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!!!

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.

I think that all children have watched some of the classical disney films like Aladdin, The lion king or the little mermaid and we think that this films are innocent and contein good values that our children should have but we are tricked because some of these films contain subliminal messages.

Now you are asking some questions about this so I will try to explain some things.

Aladdin was created in 1992 by Disney company. In this film there is a scene in which Aladdin tries to woo Princess Jasmine on her balcony, only to be confronted by her tiger. As the shot cuts away, we can still hear Aladdin stammering to the angry tiger in the background — including what sounds suspiciously like the line, ‘Good teenagers, take off your clothes’.

The lion king in 1994 has a scene where Simba slumps on the ground, he sends a cloud of dust swirling up into the night sky. For a moment, the dust seems to form into the letters: S-E-X.

We can find more subliminal messages in many other films that if we know the existence of them, maybe we bar to our children watch this films.

I am going to throw a question, do you think that your children can notice or sense these subliminal messages? I think it is an interesting question for think about this because I am sure that all of us have watched all disney films and we did not notice this dirty messages and if we do not notice them, why do people introduce subliminal messages in kids´fims?

I hope that you stop to think about this questions and know more about the films that we give to our children to saw them.

This activity consist on tell the Cinderella tale but they told us the story in a visual way. They drew some simple figures or drawings that were in a cronological lines so we had to interpret the drawings and tell the story. It was a funny activity to do with children in class because is more motivating for them see pictures that see an extend text to read. Also, they can develop their imagination to draw or to interprt the story.

Then, we have recibed the Cinderella tale but it was not the Disney version that all of us know it, there were two different versions , Grimms´version and Charles Perrault´s version. I am going to tell you the Grimms´one that it isn´t created for children.

The Grimms´version is so different. The firt thing that caught my attention was the name or the tittle of the tale, it isn´t Cinderella, it´s Aschenputtel.

This version is more based on religiuos than in magical action, I mean, at the beginning of the story, Ascehnputtel´s mother appear to say her that she has to be a good person to have the God always with her. Also there are other religious simbols like the mother´s grave, doves or that Cinderella prays three times a day.

Other interesting point is that Cinderella´s father has a significant role.

In this version, the Palace send a letter to assist to three festival days in the palace. In this moment, when Cinderella wants to assist to the festival, the famous godmother of the tale doesn´t appear, Cinderella cries in her mother´s grave and a dove gives her the three different dresses and the three different slippers that in this case are not glass slippers , are gold slippers.

Like in the Disney or famous version, Cinderella arrives ti the palace and everyone is impress for her beauty. As you know, Cinderella lose a slipper but in this version she doesn´t run because she has time limits, she escapes because the prince wants to know where she lives and she doesn´t want to show him her house.

In the moment where the prince goes house by house trying on the gold slipper, the two stepsisters do a horrible actions. One of them cut her toes to have a smaller foot and the other one cut their heels but the prince becomes aware of this and finally, Cinderella trys on the slippers and they get married.

For the stepsisters, these authors give them an horrible destine, they were condemned to be blind.

I hope that you like this version of Cinderella for adults and I encourage you to know more versions of different fairy tales.

Jazz chants are created by Carolyn Graham. She is a musician and a teacher. She lives in New York city and a jazz fan so one day she decided to created jazz chants for teach English so, what are jazz chants?

Jazz chants are a rhythmic expression to speak English. Maybe it sound as a difficult technique for learn English but it is very easy because it is a simple way to understand English expressions, vocabulary, structures….

Jazz chants have a specific characteristic that are essentials :

–  have to be simples

– have to use everyday vocabulary

– have to include four times

Also as all methodologies, jazz chants have advantagies and disadvantagies and in this case, the advantagies are more than the disadvantagies.

The advantagies are that are everyday vocabulary or everyday grammar are structures so this is very useful because with this things you can hold your own in a situation that you have to speak in a foreign language. Other advantage is that you can use them in every classroom or in every place because it is not necessary any equipment so you can go everyway with your jazz chants and you can show them where ever  you want and more important is that you do not have class limit so this point is very influential because you can use jazz chants in a small classroom with a few number of children or you can use them in a big speech with hundreds of people that can follow you the rhythm and sing at the same time that you because are very quicky to learn. In addition, you can use any topic related with vocabulary or some grammar structure so jazz chants have a big range of possibilities, a infinite chances a

The bad way are the disadvantagies but I can find only two, jazz chants only use spoken English and you can use an appropiate rhythm that maybe it is a difficult point to carry out.

The most important point is that you can create your own jazz chants and it is very easy to do it following these steps :

1- You have to pick a topic

2- Write down 10 words

3- separate the words by syllabes

4- You´re ready

This week we have the opportunity to create our jazz chants in class and it was a very funny activity that I recomend you to do it.

Storytelling is narrate a story in a different way and always from a narrative point of view. It is a technique that you can use in class to tell a story that contain difficult vocabulary or contents that help to the listeners to conect with the story and contextualize it.

It is an effective technique in class because we can use it to tell stories in a foreing language and children will be entertaing.

Why are children entertaining ? Storytelling activate the children ´s  imagination and they have the feeling of being inside the story so it is an exciting adventure for them. This is other reason that it is an effective technique, children don´t lose the attention.

How do you tell the story ? This technique consist on make gestures with your body, a lot of expressions with the face, use onomatopoeias, different tones of voices…. these thing make to the audience understand the story and know in every moment where are their.

This week in class, we have had the opportunity of see some  great examples of storytelling. All of these examples are created my Michael Rosen.

The first storytelling was ” Chocolate Cake”. It is an amazing story where Michael Rosen use a lot of gestures and tones of voice that make the story fun. Here I leave the link of the video by Michael Rosen and the Chocolate Cake :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BxQLITdOOc

Also we have seen other example of Storytelling by Michael Rosen. In this case, we have seen this example in other way. Firstly we listened the story with images and then we saw a video of Michael Rosen making the gestures  and making a lot of sounds about of the story. We saw the video  once and then all classmates stand up and told the story, following in the footsteps of Michael Rosen. It was a great and fun experience.

I leave the link of the Storytelling : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytc0U2WAz4s.

Now we have as task create a storytelling using gestures, sounds and expressions… so I recommend you that  see the videos by Michael Rosen and try to create your storytelling and use it with children. I assure you that will be a very fun experience.

I hope you enjoy much with this blog.