Teachers have the responsibility to avoid this so we can work with types of poems.

There are different types of poems that we can use in class for work poetry in a different way and children will have the opportunity to enjoy working with poems.

In this post, I want to show you some examples of poems to work with them in English and activities for motivate children and make easier for them:

This is a type of poetry where the first letter of each line form a word. This type is easy for children when they have to create a poem because they think a Word and then Little by Little they form their poem writing things related with the word. An example:

Crisp and colorful
Adorable and crunchy
Nice and tasty
Delicious and tempting
Yummy and best

Autobiographical :

This is an easy way of write poems for children because they have to introduce themselves and write about their likes, hobbies or feelings . An example :

I’m a Jilly Joe
I love to sail and row
I love flying kites
only to end up with fights
My friends hate me
For I’m a wannabe
I love myself
For I’m Jilly Joe

Color poems

In this type, children have to think in a color and write objects or characters of the color.

White is the milk
As tasty as could be.
White are the clouds
Like cotton balls in the sky.
So is the light white
That brightens my day

Calligram

This is one of the most motivating and easy type of poems for children. They have to draw something and write things about the drawings in order to make the form of the drawing. For children is easy because they only have to write simple words. This is perfect to work a specific topic in English and learn new vocabulary for children.

With this types of poems you will have the opportunity to work with poem and with English structures or vocabulary at the same time and for children these activities are motivating and they enjoy working in class.

You can think about specific activities to do with each poem and make challenges for children so be creative in your class!!!

Hi everyone! I would like to write about the results and the feelings that we had in our workshop. Starting from the beginning our market had a lack of activity, but in the presentation of all of the class, all of you gave us a very good feedback and ideas to improve our market.

Well, we created a market in the corridor, I have to say that it was one of the worst place to located a workshop because is the place where all the students pass, and with the children, we were doing activities in the floor of the corridor and the adults had to trough between them and we thought that a good place to located the workshop is in a class, But finally we solved the problems very well.

I think that all my class were very motivated, the dress up were fantastic, there was some of the workshop that create a great performance, and the consequences were that all the children were very happy and when they finished all of them said that they would like to come more days, because they had fun and learnt.

Our workshop was divided in two parts, the first one we tell them about the context of our workshop and give to them some coins to exchange it for food, then with their food selected had to fill a empty pyramid of food with their food that were selected before and order in the correct way, then we showed them a pyramid of food and check how they put their food, almost all the groups had a clear idea of the order of the pyramid of food. The second part of the workshop we had created and activities with the tablets, and they had to create in groups a menu for the sultan. They were very motivated and also they like to much to use tablets, Alejandro us a sultan check their menus and see what they have learnt and gave to them some feedbacks, in order to let them know some mistakes.

To conclude this post, I have to say that we had a great experience with the children, and as a future teachers we should do things like this for our students to challenge them.

Thanks for reading

With this post I want to talk about the results that I have in the aladdin´s project and how I feel while I was making it.

First of all I have to say that my classmates and I made a very good project, because we though that we will do worst than I realize at the end of the activity.

The activity which we did with the first group was a little bit confused because we prepared the activity sorther than we did at the end. To expand the time of the activities we did a little change in the procedure of them. First thwe students had to make the pyramid activity and then they had to make the menu for the sultan. In the activity of the menu I explained to the students that firstly they had to make a menu in two group with the food that they want, and them all the studetns had to be in one group to make a healthy menu using the things they have learned in the pyramid activity.

One thing that we forgot tomake with this group was play some arabic music to contextualize the market.

With the other groups the activities were so well done because we improve the thing that we did with the firt group like temporize the activities in a better way, using the pyramid activity better than before and explained the students that if they want they can change the form of the menu as the  font size and colour.

One funny thing that happened in our project was that all the people that pass through the market want to do the activities because they liked it a lot.

To end with this post I don´t know if your wortkshop was as wonderful as our workshop but I hope you did well, and I hope you had a good workshops.

In my opinion, the people of this course is taking a really high level preparing this kind of things, I’m sure that if we had done this workshop in our first year the final result had been much worse than this, but obviously that’s the reason we are here.

Now I’m going to talk about the experience from the point of view of my group. Before to start we were very relaxed preparing the workshop because in that moment we weren’t very aware about what we had to do a bit later. We prepared the workshop as well as we can, taking in to account that in our location, the corridor, it’s a place really busy, but at the end we get a fairly credible market. We decided to use true food for our market and later we saw that was a great idea.

The time to prepare everything passed too fast, and soon we were enjoying with the children. And as I said before, to put real food was a success because when they saw the food they were focus on the task, it was really catching.

