This project consisted on the creation of a twenty minutes workshop focus on one topic and with a special context, the story of Aladdin.

Firstly I am going to talk about the preparation of these kind projects. I have to said that although prepare activities for twenty minutes look very easy, we have to take into account that this activities should be significant. It means, for me it has not sense prepare activities just for spend time. Significant learning should be included. Furthermore we wanted to include the use of ICTs and it gave an extra difficulty to the preparation. The reason was that we had to take into account the level of the students and the possibility of have technical problems, such as internet problems. In addition, this preparation also included the creation of a catchy environment. For me it was the hardest and the funniest part of the project. The hardest because we created a “jaima” in the class and we had to bring a lot of very heavy material such as carpets. The funnies because, although we spent a lot of time, we enjoyed a lot the process.

Moreover the day of the workshop was very different of what I though. Improvisation is the best word to define my feelings of this day. For example, during the first performance we ran a lot to achieve the time, but suddenly we discovered that we had ten minutes more. In this time we started to include new element such a choreography that we have prepared for be done just by us. Also in other performances the time was shorter, and we had to delete some activities from our plans.

But finally the results were unbeatable. I am really proud of what we did, and also I think that I learned a lot from this experience. Now I fell that I am more prepare for the management of student, for the inclusion of literature elements in the workshops, for the control of the time of the activities and my self-confident with students has grown since this moment.

In conclusion I fell satisfied. And as this is probably my last post I will like to say good bye and mention that it was a pleasure shared my posts with all of you.

During the last Medium group session, we worked on the last literary genre: drama. The lesson was especially focused on learning different ways of promoting drama skills, as well as other competences and abilities, in educative contexts through active group games.

Instead of carrying out the lesson inside the classroom, our teacher Raquel decided to make us experience the games, so that we could put ourselves in the students’ shoes and realise how useful and fun they were. So, we went to the gym and we became kids for two hours, playing a lot!. Here I want to share with you three of the games, concretely those I liked the most:

On the one hand, the “Frozen film frames”. For developing this activity, we had to walk around the gym at the rhythm of the music. When the music was stopped, we had to remain still, representing one literary character by doing one of their typical actions (i.e: Hercules showing his biceps). Then, the teacher asked some of us who we were and what we were doing.

After playing individually for some times, we played the same game in groups. In this case, when the music was stopped, the teacher said the name of a children’s book and we had to arrange in small groups, assign a character to each person and represent one of the most important situations of the story.

Through this game, children develop drama skills (body language, improvisation, role-playing…), as well as creativity, imagination and descriptions. Furthermore, it can also be used to teach and revise subject contents, as, for example, the topic to represent could be “invertabrate animals” or “landforms”.

Seven dwarfs going to work. – Source: Raquel Fernández

On the other hand, the “Photo Album”. For this game, two people sat down in one bench and pretended that they were looking at a photo album and talked about the pictures. Meanwhile, some other students were standing up, next to them, and displayed the situations described, freezing as photographs.

Finally, the “Machine”, a very fun game to foster group union and cooperative work. It consists on creating a machine. For that, all the students make a circle and one of them stays in the centre. This kid starts to do a repetitive sound (i. e: beep – beep – beep), and then, one by one, the other students joins the machine by touching one of the members and making another different sound (i.e: brrrrrrrrbrbrbrbrbrrrrrr); until everybody is a part of the machine and all sounds sound together at the same time.

As you may imagine and I believe, all these games attract the attention of the students since the very beginning and they find them really interesting, so every teacher can use them to teach any subject content or to foster different competences and skills.

Do you know any other game for drama lessons? I am wishing to hear about them!!

Thank you for visiting!

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.

This is my fourth post, and I would like to explore a little bit the emotional outcomes of reading and writing fairytales and other stories in the classroom.

Fairytales are usually seen as something innocent, created for children by adults, with the only aim of being amusing. Sometimes, we try and go deeper into the stories, and the result is that we get to the conclusion that they also transmit values and pieces of advice. But my question is: Is it everything fairytales have to offer? My answer is a big round NO.

