Saint Patricks Day

Hello girls!

In this entry I’m going to show some resources that I used with my pupils to work Saint Patrick's day.

I created a power point slide collected some of the resources that can be used to work Saint Patrick's in Primary 5.

First of all, this celebration can be introduced by a video about a Leprechaun, helping the teacher to create good atmosphere to start talking about Saint Patrick. Then I thought it could be good to show another video explaining briefly the legend.

It’s always important to work vocabulary and there’re some webpages that have flashcards and images that would be good to use to work Saint Patrick's day.

Also if we want to create our flashcards I highly recommend to use Bitsboard and play games in groups with the iPads.

Furthermore, to learn vocabulary in a more attractive way they can be playing games, such as memory, and every time they turn over a card they have to say the name of the image. (This would be a LOTS Bloom’s taxonomy activity). 

Also, learn more about the legend they can search on the Internet some webpages explaining it.

Moreover, a good and HOTS activity (linking with Blooms Taxonomy) we can tell the students to choose 6 clue words about the legend, so they will have to analyse the previous text that they have searched, and decide which words they want to use to create a crossword puzzle, introducing the word and making the definitions.

Although, it can be very creative to look for some Saint Patricks crafts, and a very useful and recommended application is Pinterest. 

Additionally, I founded lots of very interest presentations about the legend of Saint Patrick's that can be used in class without any problem, and we can edit and adapt to our needs.

Last but not least, I want to comment that before doing this subject I was interested in new technologies but after doing I have opened a lot my mind and now I have more skills and more resources to use in class, and also I’m more oriented on how to use it in a correct way and try to squeeze it to take advantage of all the digital resources.

Thank you so much!

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.