At the begging we were a bit lost about who had to talk in each moment but the children were very cooperative and they did it easier. In a few minutes we were more relaxed and we started to enjoy the activity and then the children enjoyed as well. They were involved on the task and everything was flowing, until we finish the activity and the children follow there with us, anybody said to change the workshop and we were confused for a while. But suddenly we started to do another improvised activity and the children weren’t bored.

The other two groups were easy and flowed, we manage the groups without problem and we did that children feel good and comfortable with us. The activities covered the time perfectly and we didn’t have to improvise more, just to do all that we had prepared.

When we finished with the last group we were surprised that there were not more groups because was so fast for us, and obviously that was a nice new, we enjoy a lot with children and they with us.

As I said in my last post, the pity is that it was the only case when we have work with children in the uni, but doesn’t matter; we will have the practicum very soon.

Seeing the rest groups decorations and rooms I’m really sure that all of us made a big effort to all things were the best as possible. At the beginning we had a lot of nervous, and uncertainty. First of all we received children, and I have to say that the situation was not the best at the beginning because of the fail with the timing, but all of us could manage the situation in a calm way and little by little the things improved a lot.

As positives things I have to say that we could create a good atmosphere remembering Aladdin’s world, we could apply all skills that we have been learning during this long four years (ok…not too long), the creation of materials, activities, a performance, scaffolding…we could monitoring well the class, the control of “difficult situation as the problem with the timing, or the control of some children that were a little bit nervous or distracted, the good results of the activities (because children were very participative and I have to say that we discovered that they knew a lot of things), and the thankful that they were with the activity and the presents that we gave them.

As a not so positive (it was not bad because about all things we can learn) I have to say the lack of coordination at the beginning (that was saved later), the nervous (that are normal in this kind of things) and little “surprising” things that can happen in a class, things that you don’t expect.

In general and putting all things in a tip the scales, the result was really really positive, children enjoy a lot the activities, they learnt and at the same time they played, they showed our presents really proud and happy, and of course we learn with them too.

To finish with this post, if I could ask for three wishes to the genie, I will ask for more moments like these, carry on training myself to be the best teacher as possible and finally, have my own group of children as soon as possible to apply all the things that I have been learning during this period of time.

What wishes will you ask for the genie?

As you know, today we have been filling a kind of questionnaire related to the bilingual program in which we are learning in the CUCC. For that reason I want to share some of my opinions and reflections about it.

I have to say that I’m really glad of choosing the bilingual program. I think it is a decision I will never regret for several reasons. The first one can be how much I have improve my English along these four years, of course, I have to work a lot with my English yet. But I would say that my fluency, my ability to communicate, my listening, my vocabulary, my grammar… everything it is a bit better. I think this is very important because when we were in school or high school, they were more focused on teaching us grammar or writing but we worked very little the speaking, communicative activities. I can remember just a few activities in which we worked these aspects.

Another reason why I would choose this program again is because of the CLIL approach. I think this approach was new for most of us and I consider it is a good way to make us understand how it works by learning with it as we have been doing. I realized we were learning with CLIL when we were in second year and we talked about the characteristics of this approach. For me CLIL, well applied and put it into practice in the correct way, is the best way of learning. Students are more involved, the learning process is more meaningful for them due to that integrate culture, they participate in a more active way, they feel like they really are the protagonists, they should feel more comfortable and confident because the multiple intelligences are taken into account and for that reason each student will have its moment. These are just some of the positive things that in my opinion CLIL includes.

Besides, eventhough at the beginning we were a bit worried because we thought we were going to learn less contents than the other groups, we have realized that we have learnt or improve something more important, that are our abilities and capacities.

For all these reasons, I think if I would have to choose again I will choose the same program.

It was a big Project with whole the class so each group was focus in a scene or topic of the Aladdin´s film. We used the Disney versión because was created for children so taking into account this point, my group decided to work about the cave of wonders where Aladdin find the magic carpet and the magic lamp.

For this Project, we needed a classroom because we will should use the White board for develop our activities so wethough that it was a great idea to decorate the classroom as a cave because thinking as a children we though it will be a great idea for motivate them.

The first thing to create was the fantastic and huge tiger that is the cave´s door. For this, we use continuous paper and make the tiger in the classroom´s door.

Also we put cellophane as curtains.

As it was a rainy day, we share the classroom with other group but this was not a problema for us. Our solution was divide the class in two parts. For decórate the class as a cave, we stacked the tables and chairs in a pile making a wall between the two parts. In this wall, we put Brown continuous paper as the cave´s walls and we used flashlightes covered with red cellophane simulating torches aroung the walls.

On the floor, we put carpets and pillows for the children and in the middle we put a fake fire and gold coins made up of evafoam as a treasure. This point it was not correct because children touch everytime the things so the following children´s group, we changed this point.

Other things to decarate were chocolate coins, fake jewels, arabic objects…..and also we did gold medals for each children as a present for participate in our workshop.

