Anka Zapart

Crumbs #70 The many uses of a volcano!

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Ingredients

  • A bottle, plastic or glass, we have used the small ones.
  • Vinegar (a few spoons, I did not measure), baking soda (again, did not measure) and a few drops of the washing up liquid for the foam
  • Different websites usually advise using food colouring for the beautiful lava but I didn’t have any so I just used a few drops of the regular guache paint
  • A big plastic box or a tub (if you are doing it inside)
  • A few pieces of A4, an old plastic bag and a piece of scotch for the outside of the volcano
  • Someone to help you film or photograph because it happens very fast
  • Anything accompanying elements: I have used a short cool video about volcanoes for kids, my personal photos from Kamchatka and an episode of Peppa in which Peppa (hooray) is making a volcano at school (hooray hooray)

Procedures

  • For us, this time, this was a part of the Autumn Camp with every day dedicated to one colour. Monday was ‘red’ and before the got to the Science / CLIL part of the day, the kids had a chance: to talk about all the things red, they wrote their own poems modelled on the poems I found here which were perfect for our pre-school and year 1 kids (and here are the more complex ones, for the older kids). They also had a proper Art class in which they made very simple but amazing collages of a volcano.
  • By the time we got to the Science slot, the topic was already familiar to them. We looked at the video, we watched my photos from the trip to Kamchatka, including the volcanoes and the black sand on the beach and we watched Peppa. During the entire lesson, I wanted to draw their attention to some of the elements / words related to volcanoes especially: magma, lava, gases, temperature.
  • I also introduced all the ingredients and I explained that we will try to create the gas and the lava.
  • Afterwards every child prepared an A4 piece of paper by colouring it with black and brown crayons and then by crumpling it. Afterwards we relocated to our Lab (aka the dinning room).
  • I divided the group into three teams and each team prepared their own volcano: a bottle, wrapped in a plastic bag (for volume), scotched around, then the A4 pieces of paper, wrapped around and scotched over. Even if in the clumsiest of ways. While the kids were preparing the mountains I prepared three jars of water with the colouring (aka paint).
  • I showed the kids all the ingredients and I demonstrated the experiement the first time, trying to encourage the kids to help me name the ingredients. Afterwards, we repeated it with the other volcanoes.

Why we like it

  • Well, simply, it was a lot of fun, especially in connection with all the other things that the kids did on the day.
  • It is a very simple project, with minimal resources (although, yes, I am aware of the fact that vinegar or soda is not something that is normally available at school). All class is involved, everyone is putting their shoulder to the wheel and it is feasible even with the youngest kids as everyone can colour a piece of paper and crumple it. I had the help of my TA with building of the volcano so that’s why we could do it with three volcanoes simultaneously but they can be dealt with one at a time or all the kids can build only one big volcano, together.
  • We have three different volcanoes with three different colours but I have also found the version of three bottles scotched together with a tri-colour lava…
  • If you have an opportunity to do the experiement outside, you can build a mountain around the bottle using sand or snow but our camp falls in the middle of a very rainy autumn week so we had to do it inside. I have to admit, though, I liked it even more as we turned it into a team project and it worked really well.
  • This same experiement can be used with the older students and they can benefit even more from the vocabulary input or learning about the whole process in a Science lesson. Essentially, by mixing vinegar and baking soda, we are producing some CO2 which is one of the gases produced during the volcano eruption, too. There is also some potential of including it in a regular EFL course. Superminds 5 by CUP has a whole unit devoted to volcanoes and the history of Pompeii.

Happy teaching!

Paul Klee, the cat, the bird and the accidental stained glass. Teaching English through Art

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All the stained glass pictures on the window

The language

I have decided that November will be the month of animals, apparently, for no apparent reason whatsover, just because because. This week was our first lesson and we only focused on introducing and revising the vocabulary using the wordwall cards and playing a great animal sounds quiz that I found on youtube. This is my favourite because it has some less obvious animal sounds and it offers three options, with the visuals and the written words on the screen. It makes it quite challenging, even for the adults who play it the first time but it also offers some support so the kids can learn the new language from the game. There is also a feedback aka the answer, a short video with the animal making the same sound. We have played it with a few groups and it has always been fun.

NY Moma klee cat and bird – Cat and Bird – Wikipedia

The artist

Our artist of the day was Paul Klee and his Cat and Bird, but, somehow, although I have taught this lesson before and I had all the materials ready, this time round, we did not spend any time on talking about the original picture. I was planning on describing different birds and describing different cats using photographs and then on revising the shapes in the paintings which would be a nice connection between the Month of Shapes (October) and the Month of Animals (November)…But it just didn’t happen. We started a bit later (autumn camp and a general mayhem in the school) and I was really preoccupied with the logistics of the technique. However, now that all our cats are on display, I am going to use this idea in the following lesson.

Here are our watercolour cats from 2021

The art

I have used this painting in class but previously we went for simple watercolour and the cats turned out beautiful, too. This was the main aim and the main preoccupation of this lesson because we were to try and to experiment with a completely new technique. I have been on the lookout for new things yesterday and that is how I found out about the melted crayons. My main source was the post on the Artful Parent (which is one of my favourite creative directories) although I adapted it to the needs of our bigger group with a slightly different objectives.

