#storybooksinefl

Splat the Cat and the Cat in the Moon. Storytelling ideas

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The story

This time we used the story by Rob Scotton published by Harper Collings Publishers in the series Reading With Help. It is one of the stories in the series my kids know already because it has been translated into Russian. I had a copy at home and I really wanted to use it as part of our going back to roots (aka to the procedures from year 1) when we were reading a book every week as part of developing my students’ literacy.

Underneath you can see how we used this particular story, however, these are not the only activities that this book lends itself to. This is how we needed it and how we used it.

The ideas

  • Concepts: this was, probably, the main aim of this book in our lessons. We have done a series of lessons devoted to development of soft skills in our communication lessons. Splat and Plonk differ in their opinions on what the moon looks like and they sort out this disagreement in a slightly agressive way, teasing and pushing and almost hurting each other. This was a perfect story to bring to class at the end of the whole series.
  • Another concept that I did not include or even forsee from the very beginning was the different ways that we see the world. Plonk looks at the moon to see the craters, as a great space fan, whereas Splat looks at the moon to see the cat’s face in she shades and spots on the moon surface. Neither is wrong, they only have a different outlook on the world. Plonk represents a realist (or, as we called him, the scientist) and Splat has a more creative way of perceiving the world (for us he was the artist).
  • Functional language: this was the main aim of the lesson, linguistically, not focused on any specific function or a situation, only a few useful phrases such as ‘These are definitely craters’, ‘I’ll show you’, ‘Are you ok?
  • Grammar: no obvious structure for us to focus on, since nothing stands out, however, we used it as an additional practice of the past tense. Some of the verbs my students already know (saw, didn’t see, looked) and some were completely new (nudged, hit, aimed).
  • Vocabulary: no obvious set of vocabulary items but we had to introdudce/ check such as: a notepad, telescope, craters etc,

The lesson

Here is the overview of the main stages of the lesson

  • the cover page
  • the vocabulary, I have chosen the words and phrases to introduce and to check, we read them and looked for more examples of use
  • ‘your phrase’: I have prepared a few phrases aka quotes from the story on separate cards to give out to students (one per each) to help them focus on listening. We read them out loud and the students were supposed to listen and to raise a hand when they heard their line in the story
  • comprehension task: Did Plank and Splat communicated effectively? Who was right? Who was wrong?
  • reading: I read the story from my copy while changing the visuals on the powerpoint. I created these using A.I. to match the key moments in the story and to boost comprehension
  • discussing the comprehension questions above.
  • personalisation: How do you look at the moon, as an artist or as a scientist?
  • notes: kids read and complete sentences about the story
  • the following lesson: a few chosen words from the story written on the board, the students retell the story (or elements of it)
  • there are few videos of the read aloud on youtube so these can be used in class, too. I am going to use one of them to share with my kids and I hope that, perhaps, they will read it and watch it again at home.

Reflection and more ideas

I absolutely loved the story. We listened and read, we had a little laugh at the end we had a reall nice discussion about communication and the ways of looking at the world. It even went further because one of my students suggested that the moon can also be a pancake and we agreed that this is how a chef would look at it. I also liked all of the ideas they expressed in their notes and they were definitely not anonimous. Most children liked Splat (but not everyone), most appreciated Plank’s realism (but not everyone, ‘Miss Anka, he is a bore!’) and most children liked Seymour’s trick (but not everyone, ‘Miss Anka, he cheated’).

Absolutely everyone loved the last task in which they had to come up with an idea what to put in front of the telescope lens to play a trick on both cats and this is the only sentence that we read out loud, just to compare ideas.

This lesson and this story is actually going to transform into a lot more because first of all, I got hooded on the visuals created by the A.I. and I want to included it in our Art Explorers and I love the idea of the world seen by different people, the scientists and the artists and this is where we are going to go next week.

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!

Top 10 kids books to have in the classroom

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This is my number 1 storybook illustration ever. Marvin Wanted More by Joseph Theobald

This post came about as a result of conversations with some of my trainees and colleagues, most recently with Vera, and it inspired me to reflect on not necessarily on my favourite storybooks as this list would be much, much longer but on the list that I would start a storybook library from and the titles that I would buy first.

Making this list was not entirely pleasant because as soon as I got to number 10, I started to revise it as I was being flooded by the titles and the characters that also wanted to make it. It is quite likely that this list will be modified in the future.

