#eflideas

Apples and an average Art lesson that sent me directly cloud number 9.

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The apples? The apples!

‘What sometimes happens is that an artist, a real and creative person, gets what we call ‘a comission’: someone orders a special piece to be created and the artist agrees although, maybe, they did not really have that in mind. That is exactly what we are going to do today.’

This is how the lesson started. I delivered this little speech and my students were looking at me, puzzled. Apples (thanks to Isaac Newton) are some kind of a symbol of my school and I was asked to prepare some school decorations apple-related. To be perfectly honest, that had nothing to do with anything that I had in mind for February but since that was comissioned I decided to accept the challenge, to look for something and to change the idea for the month to food in art, moving ‘flowers’ to March. Which, actually, might not be such a bad idea altogether, for when we are a bit closer to the real spring. Fine.

Much to my surprise, it turned out that apples are very much present in Art and it is possible to find enough pieces from different centuries, including such gems as Magritte, Cezanne or Raphael and more contemporary pieces from Kusama or the random literal apple carvings. Apple is a symbol and it is a brand, too and we had fun looking at them and talking about them, both with my younger and older group.

The craft

What was comissioned was some kind of a set of apples to put around the school, made of clay or paper mache or plasticine, but I have given myself a permission to interpret it my way, to create a 2D apple garland inspired by these two finds here and here. We used cardboard for the basis and coloured paper for the front and glue, scissors and crayons. The craft is easy and the base of the apple can be a square or a circle, even if it is not very expertly cut out by the students. The little strips can be glued in a few different ways and they are little hands-friendly, too. Kids can use the strips of one colour or they mix them and everyone can make as many as possible, maybe only one, maybe a few, giving us an even longer garland. And, unlike in the case of the Pollock’s lessons, there is a lot less preparation and cleaning. The teacher is relieved to be taking this kind of a time out.

The lesson went smoothly and now we have two garlands hanging over the arches in the main hall of the school, for everyone to admire. It is an easy task and if you need apples or oranges or any other fruit – here is an idea for you.

The lesson was ‘meh’ but I loved it

It was just an OK lesson. ‘Meh’, I’d say if you asked me if I liked it. I’d shrug my shoulders.

Yes, we prepared the garlands, more or less according to the creative brief, we now have something to put up on the wall and, really, it is a pretty garland, it looks good, especially with the multi-colour apples. My kids worked well, everyone made 4 or 5 apples, getting better as they went along and some students even chose to make one for themselves to take home (always a good sign!).

But we were not impressed. I was not and nor were my students. It really did feel like working on a commission that you just cannot say no to. Everyone was involved but the Muses did not enter the room last week. No one was inspired, no one got excited about their task, no one was calling ‘Miss Anka, miss Anka! Look! What do you think?’ from all corners of the classroom…’Meh’.

And yet I loved it. Even though my kids went ‘Meh’, both the younger ones and the older ones.

Why?

This lesson was a fantastic piece of evidence to prove how much we have developed and how much progress we have made since September. Whatever we were five months ago, we are not that anymore. We are artists now.

We have had a chance to work with a variety of techniques (spatter, print, ironed crayons, watercolours, stained glass paints, acrylic paints, guache, markers, crayons, collage, books and surprises) and we have imagined being in the Shoes of the Great (Warhol, Goncharova, Kandinsky, Picasso, Kusama, van Gogh, Malevich, Levitan and Pollock). Could a simple paper apple be of any challenge or interest to us? Debatable.

There was no challenge in the technique itself (because it was easy), there was no suprise of creation (because it is an apple) and there was no inspiration from the Artist of the Day (because there were too many and because we could not really interact with them).

My kids politely did what I asked them to do but there was no spark. They are already much older and more advanced. They need something else now. The teacher has had an OK lesson but the teacher is OVER THE MOON!

Happy teaching!

Crumbs #76 Magic Bag!

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This year’s Magic Bag, Sargent-themed, courtesy of the Tate Gallery in London

Ingredients

  • a pretty bag, ideally cotton, or something that is not transparent. I am joking, of course, that it needs to be pretty, it doesn’t but it is true that it is better if it is appealing visually. I normally use one of my tote bags.
  • a set of interesting objects that are safe to touch that fit in.

Procedures

  • Students sit in a circle, on the chairs or on the carpet, with the teacher in the centre, at a small distance. The teacher revises the vocabulary in question.
  • I like to take out the bag and make a show of it – take it out of a cupboard or a box, show surprise, shake it perhaps if the content allows it, make a face and ask out loud ‘What’s in the bag?’ etc.
  • The teacher starts chanting, for example: ‘Anka’s got a secret, Anka’s got a secret!’ and this is a chant that we use for every student.
  • The teacher demonstrates how she puts the hand into a bag, finds one thing and tries to name it, for example: ‘It’s a lion‘ (topic: animals).
  • Afterwards, the object is taken out to check what it really is. The teacher asks ‘Is it a lion?’ and the kids answer. It can be also used as an opportunity for additional drilling of the key words.
  • The students take turns to play the game.
  • As a follow-up, the kids can do a simple listening activity and help clean up at the same time. The teachers says ‘Sasha, please put the lion in’ etc.

Why we like it?