I used the same technique for preparing the crayons, the grater worked just fine (and then all the tiny, unusuable crayons stubs went home to be recycled and melted into brand new crayons, the link to the instructions can be found here) but instead of plates or muffin cups I decided to use sheets of baking parchments. Once I had enough shavings, I simply folded each colour separately and it worked very well during the lesson itself. The kids were passing different little packets to each other, opening them, taking the colour they needed and passing them on.

Preparing the picture was super simple, it is easy to find the Klee’s painting as a colouring page and to make copies. We were sitting at a large table (aka all the small desks huddled together) and each child had a large sheet of the baking parchement and a copy of the picture on it, in my attempt to contain the mess.

We started with colouring in the smallest shapes (the diamonds in the eyes, the heart nose and the bird). Afterwards, everyone was just picking up the shavings in pinches and putting them on the picture. I also gave out paintbrushes which we used as brooms to sweep the shavings off the lines and unnecessary places. The packets with colours were travelling around the table.

As soon as someone was ready, I showed them how to cover the picture with a sheet of baking parchment (we had to use the one that was under the picture but, ideally, I would have had another one for each child, to keep the tables even cleaner) and I walked around with my iron, ironing one picture after another. The kids peeled off the baking parchment right away and put the pictures away for drying and cooling down. I think, overall, we got better results with covering the picture with the baking parchment the matte side down but there is some room for experiments there.

In the following day, I framed all the pictures in simple frames made from the coloured paper and I put them up in the window. I used all the pictures, those that we intended to be pretty and also the baking parchment prints which turned out to be interesting, too!

It needs to be mentioned that I did not intend these as stained glass, despite the fact that this is how I found them. I only wanted a new and interesting technique but the thin layer of crayons really looks beautiful on the window so this is how I decided to display them in the end.

Overall, I think that it is better to be economical with the shavings. First of all, the pictures seem to be more interesting and, what is more, too much shaving creates a thick layer that might crack while drying and it is also quite likely to stick to the parchment more. I still recycled those (as stained glass pictures and for the second ironing round) and I love how they look but, initially, some kids were a bit disappointed with the outcome.

When I am using the technique again, I will definitely start with drawings, either done by the kids or photocopied, just for the framwork. Unless, of course, we decide to create some melting crayons Jackson Pollock…I would also love to try following that up with the drawings or a simple collage…

The Making of…

P.S. Here are my new cool, chunky crayons from the recycled crayons stubs and the leftover shavings…

Happy teaching!

Crumbs # 69 A heart, a heart! I can see a heart! A slightly different approach to Art in English

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This was our final October Art Explorers lesson. I was preparing for using Paul Klee’s The Bird and the Cat because the painting does include two hearts as well as other shapes, a perfect final lesson. However, in the middle of the preparations and my trying squeeze everything in one academic hour, I decided to go easy on all of us, myself and the kids. I changed the concept entirely and chose to focus on the technique, for the first time ever in my Art Teacher history.

Ingredients

  • A pile of cards, A5, enough for everyone to try a few techniques.
  • Pencils, crayons, watercolours, salt, tissues, hand sanitizer, a paper clip.
  • For the older learners: a heart as a symbol in brands.
  • Videos for the teacher to learn about different watercolour techniques. I have taken my ideas from these: here, here, here and here. Thank you)))

Procedures

  • First of all, I watched all the videos to learn about different techniques and to choose those that will be feasible in the classroom with my kids. The next step was creating my own hearts, a whole set, with different techqniues before the lesson time, in order to be able to show the students the final product. I kept to the same colour for the kids to be able to see the different effect and the impact on the texture and not to be distracted by the colours.
  • We started the lesson in our usual way, with the hello song, taking the roll call, singing the song about the shapes and looking for the shapes around us. With the older students we also did the heart in brands quiz.
  • Afterwards, we looked at all the techniques to try in all my samples. While we were doing it, I was also demonstrating the most important tools ie the cloth, the plastic, the salt, the paper clip (for scratching).
  • Then we just started to create. All the kids would take the cards, draw the heart and then try the new technique. We would look at the final product, talk about it a bit and move on to the following technique.

Why we like it?

  • It was a lesson like one big experiment, in which we were moving, from one stage to the other, with a lot of curiosity and excitement.
  • This time we have done the following: salt on the finished picture, salty water as the base, scratching the surface with a paperclip, drawing the patterns with wax crayons and painting over, finishing the picture with a cloth, splattered paint, the broken brush (aka printing with a split brush). I also had the plastic bag for the final touches and the alcohol prepared (aka the hand sanitizer) but we did not have time to use it in the end.
  • I have to admit, it was not the most productive lesson that I have ever taught but it was an wonderful opportunity for all of us to do something different.
  • I was very happy to see how the kids were allowing themselves to try something else, something new. At first, they were just following my instructions closely, using the same tools and the same techniques and then they were leaving all that behind and taking one more step further, with a particular technique or with a mixture of different techniques. At this point, we were all looking with curiosity at the outcomes. It was a very beautiful moment.
  • If this is an option, I would like to recommend looking at the final product on the following day (or in the following lesson). The drying time really does make an impact and the creative lesson might be followed up by gallery walk, expressing opinion and choosing the most interesting heart and technique.
  • This activity would be a perfect Valentine’s Day celebration in Art Explorers and I was almost sorry that I used it in October. I might be coming back, actually, with more techqniues!

