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Chess Challenge: Ajedrez en educación infantil

1/11/2014

Ana Contín y Beatriz Paternáin, profesoras del Colegio de Fomento Miravalles-El Redín de Pamplona, han puesto en marcha una innovación educativa para los alumnos de Educación Infantil. Se trata del Chess Challenge, un juego en inglés basado en el ajedrez, donde el propio juego es un recurso para desarrollar y potenciar capacidades y destrezas en las niñas y niños de 4 y 5 años.

Chess Challenge surgió en el curso 2012-2013 en el marco de la habitual puesta en común de propuestas para seguir mejorando en la implantación del inglés en Educación Infantil. Las profesoras intuyeron las posibilidades educativas que podía ofrecer la enseñanza del ajedrez a través del inglés en estas edades, y comenzaron a trabajar para hacer realidad el proyecto.

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premio_fomento_cerficado.pdf
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Collaborative Digital Chain Story using VoiceThread

16/5/2014

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1. What is a collaborative chain story?
A chain story is an easy way to have students learn vocabulary and work with their friends to create a collaborative story. In a chain story, the teacher begins the story, student A continues the story, student B continues where A stopped, and so on. The students have to listen to each other and understand each other so that the story makes sense and flows.

2. How do I carry it out in the classroom?
Since I am working with first graders I can't let them do everything on their own or the task will be a total mess. They don't have the best writing skills to develop an accurate story by themselves so I carry out the activity in a big group. I am the one who writes down the story and help them develop a story that is simple enough for their age. I make sure that the grammar and the vocabulary that is used is not very complicated so they will be able to read and comprehend the final story once it is done.

3. Procedures:
1. Divide students in small groups. I actually arrange the groups according to how the are sitting in the classroom. In my first grade classroom, I have 5 smalls groups made of 5 or 6 students each.
2. Explain to your students what a collaborative story is and ask them to think of a title for their story. Brainstorm some ideas and write them down on the whiteboard. Altogether, choose the title you like best and write it on the whiteboard using capital letters. In this way, students will realize that it is the title of the story.
3. Ask the first group to tell you ideas for the begining of the story. Remind them that they have to raise their hand to participate and only the first group can contribute at this time. You can give them a sentence frame such as "once upon a time...". Once students have an idea about what the first part of the story is about, rephrase their ideas with simple and correct English and ask for their approval. When they agree with the content and the form, write it down on the whiteboard.
4. Now, it is time for the second group to contribute. This time, ask them to read the first part of the story aloud. Then, ask them for ideas as done with the previous group and write them down.
5. Continue until you feel that it is time to finish the story and ask a group to think of an end.
6. Once your collaborative story is done, it is time to make the pictures of our story. You have several options to do this:
- If you created a long story, you can divide your students in very small groups ( 2 or 3 students) and ask them to write and draw one page of the story. Remeber that one group will have to make the book cover. You can make a big book or a standard-size book. Make sure you assign roles to each member of the group so the activity flows. One can be the one who writes, another the one who draws and another who helps or leads the group. In this way, your will create one book for the whole classroom.
- If you created a short story (around 5 pages), you can ask each person in each group to do one page. In this way, you will create several books with the same theme.
7. When everyone has finished their part of the book, you will collect them and put the pages together to created the book.
8. Now it is the teacher's turn to turn the paper-based book into a digital book. There are multiple tools that you can use to do so. I used "Voicethread" to create our digital tool.

What is Voicethread?
It is a digitial tool that you can use to create your digital stories. It allows you to add text, pictures, audios and comments on your work. Anyone can make a comment. It is a very intuitive tool. I scanned the pictures and I recorded my students' voices when reading the story. I chose one student for each page.

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A fun way to review the present continuous (display)

21/3/2014

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Here is another way to display your students' work. I created this bulletin board with my first graders and I displayed it on the corridor's wall. Every time they go to the playground or outside the classroom, they have the chance of reading and showing it to their friends. They are so proud of their work and they love reading about the crazy things some animals are doing at the moment!
If you want to know what the activity consists of, read this post. Thanks!

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Minibook - Can/Can't practice

16/3/2014

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This is the first of the mini-book series that my first graders are creating to practice their grammar. This activity is great to implement in your Science classroom if you follow a CLIL methodology. Next, I will describe some tips you can follow to make sure the activity is developed smoothly.
1. Before creating the mini-book, make sure your students know how to build sentences using can or can't.
2. Choose one animal, for example the cat, and ask students to tell you things that cats can or can't do. Try to give positive feedback to each student for his effort and repeat the sentence if it is right. This strategy will expose students to more correct grammar and right sentences. Here is an example of a possible interaction in the classroom.

