June Intensive Course - Update - Inglés en Madrid con niños de infantil

Hola a todos!

Un pequeño post sobre lo que estamos haciendo, yo y mis brillantes alumnos de 1º y 2º de infantil, en un colegio de Madrid, durante este mes de junio.

Hemos hecho muchas preguntas: What's your name? What's your brother/sister/ mother/father/granny/grandfather's name? What day is it today? What's the weather like? Where do you live? How old are you?

Seguimos con las canciones: hasta ahora hemos leído, cantado, bailado y jugado con The Wheels on the Bus, We're Going on a Bear Hunt y Five Little Monkeys.

We're Going On A Bear Hunt.avi

The Wheels On The Bus Action Song

Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed - Original Song

Después hemos visto varios animales de la selva: bear, crocodile, lion, bird, giraffe, zebra, elephant, hippo.

Hemos jugado a Good Afternoon Mr Jones, para aprender esta palabra' afternoon' súper complicada :o)

También hemos jugado a What's the time Mr Wolf? para repasar números y animales ( se dan ciertos números de pasos según el animal elegido) y I can see, I can see…(a red bird) …across the sea, un juego donde se necesitan a captain/pirate y a shark más flashcards (o dibujos), que resulta muy útil para empezar a poner adjetivos delante de los sustantivos.

También hemos explorado las emociones haciendo muecas y por fin…pintado!

Hemos pintado palabras que empiezan por J (jump, jellyfish, jet, juice), K (kite, king, kitten), L (leaf, lemon, lorry, lion, Lollipop) M (mitten, milk, moon, monkey) y P (penguin, pie, pig, pencil). Las hemos revisado cada día con juegos y adivinanzas.

En fin, mucho trabajo! Y mucha diversión!

..............................................

Hi everyone!

This is a little post about my June Intensive Course. I'll tell you what my young students and I  have been up to over these past 2 weeks of English classes.

First we've been asking and answering several questions: What's your name? What's your brother/sister/ mother/father/granny/grandfather's name? What day is it today? What's the weather like? Where do you live? How old are you?

Then we've been singing along to these songs:

We're Going On A Bear Hunt.avi

The Wheels On The Bus Action Song

Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed - Original Song

We've been doing many activities to learn them such as reading their books, playing musical chair, musical statue and listening to them during painting time.

We've also seen the words for many wild animals, such as bear, crocodile, lion, bird, giraffe, zebra, elephant, hippo.

We've played 'Good Afternoon Mr Jones' to learn this word 'afternoon' that seems a little tricky to pronounce. 

We've played What's the Time Mr Wolf?' to review the numbers and animals, (every turn we pretend to be an animal, and we walk and produce strange sounds).

We've played I Can See, I Can See… ( a red bird) …Across the Sea, a game that needs a captain/pirate and a shark, to learn that in English adjectives go before nouns. 

We've played Cops and Robbers and Bump the Color, also.

We've explored our emotions by pulling faces and finally… We colored!!!

We painted words that start with J (jump, jellyfish, jet, juice), K (kite, king, kitten), L (leaf, lemon, lorry, lion, Lollipop) M (mitten, milk, moon, monkey) and  P (penguin, pie, pig, pencil).

We've been reviewing them every day through quiz games.

Actually, a lot of work, but also a lot of fun!

CHILDREN SEE. CHILDREN DO. Make your influence positive!

What's education and why is so important?


Our little students are the future.


Keep it in mind and be aware of the influence you have over them.


More Ideas
Rules and Social Skills Development

In the Fridge…There is Food!!!

You have already taught a lot of food vocabulary and now the moment to use it in some sentences has arrived.

Here's a simple but practical craft to improve your students' speaking skills.

Cut out the mock fridge from a cardboard. You can prepare a big one, visible to all your students or make them build their own.

They can draw food items or choose them from supermarket ads; cut them out and stick them inside the fridge. 

If you have a class of less than 10 students, they can, one by one, tell what there is/are in the fridge. 

