Guess as much animals as possible

Here's some pictures

House -Complete the story and Hot and cold game - 1st grade

Hello!
Last lesson  as 1st graders are learning about the house parts/rooms I gave some students house rooms flash cards and told them that I was going to tell them a story and when they heard the rooms they were holding they had to raise their cards. The story was made up and very simple:

"Once upon a time there were three littles pigs that lived in a (house).The (house) had one big (bedroom), one big (bathroom), one big  (kitchen) but one little (living room). One day one of the pigs was very hungry so he went to the (kitchen) and cooked a meal. He ate , ate, ate until he was satisfied and very sleepy, so he went to the (bedroom) and took a nap.

After this exercise I told the story again but this time I held and showed the cards and as I Told the story I stopped , showed a card and students had to say the house part .

After this we played the game "Hot and cold", I layed each house flash card down on different tables , then I asked for two volunteers to come forward and volunteer 1 went outside the classroom and waited for my signal. Meanwhile  volunteer 2 hid himself underneath one of the tables. I called volunteer 1  and he asked out loud " ______(name of volunteer2) where are you?" and started looking for volunteer 2. The rest of the class shouted cold if he was far from the coleague and hot if he was near. When he found the coleague he said " _____was in the _______". 

"I will never not ever eat a tomato" - 3rd grade

Hello!
Today we started the lesson with a simple game of "cross the odd one out": I put some food flashcards on the board  in groups and students had to say which food item didn't belong to the groups

ex:

cauliflowercabbage

cheese

beans 

The odd one is the cheese.

With this exercise students revised the food vocabulary.
After that I told them the story "I will never not ever eat a tomato"

This is a great story, not only because it teaches a lot of vocabulary and important grammar structures but also because it teaches students that if they don't try the taste of different food they will never know if they really like it or not.
After the story I've shown my students a painting by Arcimboldo "Vertumnus"


and I challenged them to try drawing a face with some food items from the story "I will never not ever eat a tomato".
Next lesson they are going to introduce their drawing to the class eliciting the food items used. :)


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04/04/2013
Sorry it took me so long to post  some pictures of the students's work ,but anyway here you have the art work 

Velntine's day - 4th grade

Hello!
Last lesson the 4th graders made some felt fortune cookies and we played a game in which they had to pick one fortune cookie and read an instruction, as in each paper it was written something for them to do. As it was almost Valentine's day the topic was love and friendship and some of the things written in the fortune cookies were:
"Hug your best friend"
"Shake hands with everybody"
"Tell someone you will miss him/her during holidays" etc...

The students really got into the spirit and asked to play the game twice. It was a fun game and they also practised  important vocabulary and sentence structures

Jobs - 2ºA

Hello!
Some weeks ago the 2nd graders were learning about jobs and they played several games.

"play is cru­cial to phys­i­cal, intel­lec­tual, and social-emotional devel­op­ment at all ages” (Elkind, 2008)

"nothing lights up the brain like plays” (Stuart Brown, TED Conference, 2008)

We played "Swat that flashcard" in which there were several jobs pictures on the board and each time the teacher named a job the two volunteers/students had to swat the correct picture/job.


Há algumas semanas a turma de 2º ano estava a aprender as profissões e jogaram diversos jogos.

"Brincar/Jogar é crucial para o desenvolvimento físico, intelectual e sócio-emocional em qualquer idade" (Elkind, 2008)

"Nada ilumina/liga o cérebro como o jogo/a brincadeira"(Stuart Brown, TED Conference, 2008)

Jogamos "acerta no cartão" em que havia cartões com imagens de  diferentes profissões no quadro e cada vez que a professora mencionava uma profissão  dois alunos voluntários tinham de acertar no cartão correto com o mata moscas.


Students listened to the story "The super jobs" and they had with them some objects related to different jobs and  they had to put on or show the correct object/tool as they listen to different jobs in the story.

Afterwards they played a game in which they had all the jobs' tools on a table and they had to dance around the table as long as they were listening to the song "People work".When the music stopped they had to grab an object and if not they were out of the game.Then the teacher asked each student with an object "What do you do?" and they had to say "I'm a ______________"


Os alunos ouviram o conto "Super jobs" e tinham consigo objetos/ferramentas relacionadas com diferentes profissões e ao longo do conto tinham de colocar ou mostrar os objetos relacionados com as profissões que eram mencionadas no conto.

Depois jogaram um jogo em que os objetos usados anteriormente estavam pousados numa mesa e os alunos tinham de dançar à volta desta enquanto ouviam a canção "People work". Quando a canção parava tinham de agarrar num objeto, caso não o conseguissem saíam do jogo. Então a professora perguntava a cada aluno com objetos "What do you do?" e estes tinham de responder referindo a profissão que usava aquela ferramenta " I'm a _______"


















Finally, the last game the students played was "Behind the blanket/coat" in which two job's tools/objects were hidden behind a chair with a coat. A student at a time was hidden too and chose one object.Afterwards the class had to guess what was the job chosen . The teacher asked "What does he/she do?" and students  guessed by saying "He/she is..." When they guessed correctly another student went behind the coat.

Finalmente, o último jogo foi "Behind the blanket/coat"(atrás do cobertor/casaco) em que duas ferramentas de profissões eram escondidas numa cadeira coberta por um casaco. Um aluno de cada vez escondeu-se atrás da cadeira e sem ninguém ver escolheu um objeto. Depois a turma teve de adivinhar qual a profissão escolhida pelo colega. A professora perguntou aos alunos "What does he/she do?" e os alunos tentaram adivinhar respondendo "He/she is..." Quando acertavam , outro aluno ia para trás do casaco.

Who took the cookie from the cookie jar? - 1ºA and 1ºB

Hello!
Last week the 1st graders played a game called Who took the cookie from the cookie jar?, which is also a chant, it goes like this

First we played it as in the video, but afterwards instead of their names, they would say a member of the family, as they are learning family.

I would tell who was the mother, father, sister, brother, grandmother, grandfather and baby and they would chant like this:

 -  Who took the cookie from the cookie jar?

 - Father took the cookie from the cookie jar?

 - Who me?

 - Yes , you

 - Not me!!

 - Then who?

This was lots of fun to the students and they've learned some basic but important language structures and revised the family vocabulary.

ps: This was a game to medium sized groups, but the rest of the class must be engaged to, so while some were in the circle the other although apart , had to chant too.

At the doctor's 3ºB

Hello!
Yesterday 3ºB had the same lesson as 3ºA in which they watched a video of some children role -playing a scene at the doctor's , after rehearsing the dialogue they role-played it themselves.
Here's one example:

Ontem o 3ºB teve a mesma aula que o 3ºA , na qual assistiram a um video com algumas crianças a dramatizar uma cena no médico , depois de ensaiarem o diálogo os alunos dramatizaram a cena.

Fica aqui um exemplo: