Using drama in class!

Hello partners!

Today I would like to talk you about what we did last Thursday in class.

We were learning how to use drama with children. To learn about it we did different activities because the best way to apply something with children is to apply it to us first.

To start with we were walking around the class listening to music and thinking about a character. When the music stopped we should get frozen imitating the character and explain who we were and what we were doing.

Later, we went up to the stage. We looked to the public and we told them our name and what we liked to do during our free time. For example I told them: "Hello my name is Ester and I love to play with Alberto to play station".

Also we played something similiar to rock, paper, scissors. It was called giants, gnomes and wizards. Giants won wizards, wizards won gnomes and gnomes won giants. Raquel said 1, 2 and 3 and we had to do one of them.

Additionally, we were divided in two groups of four people. We did a silent theatre in which each one had to add something to the story, I mean, each one did an action and next one did what the partner did and to add another one. The other group had to guess and explain what had been done. In addition we did a different kind of theatre in which three of us had to play some roles and the other partners through questions had to guess what was happening and which roles we had.

Later on, we did a circle in which we told a story saying a word each one. It was silly at the beginning but later it was really funny. Also we tryed to talk with our partners following an order. The order was to start the sentences using a letter from the alphabet. For me, it has been really difficult.

Finally, to end up the class, we have been doing imitations of famous people. One of us was the person and another one was the arms of this person. In my case I was Duchess of Alba and Alberto was my arms. It was really funny, because the rest of the partners ask us some questions and we had to answer them.

I really enjoyed this lesson and I think it is very useful. I hope you like these activities and you will use them in class  :)

Ester ^_^

Workshop

Hello everybody! :)

My post of these two weeks is dedicated to the workshops we did last Tuesday with children from the school Daoiz y Velarde.

The class was divided in different groups and we had to create a workshop (different in each group) related with a famous fairy tale. The main objectives we had were: to let children know about the story and to let them retell the story.

The different workshops were: Aladdin, Snow White, Hercules, Alice in wonderworld, Three Little Pigs and Cinderella. I belonged to the last one, so I am going to tell you what we did.

First of all I want you to know who were my partners: Alberto S., Alberto Z., Edu, Rebeca, Nuria, Lenka, Martina and Tatiana.

As you can see in the picture Alberto S. is missed. He is not in the picture because he was our fairy. Each group had a person who was in charge of a group of children. His job was to care children, to go with them to each workshop and to help them if they need somthing.

Now you know my partners I am going to tell you what we did.

To develop the activity we crated 5 books like this one.

In each book children can find the story of Cinderella but with some changes. For example, Cinderella didn't lose a shoe but a trainer.

We decided to create only 5 books because as children were in groups of 9/10 ,in this way, children could be in couples with 1 or 2 of us.

Along the activity children had to read the book with us and find the mistakes. Additionally we gave them some pictures that they had to put in the correct place. For example, if in one parragraph the book is talking about the Fairy God Mother obviously the picture children had to locate was the one that talked about her.

After that we wanted to do with them another activity. The activity was about frozen frames. We wanted children to do a frozen frame with the part they liked the most. But, unfortunatelly, we had no enough time so we didn't do it.

Finally, we gave each child a medal. It had a picture of Cinderella and it was written well done.

If you want to know more about another workshops you can visit Alberto Salcedo's blog because we has posted about the workshops he saw as a fairy. Here I writeyou the link where you can read it:
http://whatsalbertothinking.blogspot.com.es/2013/11/i-can-tell-it.html

I hope you have liked my post,

Ester ^_^

Library Project

This post has been written by Alberto Salcedo and me.

We want to talk you about the library project we developed some weeks ago in Raquel's class.

Our library (the object) is not bought neither made of wood, it is painted in continuous paper with pencils. The library has three levels in wich children can find their books.

The books that we have in our library are not real ones, we mean, we don't have physically the books in class. The thing is that children have to read a book that they have at home, then they have to do in a drawing in a paper in wich they can show what is the book about and if they like it or not. This paper, that we call curler, will be posted in the library using velcro. After that, children have to take one curler and see the picture, if they like it they have to ask for the book to the partner that has done the drawing. Next day children give the books to the partner that has asked for it and they read it. This process will be done as many times as children want, because we want to engage children reading not to transform it in a compulsory activity.

So, as you can see, the budget we need to create our own library is really cheap, because we only need to buy velcro to post the curler into the library and it costs about 5 €, due to it is thought that the rest of the materials (continuous paper, pencils and papers) can be found in the school.

To carry out this project we also need one person in charge of the library. The work of this person is to collect in a notebook the people that take books, when they do it and when they bring them back to the class. This in charge changes along the year, it is always a student, one week per each.

We have thought not only about having a library in our class, we think it is a wonderful idea to have one in all classes. If we do it children will visit the rest of the classes to see their libraries, their books and to exchange curlers with partners of other classes. That would be a good activity to work on Literature but also in values, for example the values of: sharing, caring, communication and companionship.

Finally, we want you to have clear that this kind of library can be developed in any age. However, we have to change the content of the curler. The older they are, the more information the curler should contains. For example, they could make a short description about the book or the protagonist or whatever they want to transmit.

We hope you like our project :)

Ester and Alberto ^_^

Different versions of a story

Hello everybody!

Today I want to talk in my blog about the different versions that exist about an story. For example, in class, we were talking about "Cinderella", which story changes if you read Grimm's version or if you read Perrault's versions.

Perhaps, if I ask you to close your eyes and to think about "Cinderella" story you will have another version in your mind, you will see Disney movie version.

In this version you can see first of all the two mice (Gus and Jaq) that are always helping Cinderella...

 Then you will think about Cinderella, who is showed like a housemaid that only work to her stepsisters and to her stepmother...

And obviously, automatically you will think about the stepsisters (Drizella and Anastasia) and the stepmother (Lady Tramaine)...

Later on, you will think about the moment in which the royal messenger goes to Cinderella's house and give them an invitation to the royal ball. In this moment, the stepsisters, the stepmother and Cinderella start to create their dresses...

As all of us know, Drizella and Anastasia hated Cinderella because of her beauty, so they decided to break Cinderella's dress...

Once they broke the dress, Drizella and Anastasia went to the royal ball with their mother, but...they don't know that while they are going to the royal ball Cinderella is with her fairy Godmother, who was helping her to be really pretty to attend to the royal ball...

Thanks of the help of the fairy Godmother, Cinderella went to the royal ball, she met the prince, they danced together and they felt in love. However...not all was as beautiful as it seems. Cinderella had to go at home at 12 pm, so she had to run. While she was running she lost one of her glass shoes...

As the prince felt in love with her, he ordered to the royal buttler going house by house to find the misterious girl that was dancing with him. All the girls wanted to be the chosen.

The shoe was broken but as Cinderella had the other one there was no problem...

Finally, she was the chosen one, and Cinderella got married with the prince and they lived happily ever after.

I hope more or less this is the story that you have in your minds. But, as I told you at the beginning of this post, there are many versions of Cinderella's story. All of these versions have more or less the same strucutre but they have some differencies. Two of these versions are Grimm and Perrault's version: 

Grimm	Perrault
-The ball lasts 3 days.	-The ball lasts 2 days.
-Cinderella has a bad relationship with her stepsisters.	-Cinderella has a better relationship with her stepsisters.
-This version is really hard, it is not focused for children.	-It is focused for children.

If you want to know more about these two versions you can find them easily on the Internet :)

I hope you have enjoyed reading my post,

Ester ^_^

Jazz Chant

Does any of you think that children can learn succesfully through music?
Perhaps your answer is NO, but I have to tell you YES, it is possible.

One of the seven multiple intelligences that coexist is music/rhythmic intelligence, in which we can use a lot of resources. The one that I want you to learn is Jazz Chant.

That consist on creating a rhythm using our hands, making noises with objects or whatever. Then children start singing what they are reading on their books or sheets, in this way they will learn something while they are enjoying with the lesson.

Perhaps the theory doesn`t sound very well, so let's see the example I did in class with my group. We chose the subject of Science to develop the activity, because Science sometimes is a hard subject. The topic that we chose was livestock farming. Unfortunatly I don`t have the video of our representation, however I can show you the lyrics of our jazz chant and you can try to sing it inventing your own rhythm.

"What do we do in a livestock faming?
We breed,
we look after
and we sell domestic animals.

What do we find in a livestock farming?
We find sheeps,
we find goats,
we find chickens, cows and pigs, pigs, pigs.

What can we get from all these animals?
We get meat,
we get wool,
we get mil, leather and eggs, eggs, eggs."

I hope you liked my post and you want to create jazz chants in class to make your students enjoy while learning.

Ester ^_^

Nursery rhymes

Last Wednesday in class we learnt something that all of us know but any of us knew how to use it in class. I am talking about nursery rhymes.

Nursery rhymes are also called Mother Goose rhymes. They were created during the 14th century and were used to hide political subversive messages. Along the centuries they lost their original meaning changing to inocent children's songs.

Since 17th, 18th and 19th centuries they have been very popular. We can find different types of nursery rhymes: lullabies, counting or alphabet, riddles and historical events and culture.

In summary, I have to say that nursery rhymes are songs that can be used in class to teach children something with a short song. In this way, children can learn it in an easy way. Usually through this songs children learn some specific vocabulary.







Here I would like to add a video of a nursery rhyme that Raquel showed us in class.















Finally, I also would like you to see my group singing a nursery rhyme in class.








Best wishes,

Ester ^_^

Hello partners !

Perhaps you are asking yourself about the meaning of my blogg's name and if not...I am so sorry but I am going to explain it because it has a very beautiful story behind.

My name in blogger is Ester silvertongue. Silvertongue comes from a book that I love a lot. The name of the book is "Inkheart".

This book was written by Cornelia Funke, who combined the magic of books and the stressful real life. It was written for children and teenagers.

Also exists the movie version of the book, but as it is said: the book is better than the movie, although I have to say that the movie is very close to the book.

So, I recommend all of you to read this book because it is going to make you enjoy a lot :)

Best wishes, 

Ester ^_^