Teacher: What can cats do?
Child 1: Cats can climb trees.
Teacher: Good job! Cats can climb trees.

If one student does not use proper grammar but he or she is close and uses good vocabulary (actions verbs), praise him for his effort and repeat the sentence using the correct form and putting emphases on the right way to say it.

Teacher: What can't cats do?
Child 2: Cats can't not drive.
Teacher: Good try! Cats caaan't drive.

If one student wants to participate but he or she isn't able to build one sentence, help him or her using the whiteboard as support.

When learning new grammar, it is important to praise students for their effort. Grammar can be tough for them and letting them know that participation is an essential part of their learning can make a difference on student's motivation and, of course, on the results.

Once students have the hang of how to use can and can't, the written part starts.
3. Students will choose one animal they like.
4. Next they will write sentences, one on each page, describing what that particular animal can or can't do. They will complement those sentences drawing a picture that will represent them.
5. Since my students are not able to spell many words, I wrote on the whiteboard those verbs they may need to carry out the activity. Some of these action verbs include: run, jump, skate, drive, fly, climb... I also wrote the name of some animals on the board. If you have a poster with this vocabulary as well as animals' names on it, you will save some time and you won't get crazy when your students keep you asking how to spell words.
7. Once students have finished, ask them to read their book to each other.
8. You can keep the books in the classroom library so every student has the opportunity to read other classmate's work or you can let them take it home and read it to their family (reading practice).

Below is an example of a student's work (unicorns are allowed too!):

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150 FREE TOOLS TO CREATE EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS WITH TECHNOLOGY

31/12/2013

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150 Herramientas Gratuitas Para Crear Materiales Educativos Didacticos Con Tic

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DRAMA TECHNIQUES: SESSION 2 - GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS

24/12/2013

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Materials:

1. Video of the story:

2. Script of the story:

stories-goldilocks-and-the-three-bears-transcript.pdf
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3. Puppets:

worksheet.pdf
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4. The stage / decorations:

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EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITY FOR KINDERGARTENS: DRAMA TECHNIQUES: SESSION 1- THE THREE LITTLE PIGS

22/10/2013

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During this year 2013-2014 I am teaching 'Drama Techniques' as an extra-curricular activity. It is aimed to children aged 4 and 5 years old and occurs once a week for 45 minutes. The idea that I have in mind is to do a small performance in the classroom every week: students will watch a short video about a story that they will later represent in small groups using materials provided by the teacher, and then, they will create their own materials to perform the story again.

THE THREE LITTLE PIGS
Materials:
1. Video of the story:

2. Script of the story:

script.pdf
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3. Puppets and houses:

three_little_pigs_pictures.pdf
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These are some examples of the materials I created myself:

The stage:
I don't really have a budget to create materials for this subject so everything I do is very simple and handmade. I have realised that children do not need "much" to have fun and learn. It is the way and motivation you put into it what makes the difference.

To create the little pigs' house, I drew them on a cardboard, coloured them and laminated them. I picked three chairs from the classroom and placed them around the classroom. They represent each house. I stuck the picture of each house on the back of each chair with tape. When sticking the straw and stick house, I made sure that half of the picture was not touching the chair so when it is time to perform the scene where the wolf blows it, it can fall down easily.

Procedures:
1. Pre-teach vocabulary related to the story. You can show the materials your created to foster their understanding of the story. Make sure you mention basic vocabulary such as: pigs, straw house, stick house, brick house, wolf, build, and blow.

2. Play the story on the SmartBoard. You can also retell the story at the same time as the video to promote their comprehension.

3. Ask students to create groups according to the role they want to play. In case there are too many students for the same role, you will decide who will do which role. I only have 12 students in my classroom so the story will be performed three times. It is the perfect number of times because it is not too high to make children get bored and it helps students memorise their lines.

4. When representing the story you have two options: You can play the video or you can read the script and be the narrator. If you feel that your students won't be able to reproduce the language in the video or the script you can reduce the number of sentences and make the script even simpler. This is what I usually do. Sometimes I also pause the video after a couple of lines so students can repeat what they just heard. I don't expect my students to reproduce every line, of course, but I want them to be able to say at least the key words.

5. I also encourage the audience to say aloud some of the lines so they play an active role when watching the performance.

6. Once everyone has had the chance to perform, they go to their desks to colour the worksheet with the main characters of the story.

