This is why I am totally sure that our students will have fun if we let them the opportunity to take pleasure in this kind of classes. That is why, I am going to remind you some of the interesting and enjoyable activities we can take into account from our Exploring Children´s Literature subject by Raquel Fernández.

First of all we played introductory and motivating games, such as “Frozen Characters”, to make us feel comfortable and awake. In this game, some music was played, and when it stopped, we had to represent a fairy tale, superhero or other similar character, without moving. Imagination and body representation were clearly being developed in the students.

Aladdin´s carpet, Snow White, etc.

After that, we played some games that required group participation to achieve the objectives. One of these games was “Frozen Scenes”.  In this activity we had to represent, without moving, one scene we chose of a given film, for instance Aladdin or Snow White. Imagination, body representation, cooperation and communication are reinforced with this kind of games.

Snow White´s scene.

To end with, we played a fun game. “Invented Machine” was a cool down game in which, one person, as a beginner, had to make an invented movement and sound. Then, one by one, the rest had to join into the machine making a new movement and sound, having coherence with the ones that were already made by others. Finally all of us built an amazing fancy machine. It was a nice end of the class, because all of us contributed to achieve the same thing. Pure imagination and body representation was developed in this activity.

Other games we played, that I would like to mention are: “Good Morning Walk”, “Building a new Scene”, “Alphabet Conversation”, “Photo Describing” and “Moving arms and Conversation Coordination”. If you are interested in knowing what they were about, just leave a comment and let me know.

As we know from our childhood and know now from our own experience, you might agree with me that this kind of games are really motivating for students. They are a way of combining learning with having fun (that is why I call them games all the time), in which children develop multiple intelligences such as Kinesthetic or Interpersonal; involving and building up some skills as imagination, communication and creativity. At the same time contents of different topics can be adapted to these games and taught in a cross curricular way.

Again, university is giving us training and resources to show our best in education, and to make students´ learning be the best and enriching thing of their lives.

Of course they use new technologies when they record themselves and when they create websites. Introducing storytelling and technologies in the classroom is quite easy, but… Why not trying to make students feel like real storytellers?

Students can be part of their own projects, and combine the creation of storytelling with digital resources. This can be a great opportunity for them to express themselves, besides fomenting the creativity, supporting high order thinking skills and working on different multiple intelligences such as interpersonal.

They can record themselves, or use other digital support to record their voices and add pictures, as the example that gives the following link, in which a student made a storytelling talking about her own life:

http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/view_story.cfm?vid=392&categoryid=8&d_title=Personal Reflection

This is taken from the website “The educational uses of digital storytelling”, created by students of the University of Houston, showing how students and teachers use this technology and create their own works.

Some of this programmes that are useful to work with students in this way are: Photo Story, Movie Maker for Windows, or iMovie for Apple MacBook.

You can see how one of these programmes works, in the following video that is a tutorial of Photo Story:

As you can see, technologies can be adapted to work with them in class, and they can give us advantages and fascinating ideas. Not only to use other types of materials, but to activate and provoke the development of the learners.

This is a stimulating word. When you hear or read this word, it might remind you to some historical authors, or maybe to some of the most famous poems in literature… But, is there someone that thinks of a really fun and motivating time that had at school? This is a challenge for us!

Poetry develops creativity and imagination, besides some multiple intelligences such as linguistic and intrapersonal. It makes you think about aspects you have never reflected aboutbefore and itprovokes you tolook at life with others eyes completely different as the ones you have never had.

For all these reasons, we can start being in contact with this kind of literature since we are little, with some of the huge variety of children´s literature, so children begin to investigate this new trip full of experiences.

Inclasswehaveseensome videos about some experts talking about poetry in children’s classrooms. Most of them talk about interpretation. In my opinion, interpreting a poem is also needed to be worked in class, because it is not only reading aloud so the audience can understand and interiorise its meaning, but also when you read it to yourself.

Also we have seen some websites that tried to help students create a poem, but most of them where about children just giving words and a poem was created. I think this could be applied for an example so children can start having some ideas, but it doesn’t foment the creativity so they can make a poem by their own.

It could be really enriching for the class and for the individual, to encourage children to feel like real authors. This way, involving them in the creation of poems and making them take part of a project, is very motivating and exciting. Also, developing different skills, such us writing expression or mind opening, is very beneficial for them in the present and in the future.

Apart from all this, working with poetry can be used as another resource to foment reading habits in class… Think about it!

In the next link, we can see other of the multiple facets of Michael Rosen. On this website, he offers an example of how to create an enjoyable and pleasant atmosphere to foment reading and writing habits with poems. He calls it “The poetry-friendly classroom”.

Waterstones Children’s Laureate, retrieved from http://www.childrenslaureate.org.uk/previous-laureates/michael-rosen/michael-rosen-poetry-video-tips/

I hope you like it and I wish you add some more ideas!