Happy teaching!

Setting up the routine. Two months into the course

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Starting the lesson

This stage of the lesson is almost exactly the same as it was in September. The only real difference is the fact that we take the roll call, we talk about how we feel and we share what we have got today, on our tables and in our bags and only later we sing the hello song to make sure that the song is really this unifying element after which a proper lesson starts.

How do you feel today?

We haven’t added any new emotions as such but our beautiful cards are on display in our classroom, in both of them, and children refer to them when they reply to the question at the strat of the lesson. But it doesn’t mean that we don’t have anything new at all. We have been working with the phrases that we have but the kids became very creative with them and these have been my favourite replies: ‘I miss my phone’, ‘I want to sleep’, ‘I miss my bed’, ‘I miss my puppy (at some point confused with ‘papi’ aka dad) and I miss my daddy’.

Songs

In the recent weeks the greatest hit was everything related to Broccoli Ice-cream. We have been doing food and ‘do you like?’ and the song quickly became a hit, especially that it has four different versions and we could beautifully extend it over a month. It has become a part of the routine itself with looking at all the foods in the beginning of the video, attempts at predicting the combinations and then singing, of course, followed by our own game played with paper flashcards or a wordwall spinner. Naturally, we have already played this game in the dinining room, in the playground and in the hallway, during the break, with our own made-up versions.

The other great songs have been all the songs from the Dance Freeze series that we started in September. They work amazingly well for our brain breaks and I am hoping that all of the verbs will stay with us, too.

The other new songs are also our two new hello songs, Every day I go to school and Hello, nice to see you, and we use one or the other, in different lessons, depending on what we feel like.

After I have found a song about what plants need to grow, I believe that there is a song for absolutely everything!

Rules and classroom language

The system is go. This is how I could describe the rules in our life at this point. We didn’t need to add any more rules, since the end of September, which, of course, doesn’t mean that there will be no new rules in the future. These rules that we have, we have been using to remind the kids how to behave and how to survive the lesson.

That is not to say that all days, every day are smooth and that everyone is a little angel. It is not the case. We have had a few situations in which I had to put the lesson on hold and spend some lesson time on a serious conversation about how we should behave and why. And how we should not behave, too. It is still only the second month of their school life in year 1 and they are still at the stage of figuring out how to be.

Rewards chart and Time

This element of our routine has not changed at all. I am keeping track of kids’ behaviour and we still put up the lesson time (and the number for the clock) on the board, too.

Story

We have had such a good run with all the stories! My storybook library is basically just round the corner so I can just just pick up our next adventure just walking to the teacher’s room or the office.

Over this last month, I have been experimenting with different stories, some of them my real favourites, and I have been also experimenting with different follow-up activities, too.

‘Marvin Gets Mad‘ was a nice follow-up to our lessons on body parts, emotions and Present Continous. The follow-up task was devoted to reading and Present Continous about all the sheep and what they are doing.

‘The Crocodile Who Didn’t Like Water‘ was a blast. This was the story that not only read and listened to but that we also managed to retell, with very simple phrases.

‘Barry and the Fish With Fingers’ was an opportunity to practise ‘I can’ and it was also the first time we took notes about reading, such as a set of simple sentences about the character and the story as well as our opinion about it.

Socialising

In terms of socialasing, we have done the following:

  • kids have been nominating themselves ‘Who’s next?’
  • I have been a little bit more flexible regarding the seating arrangements for some of the activities, allowing friends to sit together and to work together
  • we have done a few projects in which the kids were working individually but sharing the resources such as the cards (on the board) or the stickers, learning how to take turns, how to share, how to wait. I was really proud of the children because it all went well.
  • we have had a lot of activities in which one student was leading the game, especially our riddles
  • we have also played lots of phonics games, as a whole group, individually and in teams
  • kids are also taking turns to give out and to collect materials and resources
  • it is also our everyday feature that when I am writing the lesson plan on the board, there are always some suggestions from the room, most of the time regarding the favourite games or songs, sometimes also regarding the surprises (which, most of the time is synonymous with ‘Can we have some stickers, please?’)

Creativity

Our creative projects in October were related to Halloween as my school decided to celebrate. Apart from decorating countless pumpkin, bringing spiders and coming to school in fancy dress (a few days before the actual Halloween), we have

  • used the Halloween theme in our Serious Maths Classes, with Halloween Maths Stories, Halloween Puzzles and colouring pictures
  • we created our monsters posters to practise body parts
  • we had a great Stickers in the Park project
  • we had a drawing dictation mini-project in our ESL classes, too
  • we had a lot of fun in the miming-drama activities in the ESL classes

Teacher

As a teacher I have been working on including the electronic journal in my daily school routine, especially as regards finding the time to fill it in effectively and as regards taking notes in real time to remember what to put in later on.