If your class is bigger you can call out 3 or 4 students everyday to tell in front of the others what there is/ are in the fridge. 

Or make them stick things in the fridge as you call them out. 

The number of possibilities is as big as your imagination. 

Just make sure that everyone has his own scissors, glue and crayons.

VOCABULARY YOU CAN USE:

- There is / There are

- There isn't / There aren't

- Some / Any

- Much / Many / A Lot of / Lots of

- Slices / Pieces / Loaf - Loaves

- Bowls / Jars /  Packs / Bottles / Tupperware / Ice-cubeTrays / Cups / etc.

- Tins / Cans

More Activities:
Gingerbread People
Pot Labels
Action Comecoco

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🌟 ¡Learning English doesn’t simply mean filling in the blanks! 🇬🇧✨

Many English as a Second Language (ESL) activities rely solely on “fill-in-the-blank” exercises ✏️… but the real goal should be to help children speak, understand, and use English naturally. 🗣️💬

🎨 Learning by doing makes it much easier, more fun, and more motivating!

And you’ll be surprised at how quickly children can start achieving real results. 🌈🚀

📚 If you’re looking for creative and engaging activities to make English learning more dynamic, check out my online store! 🛍️💕

👉 ESL Children's Worksheets

✨ Learn, play, speak, and grow! ❤️

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

📍Do you struggle with a challenging class, where many of your students get distracted and their academic performance doesn’t reflect all the effort you put into preparing and teaching your lessons? 

📍Does this situation frustrate you, and would you like your students to learn more while enjoying the process? 

👉Something similar happened to me during my elementary teaching internship, and in my latest book, Pygmalion in the Classroom: A Real Experience—based on my senior thesis and my internship at a primary school in Madrid—I’ll tell you how we managed to turn things around and achieve resounding success! 

Don’t miss it! 

Available in digital and print formats on Amazon in every country, and on the major e-book platforms.

Tiny garden - Pot labels

Do you have a little garden in your school?

So why don't allow your pupils to grow flowers and vegetables in it?

Even if you don't have space, and the only area you can use is the windowsill, few pots and a selection of seeds might improve the enthusiasm of those young learners.

Plants like radishes and lettuce grow very fast. Your students will be able to collect them after few weeks, with great satisfaction. 

Slower plants like charts, strawberries or tomatoes, otherwise, can teach them that there is the right time for everything. 

Decorate the pots with labels to remember which plant is in it and how to take care of its life. It could be a craft activity to teach them new vocabulary.

You can also teach 'responsibility' handing tasks out to each one (or to each group if they are very young).

Tiny Garden - Pot Labels

An example of simple labels that your kids can easily make. 

Cover them with a plastic film so you can avoid that water damages the drawings and the paper.

GARDEN SCRAPBOOK

This activity is suitable both if your school or house has a garden or even a little park in front of them. It consists of drawing or taking pictures of a part of the green area during the different seasons to observe how they change depending on the weather. 

Your kids can put leaves and flowers in it. You can provide them a seed catalogue, so that they can cut out pictures of the plants their seeds are going to grow into. 

They can draw, cut out and label every kind of wildlife they see. It will make the work even more exciting!

Here, an example!

These activities, apart from keeping the task of learning a little bit more participatory, also raise their awareness about the environment all around. That's the first very important step towards growing up to be sensitive human beings.

More 'green' stuff: THE LORAX by Dr Seuss
TINY GARDEN AND THE ERBARIUM

Magnetic Moments!!!©

Here we are!!!
Another trick to get your students involved in learning English.
You can do it by yourself, buying:
"stacks" (little squared magnets) at the newsagent's and white sticker paper, so you'll be able to draw, colour and write on it.

Game example:
These Magnetic Cards could be used for many different classic games: Dominoes, Bingo, Memory, or, simpler, throwing the matching pair at the magnetic board from a certain distance (my students, currently do it with their "staks" of Star Wars).

