Going, Going, .................. 2013

"The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire)"

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire

Jack Frost nipping at your nose

Yuletide carols being sung by a choir

And folks dressed up like Eskimos

Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe

Help to make the season bright

Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow

Will find it hard to sleep tonight

They know that Santa's on his way

He's loaded lots of toys and goodies on his sleigh

And every mother's child is gonna spy

To see if reindeer really know how to fly

So I'm offering this simple phrase

To kids from one to ninety-two

Although it's been said many times, many ways

Merry Christmas to you

So I'm offering this simple phrase

To kids from one to ninety-two

Although it's been said many times, many ways

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to you

An educational game?????

 

That picture is the logo of my favourite games series, Assassin's Creed. This symbol is from an old and secret organization called Assassins, which fought against the Templars. Its motto is "Nothing is true, everything is permited". One of the main characters of the game and one of the creed's most important mentor was Ezio Auditore da Firenze, who made a philosophical thought about this sentence. His conclusion was that "Nothing is true" means that each person believes and imagines what he/she wants, so everyone is free to think; and "Everything is permited" symbolizes that everyone is responsible of their actions and the things they do.
I totally agree with this slogan and this game has become a way of thinking for me.
Moreover these games show you difderent historical moments, such as the crussades or the Italian Renaissance, as well as the American Revolution and, most recently, the Caribbean Pirates. I love   history so these games have got me since their begining.

Slowly, but surely. Keep'em rolling in

 

Another contribution to the lesson plans.

My Blog's first Halloween

Wishing everybody a wonderful night.

And a GREAT much deserved long weekend to the School Team.









A fun activity for prepositions while we're still on the subject.

The French connection

French Toast/Roast

 I would like everybody to know that lesson plans are being added gradually to the French Toast post, so please find a moment to check them out. I'll be posting them as soon as I get them. Some will be in the form of a link. Thanks.

Something old, something new

 Some of us will remember this proyect we did last year

 It was a joint effort of 3 classes of 9 year olds

Disney's film "Flowers and Plants" 1926





We turned their work into an enormous tree for an entrance wall display space.


Worth every word that was written!

Porter Robinson Language Official Video) (Ministry of Sou

Lesson Plan

We used this powerful video to complete our unit on diary writing. Before writing we got our creative juices flowing with the following…

Stop at 00:04 What is she running from? Why is she running? What thoughts are running through her head at this point? Could you come up with a 3ed sentence to describe to the reader how she is feeling? How about a feeling, description sentence?

Stop at 00:06 Do a vocab boost to describe the woodlands. Similes, adjectives etc

Stop at 00:26 – What is going through her mind at this point? What choices does she have? Why are the dogs/wolves chasing her? What has she done? Who do the dogs belong to?

00:40 – How come she can hold her breath for so long underwater?

0:50 – What could the flashing lights be?

01:20 – What could happen here? Why are the lights getting stronger?

01:41 – Is she going to survive? If so, how will she survive? Does she have any superpowers that will help her here? Make sure to look at and pause on all the different scenes. This would be a chance for some more Alan Peat sentence work.

01:46 – It’s a giant hand. Who does it belong to?

2:02 – What is she thinking at this time? How is she feeling? What is this thing that has saved her life? Why has it saved her life? How could we describe it?

2:50 – What happens next?

 

Good scaffolding work to get teenagers to write, as it could serve as a solid foundation for future writings.

December Writing Exams

Sprint 2

Can, can't, pronouns - I, it, he, she, they - this/that, animals, and, but

Sprint 3

 Present simple,wood animals, directional prepositions, vocabulary associated with nature

Lighthouse 4

Superheroes, past simple, past continuous, paragraphs

Lighthouse 5

Natural disasters, after/before, comparatives/superlatives, past simple, adverbs, the use of when, where, what, why

Sprint 6

 Present perfect,  ever/never, vocabulary assocciated with islands

Halloween comes only once a year

But also a fun topic for writing

Many thanks everybody for a great workshop. Very constructive.

Preparation for Friday's session

This Friday's session is all about assessing writing. We'll be looking at what we should reward and penalise when a student puts pen to paper in an exam situation. To that end, here is a task, and some answers, which you should look at and decide on a mark out of 20. 

The students were given these visual prompts and told to write the story in the past, and that they should choose a title for the story, beyond that no further instructions were given. 

Answer 1:

Answer 2:

Answer 3:

Answer 4:

After you have graded the stories, give some thought to what it was that you valued and/or penalised and what made one better than the other. It should make for interesting discussion and will benefit the students when we come to mark the writing parts of the exams in December. 

Sentence Manipulation

Find a nice a little story and put it up on the board or here is where a FLIPCHART would come in handy, again!! By the way, there's plenty of A3 paper.

Children love to stand in front of the class.  I would say that this could be the excuse to make children move around. It's a great form of learning vocabulary and word order.
 

Bloom's Taxonomy

 

                   Food for thought

  If we bear these points in mind in our planning, no steps will be left unturned.

        







                    This = SCAFFOLDING

Testing the calendar again!

Denise's My School Calendar

Testing

google calendar

Just testing if the calendar can be seen

That's all for this week, folks!

This is what blogging does for you!!!!!!

French Toast

As we have a workshop on 25th inst., how about conjuring up a lesson plan?

Robin's French connection (Lesson plan)!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lq60QtFZcmJSy51_63Cmh5rVbZHZy8fTGmqrueQOkIXegkMEonOEKhcDt_rN/edit?usp=sharing

Sarah’s contribution for French Roast

I think the French Roast animated video could lend itself really well to a lesson (or several lessons) on basic screenwriting for theatrical/cinematic works.  Of course, the ideal students of this type of lesson would be those with near-advanced English writing skills who have a special interest in this topic. After studying the elements and conventions of an existing screenplay (and maybe also viewing a scene related to it),  the class could begin a group project to create their own screenplay for  the French Roast piece.  Perhaps each student could choose (or be assigned) a part of the script for which they would have to produce a text. (A typical screenplay/script has many parts; each with their own standards, conventions and writing styles).  For example, the

"Scene Heading" and "Action" sections require descriptive writing which sets a scene, its normally  written in "real time" with the active voice, in the present tense, etc... The "Character Name" section is a description of the characters of the film and their motivations.  The "Dialogue" section is the text that explain what the characters say to each other, to themselves (as thoughts), what the narrator says, etc.. and could be written from a variety of different perspectives, (first person, third person omniscent, etc.).

Other ideas are to have the students write to practice tenses..What happened to each of the charcters just before/after they appeared in the film?  What will happen to them?

Or,you could challenge the students memory and motivate them through competition by having them write (in groups) a description of everything that was on the table, or hanging on the wall in the first scene, etc.

Students could also try to stump each other by asking (in correctly written questions, of course) the others, for example, "What color was the waiters handkerchief?"

I think the use of videos in class, especially silent ones, provide lots of lesson planning opportunities, as well as a great change of pace for the class, that the students also really enjoy.

Thanks Sarah!