When the writer creates a story, and when it is a good one, all of a sudden the characters are brought to life. They have something to say, they are somebody, and the reader or the listener will connect with their emotions, feel sorry when they are sad, compassionate when they suffer, full of joy when they succeed. And all of this wouldn’t be possible without empathy.

I am sure that all of you understand this term perfectly, but just in case, let me introduce you a definition by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary , according to which, Empathy is

the feeling that you understand and share another person’s experiences and emotions : the ability to share someone else’s feelings.

Why is it important?, and how is it related to health? It is important because when we are teaching literature, or English, or whichever subject you prefer, we are also transmitting values, helping our pupils develop to their full potential, and it includes allowing them to be themselves, to build self-confidence and to be able to understand others’ needs, which is a proof of mental health.

What does it have to do with Fairytales? In fact, a lot. In order to be told or read, a tale needs to be created. And it is at that point of creation, where the pupils have to imagine their characters, and to provide them with a personality to make them deeper and catchy for the reader. Focusing on the character’s aims, dreams and hopes, fears and faults, the pupils will use  the language they know, the literary figures we have taught them, but also their own experience about life.

For example, a kid who is happy, will more likely create happy characters, and it is possible that only good things happen to them. On the other hand, if another child is going through something, it is possible that this process of creation can help him/her to externalize needs, fears, or experiences, just like they were the character’s and not theirs.

This is one reason that makes children prefer stories whose characters have something in common with them. If they go on an adventure, so are the readers. If they become friends with a vampire, suddenly it turns from a horrifying creature, to the best of companies. If they are mice who can cook, they will want to be super chefs.

And what about you? can you see any other reason to consider fairytales good for health? I am looking forward to read them!

As you may have noticed because of the topics the majority of the last posts were about, these two last weeks we have been working on one of the most important elements and resources in Children’s Literature: tales.

According to Wikipedia, tales are “generally short stories based on real or imaginary situations, inspired or not in previous writings or legends, with a simple plot protagonised by a reduced group of characters […] and that have been passed from generation to generation, both in an oral or written way”

In my previous post, I shared with you The original stories behind the tales we know, like the real Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and the Three Bears or The Lion King; and, as this past Monday we learnt about the characters that usually make up tale stories, in this post I would like to go deeply on this topic. So, here I present you the different types of characters we may find in every tale story:

-   Hero/Heroine: The character that protagonises the story, and, although in most of the stories it is a male character, due to the historic tradition of giving the man the power and strength, there are also female characters as heroines. Some examples are the Superheroes, such as Spiderman or Superman; Peter Pan, or the Disney Princesses, like Mulan or Belle.

Furthermore, one of the main characteristics of heroes is that they often move vertically, and we can notice that in the way the Superheroes climb or fly.

         Shrek (Shrek)         Source: Wikipedia

-    True Love: The character that the hero/heroine is in love with, and for whose true love he/she fights. As an example, we have Fiona, in Shrek; and, although it can be not considered a fairy tale (although I believe that every story can be transformed into a fairy tale for kids), I think that Dulcinea, the True love of Don Quixote, perfectly fits to this definition.

     Esmeralda (The Hunchback                of Notre Dame).              Source: Galleryhip

-    Villain: The character that opposes the hero, related to evil powers and wicked actions. The best examples are Disney Villains, such as Scar, Ursula or Jafar; but also there are evil prototypes in traditional tales, like the wolves, witches and stepmothers.

            Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty)                Source: Wikipedia

-     Elder: The character, usually a king or a father, who normally remains at home (sometimes disabled) or does not change so much along the story. Examples of elders are Mufasa, Rafiki , Papa Smurf or Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother.

                 Mufasa (The Lion King)                    Source: Fanpop

-    Helper: The powerful or magical character who gives advice or valuable gift to the hero/heroine and often tests them; like, for example, Tinkerbell, Cinderella fairies and Jiminy Cricket.