  • The main reason is a very strong appeal of an activity that is involves motor skills, guessing, an element of mystery and fun. Kids love to put their hand it and try to recognise or to name the objects. It so happens that we use the same bag during the entire year so after the first time, the kids can recognise it and they look forward to it. This week I was walking in the school with my bag (that on that day was ‘just my bag’ and my kids walking past got excited and started to ask if this is what we would do in class on the day).
  • The other main reason is that this activity can be used with a wide range of objects and for a wide range of topics, from those more obvious ones such as school objects, toys or materials to some less obvious such as rooms in the house or comparatives. I have also used it for colours, in one of the first lessons of the course, although, of course, the children did not know many of the objects that we used and we focused only on sorting them out according to their colours.
  • There are plenty of variations of the activity and it can be repeated in a series of lessons. It has not happened yet, over all these years, that I would take out a bag and hear ‘Oh, no, not the Magic Bag again!’ from the audience.
  • As regards the chant, I like to use ‘Anka’s got a secret!’ or a simple question ‘Anka, what’s in the bag?’ which all the kids repeat and which is a great question to know.
  • As regards the procedures, the kids can simply take out one object or try to guess it in their L1, they can describe it with the adjectives that they have (for example pairs of adjectives such as big / small, heavy / light, smooth / rough, soft/ hard or the materials: it is made of plastic etc) for the class to guess. Recently, I have used it also to practise comparisons and every child had to take out two objects, to describe them and then to compare them when they were both out of the bag. If it is appropriate for the objects, the kids can also try to shake them in the bag to check what noise they make. Another option is of course the most tactile version of the game – kids touching the objects with both hands without taking the objects out, through the fabric.
  • The age range of the students can also vary. The youngest kids that I have used it with were 3 – 4 years old, the oldest were my teenagers and they also enjoyed it. The language that we expect the students to produce will depend on their level and age. When we played the game last week with my A1 primary year 1, they were able to produce a set of four sentences in one go because we used it in the final stages of the adjectives unit.
  • Naturally, the objects can be used to introduce the target langauge, to practise or to revise the language, verbally or in writing or even as an introduction to a listening or reading task.
  • As regards the less obvious topics for example verbs or rooms in the house, it is still possible if the objects are used as symbols. ‘A spoon’ can mean ‘to eat’ or ‘the kitchen’, a pair of socks (a new pair!) can symbolise ‘to wear’ or ‘the bedroom’, ‘a tub of toothpaste’ can stand for ‘to brush your teeth’ or ‘the bathroom’ and so on.
  • During the pandemic, I also used the Magic Bag in class, although in the online version the bag was much thinner and I was putting one object at a time and demonstrating it to the camera. I also used to make noises with them, without showing them to the camera i.e. dropping them on the table, squeezing them, tapping on them etc or, as the last hint, showing only a tiny little corner of the object to the camera. It also worked very well! And, in the online world, it was also possible for my students to take part and do the same with things that they had at home.
  • Last but not least, this is a unique opportunity for the teacher to take the most random selection of things to school such as pasta pieces in a bag, a soap, a salt shaker, a spoon, a pair of socks, a tube of toothpaste, seeds in a bag, some flour in a bag, shells, stones, tomatoes, cucumbers, soft toys, an electric torch, a small jar, a pair of earrings, a ribbon, cones…

Happy teaching!

Setting up the routine. Five months into the course

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Welcome to the second leg of the academic year! We can already start dreaming of spring and of the end of the year and, more importantly, January is over and we have returned, more or less successfully.

Please, don’t forget to check our September adventures in the following posts here, here, here and here and our progress in October, here.

Starting the lesson and How do you feel today?

As regards the start of the lesson, very little has changed since December. We still say hello, talk about how we are, about all the toys we have brought and how they feel. Then we sing a song and look at the plan for the lesson.

Songs

The hello song is gone, gone, gone. We have replaced it with a months song and last month it was January, January, to give us additional practice with the names of the months (especially that sometimes we have sung it together with our ‘old’ months song. We sang it every day, at the start of the first lesson and only sometimes did we replace it with our ‘old’ hello song but that is only because my kids loved (as in: LOVED) singing it in the ‘Mary, Mary, quite contrary’ style singing ‘bye bye’ instead of every single ‘hello’.

Danny Go is still one of our heroes, mine, too and that is because apart from providing exciting brain breaks, Danny also sings about farms, pyramids, jungles and what not and that means we can always find a relevant Danny, to match our topic in Maths or English. All you need is Danny!

In January we did a lot as regards animals, adjectives, comparatives and superlatives and because of that our playlist included also the following: the Opposites Song which can be turned into a game, with the kids singing the other adjective in a pair of antonyms (especially that there is a little pause in the song, even if you decide not to pause the recording yourself which I only did the first two times), As quiet as a mouse which we have already started to personalise with out own verses and What do you like to do?. This last one, my personal favourite, was only introduced, to give the kids an idea of the concept and the structure of the song. We are going to work on it more in the weeks to come. There is a lot of potential there, for games, for personalisation and for fun.

Rules and classroom language

No major changes here. We still have the same rules, although they needed reinforcement and revision, we still get grades for behaviour and for work in every lesson and we still struggle with not wandering around the room for no reason. However, right now, more frequently than before, kids are getting involved in policing each other and reminding each other that ‘I don’t walk around’. I do that, too, although I am using a simple question: ‘Sasha, are you walking around?’ It works, every other time, basically.

Story

January was not a very long month but we managed to squeeze in a lovely book ‘Who’s for dinner?’ by Claire Freedman and Nick East about very clever farm animals and a (not very clever) fox, with a funny storyline and some bits of the text that my kids could actually read themselves. We also did Eric Carle’s ‘From Head To Toe’ which we read through and through, in a shared reading session and a story that we have in our book about a rattlesnake, a mouse and a clever coyote.