All of these things and our thrill and eagerness and the children of course, did this workshop a fantastic experience.

With this post, I want to encourage the teacher to do things like this because it is not difficult to do and the result is mazing. Children will express their gratitude for this because it is too motivated for them and I am sure you will have a very funny time with them.

Last year I made one for my little cousin it was handmade, I think it was a very good present for him because he could always read his story and he will enjoy it because I make it using different textures and now that he is a little bit older he can touch it and see it as many times he want. In my opinion this kind of books are a very good resource because the child feel involve in the story and he pays more attention to it because he is the one who is living the adventures or that he is involved in the weft we could let him some blank pages to continue it by himself and make their imagination and creativity work.

In relation to this types of books other kind are the ones with pops ups like this one:
They were fantastic because as the same time that you were reading you could see what was happening in a 3D dimension and there were other books in which there were secrets and you have to find them and you could play with the pop ups it was so funny.

There are plenty of books of this kind but the best ones are the ones we made telling our own stories I tend to think that because you can invent your own story including your own drawings and that gives the book a lot of personality. There isn´t a perfect formula to write a book we just have to let our imagination fly, start writing words and scrawls to make the first ideas come out and then put them into an order then things everything will fall into its place.

Personally, I feel strongly that we should encourage our students to write books, poems and little stories to make their imagination blow, and be more creative besides there are going to became richer, because they will learn more vocabulary and they will express themselves better.

Finally I would like to talk about interactive books, this type of books are popular know because it’s been more common to have tablets and electronic devices at home for the use of the smallest of the house and are a very good resource to read them stories but we have to read stories as well to variety of books that children read.

I will like to know your opinion about this, and if you have ever had the chance to have a personalized book. Thanks for ridding and I hope you like it.

I know that we have the practicum but I think that we should to have more opportunities to do it along the degree. It’s just a reflection that I wanted to do, because today I would like to talk about the reading in children and the role of the reader in that important task.

Telling stories to children is a habit that has been passed from generation to generation, and even today, with all the technological advances that we are accustomed, back to this old technique to soothe the savage beast, and to enrich them culturally.

Hearing a story, children exercise thinking skills because they must analyze how it should behave and instilling values that can help them train as people. Even through stories where cruelty is one of the main protagonists, they can understand the life, meet his surroundings and decide how you can assimilate the pain that hurt less.

The stories collaborate considerably with the intellectual development of the boy, allow you to exercise analytical skills and understanding and stimulate their memory and the wish to express themselves correctly; on the other hand, thanks to these stories, the children comes into contact with their individual sensitivity, and their sensitivity is extended and learn to express it more clearly.

Reading works to expand the vocabulary of children which brings positive effects, allowing you to read aloud with greater security and a better school performance. In addition, children who are used to hearing stories are able to pay more attention in a passive activity without getting bored and acquire the ability to listen and understand what is said to them more effectively.

Encourages reading in the interest of the children in different areas, so it is possible that children discover their vocation at an early age and can help and support to do something positive with it. Through beautiful stories children can learn different subjects, such as history, nature, art, numbers, languages, and many others.

I hope you will have all this things into account, because we are a very important model for children.

I have been thinking few weeks ago about the reason of why the children have problems to read books, I mean, why the children don’t like to read. As future teachers we have to think about this problem because, we should try to motivate all the students, and also how to react when children in the class say “I don’t want to read”.

Reading specialists agree that reading is a habit, a pleasure, hardly acquired in adulthood. The love of reading has great potential to consolidate when awakened in childhood. Sometimes we hear parents complain: “my son does not like reading”. And they say with some fear. Actually, there are many people who do not like reading. It is a matter of interest.

Reading is a contemplative activity that requires concentration, silence, isolation, immobility, exclusivity. But the love of reading also depends on how you acted in a child’s life.

Looking information about how to help the children with the reading, I have found some helps for them, and also for the teachers and parents.

Many times it was felt that a child can read it pronounces a written statement. At six or seven years or so, start using a code, but it will take time to really know use it. Because it is appropriate to read the text: choose reading, read fast, be able to use the text for something, talk about the message, complete and extend it to other readings.

• The beginning reader needs a text to the extent of its capabilities, adapted to their sensitivity, taking into account its slow progression.
• You have to let the child choose the readings. If a story does not end, it may not be out of laziness or inconstancy simply has the wrong choice. You will have many opportunities in school and family life to find interesting topics.
• At the beginning it could be a good idea keep reading the books, because the ability to read is a skill very slow and need time.
• The reading-pleasure is a magnificent training to understand and appreciate the textbooks. And the textbooks suggest hobbies and other readings.

Also to improve the reading and the pleasure for the lecture as we have done in class is to create at home or in class a library with for them, because they have any opportunity to take one book and read by them.

I hope you like my post.

Thanks J