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?

In this post I want to talk about the last seminar, trying not to reveal a lot of information because there are some mates that hadn’t the seminar yet. We were working on theatre, and as we were children, we were reading in groups some parts of different levels, starting by the easier and ending with some more difficult ones. Once again we have learnt a value lesson; we have discovered that we can teach what we want using something unusual like the theatre. In this case the ecosystem of some animals.

Using scripts with children have a lot of benefits like:

• Developing the verbal expression, letting them express themselves more fluency
• Improving their corporal expression letting them being imaginative and work with their body
• Improving their creativity and imagination, because we can let them that they create their own scripts.
• Work in groups

They can make different activities with scripts like reading it all together, by dialogs and using gestures and mimic. It will be more motivating and catchy for them and as Luis Montiel, a teacher of a school said (sorry for using Spanish):

“El teatro para los niños es un complemento necesario para su formación ya que les ayuda a descubrir muchas habilidades que no saben que tienen o a veces lo saben pero les da miedo demostrarlas. Esta actividad les aporta seguridad y motivación personal”.

“La confianza que los niños van adquiriendo es lo primordial para mí, no me interesa solo que hagan una obra al final de curso, valoro que se formen como personas, que poco a poco sean capaces de valorarse a sí mismos, que pierdan el miedo a lo que digan los demás”.

What do you thing about using theatre and scripts in the schools? It is necessary or is only an entertainment? Could be a complement?

I remember when I was a child and in my school I had a teacher who was really involve on a project that she created that was related with her subject: music. But also with history, dancing and theatre! We worked during all year and at the end of the curse we went to the Paco de Lucia’s auditorium and show to the rest what we were working on! We were dressed up and acted. Maybe it is no necessary that, but I’m sure that working with scripts and theatre we can achieve great things. These years with this teacher were ones of the best of my school because we were motivated all the year and we wanted to impress the rest of the school and parents that could come with use.

When we say poetry, we always think in Shakespeare, love sonnets and old things like that, but poetry is more than these things, how to involve our students in this “complicated” world? Because it is true that for our students (especially if they are in their first primary years) can be difficult create their own poems, so, how can we help and motivate them to do it?

I have been investigating on internet and I have found some ideas that I would want to share with you, because as a future teachers I think they could work really good, here I am going to let some web pages that for me are interesting:

http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/tips-teaching-poetry

About this page, I have to say that I don’t really like the first part of reading, because the ideas that use are basically about reading, memorizing, reading and memorizing, that are things that in my opinion are not really good to motivate our students (in my opinion, and as a student that had to memorize some poems, it is frustrating and bored). But, the second part of the page, “other activities” I think that is a great idea create a newspaper where children can express themselves and write their thoughts and feelings and you motivate them to work hard because is something that other people are going to read! It has a lot of alternatives really catchy for them, like visiting a place where people recite poems, or record themselves to see how they read poems. I really love these ideas.

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/poetry-teaching-tips-new-teachers-lisa-dabbs

This second page, for me, is very interesting, because describe short and simple activities that you can make with your students, and I am sure that they will enjoy it. For example I remember in the school that we create one shape poem, and I enjoyed it a lot. Another one that I found amazing is the one using music. Could you imagine something better than read your favorite song as you were a poet? I can’t!

I have been reading about haikus too, I let here a page explaining a little bit what haikus are and some examples, and I think that could be a good resource to use in our classes, because are simple poems in some cases a bit funny, so they could create their own haikus (for example, each student write a short line, and then the teacher mix the sentences and read one by one randomly, creating crazies haikus) I am sure that children will laugh a lot with the results, and they learn another kind of poems from other country.

http://www.tallerdeescritores.com/ejemplos-de-haiku.php

And that is all for today! I hope that you like this post, and give you some ideas to help children with poetry!

When I was a child, my favorite book was the little mermaid, so I was reading about the original story of this book:

At the beginning, it is more or less the same story, “once upon a time, there as a mermaid who lived under the sea…she want to be human because she felt in love of a prince who lives in the land. So she decided to go to see the witch of the sea to ask for help”.
The first different thing is that the witch doesn’t steal her voice, she cuts her tongue! And when the mermaid starts walking, she fells a terrible pain in her feet, like if someone were stabbing her with a dagger. The advertisement that the bad witch gives to the mermaid is that if she gets that the prince loves her more than he loves his parents, she will be able to stay with him forever, but if he got married with another girl, she will die and she will convert into sea foam.