It’s a MODULAR GAME, rechargeable like ‘Trivial Pursuit’, for example.
You ‘buy’ the first box with the base and one or two subjects,
then when you need another one because you’re explaining it in class,
you can buy the "recharge" that contains Cards dealing with the subject you need only.

Subject Areas:
Clothes, Body parts,
Seasons and weather,
Days, months, holidays,
Sports, Professions,
House - furniture,
City, Telling time,
Park, The classroom, Animals, Verbs, everyday routine, Food and Drink, Colours, Adjectives (opposites) Verbs.

Functions:
Combine words with their
correspondent pictures.

Combine present tense with past tense.

Connect verbs with subjects, or objects,
words with definitions.

LITTLE BLUE and LITTLE YELLOW by Leo Lionni

Little blue and little yellow share wonderful adventures. One day, they can't find one another. When they finally meet, they are overjoyed. They hug until they become green. As a single green shape, they play and then go, first to Little Blue's house and then to Little Yellow's only to be rejected and unrecognized.

When you read this passage try to emphasize the dialogs between the colorful parents and the green ball!!!
You will notice all the eyes of your pupils gazing at you with a mixing of suffer and curiosity, it's great!!!

In the link below you can find a downloadable pdf with some activities concerning the tale:
http://teacher.scholastic.com/lessonrepro/lessonplans/profbooks/blueyellow.pdf

Lucy dedicates a lot of time and love to thinking about and writing the posts she shares with all of you. Because she believes that a better teaching is the key for a better future. If you find any help, value or joy in this blog, please consider becoming a supporting reader. A donation, in any amount, will be gratefully accepted. 

                                                   

Numbers and balls

This morning my students had a review of numbers.

I brought a yellow ball in class, I moved all the desks to create a space where they could stay in a circle and I threw the ball to one of them shouting 3!!!

The first part of the game was quite simple, they have to throw the ball to a classmate shouting the numbers in ascending order.

When they got bored I complicated the game in many different ways:

Tell the numbers in a descending order

or

Add 2 (or 3, 4, 5...) to the number you've just said trowing the ball

or

Subtract 2 (or 3, 4, 5...)

or

Don't say the numbers that contain 3 or 4 or 5 etc...

The game is quite useful because apart from using numbers, they'll improve their knowledge of multiplication table and mathematical calculations as well.

Where is the playground?!?©

Where is the Playground?!?!?©

Ok, I discovered that my 8 year old spanish pupils have a problem with left and right.

So, today, I started the class making them raise their left hands than the rights.

Finally I told them to fold their left sleeves (to have a visual reference).

The second step was explaining them how to turn left or right (it's not obvious for them).

Finally we played Simon Says with this (now easy) 4 commands:

Go down 1st (or 2nd...) street

Turn right

Turn left

Go on

Stop

Where is the Playground?!?!?©

This is a game to experiment street directions, let your pupils interact to acquire language skills and practice useful English.

Use the space between the lines of desks as streets (1st Street, 2nd Street, etc...) and write on the blackboard some easy street directions:

- Go down 1st Street, 2nd...
- Go on
- At the 1st, 2nd desk..
- Turn left
- Turn right
- Go straight on

Call on one of them and start asking him where one of his classmate 'lives' and..

Start the game!!!

P.S. Call first one of your best students:

the fact he'll be right will encourage the others on taking part in the performance.

More Activities:

In the Fridge and Tiny Garden

Shapes+Material!!!©

Subject Areas:
Clothes, Furniture,
Materials, Seasons, Rooms.
Language Items:
What is your belt made of?
It’s made of leather/ fabric/ etc.
What are the shoes made of?
They are made of ...
What is the table made of?
It’s made of wood/ plastic/ etc.
What are the curtains made of?
They are made of...

“Is your cap made of silver?”
“Yes, it is”
“No, it isn’t”
N.B. Combinations Material-Furniture/Clothes
made by kids could be really bizarre.

