INTERACTION

For this Final Task I've chosen the EdPuzzle by Esther: https://myenglishblogesther.blogspot.com/2020/02/task-3.html

These are sad days we are living away from our loved ones and, of course, away from our students, so I'll just explain theoretically how would we do this task.

Fr this task, I would choose my 6th graders so that we could design an EzPuzzle for the younger ones in 3rd grade.

I own several "This is Britain" DVDs, so I'd begin playing for them the EdPuzzle by Esther and her students. Then, I'd choose the Easter eggs episode off the "This is Britain" series, since we are in march and Easter is so close. I would explain to them this celebration and then I would tell them we would make a brainstorming to choose the questions we would like to make.
Finally, we would work on the digital board together because this tool is fast and easy to work with in just one class.

Genial.ly

For this project I decided to choose my 5^th graders again because it's a really special group of children, I know I can trust them and they love to work hard. Also, because they can use the laptops to work on the activity.

I have to say we kinda decided the topic like a month ago, even before I knew I had to do this activity with them. I get along really well with these students, so this one day I was joking with them and I told them since I couldn’t study French and they do, now they can go visit Canada. They were amazed by the fact that they speak both English and French in Canada and they wanted to know more about the country. Another day I played for them the “Nations of the World” song  by “Animaniacs” and it reminded them about Canada. And finally, last week I told them for the zillionth time not to say “in England” when talking about English speaking people because English is not only spoken in England, but in a lot of countries; that’s when Canada came out again. So that’s when it hit me, we had to work on Canada for our genially project; they instantly agreed.

The first day, I divided them into 7 groups, so that each of them could work on one slide. I played this tutorial video for them   we decided the modality and, after a short brainstorming, each one of the groups chose one topic for their slide. They looked up for information the rest of the class and were assigned as homework to keep on looking up for info and bring it up for the next class (two days after).

The second day, the groups worked on their slide. Some of them brought photos in a pendrive while others just had wrote some information on the notebook. It was a lot of work for them to try to make things work in English, but with some help they made it.

And finally, the last day we gathered all the parts and made the whole project in the digital board.

This is our collaborative genially project about “O, Canada”. I hope you like it and find it useful. I think that, despite of all the hard work they had to do, this helped them to look for the important information in a text and to plan a work in a small group.

STORYJUMPER

I told my third graders if they wanted to make a book. They were impressed and hesitated to believe me, but when I explained the idea, they soon loved it. This group of students loves reading books and they use to borrow books from my class library every week, so despite their young age, I thought they were the perfect group to make a book. Also, I have a British student who helped a lot during the process.

I divided them into six small groups and asked them to watch the tutorial video with me. Then, we had a vote to choose which story we were going to use. They decided to choose the fable they were reading in Spanish class.

To begin with, I made the cover and the first two pages under their instructions in the digital board. When they felt comfortable with the app, the groups were one by one coming to my table to work on their two pages with my help. I left the projector on so the other students could watch the process, which they loved.

We used a short text we found online and some pictures from Google Images they liked. They also adapted some parts of the text they couldn't understand. The main goal of this activity for them was to be aware of their capacities to work with English texts, copy them and adapt them to their knowledge (with some help, of course). They used their creativity to add props, which they loves the most, although they decided to keep the same format with the scenes so that the book would come out, and I quote, "as a real one". Some of them were a bit overwhelmed by the writing, but the other students encouraged them to make their best and helped them a lot.

Next time I would like to invite them as students and make a collaborative book as I think it's meant to be done, but for now, I think they are too young and it's better for them to do it all together.

It took two sessions to finish the activity and they were constantly raising their hands to share their opinions and discuss the activity.

EDPUZZLE

I teach at a small school where I am the only "English teacher" for Primary students. I've already designed an activity for my 5th graders and another one for my 6th graders, so now it's only fair to design this one for my 4th graders.

We are actually learning the music instruments and they loved this song I played for them last week, so I decided it would be a fun way for them to show me they've already learnt the spelling of the instruments.