I had to step down as the Science teacher because my workload was just impossible to handle. I am sorry because I liked teaching Science but the kids have a great teacher now and I have a few hours to deal with the admin tasks so hooray to that.

I am very proud of all the kids because they are making progress in English and Maths and they are better and better at being students. I hope they are ready for all the new developments. The light term has come to an end and beginning November we are going to start using the coursebooks and notebooks, getting homework and we will start dealing with slightly more serious material. We’ll see how it goes. I am keeping my fingers crossed for all of them!

I will be back with more notes at the end of November!

Happy teaching!

Crumbs #68 Stickers in the park. A great lesson out of (almost) nothing

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Ingredients

  • A colouring picture ‘in the park’. Any will do but I used this particular one because it contained enough detail. Sadly, I cannot find the reference for it.
  • A set of stickers. I used animals because that is exactly what I had in my leftover box but it could be anything. We were not aiming at creating a very realistic picture, as you can see in the example.

Procedures

  • We introduced and practised the vocabulary featured in the picture. We used the wordwall for that (this one). We drilled the words, we read them, talked about the things we like and don’t like. I also decided to introduce the gestures for each of the words because I wanted to activate this part of my kids’ imagination as our following game involved miming and guessing. One of the children was sitting with their back to the screen, the group were supposed to mime something together for the student to guess. Naturally, we took turns to sit on the big chair. I was invited to particiapate, too!
  • We continued practising using the prepositions: with a song, with the YES/NO game and with out toys.
  • We sat at our tables, each with a copy of the picture and did a quick run through the picture to familiarize ourselves with all the elements (‘Can you see…?’).
  • Every child got a sheet of stickers that I had leftover from other activities, animals from different habitats that I just cut up into pieces, to match the number of children in the group.
  • The idea of the game is very simple: the leader directs the group where to put the sticker i.e. ‘Take one sticker and put it on the bench’ (in the tree, under the tree etc). Everyone listens, the teacher monitors and checks.
  • The sheets of stickers are passed on in the circle (‘New stickers, please!’) and the game continues.
  • The game is led by the teacher for the first few rounds but then the students are asked to take over and to dictate when the stickers as put.
  • The game goes on for as long as it is necessary.

Why we like it?

  • It was, eventually, a very student-centred and productive activity and we used a lot of the target language (prepositions) and in the format of the Starters YLE Speaking.
  • We had a lot of fun. It started quietly and very realistically, with animals on the grass and in the trees, but, as was to be expected, it didn’t last once someone decided to put something on the girl, on the sun, in the air etc. We laughed a lot and kids were very eager to show their pictures and to announce what they put and where.
  • Although our main aim were the prepositions, we also revised (and introduced in some cases) the names of the animals as the stickers had all the habitats and I thought it was a nice opportunity to at least try to extend our vocabulary.
  • The activity is very easy to prepare and any set of stickers can be used.
  • I was really proud of how my kids worked well as a team. Everyone played by the rules, they did not take more than one sticker, they passed on the sheets without delay, they looked at and praised their friends’ pictures.
  • I was wondering whether it can be adapted to any types of vocabulary and what I have come up with so far are the following: a picture with a few people or characters and a set of stickers to practise ‘has got’ (‘Choose something for the princess’, ‘The princess has got a cat’) or a picture with characters and practising ‘likes / doesn’t like’ (‘Choose something for the princess’, ‘The princess likes / doesn’t like apples’). I also used the similar ‘recycled stickers’ for a guessing game with older students with the places in the city. The kids had five stickers which they had to put somewhere around the city. They kept the picture secret because the speaking task was about describing the places for their partners to guess. This version could also be adapted to the picture of a house or perhaps even to the map of the world to practise the names of the countries.
  • In the picture above, you can see one of the examples, created by my student.

Happy teaching!

Crumbs #67 A puzzle! Or about spicing up a task for primary

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Ingredients

  • A task that you need the kids to complete, the one that can be divided into parts, for example a grammar revision page that consists of exercises, a reading comprehension task or, as was in our case, a set of addition of two digit numbers with carry over which my kids love but which is still a bit of a challenge. I wanted something to motivate them and to reward them for their hard work.
  • A colouring picture, a copy for each child, cut up into pieces, one piece part for each part of the task.
  • A pencil, a glue stick, a paper where the puzzles will be glued in the end and perhaps markers for colouring.
  • A set of envelopes, one per each piece of the puzzle, labelled in the same way as the parts of the task and magnets to put them up on the board.

Procedures

  • Depending on the task, you need to prepare the kids for it. In our case, we revised the numbers and number bonds with the wordwall cards and we also watched a short video on adding two-digit numbers.
  • I showed the kids the handout and the letters and the corresponding envelopes on the board, each of which contained one piece of the puzzle picture. I demonstrated how after they have completed one part of the task, they are allowed to come up to the board and to take the corresponding envelope and one piece of the puzzle from it. Because of the nature of the task, we had obvious answers and I wrote them inside, too, for the kids to have something to check their answers.
  • We ran a quick session of instruction check questions such as: Can we run? (No!), Can we take the envelope to our desk? (No!), Can we take two pieces from the envelope? (No!). I accompanied these with gestures, too.
  • The we got down to work and I focused on monitoring and helping out when necessary.
  • As soon as someone was ready with all eight pieces, I started to give out the gluesticks for them to glue their pictures in the notebooks.