'When do you usually wear a scarf?'
'In which room of your house can you find a sofa?'
'What is it made of?'

Functions:
A visual (and tactile) experience of different materials their world is made of, and talk about it.

Combine seasons with clothes and materials,
Furniture with rooms and materials.

Answer yes or no questions.

More Activities:

In the Fridge and Tiny Garden

Shapes+Material!!!©_Game example:

The proposal of the game is make students learn the different kinds of material, so I prepared some pre cut outlines images of kids bedroom’s furniture. And I gave to each one a small book with the drawings of the furniture. Then I prepared a table of materials, and I brought in class some sheets and yarns. So they trace out on the sheets the furniture they have in their bedrooms with the help of the outlines and stick the images on their books.

When they finish their activity of cut and stick, you can call every one to the blackboard with the book to describe the furniture they completed with the help of the table of materials.

Shapes + Material!!! Possible Book/Activities pages©

🍪 Fun in the Kitchen with Gingerbread People

Who belongs to the Gingerbread Family? What are they wearing? What are their clothes made of? And, most importantly, what yummy ingredients can we use to decorate them?

Let's create our very own Gingerbread Family Tree and have fun describing people, clothes, colours and food in English!

🎯 Subject Areas

Food and sweets
Body parts
Clothes
Family members and family tree

🗣️ Language Focus

Let's describe our gingerbread characters!

GINGER DADDY

He's wearing a pair of striped trousers.
He's got a white belt made of pink icing.
His buttons are made of chocolate.

GINGER MUMMY

She's wearing a long, colourful dress.
She's got two purple chocolate buttons.
She's wearing a white icing belt.

GINGER DAUGHTER & GINGER SON

What is Ginger Daughter wearing?
What colour is her skirt?
Is Ginger Son wearing a pair of shorts or trousers?
What is his mouth made of?
Are their buttons made of sweets or chocolate?

Encourage children to use their imagination and come up with their own delicious designs!

💬 Communication Goals

By the end of the activity, children will be able to:

Describe people and their appearance.
Ask and answer questions about clothes and colours.
Name different sweets, candies and food ingredients.
Talk about family members.
Listen to and understand the story of The Gingerbread Man.

🎨 Let's Make a Gingerbread Family Tree!

Ready for some sweet creativity? Here's how to set up the activity!

1. Meet the Gingerbread Family

Give each child paper templates of gingerbread men, women and children. Explain that they are going to create their very own Gingerbread Family Tree!

2. Choose your ingredients!

Prepare a list of ingredients and sweets that can be used to decorate the gingerbread characters. Think icing, chocolate buttons, colourful candies, sprinkles, jelly beans and much more!

3. Let's decorate!

Draw the different ingredients on the blackboard so children can copy them and use them to decorate their gingerbread characters.

4. Time to talk!

Invite children to show their Gingerbread Family Tree to the class. Ask each child to describe one or two family members.

You can ask questions such as:

Who is this?
What is he/she wearing?
What colour is his/her skirt?
What are his/her buttons made of?
Has he/she got a chocolate mouth?

Let the children ask questions, too!

❤️ A sweet little challenge!

Can your pupils introduce their whole Gingerbread Family in English?

Let's see how creative (and delicious!) their families can be!

👉More activities about the gingerbread man

In the Fridge and Tiny Garden
Body parts Cootie Catcher

🌟 ¡Learning English doesn’t simply mean filling in the blanks!✨

Many English as a Second Language (ESL) activities rely solely on “fill-in-the-blank” exercises ✏️… but the real goal should be to help children speak, understand, and use English naturally. 🗣️💬

🎨 Learning by doing makes it much easier, more fun, and more motivating!

And you’ll be surprised at how quickly children can start achieving real results. 🌈🚀

📚 If you’re looking for creative and engaging activities to make English learning more dynamic, check out my online store! 🛍️💕

👉 ESL Children's Worksheets

✨ Learn, play, speak, and grow! ❤️

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

📍Do you struggle with a challenging class, where many of your students get distracted and their academic performance doesn’t reflect all the effort you put into preparing and teaching your lessons? 