We have been also working on the Past Simple Tense (or the tiny elements of it) and this is how Mr Milk came back to be a part of the everyday life for me and how I introduced him to yet another bunch of kids. Now, at least once a week, sometimes more frequently, we tell stories of everything that Mr Milk does in his life. Or what his friends do, among them Miss Juice and Mr Banana.

Socialising

In terms of socialasing, we have done the following:

  • I am trying to use a range of the interaction patters in class: kids nominate each other, I nominate, too, for the balance, we have done some pairwork, some S vs the class activities (interviews, miming and guessing, shared reading), a lot of whole class (one of my groups especially needs to work on ‘when people speak, I listen’) and some 1-1, too.
  • keep a variety of alternative seating arrangements does wanders to the atmosphere and to the focus. In January we did the following: sitting on the carpet, sitting around the TV on the chairs, regrouping, standing or singing for the songs, sitting or standing in front of the group, leading the game. By the way, I started writing this January post with reading the previous month’s entry only to find out that I was very clever to take notes. Not only because of the blog but because of the everyday classroom life and my poor memory. It turns out that I have already forgotten about ‘sitting in two rows’ for pairwork and how much fun we had with it! I did not use it once in January and I so should have!
  • kids still take turns to help in the classroom although they have the official roles assigned by their Russian programme teacher and because of that, they did fight back a little bit. ‘Miss Anka, but why is Sasha handing out the markers? I am on duty today! I should be doing that!’ I decided not to take that into consideration at all. Mostly because I want to keep my classes independent and because that gives me more flexibility as I do not need to think of the rules introduced by another teacher in my lessons when it is not that relevant. Our class, our rules, routines and traditions.
  • our Christmas garlands and fairy lights are down and the classroom became bare and sad. We will be thinking of new ideas for February. Some kind of a hearts + boys’ things (the holiday coming up) + term break fun garland. I am thinking.
  • Maths for Life lessons with us cooperating and interacting with each other’s work.

Creativity

Our creative projects in January involved:

  • Personalising the songs. We started very slowly with simple ‘Hello song’ that my kids love to sing as a ‘Bye-bye song’ and we have already started coming up with new verses to add to ‘As quiet as a mouse’. There is more to come!
  • Mr Milk and his adventures which we make with a set of past tense verb cards, as a whole group. In the end of the story we decide if it was a good or a bad day for Mr Milk
  • We had another lesson with our invisible student, Petya with us helping him with his English homework. It is our tradition now to follow-up the error correction with a series of mini-role-plays when Petya’s mum (me!) calls the teacher (the kids) to find out how her son is doing. He is not doing great but thanks to him we are practising very simple phone conversations. And it is a lot of fun.
  • We started our Maths for Life series in which we are going to design our shops (posters), then go shopping and do some addition and subtraction to find out how much we have spent and how much change we’ve got back. We had only one round but there is a lot of potential so we are definitely going to repeat it.

Teacher

The biggest challenge for the month of January was the long break we were on, almost two weeks with the bell, the rules and the everyday routine. I was worried what kind of kids will be coming back to school and what to do in order to make sure that we can actually study and focus.

I saw the rules reminder poster on the social media and I decided to adapt it to our context. There are ten rules aka ten challenges and the areas to focus on. As soon as I decide that one of them is already back in life, we mark the challenge as complete. As soon as all ten are done, we are going to be celebrating. I am going to write about it in a separate post.

One of my favourite activies in January involved my Magic Bag full of the most random objects that I brought from home such as: a selection of fruit and veg, a bag of raw pasta, a bag of flour, a tube of toothpaste, a small jar, a stone, a shell, a squishy, you name it. We used it in many lessons: in Maths, to estimate quantity and to check the actual numbers and in English – to describe different objects and their qualities and to practise comparatives. It was a success not only because of its novelty value but because we could touch, shake and sometimes smell the objects and to describe them.

We also wrote our second Milestone tests, with a proper revision / mock test lesson and I am very happy with the results. The kids worked well, they took it seriously and with two exceptions, they did a great job. They were really sitting with their papers and going through the tasks.

I also tested all my kids according to the Cambridge speaking YLE exams in order to have a better idea of the group profile and in order to better track everyone’s progress as these are going to be repeated in March and in May. It was an interesting experience and, again, something that I should / will write about in more detail, one day.

Happy teaching!

Jackson Pollock. How to survive a modern art lesson with kids. Teaching English through Art

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The language

We continue to work on expressing our opinions and on justifying them. Since the Unusual Colours was a huge success with both groups, I decided to continue with a different set of visuals. We revised all the basic structures to express opinions, we looked at all the pictures in the set with the group and we said what we thought of them and why. As usual, it was great to see the growing confidence and the courage to express your preferences even if they are different from your friend’s or the group.

This time round I went more slowly, pausing after each picture, to share ideas. I was also trying to encourage the kids to produce a little bit more than just ‘I like it’ or ‘I don’t like it’, with questions such as ‘Why?’, ‘How does it make you feel about it?’, ‘What are you thinking about?’ etc.

The artist

Beginning October, my Art classes have been divided into two groups, the younger (pre-school and year 1) and the older (year 2 -4) and the decision to do so was a real game changer because I can adapt the level of the language and the Art input sessions to the age and the language level of the students. Each group has only one lesson a week but they are more meaningful, more focued and more child-friendly.