Why we like it

  • It was a perfect way of spicing up a very serious and complicated Maths task and of rewarding the kids for completing it.
  • The kids were very curious about the picture and it helped us make it seasonal and special. To be honest, a lot of our Maths in October has been given them Halloween label. We have counted many pumpkins, lollipops, candy, spiders, witch’s hats, cobwebs and cats. This was one more lesson in the series. Plus, it is also how we are preparing for the actual holiday next week and how are practising the vocabulary.
  • The task can be easily adapted to different tasks or subjects and, naturally, the theme of the colouring picture, can also be easily changed to match the topic of the lesson.
  • We had 8 pieces of the puzzle but this number can be extended or limited, depending on the kids and their age.
  • The task is also very good for developing fine motor skills (re-organising the puzzle pieces) and cognitive skills (putting the pieces together).
  • It was also a great activity to give the kids work individually on the same task, with turn taking, respecting the other participants, not revealing the answer and playing by the rules of the game. They could almost do it and the most challenging part turned out to be the fact that all the kids went through the task in the same order so the evelope A was in high demand, then the envelope B etc. This is something to think about in the future. I am also considering putting up different envelopes (or stations) around the classroom, on different tables or shelves.
  • The kids got really involved and they really liked the task. Some of them already asked if we are going to do it again. And yes, we will. Either in Maths or in one of the other subjects.

Happy teaching!

Teaching English Through Art: Malevich

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The language

Malevich was the hero of the first October lesson but somehow, it landed in the wrong order on the blog. This whole month we are learning about shapes and you can read about some of the ideas for these here. Thanks to Super Simple Songs we have two cool songs about shapes, this one and this one, and they can easily be turned into a game as we go on singing and looking for shapes around the classroom, on the walls, in the alphabet and on our clothes. I don’t.

Some animals admiring the black square

The artist

There could be only one painter to be invited to this particular lesson, of course, Kasimir Malevich and the Black Square. We started with introducing him and we looked a few of his paintings. I rarely include a lot o detail from the artist’s biography but here it might be quite interesting to see how his creativity went from ‘just realistic paintings’, through many intermediary stages, casting off realism and colours, to the Square.

Because at the time, we also had the mixed age groups and levels group, we could discuss symbol in general and what symbols exist in our everyday life for example the symbols that are logos of different brands or the symbols that we have in the streets or in the public transportation. This is how we arrived at the square that could be a symbol, too. We also looked at some of the parodies of Malevich.

Black on black by one of my students

The art

  • The preparations for this lesson were quite limited: markers, glue and scissors and a lot of coloured paper. I had white and coloured paper for the background and some bigger and smaller black squares for the main protagonist.
  • I showed the students my example and the kids were asked to pick a square and the colour of the background. Then, they went on to glue, to cut and to create.
  • I was monitoring and discussing the choices. I also helped them translate the titles for their creations.
  • As can be seen, not everyone was very concerned about the perfection of their squares. It is my fault because I gave them relatively big squares and rectangles for them to make their own decisions regarding size. Some of the kids decided to glue them as they were. It is ok. i don’t think Malevich would have minded.
  • I loved the creative process and I was so proud of them for having created all these lovely pieces. The Camera by Nikita is just briliant and it was actually a 2D creation. The Labirynths by Kostia are out of this world and, although I don’t understand them, there is some link to some computer game. Apparently. One of my students, Sasha, kept walking around the room and trying out the square against different background and, surprise, surprise, she ended up choosing the black one, taking Malevich one step further. With the older students we also had a great discussion in which we shared why we like the square so much. ‘It is like the silence in a picture’, was one of the lines in that conversation.
  • I can’t wait to teach this lesson again)

Happy teaching!

Teaching English through Art: Vincent van Gogh and Starry Night

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Halloween Starry Night by me

The language

October is for us a month of shapes and every week gets a different shape hero. Because of that at the start of the lesson we revise shapes, sing songs, look for shapes around us and talk about shapes as symbols and our associations with this particular shape which last week was a star.

The only trick is to prepare a great variety of activities to make sure that everyone stays interested but, beginning October, at my school we introduced a new element to the format of our Art Explorers classes. Our group used to meet twice a week and we had quite a few students, younger and older, from pre-school to grade 4. It was not the best solution as there was a huge gap as regards the lingustic skills and abilities, motor skills and abilities and creative skills and abilities. Luckily, we were able to divide the group into two, the older and the younger and this way adapt the course and the activities. The lesson I am describing here was taught with the older group. The younger kids practised the same vocabulary but their focused task was different, the one that I did before with the same lesson (see below).

Vincent van Gogh meets Kasimir Malevich

The artist

In a way, I was waiting for this lesson. Starry Night by van Gogh is this one painting that immediately puts me in a good mood (although I cannot help but think about the paradox of how such a troubled soul managed to create such a peaceful image) and it is probably one of the most easily recognised paintings and kids respond to it immediately. I have already used it in the magic wand lesson, with the younger kids and I was looking forward to taking it to another level with a more advanced group.

