Winter Lesson Plan

Winter has definitely shown up here in Madrid, therefore it's time to dive deep into this topic with my preschoolers!

I discovered, thanks to a Montessori blog, a Ukrainian folktale called The Mitten written by Jan Brett.

The story is about a white mitten, laying on the snow in the wood, that  soon becomes a shelter for several animals: a mole, a rabbit, an owl, a badger, a fox etc. 

To see how it ends take a look at this video.

The story teaches sequencing and a lot of vocabulary related to forest animals and the winter.

The tale is easy to retell so you can shorten it, printing out the characters cutting out a big white mitten and setting up a little drama time instead of reading the original book. 

At the end sneeze aloud and send the animals flying into the air… The children will be happily surprised!

Some activities to do after the reading and strictly related to the story are: color and decorate your own mitten or color only the animals that appear in the story. 

Here you can find the worksheets.

Then, you can go a step forward and talk about winter clothes, cut them out and stick them inside a handicraft wardrobe to practise there is and there are  

Finally for those of you who have a lot of time to spend in the classroom I would suggest to take a look at this interesting Snow Pack

Happy February!!!

More about WINTER? Take a look at this board game

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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! ❤️

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📍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.

                                                   

LESSON PLAN: Exploring Feelings With Cat and Mouse

Teaching the different kinds of feelings is important because it helps children recognize and express their emotions.  

But, how can we arrange an interesting and fun English class for preschoolers about this topic?

Pictures and drama will surely be useful tools to help kids learn about and explore their feelings.

So let's start with a picture book.

One of the books in the Cat and Mouse collection is exactly what we'll need: 

boredom, happiness, excitement, tiredness, thirst, hunger, sickness, fun, surprise, fear, anger, etc. are presented by the two protagonists who decided to go to the circus that has just showed up in town.

As in all the other books of this collection there's an audio CD and a dictionary at the end of the story to learn the right pronunciation and spelling of the new vocabulary.

After reading the book you can arrange a drama game, calling a child to the front of the class to pull a face to express a feeling that the others will have to guess. 

It might be necessary to hand out flashcards for clearer instructions. Here you can find some. 

In addition, once your students have learnt how to pull a face you can teach them this song about feelings.

Mr Printables.com

Finally, I found this handicraft somewhere on Pinterest and I think it would be interesting to reproduce it and let your students play with it. You'll just need some cardboard and patterned paper.

Have fun!

More about Cat and Mouse:

Meet the Animals 

Learn the Colours

Let's go shopping

Eat Good Food

---> lee el post en castellano

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

🌟 ¡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.

Lesson Plan: Gingerbread Cookies... or Another Way To Impress Your Students

Run, run! As fast as you can! You can't catch me 'cause I'm the Gingerbread man!

Autumn has definitely snuck into our lives here in Madrid. It's cold and rainy, and I've already got a cold.

So, since it'll be impossible to go out to enjoy the rejuvenating Sierra of Madrid, I've decided that TODAY IS THE DAY! 

Time for some baking!

And, since I've already ordered my copy of the book The Gingerbread Boy on Amazon, I decided, in order to make the story and the experience unforgettable, that my students will also receive a couple of Gingerbread cookies. 

I will probably prepare a simple activity about 'the family', like the one presented on my previous post about Gingerbread People, to keep adding to the story.

But, the best part is going to be singing the chorus of  this really catchy song  while reading the book.

I can't stop singing it! 

If you decide to bake with your kids the RECIPE is HERE!

--> Quieres leer esta entrada en español? Aquí la tienes!

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

🌟 ¡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.

     

How to teach BEHIND and IN FRONT OF to pre-school kids

Teaching preschoolers is challenging. They can't read or write and their attention spam is directly connected to the interest they feel for what you're trying to teach them.

This month I've been teaching prepositions of place. 

If, on the one hand, ON and UNDER have been assimilated quite quickly, because, I think, they're just one-word prepositions, on the other hand, it looked that BEHIND and IN FRONT OF were more difficult to be learnt.

Till I got inspired by a picture I saw in an English book for children. It was a pre-drawn wood with monkeys hiding behind trees or placed in front of them.

What I did to make it more interesting was to paint trees on a piece of paper and use some stickers, colorful cats, to repeat the exercise.

The kids had to place whole cats IN FRONT OF the trees and cut those cats that they wanted to place behind the trees, to give the impression that they were hiding.

You can see the result in the picture. 

Lovely, isn't it?

Then I asked them to count how many cats were hiding and how many cats weren't, just to review numbers.

Of course, you can draw a different landscape according to the stickers you have at home.

Have fun!

Quieres leer esta entrada en español? Aquí la tienes!


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

🌟 ¡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.

Lesson Plan: Halloween songs, games and fun activities for children

I've been surfing the internet looking for Halloween games, songs and worksheets, over the past few days and this is what I came across.

For preschoolers:

Here's a list of catchy songs to learn or to use as a soundtrack during other activities:

Pumpkin Halloween Dance

The skeleton dance 1

The Skeleton Dance 2

--> Note that the Skeleton Dance will be perfect for learning body parts too.

Then I found these two games:

1) Circle game: Pass the Pumpkin

Form a circle and have the children sit on the floor.  Play Halloween music and pass a small pumpkin around the circle.  When the music stops, whoever is left holding the pumpkin receives a small prize or treat. (This game is from the book 52 Programs for Preschoolers).

I can imagine that smart children will fight for keeping the pumpkin, once they've discovered the trick. So I'm thinking that maybe it will be better to organize a half circle race without a prize.

Something like this, for example:

Have your students sit in a circle.

Choose two children at one point of the circle and give them, respectively, a picture of a pumpkin and a picture of a ghost, for example. The pumpkin will be passed by the first child to the next child on his right,  while the ghost will be passed by the other child to the next child on his left, and so on.

They must say the name of the card they are passing along. You should hear them saying "Pumpkin, pumpkin, pumpkin" and "Ghost, ghost, ghost"

The cards must travel as fast as possible till they arrive to the opposite side of the circle (opposite the first two children who started the race).

The children belonging to the half of the circle that's completed first, will be the winners. 

We're going to do the same with the pictures of a cat and a bat.

2) Halloween Hunt

Prepare sets of cards with the same pictures on each, representing typical Halloween characters. Use some blue-tack to stick them on the walls or on low surfaces in your classroom. Call out one of the pictures and the children have to find and touch the right one.

If you prefer something quieter, divide your students into small groups. 

Give each group the 4/5 different cards and then call out the one they have to show. This way they can do the activity sitting on their chairs instead of running around.

Next I'll give them a coloring page  representing one or more characters we saw during the games.

Finally, they'll learn about going trick or treating, 'cause I bought an enormous bag of Halloween candies!!!

ihihihhihhiih!!!

For older students I found these ideas: 

1) Introducing Halloween Vocabulary

2) Black Cat Hunt to practice prepositions of place

3) A Word Search

4) The Daily Routine of Monsters,  Zombies, Ghosts and Aliens

For Higher Levels:

The Murder Mystery

Happy spooky Halloween!!!

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

🌟 ¡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.