White Christmas

We've been working this song with 1st level of Primary. Here you'll find two versions to sing. The first one is by Taylor Swift with subtitles. The second is the one we have worked in the class.

The way we have learnt it is repeating only the last word of each line after me. I made a silence at the end of each line, and then children sing the missing word.

At the end, some of them even sang the entire line!

Merry Christmas and a special wish of happiness for all my pupils!

New School Year

Hi! Tomorrow we start a new school year. My task this time is focused on first and second year of Primary School. Some of my priorities are to set a good language basement for this new young students, foster oral and listening practice through the use of authentic materials around stories and songs, and work TPR (Total Physical Response) more than the previous year.

Stories are a good channel to work emotions. This year, I would like that values impregnate my task, and specially the notion of slow pace in our day-by-day in the school and also in life.

What’s why I would like to work Eric Carle’s “Slowly, slowly, said the sloth”. I have my own-made materials around this story to work English as a Second language contents.

In the following entries, I will post some of the activities I will be carrying on, as well as other that could came up during the year.

Good luck in this new start!

Don't worry, be happy!

It's been a long time since I last wrote in this blog. I've been very busy with my work in the school, and now that I'm on holidays I expect to have more time to develop all the ideas and experiences I've been collecting to share them with you.

I would like to start by recomending a book if you're dealing the subject of worry and anxiety with children:

"What to do when you worry too much: a kids guide to overcoming anxiety", by Dawn Huebner, Ph.D. and Bonnie Matthews (Magination Press).

“Did your know that worries are like tomatoes? No, you can’t eat them, but you can make them grow, simply by paying attention to them.” (Excerpt from the cover).

It can be used in your tutorial sessions, since it follows a step-by-step guide starting from recognizig what’s a worry and how many we may have, to the point of putting into practice several exercises to keep your worries away (or make them smaller/less important). Or you can take some of the activities as ideas to be implemented sparingly during the year. It is up to you!

The level of English required (if you want to use it in your ESL classes) is, for the most of activities presented, intermediate or 5^th 6^th level of Primary Education (in Spain). As always, you can adapt some of the proposals to lower levels of proficiency.

I’ve been reading this book to take ideas and implement some of them in my classes. This year, I didn’t use it but I dealt with the subject of “Worries” and we played and learnt the fun song “Don’t Worry, be happy”,  which seemed very attractive for children and invited them to put their worries away! Here is the video, although I'm sure you already know it!

Do not hesitate to comment anything you may came up when using this books or to share your own activities and suggestion of this subject.

Enjoy your summer and… keep in contact!

Naming emotions

One of the first steps in emotional education is acknowledging the name of the emotions. The activity I'm going to present should be preceded by a similar one carried on in mother tongue, especially when we are dealing with very young students. Recognising the name of emotions give us the chance of taking control of them and process them in a healthy way.

Objective: Acknowledging the name of emotions.

Development:

1ST STEP:  I use a set of flashcards to elicit the name of emotions with students. We can play some oral games to practice them, such as memory, or cover a card with a piece of paper and uncover it little by little, until some student say the name of the emotion.

At the same time, I introduce the questions "How are you today?" and ask the students to say the emotion he or she is feeling at the present time.

It's important to clarify that several emotions can be felt at the same time: for example, we can be tired and happy, or tired and sad. We can deal with primary emotions with younger children (rage, sadness, fear...) and steep forward to secondary emotions with older ones (boredom, anxiety, shyness, etc...)

2nd STEP: The teacher hands out different sets of Emotion Cards. We can build the set using the previous set of flashcards, making them smaller. Students can play in groups. We can use Emotion cards for different purposes. In 3rd level class we used them to play a simple memory and students enjoy them a lot.

STARTING WITH A SONG

It's a long time since I started this blog. I've been waiting to have materials  interesting enough as to be mentioned here and tested in my own practice.
Routines are always a good way to start with in your class. With my first and second grade students (Primary Education) I start the class with a song that set them up for the work and also deal with emotions.
It's the "Good Morning Song".

Name of the Activity: Good Morning Song
Objective: To set off and strenght links among mates in the class.

Development: With first grade we stand in a circle (we work in split groups) and with second grade the whole class sing together. This song can be found in  the CD "English is fun when it's sung", (Sue Correa, Julie Langstaff) and here you'll find the lyrics:

Good Morning,

Good Morning,

Good Morning to you. (Students point to each other)

Good Morning,

Good Morning,

Good Morning How are you? (Students draw a big heart in the air)

I'm fine, thanks!

I'm fine, thanks!

I'm fine, thank you! (The shake their hands among them)

Good Morning,

Good Morning,

Good Morning How are you? (Again they draw the circle in the air)

The idea of drawing a circle while saying "How are you?" came from one of my first year student and I found it was great. This mark the importance of feelings when we meet with people we appreciate and ask about their day.