Because of the holidays and the calendar, the lesson with the older kids comes up first right now and it is also very important and handy. I can prepare for the more group with more advanced language skills, motor skills and with more life expience and do what I really want to do and then just adapt to what my younger kids are able to do. I really like it this way.

In our Jackson Pollock lesson, I introduced the artist of the day (name, country, favourite things) and the fact that he is, most likely, the most renowned modern artist today or, at least, the painter that most people associate with modern art.

Later on, we looked at five of his paintings, in different colours, with different titles, from ‘real’ names (‘Summer’) through ‘Number 5’, to the beautiful ‘Untitled’ and we talked about what we think about them and how they make us feel. In the end, we watched a clip from the video ‘How to paint like Jackson Pollock’ to show the students the real process. I also decided to include a short slot devoted to the main characteristics and I called it ‘What Jackson Pollock would tell us’.

The art

Well, this has to be the first thing to say out loud: Jackson Pollock is a serious logicstical challenge for an Art teacher. Especially if this Art teacher works with young kids and in a room that is a regular classroom which lends its square meters to all the creative activities and then goes back again to being ‘just a classroom’, used and shared with other students and teachers. To be prefectly honest, I am not sure I am entirely happy with how I dealt with it.

Things that need to be taken into consideration are as follows: the technique is a mess-generating one and it requires serious preparations. It is supposed to be done on the floor (which is refreshing and exciting) and the floor needs to be protected. So do the walls, the desks, the chairs and the kids’ clothes, because, surprise surprise, the paint spatter is a powerful force and you will find it in the most unexpected places.

The classroom was almost completely reorganised – the tables and the chairs were put aside, to make room on the floor. I perpared the working station for each of my students (an A3 piece of cardboard, on a much larger piece of newspaper, scotched to the floor) as well as the station with all the paints, brushes, water and tissues. Apart from that we had a semi-circle of chairs in front of the TV where we were to sit during the first, theoretical part of the lesson. We spent here around 20 minutes and later on, we moved to our work stations, to create.

The task was really simple – choose your favourite colours, think what idea you want to convey, take the water and the paints and start creating and experimenting with the technique. This part was great. The kids were trying out different hand movements, they were also observing each other and sharing ideas and opinions. The creativity was slow and a bit inhibited at the beginning but, as we moved on, the kids really got into it. Things were coming together. In the end, we talked about the possible titles for our paintings and how we felt during the entire process. This part was amazing. The paintings were left on shelves to dry overnight and some of my students came on the following day to pick up theirs and to take them home. They did enjoy and they did treasure their creations. Aims – met.

However, I have to admit – these preparations were not enough. The stations were too close to each other, the pieces protecting the floor were too small and, overall, the students’ clothes were not protected. We talked about being careful and respecting the other artists’ space, but I could have done better but mostly because I was lucky, with my older group of only seven students. I am to do the same lesson on Monday, with the younger group and I am working on adapting the ideas and the set-up or, also, entirely giving up on Jackson. I will also be adapting the number of resources used, giving up on the acrylic paints and the guache, because only the watercolours are relatively easy to wash and to clean.

The Pollock lesson – round two. Pre-K and year 1

There were a few things that I had to change for the lesson with the younger kids.

  • I took over a much bigger space on the floor, with the smaller pieces of cardboard (A4) on much bigger pieces of newspapers and with much bigger distance between them. I also marked the place on the floor where the kids were supposed to be sitting, to ensure that they are not facing each other but sitting back to back to minimise the paint spatter.
  • I also gave out the painting aprons that we apparently had at the school. However, I had my plan B – bin liners with holes for arms and head.
  • I was more selective as regards the types of paints, limiting them to watercolours only. Watercolours lend themselves to splashing and spattering, too if more water is added. Acrylic and guache paints are more thicker and more difficult to wash. What is more, a box of watercolours is a box of watercolours, with each child working on their own, at their station, without the need to get up, walk around and exchange jars with friends. Hence – fewer opportunities for stepping into splashes and dirty footprints around the room.
  • I am happy to say that it all worked very well!
  • Apart from that, I have to say that, somehow, my little students were somehow more open-minded and ready to dive into the modern art world. They were eager to discuss what they could see in the paintings I showed them and I really could not calm them down here. They wanted to talk and talk, although, because of their level of language, they could do it in English and in L1. They were also very eager to come up with titles for their own creations. These were really artistic discussions. I was really proud of them and some of these paintings are just precious!

Happy teaching!

Natalia Goncharova’s lesson about colours. Teaching English through Art

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https://arthive.com/

The language

January is our month of colours, chosen this way to balance up the monochromatic landscape outside the window. At the moment, due to the combination of various factors, calendards and timetables, I get to teach every lesson first with my older group and then to repeat it and to re-do it with the younger kids. This, in itself, is a fascinating set-up for experiments and reflection. The activity with the objects in unusual colours was created for my little ones but it was such a success that I decided to do it again with my older group, too. It was a success and my older and more advanced children were even more involved and more capable of taking part in a discussion and expressing their views on pink teddy bears, brown unicorns and pink chocolate. This was the main language activity in this lesson. The older group were using a wider range of structures, including ‘I really like’, ‘I really don’t like’, ‘I love’ and ‘I hate’ and they could explain why they felt this way.

Because of that I am going to repeat it, once more, with a different set of images in this coming week.