As usual, we introduced the artist, together with his country and his favourite things. We also looked at different interpretations or parodies of the painting which can be easily found online. They all feature the amazing background of the starry night and…anything: Batman, Snoopy, birds, cats, ghosts, Santa, Mona Lisa and a city of your choice. This is what became the inspriation for the art part of the lesson.

The art

  • It was relatively easy. The main ingredient to prepare was the starry night background that we printed in colour, one per child. I was considering preparing it ourselves, from scratch and it would have been amazing but our lessons are too short and there was no chance that I could do it over two different classes. For that reason, I decided to print.
  • I also brought a lot of coloured paper and just some regular white paper. The main idea was to draw the shapes, figures, objects for your picture, to cut them out and to glue them back on the starry night background.
  • The images that you can see in this post were created by my students and as you can see, they represent different directions that the kids decided to take. There is another Halloween van Gogh, inspired probably by my example, a Starry Night Malevich that got carried over from the previous lesson devoted to a square (and Malevich, see the post here) and we had a starry night that became the setting for a meeting…
  • The best thing about this kind of an approach is that any student can produce something according to their abilities, either something very intricate, beautifully drawn and cut out or, on the contrary, something very simple if they don’t feel confident about their drawing skills. I have also decided that next time I am teaching this lesson, I will be also bringing newspapers and magazines for the students to be able to make the collage even more fun and feasible. This will be also beneficial for the students who are not very confident about their drawing skills.

  • With my younger group, preschoolers and year 1 of primary, I decided to do something that I have done before and something that was a huge success. Instead of creating a picture, we created out own magic wand with the use of two stars (printed, cut out, decorated, glued together), a chopsticks (although a wooden stirrer will do, too) and some ribbons. The regular glue stick will do the job well, you just need to apply a lot of glue on both stars. Don’t worry if they look a bit damp and unappealing, they dry well and if they are given a chance to spend a night among the pages of a big book, they will also be flat and just perfect.
  • Oh, and one more thing, with my regular English classes, we create wands whenever we need a tool to practise Present Continuous (‘Abracadabra, 123, you are…) or just whenever we learn something that can be mimed, for example pets or toys.
  • As you can see the last few pictures come from this year’s Autumn Camp which we taught in two groups. I decided to go for a proper collage whereas my colleague, miss Victoria, decided to upgrade it and use mixed media methods: a picture painted by the children themselves and then decorated with stickers. I simply love the idea and how it turned out. With preschoolers, btw.
Stars, van Gogh and magic wands

Happy teaching!

The end of the world or Surviving the bad lessons with YL

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A folding surprise by Kolya (Renamed as: Teachers in September)

This post, like many many others, starts in the classroom when yours truly spends countless hours every week. Some of those hours are happy hours, some are very much not. Sometimes, no matter how passionate and dedicated you are as a teacher, no matter how much time you have dedicated to preparing amazing lessons, resources and activities, it is just not coming together and it does feel like it is the absolute end of the world. But, definitely, it is not. But it feels like it.

In the sessions devoted to classroom and management behaviour, there is this one activity that we do: ‘Look at the picture of the classroom. What is wrong with it?’ My trainees usually have lots of great ideas but where I am trying to get them is the fact that, beautiful as it is, this photo, a real class and a real lesson does not really look like that 100% of the time. So google, with all its amazing visuals, this time helps us create unrealistic expectations regarding our professional life.

Pre K Peoria IL | Reliable Childcare for Peoria IL Children (palschools.com)

I am not saying that it does not happen, that kids never get fully interested and involved in the task or that the teacher never has the full attention of the group. They do and when it does, it is the best thing ever, cloud number 9 and the top of the world. But, to be perfectly honest, a day like this one in the Kindergarten Cop, this is also a part of the teacher’s life.

Those bad days are perhaps more likely to happen when you are less experienced and somewhere at the start of your teaching career but (and I am sorry to be saying that), no matter how many years you have been teaching for, bad days can still happen. Although, indeed, as experienced teachers, we are more prepared for them and better equipped to deal with them, on the spot and in the long run. That is why, in this post, I decided to share how I resuscitate myself and get myself back on my feet from having crumbled into pieces after a bad day at school.

Prevention first

Apart from lesson planning and keeping your resources organised, it is very important to remember that a teacher needs to be alive and feeling well in order to remain happy, smiling and passionate about the lesson and in order to be able to give a good lesson. That means that a teacher needs to eat and drink, breakfast and lunch and snacks, and, a teacher must find time for her / his own breaks.

I know very well how easy it is to skip breakfast, lunch or the mid-lesson snacks (or, even more impotantly, the mid-lesson toilet runs) because, well, because things just happen. Kids lose things, kids need help, kids have a bad day and a meltdown and a teacher, more often than not, just brushes off her/ his needs and does whatever is necessary to help the kid. It’s just in the blood.