📍Does this situation frustrate you, and would you like your students to learn more while enjoying the process? 

👉Something similar happened to me during my elementary teaching internship, and in my latest book, Pygmalion in the Classroom: A Real Experience—based on my senior thesis and my internship at a primary school in Madrid—I’ll tell you how we managed to turn things around and achieve resounding success! 

Don’t miss it! 

Available in digital and print formats on Amazon in every country, and on the major e-book platforms.

🍪Let's Bake Gingerbread Cookies! Easy Christmas Baking Activity for Kids

Ready for some Christmas baking fun? Here's a lovely recipe to make delicious Gingerbread Cookies together with your little ones!

Put on your aprons, get your ingredients ready and let the fun begin!

A little reminder: Always ask a grown-up helper to supervise you when using the oven or handling hot ingredients.

🥣 Ingredients

• 50g butter or hard block margarine

• 50g golden caster sugar

• 100g golden syrup

• 1 heaped teaspoon ground ginger

• 200g self-raising flour

🍬 Time to Decorate!

Get creative with your favourite toppings!

• Icing pens

• Chocolate buttons

• Almonds

• Desiccated coconut

• Hazelnuts

👩‍🍳 Let's Get Baking!

1. Get the oven ready!

Ask your grown-up helper to preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F / Gas Mark 4.

2. Melt and mix.

Put the butter, sugar and golden syrup into a saucepan. Heat gently until the sugar has dissolved. Be careful not to let the mixture boil!

3. Make the dough.

Remove the saucepan from the heat. Add the flour and ground ginger, stirring until you get a smooth, firm and manageable dough.

4. Let it cool.

Transfer the dough to a bowl and leave it to cool for about 30 minutes.

5. Prepare your baking tray.

Meanwhile, lightly grease a baking tray or line it with baking paper.

6. Roll it out!

Sprinkle a little flour onto your work surface. Roll out the cooled dough until it is about ½ cm thick.

7. Cut out your gingerbread people!

Use your favourite cookie cutters to cut out gingerbread men, stars, hearts or any other fun shapes.

No cookie cutters? No problem! You can make your own cardboard templates and carefully cut around them.

Gently lift your biscuits with a palette knife and place them on the prepared baking tray.

8. Into the oven!

Ask your grown-up helper to bake your biscuits for about 10 minutes, until they are golden and slightly risen.

9. Cool them down.

Remove the tray from the oven and leave the biscuits to cool on the tray for 5 minutes. Then carefully transfer them to a cooling rack.

🎨 The Best Part: Decorating Time!

Once your gingerbread cookies are completely cool, let your imagination run wild!

Use icing pens, chocolate buttons, almonds, coconut and hazelnuts to give each gingerbread character its own personality.

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🍪 And now...Let's Work with the recipe at school!
Here are some fun and easy ideas to turn this recipe into engaging English activities!

1. Put the Steps in Order! – Cut out the recipe instructions and put them in the correct order.

2. Read & Draw! – Read each step and draw what happens. Create a six-picture recipe storyboard.

3. Ingredients Detective! – Read the recipe and find all the ingredients. Match each one to its picture.

4. True or False? – Read some sentences about the recipe and decide whether they are true or false.

5. What Comes Next? – Read a step and choose or describe what happens next.

6. Recipe Vocabulary – Match cooking verbs to pictures: melt, mix, stir, roll, cut, bake and decorate.

7. Let's Retell the Recipe! – Use the pictures to explain how to make Gingerbread Cookies, using First, Then, Next, After that and Finally.

............................................................................................................................

Will you make a Gingerbread Daddy, a Gingerbread Mummy or a whole Gingerbread Family?

Be creative, be careful and, most importantly, have fun!