‘Monet & Architecture’ will reveal Claude Monet’s works at London (architecturaldigest.in)

The artist

This week, we invited not one but two artists to lead us through the world of colour and this decision was made specifically with the art project I planned for us for the day and that, in turn, was the result of these creators’ artistic decisions.

My main idea was to show the students how the same object can be painted with different colours and how the selection of the colours can affect our perception of the painting and our emotions. Or, in other words, why would an artist choose specific colours to paint.

Our first artist of the day was Claude Monet and his cathedral, the other Natalia Goncharova and her peacock, or rather, two peacocks because Natalia Sergeevna created more than one and that was exactly what we needed. We looked at the two peacocks and answered a few questions: ‘What colours can you see?’, ‘Do you like this peacock? Why?’, ‘How does it make you feel?’, ‘Why did she choose such colours?’, ‘Which one do you like more?’. We compared the paintings with the photos of the cathedral and of the bird.

In general, the colourful peacock was a favourite although some of my students mentioned that there are too many colours and they are too loud. The black-and-brown peacock was noone’s favourite as very thin, very sad and a bit scary.

We needed these artists also because their colour decisions were rooted in two different sources – the sun itself and the artist’s conscious decision and it is the second approach that we were getting ready to use in our art.

https://arthive.com/
https://arthive.com/

The art

The task was very simple and it came as a natural follow-up of the activities in the first half of the lesson: choose a simple object and paint it twice, using a different set of colours to represent two different ideas or emotions.

To demonstrate how it can be done, in an even more direct and straightforward way, I showed the students the pictures that I created – a flower that I decided to paint using my happy colours, such as pink, green and blue and to paint the same flower using the colours that make me angry (orange, purple and yellow). You can see it above. Below – everything that my students created last Wednesday.

Before we started, we also brought back our earlier project, namely Andy Warhol and Chebourashka that I wrote about here. The previous activity had a character in it and it was, perhaps, easier to associated it with a set of emotions whereas this time round I wanted everyone to be a little bit more open-minded and, at the same time, to focus on the emotions and colours, rather than on looking at the world through the character. However, I did not limit them in any choice and, as a result, some of them decided to choose two different items to paint or to even give up on the shapes and focus entirely on the colours.

It is exciting to see that they paired up their beloved shapes and characters with the colours they love and, in the same vein, they made a decision to combine their less preferred colours with the characters they just don’t like. It seems your beloved goose could just not be painted in the colours you have a strong dislike for.

The kids made conscious decisions regarding the colours and while they were painting, we were discussing their choices and, in the end, the final outcome, too. And it was a real discussion, to a large extent in L2, in some cases also in L1.

This last piece here is special in many ways because we had a new student join our group and try his hand at creativity for the first time. He got the idea and the was happy to experiment with the colours and images and it turns out that his favourite combination is a cat in pink because this is his favourite colour and because ‘Boys like pink, too!’. He is one of the epitome of the cool kid and the would be alpha male in our class so I was surprised and in awe that he dived in and took to everything that we do in our classes. And, even more so, he enjoyed it.

Happy teaching!

Storytelling for primary. Ideas for the follow-up activities.

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The way that only the freezing winter sunsets can be

Storytelling and storybooks in the primary classroom

Welcome to one more of my obsessions: the story in the classroom, be it a story from the coursebook, a video, a storybook or even a thing that I invent myself, just to sell my ‘product‘. A story is not only the type of an activity that we introduce because of its many benefits or because we want to prepare our students for the YL Cambridge exams but also because the story can be a way and the means of developing the young children’s language skills, reading and writing, speaking and listening but also their grammar and vocabulary.

I have been using stories for ages and I am not exaggerating when I say that this is one of my favourite teaching tools and different storybooks characters, Marvin, Barry, Pete the Cat or Splat the Cat or Peppa, are like my best mates.

‘What’s new?‘, one could ask.

In this academic year (four months so far), I have been involved in teaching the British National Curriculum, KS 3 to my two wonderful groups who are an amazing but mixed bunch, especially when it comes to their actual English skills. One of my main aims is developing my students reading and writing skills, preferably fast (yes, yes, I know, nothing happens fast) while working with a very mixed ability group, ranging from complete beginners to A1+ children. Stories have been one of the many ways of doing and I decided to share a few examples of what we have done, hoping that they can serve as a source of inspiration, for all kinds of classes, EFL or ESL.

The general idea

The way these five stories were used in the primary classroom follow the same pattern

  • pre-book: looking at the cover of the book, reading the title, introducing the main character, asking some questions about it, trying to predict the story, introducing and practising the key vocabulary.
  • while-book: reading / watching the story, sometimes with pauses to check understanding, sometimes to involve the kids through gestures, sometimes through the phrases, if they are used repeatedly.
  • post-book: a variety of activities related to the content of the story or to the grammar or vocabulary of the week in which the story was introduced.

And this is when the post starts to make more sense, I hope, because I am going to share here five different stories and five story-related, follow-up activities that I used in the last few months.

Hen’s pens and Let’s practise vocabulary!

Hen’s pens is a story, one in the series published by Usborne, a lovely resource with the Ted in a red bed, Fat Cat on a mat and Big Pig on a dig. I usually use them a bit later, with slightly more advanced students, in shared reading sessions (and there probably should be a post about that) but this time, I wanted to introduce a longer story, a video story and a rhyming story, specifically to have kids practise noticing rhymes.