Thankyou.

In this third post I am going to talk about the activity of the museum and the ones that preceded it. Again! Another activity of our wide variety of resources to use as future teachers.

Before this activity, we had to answer some questions of our reading life to our partners, as an introductory exercise, and then we had to make our own beautiful and original map in which we had to reflect about our whole lives, since the first time we read. Some people had not ever reflected about it, and now we had the chance to do it. This is one reason why I find this activity fascinating.

Yes, for me this was a really good opportunity, because I have thought about some situations and feelings I had when I was little, and it will help me understand my future students. As well as it happened to me, it will happen to our children. They will express their reading feelings on a paper, so this will open their minds and help them know better about themselves and about their lives.

Another reason why I like this activity is that it will be really useful for the teacher. For us, in the future, it is a good thing to get closer to our students and try to know them as better as we can, in a friendly atmosphere but respecting a limit and maintaining a difference between the students and the teacher. With this activity, we can know more about their personal lives and likings, to try to guide and manage the class the best way.

It is really good to know how they feel reading, because we can know the differences between the students and how to act with them. Also, we can take the correct path and try to bring some books according to their preferences.

Furthermore, children are going to share experiences and have the opportunity to talk to each other, exchanging opinions and even giving some advices and feedback.

As a conclusion, I think this kind of activities are very important in a class, because a rapprochement between  the students, and between teacher and students is needed to look at things with different points of view, and also to lead the class as a compact group and going to the right direction.

Thank you for reading!

Reading is a very important aspect of our lives, it is a source of wisdom where people can walk through different paths and discover a lot of new things. It is said that reading is living a parallel life, in which you can escape from the real world to discover a new one.

There are a lot of types of books: photography, adventure, history, economy, children’s literature, and a long etcetera. But I want to talk about a special type that marked my life: comics.

When I was little, I did not like to read very much. It was a hard time for me and I hated when I had to read a book for school, because it used to take me a lot of time. Maybe from the beginning, I wanted to read something that I wanted, and not being told to read something without taking any decision. This might be the reason I did not like to read at all, and from then, I always wanted to read a book that had a lot of pictures. This way, I read what I wanted and I could look at the pictures. That is why I used to tell my dad that if I had to read a book I would choose a comic.

I used to read, or to look at comics of Tintin and Asterix and Obelix. Firstly, I started to look at all the pictures without reading the bubbles. However, after a long time, every night I took the books without no one that told me to take them, because little by little I was starting to read the texts and find them more interesting. At that time, I did not feel obligated and I discovered the first kind of books I really liked and wanted to read by myself.

I personally like them because now that I grew up, I remember a lot cultural things that I used to read with Tintin and Asterix and Obelix, like traditions, ways of living, geographical locations… of our country and different ones. It is a rich didactical resource for young children, and even for older ones.

Now that I reflect about it, I get the conclusion that you can offer a children a wide range of books to choose, and they can read the ones they most like, without making them feel pressured and uncomfortable. Also, children want to imitate adults all the time, so it is a really good thing to sit with them and enjoy discovering that parallel world!

In education, a large debate is opened and it has no end. In the past, education has suffered a lot of changes, in the present we are suffering them and in the future these changes will last forever. As in every controvert, there are people that agree and people that disagree, but most of the times we cannot prove which the correct opinion is.

As teachers, we know that there are a lot of different methods of teaching and learning, fromthe traditional ones to the newest ones. Depending on the generation, the country, the culture, the place and the people, one method or another is performed, so students are learning in very different ways.

Synthetic Phonics is one of the teaching reading methods carried out in some schools nowadays. This technique, used for English language, is based on teaching simple phonemes and combining them to achieve the correct pronunciation of words. This method is disseminated all over the English-Speaking countries, and also those in which English is learned as a foreign language.

All of these educators that use it, especially the ones that are not held to any institution, think that this method is probably the best or one of the best ones to teach the English language. However, there are some other people that do not think this is a good method to achieve the skills and goals determined.

On the one hand, a good example in favor is Nick Gibb, the Minister of Education of the United Kingdom until 2012. He was totally convinced that Synthetic Method is the best teaching learning technique.

On the other hand, Michael Rosen totally disagrees with it, supporting that the variety of words that books gives to children cannot be found on the other method.

In my opinion, as a future teacher, the correct method is discovered when you have tried and really experienced different techniques. Actually, wises of any field have experienced a lot of things before getting the final deduction. So… what if we wait till the time gives us the answer?

Is phonics the best way to teach children to read? (Debate: Nick Gibb vs Michael Rosen, different arguments)  http://www.mumsnet.com/bloggers/guest-blog-phonics-debate

Miguel Ángel García Moreno

25-09-2014