Then there are the unplanned meetings with the headmaster, the admin, the parents and sometimes it is possible to put them on hold or to reschedule them and sometimes it is not. Again, the break (whatever its purpose) gets cancelled or cut short. The teacher goes on teaching without food, coffee, water or worse and, naturally, that has an impact on the level of tiredness and / or stress and on the lesson.

When the bad day has already happened…take time out.

Most of the time this will be a very short time out slot, a few minutes in the teachers’ room, or even in your classroom, looking out of the window, wasting time, listening to your favourite song, or, if you are really lucky and the breaks are long enough to allow for that, you will be able to get out of the school to pick up a coffee somewhere round the corner or simply to take a walk, somewhere in a slightly different environment.

This will help to see the world from a different perspective and, naturally, to regain the peace and quiet for the teacher.

Talk to your teaching buddies

As soon as the opportunity arises, chat to your teaching buddies. It doesn’t matter if they themselves had a good day and will be able to act as the source of the energy or if they had an equally disastrous day and there will be there for you to compare the levels of the educational catastrophy. The most important thing is that this will be a chance to talk to someone who fully understands how horrible it feels to have to walk home after a bad day at school and who can offer an ear if not a real solution, although the latter is also an option, too, because the school life is full of fiascos, tragedies and all kinds of situations and, quite likely, your friends have it already happened to them and might be able to tell you about how they sorted it out. In any case, listening to their stories will help to understand that you are not on your own and that’s a lot!

Talk to your VIP, whoever they are

For me, personally, equally important is talking to my Very Important People, not only because that is what they are, but, also, because they have absolutely nothing to do with education, teaching English and teaching children.

Getting valuable advice or even having someone to talk to, in order to relate all the horrors of the day is not the main aim of these conversations. On the contrary, these help me get a completely different perspective and go back to basics, to everything else in life that matters an that is as far as possible from the young learners EFL/ ESL. Just to check that the world outside of it still exists and that it is doing great.

I love my job and I cannot imagine not teaching kids but, on some days, I need to forget about children, parents, child development, methodology and everything related to it, specifically in order to recover and to recharge my batteries, physiological and psychological.

Get a hug (real, virtual or metaphorical)

Well, yes, just that! The hug can be real, the hug can be virtual as not everyone huggable might be available physically but it can also be any way of pampering yourself and doing somethinggood for your body. A nice meal, a pint of beer, a quiet evening, an evening with your favourite music, a piece of chocolate, a walk with a dog, a bunch of flowers, a cup of coffee, a sports game, a round of your favourite computer game, exercising, a combination of a few of those or all of them together. Whatever it is that makes you feel good and that brings a smile to your face.

For example, I am a real public transport supporter but, on those really difficult days, I like to take a taxi home and being in the backseat, driven home, with my favourite city in the world blinking on the other side of the window, it really does calm me down.

Sleep on it

Or, in other words, not being too harsh on yourself and taking time to reflect and to see the whole day and everything that happened from a different angle and from a distance.

The world looks a bit different after a proper night’s sleep and only then it is possible to reflect on the day, to connect the dots and to understand better the reason behind the kids’ behaviour or the explanation why the activities fell flat on their face. Finally, this distance will also help to see the good things that also happened because they always do, although, admittedly, they are easily overshadowed by the disasters.

Try again!

Last but not least, there is always tomorrow, another lesson and another day to have another go and see what happens. With young learners especially, the first time we play a new game or try a new activity, in a new format and with a new set of rules, the very first attempt is just a reconnaissance, for the teacher, for the resources and for the kids. It is almost bound to be a failure and it is a big mistake not to give it another shot.

Happy teaching!

Setting up the routine. A diary, week 4

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This is my September and New Groups Diary. Here you can find the previous episodes: week 1, week 2, week 3.

Starting the lesson…

…stays as before, no changes.

How do you feel today?

We continue to do our little chain reaction of the question – answer, from student to student and, on top of all the phrases, a few new lines appeared, too. First of all, someone suggested ‘I am everything’, which is an interesting albeit unconventional approach, and some kids picked up on it. I will have to come up with a flashard for that.

The other thing that happened, in one of the group, was a flurry of ideas to add to our set. One of the students asked for a piece of paper before the lesson, to create a card, some others got inspired and they ended up producing four or even five during the breaks. Apparently, what we needed (and I did not know!) is:

  • I am feeling sick.
  • I was sick.
  • I want to stay home.
  • I want to go to school.
  • I am bad.
  • I don’t know how I feel.

These cards are already ready, pretty and colourful. I just need to laminate them on Monday.

Songs

This week we have only added one song to our playlist, Let’s go to the zoo! and that is because, imagine that, on Wednesday we were going to the zoo, on a school trip. Accidental though it was, it made me realise that, actually, we are in a desperate need of some ‘we want to move’ songs, for some brain breaks for the lessons themselves or the in-between the lesson time. I am planning to introduce either Move or The Dance Freeze Song next week. They are going to love these and it is about time we learnt a few new verbs.

Actually, there is a lot of verb-related material this week as we also did Milo’s I like you in our English classes and our story was also verb-related as it was ‘Don’t eat the teacher‘ (see below for details).