In the follow-up of the story, we completed a very simple reading task, in which we put the words into pairs by colour-coding them and then using the chart to practise reading. You will have also notice a colouring page in the handout. This was an additional task for the kids, only for those who like colouring.

Pete the Cat and Let’s speak!

Pete the Cat is very famous in the EFL circles and the story about rocking in the school shoes is an absolute hit. This is my personal way of teaching Present Continuous ever since I have seen the video for the first time and this year, not quite for the first time, I used it also to introduce the school vocabulary, verbs and places.

In our lesson, apart from watching, singing, miming and even re-enacting Pete’s day at school, we also followed up with a speaking activity in which the kids had to create their own sentences in the Present Continuous. They had the main verb forms, mostly taken from the story, accompanied by visuals to support speaking (in most cases, the kids were unable to read yet) and their task was to finish the sentence by drawing something. ‘I am eating…a pizza, an apple, a cookie, a banana’, according to their preferences. Later on we compared our sentences, creating our own day at school. The handout served as preparation for speaking.

Again, those children who were interested, were given a second handout to colour.

Marvin Gets Mad and Let’s practise grammar!

Marvin is, no doubt, one of my favourite characters and he’s been present in my classroom for about fifteen years now (wow!). ‘Marvin Gets Mad’ by Joseph Theobald is a great story for feelings and for learning about controlling emotions but this time round I decided to use it to reinforce the grammar behind the Present Continuous.

In the follow-up task, which was quite a stretch from the plot of the original story but it was exactly what we needed to practise the Present Continuous and to reinforce the idea of the suffix -ing. The kids had to add the suffix to all the sentences and then read them and match them to the pictures of a particular sheep.

Zog and Let’s take some notes!

Zog by Julia Donaldson was a good lesson, too. We focused on revising the body parts but we also did a lot as regards the language practice, as regards the structures we already learnt (‘I can…fly, catch a princess, breathe fire) and a few structures that were used repeatedly in the story (‘What’s the matter?’ ‘I can help you’ ‘Thank you’). While we were going through the story, the children helped me produce all the key language.

After we were done with the story itself, we ‘took notes’ about the story. All the kids got their copy of the handout and we went on through it: tracing the lines, reading the lines and completing them with our ideas. As usual, some of the lines are actually very restricted (‘Zog is a dragon’), some are more open-ended (‘He can…fly, breathe fire, catch a princess, help’), the others – even more. (‘He is…green, big, small, happy, sad, scared’). The final two lines are for tracing and for circling, depending on whether you liked the story or not. This time I included a small picture of Zog for everyone and some kids took time to colour it after they were done with writing.

Ling and her proud memory and Let’s draw!

Ling is a girl from one of the stories in our coursebook, Global English 3, in a series on memories (a sad memory, a happy memory and a proud memory) and I actually loved teaching all three. The story was quite challenging for my kids in terms of the language and I just wanted a general understanding of the main facts. After we talked about the picture and listened to the story, I did a short Yes / No activity regarding the content. This was followed by a note-taking activity, similar to the one we did with Zog, but it was substantially shorter and more limited in terms of creativity. However, this was only because the real star of the lesson was the drawing activity.

The word ‘proud’ was a new concept to us and I really wanted to make it personal, mostly because it has a huge potential and it is a good word to have at your disposal in the classroom. With the help of my T.A. we explained what it means, we gave examples and suggested some ideas for the kids, based on our shared experiences such as preparing for the Christmas show, doing difficult exercises in class and so on. I showed my students my example (below) and I let them draw.

Admittedly, the lesson (or this project) did not involve a huge lot of language production but it was a beautiful moment, nonetheless. And a very necessary one, too! Some children knew straight away what they were proud of, some others needed to take time to come up with an idea. And they did! Even those who started their search with a desperate ‘I don’t know!’.

My example is below and showing it to my class was another special moment and, guess what, they got the idea straight away! Because when we are doing something very, very difficult in Maths and my students keep raising their hands and everyone wants to give the answer, I am very proud (based on real events:-).

Coda

These are just a few ideas of what can be done in class when a story is involved. One of many ideas!

Happy teaching!

Crumbs #75 Paul and his gran. One more way of approaching the story in the YL classroom.

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Ingredients

  • One of the YLE Cambridge visuals, Movers speaking (4 pictures), Flyers writing (3 pictures) or Flyers speaking (5 pictures). In our case, this time it was Paul and his Granmother from Flyers from the sample tests booklet (volume 2 p. 96), tampered with lightly (see below)
  • A handout created to accompany the visuals, you can download it from here

Procedures

  • Prepare the visuals by covering up the numbers on the pictures and making a copy for each student, cutting these up. Make a copy of the writing handout for each student.
  • Introduce the story: without revealing too much, for examply by telling the kids that they are going to meet a boy and read a story about his day.
  • Give out the visuals, cut up, ask the kids to find out the start of the story (aka picture number 1), talk about this picture with the class. The questions to use might include: Who is it? How old is he / she? What is she / he doing?
  • Tell the kids that this is Paul and his gran (we had different interpretations here but we need grandma for the handout) and their day. Ask the kids to reorder the pictures, check and glue them in the correct order in the notebooks. They number the pictures.
  • Create the story: kids look at all the pictures, in order to be able to construct the whole story and the plot. This can be easily turned into a speaking activity: the teacher makes sentences such as: I can see a boy. Kids answer with: Picture 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, etc. Later on, the students take over by making their own sentences. This can be done as a whole class or in pairs. This is also the time to introduce or to check that all the kids have all the key vocabulary. The kids are not telling the story yet, they are only getting ready, thinking about the characters, their actions and feelings.
  • Write the story: the teacher gives out the handwriting handout, the kids glue it in their notebooks, too. The class go together, picture by picture, they read the sentences and think of their own ways of finishing the sentences. They write the words or they ask the teacher to write the words on the board for them to copy. The teacher monitors and makes sure that everyone is going on at the same pace.
  • Read the story: the groups that I did it with were not very big, only 5 or 6 students, so we could all read our stories out loud and applaud. With the bigger groups, it might be a good idea to put the kids into pairs or smaller groups to read to each other and to applaud. Nonetheless, I still wanted to include this element, purely for the reading practice.