She, meet the prince, and he falls in love because she is very beautiful and lovely, but his parents tell them that he is a prince, so he as to got married with a princess. So he meet a neighbor princess and after a short period of time, they got married and the poor mermaid cry and cry knowing that it was her end. But the witch gives her another opportunity to save herself and tell her that if she kills the prince and wash his feet on his blood, she will save her life, but the little mermaid is really in love of the prince, she can’t kill him so she returns to the water and die.

Finally she is compel to be 300 years making good actions.

What do you think about this story? I let you here a link where you can found another examples of the traditional book and the original stories.

http://lapiedradesisifo.com/2013/07/30/la-verdadera-historia-de-las-pel%C3%ADculas-de-disney/

Y was reflecting about why this changes along the time and why Walt Disney created the sweetest versions and maybe he wanted to protect the children of the bad and cruel things of the world to they have a better childhood…what do you think about that, do you think that they don’t know the real world and only fairy stories?

When we read a book, we normally know only things about the book, I mean, after reading  them we know the story with an introduction a main body and a final (that can be happy or sad), the characters, the places, the actions…but what about behind the book? Are more beyond?
Yes of course, and this is a parallel story that we usually forget and sometimes is more interesting that the real one and it can make that we understand better a book.

For example, in my case and in the case of Carolina’s group I discovered that our authors use rhymes because when they were children their mothers read or told them rhymes and poems and they kept it in mind after years and years and finally they created their own books with rhymes.
This discovery made me think about the first post that I did and how much important are our firsts steps when we start reading or writing even don’t remembering them really clear and how these things left a mark on us forever.

Some stories were really related with the life of the writers as the case of Matilda, that represent the scholar life of the author and some things that probably shock him (as the rude teacher that he had), or the group of Azu where the writer was the protagonist of the books “Arthur”, and another characters represented was his best friend and the girl that he liked when he was in the school.

But probably the thing that impresses me the most was in the group of Susana, when she told that her author wrote his first book when he was 5 …can you imagine that one of your firsts writings was award and published? Unbelievable, isn’t it?!

Well, I hope that you have enjoyed this post and I would like read here your comments about what you liked the most about other books and your impressions of the different author.

Thank you for reading!

Some days ago with Raquel, we were working on our memories about how we learnt or started reading, which books were important for us in our lives, which didn’t and why.
It was an ‘emotive’ and great lesson, I enjoyed it a lot and for this reason I want to show you my ‘travel trough the reading’ and I’m going to explain a little bit about it.

I have to say, that I don’t really remember how I started reading, but the memories that I have about that are related with my mother reading for me in the bed, before sleeping. Before that I didn’t like read a lot, maybe because of the bad books that we had to read at school, they were horrible! But one day, I was with my parents in my aunt’s house and I was really bored, but something changed, my aunt gave me a book called ‘Asesinato en el Canadian Express’, a book with a lot of mystery that involved me in a great adventure full of intrigue and in this moment I started to love reading.

When I was in the high school I had a similar feeling like at the school…all books were horrible, when we had to read a new book was like a pain, but one year we had to read a book called ‘Pupila de Ágila’ that I enjoyed a lot, and made me think a lot about the life.

The next step of my adventure that I consider very important was when I say my mother reading compulsively a book, (I have to say that my mother doesn’t like read a lot), she ‘devoured’ it! So it made me feel that I needed to know what it was about. When she finished reading some pages of the book, she told me little things about what was happening in the story and that made feel that I needed read that interested book. Finally I stole it and I devoured it too. It’s called ‘El clan del oso cavernario’ and I consider it so important, because for me, this book was a big book, one that adults read, so I was adult too.

In general, the books that I liked the most were about fantasy, like ‘memorias de idhun’, one that I remember with a lot of affection, a story about goods, unicorns, dragons, war…

Finally now a days, in the university I read some books that I didn’t like a lot but they have make me think and I considered necessaries to be a good teacher and to help myself in this way. One that I remember that surprised me pleasantly was ‘Lo que hacen los mejores profesores universitarios’ by Kein Bain. It was a very interesting book in spite of not being the typical kind of books that I use to read. It was about what things should/shouldn’t do the teachers in their classes, and what strategies, activities and keys should follow a teacher to be a great one. In my opinion it is a book that all teachers should read at least once in their lives.

It has been a great walk through my life that showed me how much it has changed along the time, how my tastes have been changing, how I have been growing up, and my books with me.
Now a day I don’t have a defined kind of books, I like different types and my mine is open (even loving romance stories, because I’ m a girl and we love that ‘silly things’ ;)) and I’m sure that my walk will be growing more and more.