First of all, I want to start with a question: do you think that it is possible be a good poetry performance? Well, in my case, I have been thinking about it during this week and of course it is possible but it is not easy. When we were in class last week, I saw one video that made me think a lot. In the video we could see some tips to follow and could be a good poetry performance. The tips were:

• Score your poem: This means that we have to think carefully with which poem we want to work in order to highlight the words that we want to emphasize and think everything that should be related with the word, for example the gestures. If we chose easy poems will be easier for us and it doesn’t mean that it will be a bad task.

• Find you pace: It is also important think about in which poem are we going to work and decide the pauses that are better for us, because not always a line break gives you the pause. So we have to practice it many times to know which way is the best one to carry on.

• Good diction: This part it is related with the pronunciation, because as we know a good pronunciation it is very important, especially if we are working with children and in a different language. A good tip to achieve this point is avoided gobbling.

• Natural movements: If we want to performance a poem in a correct way, we should be careful with the movements that we made, because sometimes we tend to exaggerate them and it doesn’t fit. The best way is keep it simple and keep it natural.

• Natural and have fun: The last tip was that when we have all the previous steps, we just have to have fun during the performance because it is the best way to do it well.

So, what do you think after reading all the tips? Do you think that it is possible? Well, after see the video and do some activities, we worked with a poem, we performance it and I have to say that it is not as simple as it seem.

I was looking for the link with the video but I couldn’t find it, so you can start seeing the 5 tips video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cca7SRzsbBw and if I find the video that we made I will share it with you.

Enjoy it!

Yesterday I read an article at the page of “Anatarambana literatura infantil” about a book that last days was a cause of lots of controversies, the book is “Nicolás tiene dos papás” which translated into English is “Nicolás has two dads”. It is a Chilean book which, taking into account the huge sells numbers will appear in many schools, in the book we can see a very simple story of a boy who lives with his two dads, and they are a really happy family, the whole story is based in very simple sentences and images related with the pictures.

First of all I thought that the critics would focus on the idea of the family of Nicolás (of course the book received some hard critics from the religious institutions) but lots of the negative critics were based on another point, the literacy content. In the article I read the author criticizes the book not because he consider that the content was inappropriate, but just because if speaking about words, the book doesn´t offer too much, the author consider that the book is the perfect example of a book which idea of the content is quite good, but its literature value is terrible.

Is true that the history of Nicolás is a very minimalistic and poor in words creation, maybe the authors should focus not only on writing books with goods values like family values or a book that promotes respect to all the people but also it should offer some stories, some action and emotions, some relation between the different situations and words that the pupils will learn while reading the book.

My surprise and the interesting point of the article is the recommendation of another book about the same topic called ¡En familia! Written by Alexandra Maxeiner and Anke Kuhl. The difference between this book and the previous one is huge, “¡En Familia!” is also a simple book but it shows some real social situations, uses more sentences and makes the students to learn real facts about the different types of families and the differences between them.

I would like to know your opinion about this article and also to share some links about the topic with you.

Link to the online version of the book: http://www.movilh.cl/documentacion/nicolas-tiene-dos-papas.html

The article link: http://anatarambana.blogspot.com.es/2014/11/nicolas-tiene-dos-papas.html

An article that recommends another book about the different types of families: http://anatarambana.blogspot.com.es/2013/09/libro-recomendado-en-familia-de.html

Is the first time that we have the chance to work with pupils in the university, we sometimes see other groups of mates working with pupils and I have to say that I felt a little bit jealous but now we are the ones that have this challenge.

In class we were deciding which film we were going to deal with and we have had very good options as “The lord of the rings”, “The book of the jungle”, “Mary Poppins”, “Aladdin” and others. So we have to vote the ones that we liked the most and the thing was so equal between “the book of the jungle” and “Aladdin” however “Aladdin” wins. At first sight was a little bit difficult to find the didactic porpoise of this film but as the time goes by every group was thinking on the different things we could teach with this incredible film. After that we presented our topics to the rest of the mates and they told as some advices about where to place the different groups and also other topics that we can relate with the one we have chosen.

Moreover I didn´t remember the film very well so that day in the afternoon I was watching the film to see all the scenes and how funny the Gini was, the next day in my group we were all singing the songs that are displayed in the film, how anybody can remember the songs that well, but my mates did it; now I´m all the time singing it.

I would never imagine doing this at the university, but in my opinion is a very good way to practice for our future jobs, and also for being more prepared and being more involved in the task. I´m so enthusiastic, I count the days to do it and to see all of as dress up like all the characters in the film and also how you we all decorate the university. I hope you are also enjoying with this task. I would like to know what do you think about it and how do you feel?

Do you think we could adapt Disney films to explain science and other subjects to our students?