Here we go then. The Very Personal List Of My Favourite Storybooks To Be Used In the EFL Classroom with some very short rationale and some interesting links.

  • Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle: It is a true classic and it is quite likely that your students, no matter how young, have already read it in their L1. It has a great character that we can relate to (I know I can) and it can be used to teach food, emotions (‘I am hungry’, ‘I am not feeling very well’), the life cycle of butterfly and, potentially, the seasons and weather, too. It can be combined with a treasure hunt in the garden and in the park and with a craft lesson.
  • Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell: This is a storybook that I know it by heart and I did use it in class a few times with only a box and a set of flashcards. It is a great resource to teach and to practise all the animal vocabulary but it is a great starting point to teaching adjectives, too. I used it to introduce the idea of a riddle which we later extended to make our own. It has been
  • Marvin Gets Angry by Joseph Theobald: I have a special place in my heart for Marvin and his antics. This book can help you to teach the basic emotions (happy, sad, agry, tired) and it is great in the first lessons, while establishing class routines and teaching kids how to behave but it also helps to accept that we all get angry sometimes and we need to find ways of dealing with. Other than stamping on the flowers, frightening the hens and biting the cow’s tail. It works for body parts, too.
  • Brown Bear by Bill Martin Jr and Eric Carl: It is a wonderful book for the first lessons with year 1 students because it has a repetitive text and it works very well with colours. It can be also used to teach ‘What can you see?’ ‘I can see / I see’ which is a good first functional phrase that will be used throughout the course.
  • Barry And the Scary Hairy Monster by Sue Hendra: It is not the first book of the series, but it is the first one I used and I fell in love with. It has a great plot with a fantastic surprise at the end and I normally use it in the beginning of the year 1 course, to practise emotions, colours and some simple questions such as ‘Where are you?’, ‘Who are you?’. It is great for involving kids through miming and counting. It also normalises the fact that we are all afraid and it helps the kids to deal with the fear.
  • Three Billy Goats Gruff (traditional): This is my favourite traditional story to be used in the EFL classes although the reasons for that are rather random. I started using it with my students only because I found it lying around and came up with ways of dealing with it. We use it to talk about emotions and food because all the goats offer some random food items to the troll trying to bail themselves out. At least they do in my rendition.
  • Where Is My Baby? by Julie Ashworth: Here is another book that I am very attached to emotionally. We have a history, you could say. Naturally, I know this one by heart, too. It has some repetitive language, it can be easily turned into a role-play with the whole class and it is a perfect resource for teaching and practising body parts and adjectives. I love the ending, too because it helps to teach the idea of tolerance. It can be combined with a craft lesson.
  • Zog by Julia Donaldson: I love Zog because it works well in the EFL classroom to teach body parts, health problems (‘What’s the matter?’) and ‘I can’, ‘I can’t’. Apart from that, it also has a great story that includes an underdog hero, a princess that does not care about castles and honours and who wants to do something real and a prince that learns that it is not necessary to fight with dragons, all the great ideas that can help teach kids develop and believe in themselves.
  • Don’t Eat the Teacher by Nick Ward: This books made it to my top ten because it includes aquatic animals and a shark as the main character and a lot of school vocabulary. It has got a funny plot and can be used to teach imperatives and the rules of classroom behaviour. It is one more book that I like to use in the beginning of the year. It can be used in the unit on animals or, specifically, on life aquatic and it can be combined with the Baby Shark song and craft, too.
  • Rhinos Don’t Eat Pancakes by Anna Kemp: This storybook might be a bit too challening for the youngest of students, in terms of concepts or vocabulary, but it is still an amazing resource. It has some potential to be used in lessons on colours, emotions, house vocabulary, animals, verbs and adjectives. It is a fantastic resource to start a conversation on the power of imagination and the relationship between the kids and the parents. I am also planning it to use it in my Art and English classes. This is also the storybook that I used with all the ages of students: from pre-school to my advanced teachers.

Those that almost made the list: Elmer by David McKee, Marvin Wanted More by Joseph Theobald, Pete the Cat by Eric Litwin, James Dean and Kimberly Dean, Hugless Douglass by David Melling, Dinosaurs in the supermarket by Timothy Knapman and Sarah Warburton, Perfectly Norman by Tom Percival, The Colour Monster by Anna Llenas, The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalk and Oliver Jeffers, Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers and many many more…

Happy teaching!

Some interesting links: