Gamification and stickers

Have you heard about badges and gamification? You like the idea but you are not sure how to implement it with your younger learners?

We have a freebie for you!

Here is our proposal. It uses the familiar idea of stickers as badges to complete a collection of skills.

We hope you enjoy it and if you do…share it!

And here are some more stickers for day-to-day use.

A class with your class

Workshops with children are great. I love them.

I have realised that  after being away from the class for quite a long time, you start to talk and think too theoretically and idealistically.

Children bring us back down to earth, back to class, a place where you need to find the perfect balance between theory, trends and reality, where emotions and relationships are as important as the latest trends in education.

Why am I saying this? Because we have created what we call “A class with your class”. The principal aim of this activity is to offer teachers a “live teacher training” . We conduct a class for the students, (we request the presence of the English teacher) and a meeting with the teachers afterwards to talk and reflect about what we have done as well as to complement the session with resources and more ideas.

Let’s have an example. We did this in A Coruña, in the International School Eiris, a great school that is now facing the challenge of implementing the use of tablets in their classes, so, we decided to deliver a QR code workshop for students and a training session to the teachers focused on  digital competence in the English class.

Why QR codes? When we talk about literacy,  we have to be aware that in a technological society, this concept is expanding to include the media and electronic text, in addition to the alphabet and number systems. Our students need to learn how to read images, how to read multimedia, how to read the web, and how to read anything that can give them information. QR codes are just another way to get or to offer information.

In this session we explained to the children the QR code concept, we practiced with QR codes, we created QR codes and we reflected afterwards about how we can apply it to our daily activities.

Here you have the presentation.

Another session is called 20-2-GO.

20-2-GO,  is a collaborative contest that measures children’s reading comprehension in a fun way. Here you have the presentation where the rules are explained. You can use it for so many different purposes in your daily routines just by changing the questions.  The counter works only in presentation mode and its duration can be adjusted to your necessities.

Here you can read a review of the activity written by a teacher after one of the workshops, thank you Salva!

http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/31910906

It’s Carnival!!

Carnival is here and  we have a present for you and your students.

Your students can dress up their favourite characters (we published them here),  and play with them.

Here you have the cut-outs for the costumes.

Carnival gives us the perfect context to discover new vocabulary about clothing. Here you have some resources.

Are you still looking for the perfect costume? What about dressing-up as a tablet or as your favourite artist self-portrait?

Activitict for Christmas

We have reached the end of the first term! It´s time to take break and to take a breath.

But before we go. These days, families use to ask  teachers for nice sites or activities to do with their children during the holidays, so…here you have our proposal.

Design and create some digital toys online with your children, print them, cut and paste and…that´s it! you are ready to play offline with your creations for a truly significant  learning activity.

Here is how you can do it.

Enjoy it and have a Happy Holidays!

To all the Rudolphs around…

I love Christmas. I love the lights. I love the idea behind the commercials.

Christmas is the festival of light, the winter solstice announcing the end of  darkness and the beginning of  sunnier days. So whether we are religious or not, Christmas brings some light to all our lives.

And of all the Christmas stories, my favourite is “Rudolph, the red nosed reindeer”. Rudolph, reminds us that everyone has something special that makes us necessary. And this is a timeless concept.

I have always loved using this story in class.   It allows you to talk about bullying, about helping, about behaving with your peers, about reaching your true potential …Rudolph has no age barriers.

Rudolph was a misfit and someone believed in him and gave him an opportunity.  We all are, or have been, Rudolphs…the question is, can we act like Santa?  Are we able to see beyond our prejudices? Do we give opportunities to all our pupils so they can shine?

So, this is our Christmas present for you. Here you have several resources that you can use if you decide to work with the story of Rudolf in your class. We have prepared several scripts and activities adapted to different stages, from pre-primary to 6th grade. We have also prepared the characters of the story so you can use them as puppets to practice the story

Characters

Script Pre-Primary

Script First Cycle

Script Second Cycle

Script Third Cycle

TIPS AND TRICKS

  • Remember that “We learn while we use and we use while we learn”.
  • Give them a lot of practice, include the story in your daily routine, explain it “with them”, not “to them”.
  • Practice the story first with your fingers with the whole class, each finger is a character.
  • Practice the story first with flashcards.
  • The class delegate can choose who he wants to be and can choose the rest of the characters.
  • Then, when they have learnt it, let them act it out. Act it out just once a day, if not they can get bored.
  • Let them switch roles, so they will learn the the whole play.
  • After all this practice, they are ready to tell the story. Create the puppets (with the pictures and the ice-cream sticks) or…they can dress-up as reindeer to do it.
  • Let them explain the story to their younger peers, go to other classes.
  • They can create a comic with the story, they can draw the background and place the reindeer pictures in front.

What are you thankful for?

Last week I travelled to Malaga to deliver a training session, and I had the chance to visit a great school called CEIP Valdelecrín, an elementary school in beautiful Fuengirola.

They have been running a bilingual program for 6 years and they have achieved great success implementing CLIL methodology…but…this is only the formal part…while I was there I met two of the teachers, and they were the kind of teachers that are driven by passion. Like most other teachers, their interest goes beyond simple things such as money or social status, they are driven by something higher, they are driven by values, by knowing that their work makes a difference.

The economic crisis is hitting education budgets hard and teachers find themselves tied by a lack of resources, but they manage to keep smiling and find creative and great ways to keep moving “onwards and upwards”. Ken Robinson says that there´s no better school than its teachers and It´s so true.

While I was there, Alicia showed me the blog that she uses to engage the students (we have added it to our blogroll here) and she explained to me how parents are thrilled with her work, and how families collaborate by taking part in the video tasks she proposes.

She also showed me some projects that they have done, and one of them was about Thanksgiving, so I thought it was a great opportunity to share their ideas with you.

Children are going through hard times, indirectly they are on the receiving end of the consequences of the crisis that many of their parents face, and they sometimes perceive anxiety, sadness and anger. This makes them feel unsure, and children need security.

Making them reflect on what they can be thankful for can help to reinforce their self-confidence and happiness. It also teaches them an attitude to life,  the same that I have seen in their teachers. It´s not just about Thanksgiving holiday…it´s about being thankful.

I would like to express what I am thankful for. I´m thankful for enjoying the little details in life. I´m grateful for my profession, for having the privilege to learn from all the amazing teachers I meet.

I´m thankful for enjoying teaching so much. I´m thankful for this learning journey. Thank you Málaga.

What about you? When was the last time you thought about what you were thankful for?

What is the relation between being grateful and hapiness? don´t miss this TED video

Boo!

Halloween is around the corner and  we have a scary present for you and your students.

Your students can create a scary story with their favourite characters and dress them up.

If your dreamed costume is not there,  your students can imagine and draw there their favourite costume here.

Do you use a blog for your classes? feel free to embed it and share it with your community.

TIPS: If you want to save it as a .jpg image just place the cursor on your favourite costume, clic right button and save the image on your computer.

Some scary ideas…

  • Create puppets with Rita, Oscar and the rest using ice-cream stick. Create a story about Halloween, practice it in the class and go to another class to present it.
  • Use the bodies of the characters but change the face and stick the picture of your pupils instead so they can be the protagonists of the story! They will love to interact with their favourite characters.
  • Switch costumes and make a Jack-o-Frankenstein, a VampGhost, a SkeleWitch and play with the new names.
  • Use the costumes to put the new vocabulary on a context. Use it to practice sentences such as “Rita is dressing up as a Ghost. She is wearing a white sheet” .
  • Create stickers with the pictures. They will love this little “treat”.

Have you use it in your class? Please! Share your story with by sending us your experience or your ideas, we will post it!

Are those analogic ideas not for you because you want to introduce technology in your activities? Then the ActivitICT for Halloween is your post.

Happy Halloween!!

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More info at Pearson ELT Spain & Portugal