The learning objectives for the session I'm using this activity are for the students to practice their reading skills by choosing the correct word for each of the instruments they can hear and watch at the video. Since they already watched the song once last week, they'll be watching it again one more time and then they'll have to work at home. I'll message them the assignment link via Helvia anda they'll have to click on it, do the activity and them send me a screenshot with the results so I can check they did it.

I think the best part for them is being able to work with their computers at home as an English assignment, because I never set English homework and because the computers at their class are not currently working. I also consider I'll be using this tool to work as a group with the digital board and with the laptops available in the 3rd cycle so they can work in pairs with certain videos we are actually working on.

This is the best tool I've used in this course so far, I really like it.

Time Line with Time Toast

The learning objectives of the activity

Since we are learning about the Royal Family, we decided to create Queen Elizabeth's time line. I wanted my 6th graders to get to know this web and to keep it in mind for other subjects' assignments.

The advantages of using TimeToast for this activityI found a lot of problems, so I guess I will name the disadvantages. I consider my students are too young to use this tool. Also, the Internet connection and the obsolete laptops we have at our school made this activity extremely frustrating for them, so I don't think they will use Time Toast again.

The steps you followed to set up the activity. Any problems and how you and the students solved them
First, I made five groups each one with the assignment of collecting the data required (date of birth, date of marriage, ...) I guessed it would take them a few minutes and then, they could begin to work in the Time Line, but they had a hard time looking for this information in English and they tried to look for it in Spanish and then translating it. Besides, the Internet connection was too slow and it took us one whole session to just get the info.

The students’ reaction – how did they feel about using TimeToast to complete the task? Some things that you would change / improve next time.
It was really frustrating for them and in the next session they were asking me why did they have to do that again, so I decided we would work as a big group using the teacher's PC and the Digital Board instead of the laptops.

I think it was the best decision, because the complains stopped and we were able to begin designing the Time Line all together, deciding which photo, what text to use (using short sentences from Wikipedia, of course, because of their level) and learning to use this tool. Even with the teacher's PC, the photos were "processing" for the whole session and it wasn't until the next day that they showed in the Time Line.

I don't think there will be a next time for us using Time Toast. It may be a helpful and interesting tool for older children, but Primary children don't find it motivating at all.

At least 3 ways that the use of TimeToast helped you achieve your learning objectives

Although it was very tricky for them, we had to sessions of reading, writing and searching the Internet in English, and that is always a good thing for them.

TIME LINE LINK:
https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/2181955

REFLECT OF READING HABITS

I’ve been a book worm since I was a child. I think that is why I enjoy reading in Spanish, since it’s the language in which I’ve built my love for reading.

My reading habits have changed over the years. When I was a child my mother used to worry about me being reading for hours and now it’s really difficult for me to find the time to stop and enjoy a book, because I’m always in a hurry, but when I do, I read mostly novels or comics in Spanish before I go to sleep. When I do read in English it’s biographies or texts I prefer to read as the author wrote them instead of the translation. I love reading on my e-book because it’s more ecological and it feels great to have thousands of books on my hand, but I also own a lot of “traditional” books, which I like to read sometimes.

I would say I can relate to picture 1 and 2, since I inherited my love for reading from my father and I do own an e-book.

PICTURE 1: They may be reading for pleasure books of their own choice.

PICTURE 2: They may be reading a fairy tale the mother chose for the son.

PICTURE 3: She may be reading her favorite novel just for fun.

PICTURE 4: They may be reading a fiction book their teacher chose for them.

PICTURE 5: He may be reading a mystery novel he was gifted by a friend and now he isn’t able to stop reading it.

Welcome everyone!

Hello kids and families!

Welcome to our English blog.

Here you will find lessons, videos, games and interactive worksheets to practice at home in a fun way.

We will also upload some pictures of what we do in our class, so that families can see what we are learning. I hope you enjoy our daily work.

Off we go!