Happy baking! ❤️

More posts about the Gingerbread man here, here and here

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

🌟 ¡Learning English doesn’t simply mean filling in the blanks! 🇬🇧✨

Many English as a Second Language (ESL) activities rely solely on “fill-in-the-blank” exercises ✏️… but the real goal should be to help children speak, understand, and use English naturally. 🗣️💬

🎨 Learning by doing makes it much easier, more fun, and more motivating!

And you’ll be surprised at how quickly children can start achieving real results. 🌈🚀

📚 If you’re looking for creative and engaging activities to make English learning more dynamic, check out my online store! 🛍️💕

👉 ESL Children's Worksheets

✨ Learn, play, speak, and grow! ❤️

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

📍Do you struggle with a challenging class, where many of your students get distracted and their academic performance doesn’t reflect all the effort you put into preparing and teaching your lessons? 

📍Does this situation frustrate you, and would you like your students to learn more while enjoying the process? 

👉Something similar happened to me during my elementary teaching internship, and in my latest book, Pygmalion in the Classroom: A Real Experience—based on my senior thesis and my internship at a primary school in Madrid—I’ll tell you how we managed to turn things around and achieve resounding success! 

Don’t miss it! 

Available in digital and print formats on Amazon in every country, and on the major e-book platforms.

Gingerbread man tale

Are you ready for a fun storytelling activity? 

The Gingerbread Man is a classic tale that children love! It's full of funny encounters, unexpected twists and a little bit of adventure.

Let's bring the story to life with a simple sequencing activity! 

Children will listen, observe, remember and put the events in the correct order, developing their listening comprehension, memory and storytelling skills.

One day an old woman baked a gingerbread man for her husband.

Suddenly, she heard a voice from the oven.
"Let me out! Let me out!" it said.

She opened the door and the gingerbread man ran out.
The old couple ran after him, shouting "Stop! We want to eat you!"But the gingerbread man ran away singing:
"Run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man!"

A horse saw him and said: "Stop! I want to eat you!"
But the gingerbread man ran away even faster singing:
"Run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man!"

A cow saw him and said: "Stop! I want to eat you!"
But the gingerbread man ran away even faster singing:
"Run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man!"

A fox saw him and said:
"Stop! I want to talk to you!"
The gingerbread man ran on singing:
"Run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man!"
But the fox chased him all the way to a river.

The gingerbread man didn't know how to swim.
"I can help you," said the cunning fox.
"If you jump on my tail, I'll carry you across."
The gingerbread man jumped on the fox's tail and the fox started to swim across the river.

But the fox said:"jump on my nose. You are too heavy for my tail."
When they reached the river bank the fox tossed the gingerbread man high up into the air.
Down he fell and the fox gobbled him all up!
And that was the end of the gingerbread man.

👉Other lesson plans based on this same story available here and here

🌟 ¡Learning English doesn’t simply mean filling in the blanks!✨

Many English as a Second Language (ESL) activities rely solely on “fill-in-the-blank” exercises ✏️… but the real goal should be to help children speak, understand, and use English naturally. 🗣️💬

🎨 Learning by doing makes it much easier, more fun, and more motivating!

And you’ll be surprised at how quickly children can start achieving real results. 🌈🚀

📚 If you’re looking for creative and engaging activities to make English learning more dynamic, check out my online store! 🛍️💕

👉 ESL Children's Worksheets

✨ Learn, play, speak, and grow! ❤️

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

📍Do you struggle with a challenging class, where many of your students get distracted and their academic performance doesn’t reflect all the effort you put into preparing and teaching your lessons? 

📍Does this situation frustrate you, and would you like your students to learn more while enjoying the process? 

👉Something similar happened to me during my elementary teaching internship, and in my latest book, Pygmalion in the Classroom: A Real Experience—based on my senior thesis and my internship at a primary school in Madrid—I’ll tell you how we managed to turn things around and achieve resounding success! 

Don’t miss it! 

Available in digital and print formats on Amazon in every country, and on the major e-book platforms.