Why we like it

  • I am quite happy with that activity since all the materials worked well in the classroom.
  • The kids enjoyed it. Many of the ideas were the same, especially the feelings but there was also some potential for variety in kids’ answers. I accepted everything, for example ‘Parents are angry’ (picture 5) or ‘Paul is scared’ (picture 4). As we always say: ‘All ideas are good ideas’. In that sense it worked very well as ‘the first story we wrote’. I was very proud of them and they were proud of themselves, too.
  • My students are only 6 and 7 and all of them are in year 1 of primary. Their literacy levels vary and this kind of an activity gave them an opportunity to practise a variety of skills, especially their literacy skills, with more focus on reading and writing. There was enough room for creativity and enough support at the same time. Initially, I was considering including the tracing element but then I decided that it would be too much for one lesson, with five pictures and five short texts to write.
  • There is a lot of potential for adaptation: the number of pictures can be adapted, if you choose to use the Movers speaking resources or the Flyers writing resources. The number of sentences for each picture can also be adapted, extended or cut short. If there is time and if the kids are ready, they can add their own, sixth part and even to draw their own picture.
  • I made sure that everyone had the same order of the pictures for the entire story as my kids are quite young and this was the first time we worked with this kind of a materials. Because of that and because of their literacy levels, they are not yet able to work independently on such a task and I decided to keep it more T-centred and T-led this time. However, for more advanced groups (as regards literacy and independent work), there is a lot more potential. They could tell the story in their own way. If needs be, the writing handout, can also be cut up and rearranged, to match the pictures and their order.
  • One thing that I did not do was to allow creativity as regards the title of the story. We did not focus much on it, I only introduce the brief: Paul and his grandma, but there is so much potential here, especially that the kids are also supposed to learn about a structure of the story and that it includes a title. No harm done, we will be repeating this activity and next time we will write our own titles, too!

Before you go, make sure you have a look at all the other storytelling ideas, here and here.

Happy teaching!

Crumbs #74 Christmas a la Andy Warhol

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Ingredients

  • A3 paper, glue and scissors and a stack of newspapers and journals (gardening, furniture, fashion, kids, music, animals)
  • music, for atmoshpere
Andy Warhol’s Christmas Tree

Procedures

  • This lesson in this format was done with my older primary students whose language is on the level of A2 – B1.
  • We started with bringing up Andy Warhol whom we got to know in September (more about this lesson here). As always, it was a pleasure to find out that our Andy Warhol Chebourashka was a very memorable lesson. My students did rememember! We talked about Andy again and especially about his love for Christmas (I do recommend reading about it here).
  • We looked at the Christmas tree he designed and at the technique (collage).
  • Afterwards, I showed all the materials and I started to make my own collage to demonstrate the technique.
  • We looked at the journals and newspapers, leafing through to find the theme. I suggested a few (a colour, an object, a topic) and just allowed the kids to think about it.
  • All this time I was making my own: I drew a big triangle and started glueing the pieces to match my theme (Nature).
  • Kids were working, cutting out their pieces and composing their collages. They were also looking for pieces for their friends. All this time we were having an open class dicussion about different artistic decisions and the bits and pieces that match or do not match the individual collages.
  • In the end, we briefly demonstrated all the trees, together with the title.
  • In order to create a more festive atmosphere, I put on some non-invasive instrumental music, Christmas-themed.
Nature (by the teacher)

Why we like it

  • The collage was a success. The students got really involved perhaps because the activity gave them an opportunity to be creative without requiring any real artistic skills, drawing, sketching or painting which sometimes can be a challenge.
  • It took a while for the students to choose the theme but it is perfectly natural because they needed time to leaf through, to see what is available and to make up their mind and to select something. But I was really happy because it was clear and obvious that they really did make a decision and focused on the colour, one specific item or a general idea to represent. What’s more, I could see that the kids themselves were happy and proud of their choices especially when their pieces were completed.
  • The task became a collaborative one although only by accident. Once it became obvious what everyone was working on, we all started to suggest and to offer pieces that we found in the journals that we were looking for. ‘I’ve got a yellow sofa here. Do you want it?’, ‘There is a princess here. Does anyone need it?’ and so on. It started with the teacher but the kids picked up on it. It is definitely something that I will be introducing purposefully the next time we do a collage.
  • We used the A3 paper but the A4 sheets are also an option and the trees will be easier to fill in as the smaller the paper, the fewer the elements.
  • We started with drawing the triangle on the A3 paper and went on to fill it in with the items. Two of my students did not have enough time (and the chosen elements) to complete the tree in one lesson. We are going to finish next week, we have this opportunity. However, that made me think that it might be a good idea to choose a topic, cut out all the elements and them compile them into a tree, making a conscious decision regarding the size of the tree and opting for a smaller version if time or resources are limited.
  • I presented the idea of a combined technique: a collage and drawing, to fill up the space with own drawings, if needs be, but, in the end, not one of my students decided to use this option this time.
  • The decision to put the background music on was a good one, too. It helped to create the atmosphere and, after a while, kids asked for the permission to put on their favourite songs which was granted and we ended up working and singing together.
  • As regards the language production, a lot was going on because we were chatting throughout the lesson but I have to be honest about one thing – my older group are already a high level, some of them very close to fully communicative in English and even bilingual. That is why I didn’t need to do much to encourage production in the way an EFL teacher would. They wanted to talk and we did, in English. However, there are other options for the lower level and the EFL/ ESL students. I am still to try these in class but off the top of my head, I would go for:presenting the collage with the title, calling out the names of all the elements of the tree (or as many as possible), choosing the character who might like this kind of a tree. I am quite likely to teach the same lesson on Monday next week and, if I do, I will be updating the post soon.
  • We did it in our Art classes but it might be a fun activity for a regular VYL or YL class, perhaps even with teenagers.

