Goldilocks and the three bears

In this blog entry I am presenting one of the activities I created in this subject related to one of my favourite stories: Goldilocks and the three bears. 

As you all know, the subject has been divided into two different parts with two different teachers. Yolanda Scott-Tennent was the teacher the first part of the term and Maribel Benito has been the teacher the last part of the term.

One of the activities I created with Yolanda in the first part of the term was related to HOTS (creating) and LOTS (understanding and identifying) and it was adapted to Primary 1.

The activities I created are focused on a story and the development of different skills from the story, specially writing and speaking through descriptions of the characters, ordering the parts of the story and revision of the main vocabulary.

The story chosen was Goldilocks and the three bears because children really enjoy that story and because it is easy to work on the structures, vocabulary and sequences. 

All the activities in the planning are in a powerpoint and the unit is introduced by telling the story in two different formats (story with pictures and a video).

Story with pictures (http://www.education.com/games/goldilock-three-bears/) 

Video (http://wn.com/goldilocks_the_three_bears).

Later on, other type of activities are introduced. If you clic on the following image, you will be directly linked to TES IBOARD, a website where you can find several resources related to any topic. In that case, the activity is related to the story we were working on (Goldilocks and the three bears) and it gives you the opportunity to create different scenes from the story and talk about them using the same structures and vocabulary that are used in the original story. So the main objective is the learning of the structures and vocabulary through repetition with visual support and through ICT resources.

In this slide, you will also find a variety of activities (flashcards, matching activities, revision of vocabulary...).

Once all the activities are done, it is time to create a story. The main idea is to create the story Goldilocks and the three bears but remembering the sequence, the vocabulary and the structres. Although it is a repetition of the story, children are allowed to make it personal by choosing the background, adding pictures and audio files.  

When I discovered this website, my first thought was related to Primary 6 because of the competences and authonomy, but checking the reality in our classrooms nowadays I am definitely sure that our Primary 1 students will be able to use this website. Maybe they will need more help and time but the final result will be great.

Finally, in the last slide of the ppt, there are different activities related to drama. You can find one song, one script of the story and some examples of masks of the different characters. I found them in the British Council website and I would like to highlight that this website is full of useful resources and they are adapted to the interests of the children.

  

Hope you find the activity interesting and that it is adapted to the needs of your groups. 

WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLONAIRE

Hello ICT girls!

This is my last blog entry! This time I am going to present an activity I designed during my practices in the School. It consists on a Quiz from the TV program called “Who wants to be a millionaire?”

One day, my tutor from the school asked me to prepare an activity for her fifth graders students. She wanted something for practicing comparatives and superlatives and make sure they knew the rules about how to make these words from adjectives.

After thinking a lot, I decided to create a quiz because I wanted a motivating activity, different from the ones they were used to do in class. I have also chosen this tool because during the first semester of the Master, Imma Piquer introduced it to us and we really enjoyed it! It is like a gameshow; a competition that engages children a lot. 

When we played it in class they loved it! I divided children in small groups (four students in each group approximately) and each group had to decide one child to be the spokesperson and another one to write down, in a piece of paper the answer of the questions. After that, I explained them the rules of the game and we started playing.

Questions were projected on the whiteboard with its four possible answers, a, b, c or d. I read the questions and the four answers aloud and each group had to discuss and choose one of the answers. Once they had chosen the answer, the writer had to write it down in a piece of paper. After 30 seconds, I rang a bell and they had to put the pencils down and, in order, they had to say the option they had chosen. Then, I showed them the correct answer and, if it was right, I gave them a “lacasito”.

If you do a quiz with your students I recommend you to specify some rules to control the class because when doing this activity, students become more and more excited and they start speaking too loud and it can be a little chaotic. So you need a good strategy to calm them down when this situation come. Mine was the following one: If when I speak or when I ask you to be quiet, you don’t listen to me, I will take your “lacasitos” away. It worked really well.

Another recommendation to make the activity even more motivating for children is to get dressed or wear some funny complement related to quizzes, such as some glasses.

For creating this quiz I downloaded a Power Point template in this page where you can find other ones.  Of course there are other sites where you can find it and download it for free.

Related to Bloom’s Taxonomy, this activity fosters remembering, understanding and applying. It is an activity we can use for practicing or reviewing content, where children have to apply what they learnt during the previous sessions. In this case, it is a LOTS activity. However, we can turn it into a HOTS activity. After the quiz, in the same groups, students can create their own quiz, so they have to think all the questions, the possible answers and they also have to know the correct answer.

Finally, we can also use this activity as an evaluating activity. We can make it a little bit more serious and ask children to discuss and select one of the four answers and justify the decision.