#eflteacher

Tea for two! Teacher training courses and individual consultations

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A new idea?

Every time we run a course at our teacher training centre, regardless of how formal or informal it is, we always give out a feedback form and ask our questions how useful they found the course and all its components.

‘We want to know what you think’ is not only a nice marketing phrase that should be a part of the end-of-course email. Neither is it a request for only positive feedback, a puff that will make us, the organisers, feel better. For me, personally, it is an opportunity to check and to confirm that I haven’t gone rusty or complacent as a trainer and that we still offer a good product. At the same time, it is also a way of brainstorming ideas for how we can further improve the course. This is post is going to be about one of the examples how these ideas are put into practice.

A few courses ago (a new, teacher training time expression), one of our trainees mentioned in the feedback form that they would really appreciate an opportunity to talk to trainers individually to ask some of more personal questions. It sounded like a great idea and that is what we did.

Tutorials and consultations

Individual communication between the trainees and the trainers hasl always been a part of our courses. We always chat before or after the sessions, regardless of whether they are run online or offline and many of my trainees keep in touch either via social media or via email. Some of the courses also include tutorials but their format and aim is a little bit different. They are run usually half-way through the course, they are obligatory and their main aim is for the trainees to reflect on their progress on the course and for the trainer to run a preliminary evaluation on the said progress.

We added the consultations as an optional individual meeting with the tutor, 30-minutes long, to be used in the way that the trainee chose, to discuss the issues of the particular interest. We arrange these meetings during the time that the course is run, usually before or after the input session.

Topics that were of the particular interest

  • a variety of questions that came up in the course of the reflection on the particular sessions
  • focused lesson planning
  • lesson planning and classroom management for the online YL
  • working with large groups
  • using L1 in the YL classroom
  • designing a curriculum and planning for a year
  • choosing a coursebook
  • bilingual education
  • problematic students and individual case studies
  • support for the novice YL teachers

What do our course participants say?

  • Love this idea! Yes, I did. Find personal consultation very useful, cause we could discuss our issues and challenging situations.
  • To my mind, the additional session is a perfect option that gives an opportunity to ask a question or discuss something.
  • The 30-min consultation helped me, too. I noted down some great ideas about the cases we discussed.
  • I had a chance to share my difficult students’ cases during our consultation and got useful advice.
  • As for the consultation, I prepared a list of questions and got really valuable answers from Anka. I really appreciate her help and encouragement. I feel much more confident and enthusiastic before starting a new page in my career (working with YL).
  • The additional session felt more personal and I believe I could participate more freely. And without being worried about judgmental eyes (not because anyone would judge me, I am just a bit shy) it was easier to ask questions that I had to ask.
  • It’s great to be able to talk about things where i don’t feel very confident (like bilingual kids) sharing experience is priceless ; it helps reminding myself that we all learn all the time and it’s ok to struggle and try. thanks for the meeting!
  • I could only participate in the 30-min individual session. That was really helpful as it helped me clarify a few questions I had about my teaching.
  • This is a very cool addition. The opportunity to ask questions that arose after the course.

What do I get out of it?

  • An opportunity to really meet my trainers. We talk a lot during the discussions in the breakout rooms and in the common room, before and after the sessions. However, the consultations are an opportunity to take it to another level.
  • It gave me a chance to cater for the needs of all the trainees even better. It is obvious that the more extrovert and confident students take part in the whole class discussions more freely and more frequently and that some trainees prefer to share their views only while in the breakout rooms. By adding the individual consultations to the mix helped me ensure that even the shyest and the least confident teachers will have their chance to talk to the trainer comfortably.
  • It is a fascinating diagnostic tool that helps us adapt and improve our courses because they show the fuller range of topics that might be interesting to teachers that are not always included in the current programme. It is a signal that some areas or aspects need to be incorporated in the existing sessions or that, perhaps, we need to start thinking about revising our courses and adding some new sessions. And, as such, they are just precious.

A bonus track, Tea for Two that lent the title to the post here, with Ella Fitzegrald.

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!

Crumbs #71 Refraction aka Catching up on Physics in the YL classes

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Ingredients

  • A glass of water, if you have a big group, the bigger the glass the better.
  • A set of visuals (I prepared my own based on what I found googling refraction), you can see them in the photographs. I used an A4 piece of paper, folded in half as I wanted it be able to stand on its own on the table.
Through the glass and On their own

Procedures

  • Before the Science / Lab lesson, we started the day with the poem dedicated to colour blue, modelled on the poems from the Little Learning Corner, we looked for the blue items around us and we had a whole section of the lesson devoted to adjectives, describing and guessing the objects in our Magic Bag. All of which were blue, of course. In the Art lesson, the kids also made a beautiful craft with the bottle caps.
  • In the beginning of the Science lesson we talked about water and the clever ocean animals. We watched some cool videos about the clever octopus, the flying birds and the orca.
  • Afterwards I presented the three experiments. The first one was the experiement with the cold and hot water (aka Melting the Skittles aka Checking How Skittles Are Made of Sugar and Food Colouring). More of it in an older post here. The there was the Surprise Experiement (check it out here) and the Illusion Experiment aka refraction.
  • We went into our Lab (the dining room) where I prepared all the ingredients and tools.
  • I showed the kids the glass of water and the first picture with the arrows. We talked about the direction of the arrows and we demonstrated and practised ‘left’ and ‘right’. Afterwards I showed the picture through the glass of water and, of course, the arrows changed the direction, almost magically. We learned the term ‘refraction’.
  • Afterwards we proceeded with the other two pictures.

Why we like it

  • Just like the previous crumbs post, devoted to red, fire and volcanoes, this one is about the experiments we did as part of our Autumn Camp. The second day was devoted to the colour blue and water. This was one of the experiements we did.
  • It is a super simple experiment, in its simplest forms it involves only a glass of water and a piece of paper with two arrows.
  • Again, it was fun. For me, because I could realise that I never ever heard about it in my Physics classes in high school and it felt good to be catching up on my primary or secondary education. For the kids, because it looked like magic)
  • It helped to make this whole experiment kinesthetic by showing the direction of the arrows with our arms, by naming the colours of the clouds or by holding the side of the card where the blue cloud was with my hand and checking how the cloud moved to the other side or by showing the direction of the stripes, on the paper and as seen through the water.
  • It was also a lot of fun to experiment with the distance between the glass and the paper to find the best angle.
  • As with the other experiment (Crumbs #70), this one also can be used with a variety of topics and lessons: water-themed classes, blue-themed classes, black and white and optical illusions lessons or, simply, Physics that, can, actually, be fun! Basically, you can make it as scientific or as magical as you want!
  • We did not have time for that but this lesson also has some potential for creating our own drawings that can be used in the experiments to give the kids an opportunity to be creative and to experiment with different designs. It is also possible to dip the pictures in water and see how they change. See the links here and here, here (experiment at 2’04) and here (really cool ideas!) Next time!

Happy teaching!

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!