Here are some of the Christmas trees my students created:

Yellow. Still in progress.
Dragons
Around the house
Beauty

Happy teaching!

Crumbs #72 Teaching design to kids aka some magic with a paper towel and water

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Page 1 and Page 2 of the Rainbow Volcano

Ingredients

  • Paper kitchen towels, cut up into rectangles. It might be a good idea to test and trial, always, but especially here, not all the kitchen towels have the appropriate density. They cannot be too thin or too thick, for the kids to be able to draw with markers and for the water to wet them fast and efficiently enough.
  • Markers. I am using the thick ones but their tip is not to thick. Roller pens might be too thin.
  • Some water. In order to be able to use it in the classroom, we used a big plastic box. Ours is not very deep and it does not have to be. At home kids can use the washbasin, the sink or even the soup plate.

Procedures

  • This was one of the three experiments I planned for our Science lesson devoted to water.
  • Apart from everything else that we did on the day (which you can read about in an earlier post here), this part of the experiment was called the Surprise Experiment. We started with looking at the materials which I demonstrated and we watched a short but very informative video from the Messy Little Monster that I found on youtube.
  • While in our lab (aka the dining room), I showed the kids the box filled with water and, together, we looked at the pictures I prepared and tried to guess what we might see once they land in the water. These included: Hello – kids! (the visible part – the part that appeared while in the water), a simple sun – a smiling, yellow sun, my name is – miss Anka, you are – fantastic.
  • Then we were dropping cards into the water one by one and checking the full picture.
  • Afterwards we went back into the classroom and started to create our own pictures. I showed the kids two cards and drew one picture with everyone looking, as a model. It was absolutely important that they understand that page 1 is only a part of the picture and that page 2 is going to be more detailed. While we were working on the pictures, we developed a few useful techniques: checking the design against the light, drawing with the picture on the window pane, tracing the lines twice or three times (on page 1) to ensure that they seep through onto the page 2, to facilitate making sure that the pictures match. I was also showing the kids’ ideas to the room as soon as I spotted something interesting, for example the use of the words, the use of the colours or the elements.
  • We established in the beginning that in class we are only going to watch a few examples and create our own, to take home and to surprise the parents.
  • After the lesson, I sent a message to the parents in the messenger to tell them about the surprise coming from school and how they can use it, where they can pour water etc.

Why we like it

  • Apart from the fact that this activity was a great puzzle piece in the lesson and on the Blue / Water day, I loved the fact how it worked.
  • The activity itself is very simple and requires only the minimal resources.
  • All the kids, our preschoolers and primary students, could create it, with varying degrees of detail and complexity. It worked very well with a mixed ability group. Although, of course, I can be further adapted with the teacher starting the activity i.e. drawing circles on both pages or other shapes to which the kids could only add the detail on page 2.
  • It gave everyone an opportunity to design something and I was really impressed that they got the idea of how this simple toy works and what is required to make it. To be honest, I was truly impressed with the kids took to it and how creative they became in the process. The first designs were very simple, a circle that turns into a smiley and so on but, as the time went on, their creativity was simply snowballing and more and more amazing ideas started to pop up, also because everyone was observing everyone else and sharing ideas. The mountain that turns into a volcano (in the photo), a girl that turns into a princess, cards to say hello to mum, dad, grandma, the house that gets all its details…It was amazing and I am just sorry I did not take more photos. And I did not take more photos because I was busy cutting up more and more pieces of the paper towels. I planned to give everyone three bits for three mini-projects but I underestimated my kids, their creativity and the speed with which they started to draw.
  • I was also very happy with my being clever and announcing that all the kids’ experiments will be carried out at home only. Doing it in class could become very messy, especially with the big groups because the pictures need to be taken out of the water as the colours start to run, they get the water dirty. Taking the pictures out means that there are wet balls of paper around…I decided that the kids would enjoy it a lot more at home, especially that they could also take pleasure in showing off what they have learnt at school.
  • The langauge production was a bit limited but, to be fair, for us, it was spread throughout the day. We talked about the pictures while they were being designed and there was a lot of focus on instruction and the functional langauge. There was also some opportunity for the language of prediction / guessing and I would definitely like to explore it more in the future.
  • This experiment can be a part of a lesson on the colour blue, on the topic of water or perhaps also in a lesson on conditional and the langauge of prediction with the older kids. It can be also a very simple craft activity with all age groups.

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!