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Poetry Theater (Reader's theater)

25/4/2013

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April is the month of poetry so I wanted to do something special and fun with my students having in mind this topic. I was thinking of what to do when I came across this great website called Giggle Poetry. On this website there is a section called "the Poetry Theater section". There I found very easy and simple poem-scripts that would be ideal for primary ages. What I liked most about these poems is that they are so funny and relevant for my students that they really enjoyed working with them (At the end of this post, there are some files that include some of the poems my 4th graders worked with).

How to organize the activity:
Each poem has at least two characters, so I divided the classroom is several groups and assigned roles to my students according to their reading fluency. Those with better reading skills got characters with longer scripts and those with weaker abilities got simpler scripts. I let them work together in the classroom. Those groups who had very short scripts learned their section by heart but those who had long scripts could read it while performing.

Objectives:
My main objective was to help students develop their reading skills and become comfortable reading a piece of poetry in class. This activity really helped my students achieve these objectives since they were able to read with expression and comfort.

Follow-up:
As a follow up activity, I asked my students to draw a comic representing the story of their piece of poetry. They were so creative and original and they did a wonderful job! Have a look at the pictures of their work below!

Don't suck your thumb

dont_suck_your_thumb.pdf
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How to torture your teacher - 1

how_to_torture_your_teacher.pdf
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how_to_torture_your_students.pdf
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My New Pet

my_new_pet.pdf
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How to torture your teacher - 2

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Comparatives and Superlatives

24/4/2013

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Below, I present a lesson plan that you can use in your class to review comparatives and superlatives. Students should have at least a pre-intermediate level.

1. Review:
In the board, review with your students how to form comparatives and superlatives. You can do it by creating a chart that includes the rules to follow and have in mind when working with comparatives and superlatives.

2. Worksheet: "Think of a word".

- Divide the class in small teams ( no more than three people) and turn in the worksheet "think of a word" to each team.
- Then, write a noun on the board and ask students to suggest whatever the worksheet tells them.
- It is a competition, so students need to fill in the worksheet as fast as possible but without spelling mistakes.
- Misspellings will be penalised. The first team to complete all the sentences will win a point. Each team will get a point for each word that is correct. Should a spelling be wrong, no point will be awarded. The teacher will ask students to spell the written word is she/he thinks that it might be misspelled. If two groups write the same word in a sentence, they won't get the point.
- Repeat the exercise with different words a couple of times and add up the points to select a winner.

3. SONG: "Everything" by Alanis Morissette

- The teacher will introduce the song to students. He/she will explain ask students to fill in the blanks. The teacher will tell students that the words that are missing are adjectives, comparatives, superlatives and some parts of the verbs in the present perfect.
- Students will listen to the song and complete the gaps.
- If students find the song difficult, the teacher will give them a worksheet that includes the words missing. The teacher will read the words aloud to make easier their identification in the song.
- Repeat as many times as students need.
- Check answers by asking students to read the song aloud.
- Check new vocabulary.
- Identify the adjectives and complete a chart with them like the one at the review stage.

4. The guessing game:
This game can be carried out either writing or speaking:
- Describe an object/animal/person using comparatives until someone guesses what it is
e.g. "It is as yellow as a banana, "it is hotter than fire", "it is as round as a ball" (SUN)
- Wrong guesses should be replied to with another clue comparing the real object with that wrong guess, e.g. “No, this thing isn’t a candle. A candle is colder than it."
- Descriptions should include at least two compatives or superlatives

lesson_plan_attachments.pdf
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TV Commercials in the classroom

1/4/2013

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While we were playing "Pass the word" (see previous post to learn how to play), my 4th grade students came up with the idea of creating commercials. So after playing "pass the word" for several sessions, they started to design their own commercials. In order to carry out this activity, I grouped them in pairs or groups of three.

First, I asked them to choose a product that they would like to sell and think of the characteristics of that particular product. Then, I asked them to create a brochure that included pictures and characteristics of the product. I monitored all the process by teaching them some frames they may use when describing the features of the product. Some of these included:
- It has ....
- You can ...
- Before it was ... but now it is only ...

I also provided them with some English dictionaries in case they needed to look up for new vocabulary.
Below is the result! I can say that they absolutely enjoyed doing it and they learned a lot!

FOLLOW UP
Having finished designing the brochure it was time to put into practice their acting skills, so they pretended that they were on TV and they had to sell for example, "an Ipod" or an "English class". I reminded them that actors on TV exaggerate everything they say and do so they had to do the same. They had a lot of fun preparing and practising the commercial and they came up with very creative ideas and product features. This activity is absolutely great to improve student's oral fluency and an excellent way to encourage collaborative tasks in the classroom.

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My name is Beatriz Paternain. I am an ESL specialist who graduated in 2012 with a Master's of Education in TESOL and World Languages Education from the University of Georgia

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