Rules and Classroom Language…

…has stayed the same as before. We haven’t been in need of any new rules. The kids have improved overall and they know all the rules and they help me revise them in a more efficient way right now. So far I have been giving them the first half of the sentence, together with the gesture (‘I have…’) for the kids to add the key word (‘a question’). Right now, they know all of them and can recreate them when I demonstrate the gesture. On Thursday, I also happened to forget one of the rules and one kind soul reminded me (and us) about it, too.

Rewards chart and Time..

…have seen no changes whatsoever. We are just using what we have introduced.

Story

This week is a week of verbs (see above) and since we have reached the end of the first full week of classes, I have decided to introduce a school story, one of my favourites is ‘Don’t eat the teacher’ by Nick Ward.

We have:

  • done the vocabulary
  • introduced the main character, Sammy, the shark, talked about the cover picture and the little problem that Sammy, the shark has (biting things when he gets too excited (although we used the word ‘energetic and happy’ because these are the words we know)
  • watched the story
  • done an activity with matching the sentences with symbols, ‘don’t’ with different verbs
  • and a similar activity on a handount

I really wanted to add the structure to our set of verbs, on top of ‘I like to do’ that we had from the song. I am also planning to reinforce the ‘let’s’ from the song and to practise both, as they will be very useful in the classroom. Overall, I am happy with the story but I don’t think I will use the video again. We have the paper storybook somewhere in the school library and this will be a much better choice as with the paper, the teacher can control the language, the pace and the audio, the emotions and the understanding.

Socialising

These are the things we did in the previous week to faciliate the community building:

  • We continued doing everything we have done so far: making decisions, choosing songs and activities, helping with the resources, student – student interaction.
  • The biggest event of this week was the trip to the zoo and, for one of the groups, a trip to the park during the science lesson to look for different types of plants. First of all, it helped us create some memories, as a group and we definitely had a chance to be a group, to listen to the rules, to remember about behaving well. Everything went well and I was very happy and proud of everyone.
  • This week was the first week in which we were working with our big notebooks. We have one for all the subjects and we use them to glue in all the handouts, to take notes (yes, we have started) and to work on all the tasks. I have already noticed that the kids enjoy looking back and checking what has been done so far. One or two have already decided to add some bits and pieces to the previously completed handouts and drawings. The kids who were absent were also curious to look at the work that we have done during the days they missed, in order to catch up. I decided to check all of these at the end of the week and leave little notes and comments.
  • We also did an interview game, to practise all the basic questions we have done so far, with all the kids interviewing ‘the new student’ and, during the Maths lesson, we were measuring ourselves and that also required a pairwork, so that the kids could easily read the measurements for their partner. Otherwise, it is very difficult to see how long your nose is or your mouth. This went really well and we had lots of fun!

Creativity

We have had some opportunities for creativity in this week, too!

  • We created a picture of an unusual plant and we labelled it properly with all the part plants. We watched a video from youtube and talked about the plants and their resemblance to what we know. Afterwards, we revised all the plant parts and I wrote them on the board and that helped me create my Coffee Plant, with leaves, roots and coffee cups in lieu of the fruit. Afterwards, as a group, we brainstormed some ideas for the kids’ plants and hey ho, they were on the right path. We did it in the notebooks and ‘the handout’ was only a small piece of paper glued in by me before the lesson, with the list of plant parts to use as a checklist in the end of the activity. I might actually put it all into a separate post later on. Fingers crossed!
  • During our zoo trip I was also the designated photographer and the photos will be used in a whole class project next week. There is more to come!

Teacher

This is only very much Anka-relevant and it might not work or be important for all the other teachers in the world. I decided to take a note here, though, to remember and to see how these things will be changing because they also affect how we work as a group and how I feel, too.

  • I am very happy because everyone is a tiny bit better at writing. Our handwriting booklets are filling up since we are already at T and all of my kids are better at dealing with this slot of the lesson. Something that was a huge challenge for some of my kids is not just a part of the lesson. Some of the students are working ahead of the group, since they are faster and already have a good handgrip and I am ok with that. Three have completed the whole booklet already and they get a tiny little break while we are working. I was thinking what to do about it and I decided to leave it as it is. It will be only a week more for us, to get to Zz and afterwards, we will all be on the same page again.
  • Even the kids who are beginners as regards English started to be more attentive and more productive, at least as regards the repeated parts of the lesson. They get a lot of langauge from the songs, too and it is really good to see. Everyone works very hard in Maths and Science and I cannot tell you how happy I was when on Thursday we did our first ‘copy and finish’ activity in English and everyone (but everyone!) took notes about themselves: I am Anka, I am 100. I am happy. I like cats. I’ve got a brother. Beyond happy, that’s what I was.
  • This was not a tantrum free week, far from it but I noticed that I am better at dealing with them and that also my students are making an effort to try to control their emotions, hard as it may be in some cases. There is hope, basically.

Coda

The ghastly month of September is coming to an end. ‘Wake me up when September ends’ the Greenday sings and this day is today! Hooray.

I will continue keeping notes on everything we do and I will add another post in a month, to see where we are with my kids! Until that day then! Happy October to all of you!

Happy teaching!