                 Jiminy Cricket (Pinocchio)                   Source: Wikipedia

-     Friend: The character that accompanies the hero, often belonging to lower class. In this case, I would like to emphasise that it is usually my favourite character in every tale story, and I think that also for many kids; as it is fun, loyal and a little bit crazy. Some examples are the amusing Timon and Pumba in the Lion King, or the charming Donkey in Shrek.

                 Dory (Finding Nemo)                 Source:  Pixar Wikia

-     Messenger: The character, human or not, that brings news. In case of Disney, it could be Sebastian or Hermes; and in traditional tales, the birds or royal postmen.

       Sebastian (The Little Mermaid)    Source: allfreevectors

Now, that we have learnt the character motifs, their characteristics and some examples for each one; Raquel has told us that it is our turn to create a new example for one of the motifs. I am working on this activity now, and it is really amazing, as there are plenty of possibilities to take and it could lead to crazy stories.

And, I am sure that it would be great if you also join us in this journey of being character creators, and you also make up an interesting character for a new and surprising story!! We would be glad and excited to know about them!!

Finally, I hope you all liked this post!!

Thank you for visiting! See you next week!

Those horrific stories were originally passed on orally from generation to generation until some writers, such as Perrault, Brothers Grimm or Walt Disney decided to convert the tales into books and films, making some changes until the stories evolved to the current happy tales we all know.

This is what we were learning during the last week’s medium group session, when we read two versions of Cinderella, Perrault’s and Grimm Brothers’, and compared them with the one we have watched in the Disney film. I was really impressed about the evolution of the story and the big differences among the versions; and, as I really liked discovering this, I would like to share with you the real cruel stories of some beautiful tales that we all know (I wish I do not ruin your childhood… :P).

Firstly, we can start with the innocent Little Red Riding Hood. In our version, she disobeys the advice of her mother in her way to visit her grandmother and walks slowly and entertains through the dangerous forest. Then, as the wolf is faster, he arrives earlier to grandmother’s house. He eats her, dresses up with grandma’s clothes, waits for the girl and eats her too. But a hunter discovers what happened and takes a knife to open the wolf’s abdomen; so, Caperucita and her grandmother go out of the wolf, they fill his abdomen with stones and finally the thirsty wolf goes to drink water to a lake, falls down and sinks because of his weight. However, the original version is more sadistic, as the wolf makes Little Red Riding Hood drink her grandmother’s blood before carving up and eating her. (You can find the different versions of Little Red Riding Hood here).

Goldilocks and the Three Bears is one of the most changed stories. We think that Goldilocks is a curious little girl who discovers the three bears’ house and touches some furniture and eat some soup before she sleeps in one of their beds. When the bears come, they get angry because someone has been in their house, but when they find Goldilocks in the bed, she is faster that the bears and escapes through the window before they kill or eat her; or, in other more recent versions, the bears behave well and even help her. Contrary to that, in the original version, Goldilocks was an old and hungry woman that was tortured by the bears and impaled in the spire of the bell tower. (You can find other versions of Goldilocks and The Three Bears here and here).

In case of The Lion King, the king is killed by his jealous brother and his son wants revenge. Although Rosencrantz (Timon) and Guildenstem (Pumba) try to distract him, he finally kills the jealous brother. And actually, in some versions, everyone dies.

Finally, I would like to share with you some interesting links where you can find more information about this topic: all versions of one tale, the history of the evolution of some stories; the reasons why each version was like it was depending on the social, economic, political and cultural circumstances, etc.:

• The real stories behind these Disney Movies will ruin your childhood
• The real stories behind 9 Disney Movies
• Top 10 gruesome fairy tale origins
• Children tales as they used to be (in Spanish)
• When children literature was for adults (in Spanish)
• The Real Snow white: Maria Sophia Margaretha Catharina von Erthal in Carmen’s post in this blog.