During this post I would like to tell you about an activity we did this week about some of the most manful authors in the area of the children’s literature. In this activity we made groups of three people approximately and each group had an author allocated. The whole activity consists in getting information about our author and after that presenting it in front of the rest of our mates. Honestly I have to say that I really love this kind of activities in which there is a cooperative learning involved, that is because in one part the group which is presenting is teaching and that’s a great training, and on the other hand we have the other group which is going to be not only learning but also watching their peers and getting ideas about ways of teaching and also things to improve and good points.

So the author allocated to my group was David Shannon, who is not only an author but also an illustrator, in my opinion the most incredible thing about David Shannon is the fact that he wrote his first book at the age of 5, it is called “No David!” and it is composed mostly by illustrations, the book narrates the story of a child which is scolded during the whole story with the words “No David”. An incredible fact is that the most important awards in David Shannon’s life are because of that book and the first one he wrote. The School Library Journal called the book as the Best Book of the Year, and it was on the New York Times on the Best Illustrated Book list.

I consider it is a really great author, and even more in the first steps of the children with the literature, taking into account that David Shannon’s books are based in illustration and there isn’t too much text in them, which will make the children easier to read it and understand it. Also a really interesting thing of our author that I would like to mention is a quote we found in which David says “I try to have fun when I’m making a book” and I consider that is one of the most important things to take into account but not only if speaking about books, also if speaking about teaching, I really believe that if we will try to have fun while teaching, our students will also have fun learning :).

This week in class we have had the seminar in which we have been talking about our experiences with storytelling and books, that we have read when we were little, so this has inspired me to tell you a little bit of my story and how books came to my life…; well I was not so young when I started to love reading books, I have been always a little bit lazy, so I could say that when I was little I didn’t felt so much comfortable with opening a book and started to read or just see the pictures as other child used to do.

I started to love reading when I was in fourth year of High School, the reason why I started reading more since that year was that I didn’t have any other form to scape, and the books that I read normally where the one that where mandatory to read in class; so I found a book in which the protagonist has the same problems as me. He hates mathematics, so one night he started dreaming with a devil who explains that mathematics isn’t so horrible, so I felt so close to that boy, that I continue reading. I think that I read that book at least seven times. When I felt a little bit worried about something I run to read some of this book called “The number devil”.

Another type of books that I read when I was little where comics, such as “Asterix and Obelix” ones, I always thought that this kind of books where easy to read because they have pictures instead of being plenty of words and that is what likes most of them. Another book that surprises me a lot was “Charlie and the chocolate factory”, I read it at school also and I love it, it was so creative.

After all this kind of books I started to read fantasy books, the ones in which you have to imagine all the world and all the things that the writer has describe, in this way I could imagine the story how I liked, and it was amazing, so I still reading that type because is the one I like the most.

Finally I would like to conclude saying that reading is not a thing that you must do, because is compulsory, is a thing that you should do because you like it, because you enjoy and you have fun doing it. “You know that you love reading when you find a book with the one you can’t stop reading until you finish it, you devour it”.

Language skills: Children learn new vocabulary in an indirect way by singing the song at the same time. They acquire new structures and vocabulary which are not common or usually used in daily life.

Listening skills: Children acquire the language by listening, paying attention to what they hear.

Memory and imaginative skills: This is crucial for children to imagine what they are listening or singing, they imagine the story in their own way. As well, nursery rhymes are created always with repeated structures, which is advantageous for children to keep the story in mind.

What is more, nursery rhymes are related with multiple intelligences such as the musical (rhythm and harmonic) which involves sensitivity to rhythm, tone, timber…; and the bodily- kinaesthetic intelligence because it involves a physical action. In addition, nursery rhymes are linked with phonics, phonemes to help students by repeating and reinforcing the words which contain some tricky phonemes.

On the other hand, as we have seen in class Nursery Rhymes have a double meaning such as ‘Three Blind Mice’ or ‘Mary, Mary, Quite contrary’ published in 1744. This last has a religious and historical meaning furthermore than lyrics. The known british nursery rhyme ‘Georgie Porgie’ (‘Georgie Porgie, Puddin’ and Pie, kissed the girls and made them cry, when the boys came out to play, Georgie Porgie ran away’), actually seems to mean ‘a torrid gay sex scandal which involves King Charles I’.

So with all of this I claim to say that nursery rhymes are perfect and fascinating for children to learn. But what catch my attention is that they are a good resource to learn the history of a country, or to observe the perspective towards the monarchy, society, power on those times.

Nursery rhymes are fun, so why not to start by singing them? Ending a class, or just using them for learning during a class can be so funny, children love moving, dancing, and singing, so why not to take advantage for this?

I am going to leave you some of my favourite Nursery Rhymes:

The wheels on the bus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbFrN1FL6tE

Pat-a-cake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGxMzHZ9eKw

Thank you for standing by,

References:

http://www.bidorbuy.co.za/article/5978/Advantages_of_Nursery_Rhymes_to_Little_Children