A nice day

RESOURCES

Looking for resources for my students in practices I've found this page that has a lot of material for children http://supersimplelearning.com/resource-center/topic/christmas/

Christmas film

Have you ever noticed it? The magic of Christmas is already beginning to flood it all. On the streets, in shop windows and on the faces of the children already the illusion feels... and to us we love! For this reason, we encourage you to live Christmas with your family and see this film

VOLCANO

There is so much children can learn by doing science experiments at home. They don’t need to be complicated, they can be easy science experiments for kids with things you already have in your kitchen. 

For this experiment you’ll need:

Empty plastic bottle

Dough for your volcano

Water

2 TB Baking Soda

Vinegar

Food Coloring

6 Drops of Dish Soap

First make your dough for your volcano, I got my recipe here. Once you have your dough you mold a volcano around your empty plastic bottle. I put our volcano in a baking dish to contain the mess since we are doing it indoors.

Your volcano should look something like this. Be sure not to cover the opening of the bottle.Next careful fill the bottle with warm water and food coloring of your choice. For more realistic colors use orange and red. Next add the dish soap which helps trap the bubbles produced by the reaction so you get more bubbly lava. Add your baking soda and then slowly poor in the vinegar…

STORIES

http://www.bygosh.com/index.html

If you like the stories you'll love this site. I used to do many activities in the classroom, and like children very much. I hope you find it useful.

Christmas

As teachers have a major role in explaining this holiday season, here I leave some material.

The celebration of the holiday season like children. But often are unaware of the origin of this holiday season. Explain to children where they come from these celebrations is a good way to understand the meaning of Christmas. Thus, we will be transmitting the cultural meaning of these holidays. It is important to explain to children the meaning of Christmas, beyond fun and gifts

Colorable tabs

After learning the entire vocabulary children must put into practice what they know, and the best way is with chips. Here you have a link of these chips that I like very much because they are age-appropriate, there is a wide range of vocabulary.

http://www.edufichas.com/

Listening activity

I have found this activity to practice the listening with the children, I have put it into practice in the classroom and he liked them, I leave here the information you need to make it, I hope you like it.

Following single- and multiple-step directions is an integral part of success in the classroom for children.  Those with language disorders often have increased difficulty in following simple and complex directions heard or read.  Many times, we see students simply watching the actions of the students around them in order to keep up with the pacing of a typical classroom.  So, it's not surprising that many of my language students work to follow increasingly more difficult directions as part of their therapy with me.  

One set of cards contains simple directions with up to 3-steps.  You can customize by reading only the first and second directions to address 1- and 2-step directions.  The jar cards add a bit of surprise when they tip and cause lady-bugs to spill out, when you get to take an extra turn, and when a group mate's jar spills and you manage to capture one of their ladybugs!

 The other set of cards contains complex directions with up to 3-steps.  You can also customize by reading only the first and second directions to address 1- and 2-step directions.  The jar cards are in this deck as well!

 Usually I play with only one deck, either simple or complex.  However, I have one group in which one student is working on complex and the other simple.  For this group I simply had both decks out (separated) and drew from the appropriate deck for each student on their turn.  It's pretty easy to sort them back when you are finished.

I've used this in 3 groups so far and it has been a nice change.  The students seem to enjoy it as they usually do with simple card games like this.

LISTENING

The listening is very important to learn a new language. But the listening is done not only with audios of talks, is hearing the teacher, listening to songs...I think that a good way of working the listening with children through stories, because they like it so much and would learn much vocabulary.

The listening process involves five stages: receiving, understanding, evaluating, remembering, and responding. You can use for a better understanding in the listenings is:
Active listening is a particular communication technique that requires the listener to provide feedback on what he or she hears to the speaker, by way of restating or paraphrasing what they have heard in their own words. The goal of this repetition is to confirm what the listener has heard and to confirm the understanding of both parties. The ability to actively listen demonstrates sincerity, and that nothing is being assumed or taken for granted. Active listening is most often used to improve personal relationships, reduce misunderstanding and conflicts, strengthen cooperation, and foster understanding.
It should leave aside the conventional activities and put up new activities that are more motivating for children, do not be afraid to make mistakes and learn so much more.

There are many activities to put all this into practice:http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/listen-and-watch

http://childtopia.com/index.php?module=home&func=coce&idphpx=comprensi%EF%BF%BDn-oral-escrita

GAMES

Simon Says – at 3 and 5 they are pitifully bad at this game but they have loads of fun trying to discern when they are to follow instructions and when they are not to.

Name that Sound – Using this basket of instruments play an instrument without the child seeing – either stand behind them, just outside the room, or blindfold them. Ask them to identify the instrument played. Add several instruments as they become familiar with the sounds and have them lay out the instruments in the order you played them.

What Time Is It Captain Midnight? –  It is identical to What Time is it Mr. Wolf if you are familiar with that game. One person, Captain Midnight, stands on the other side of the room, with his back to the other players. The other players call out; “What time is it Captain Midnight?” Captain Midnight calls out a time between 1 and 11 and the players need to take that many steps. This repeats until Captain Midnight says it is midnight, at which point he chases the children back to the start line trying to tag them. Those that are tagged are out.

Marco Polo – One child is blindfolded and calls out “Marco” and the other players respond with “Polo”. The blindfolded child tries to tag the others by following their voice. {Usually a pool game, but the boys enjoy playing it in our living room}

Blindfolded Obstacle Course – Blindfold the children and give them verbal instructions to get through a series of obstacles set up in the room.

Find the Object – Set up a random assortment of items on a table in one room and take the children to another room. Give them details about which object you’d like them to go and find from the table, for example; “Please bring me the smallest yellow item on the table.” or “Please bring me the book that talks about a little girl and a bear eating blueberries.”

This game has been the boys favorite and we’ve played it about 4 times so far!

Get Across the Room – So similar to Marco Polo and the Obstacle Course, however slightly different.  Put the blindfolded children on one side of the room and have a partner for each child on the other side of the room. As the partner we direct our own {blindfolded} partner across the room to us, so they need to know and listen to the voice of the parent they are partnered up with.

THE BEST AND THE WORST

The best teacher must be nearby with his pupils, to transmit confidence, to realize activities in which the pupils could collaborate, be a friend of his pupils, to be a critical car and to try always to improve his faults. The most important of a teacher is that he believes an environment in class where the children should take part and they sit down well. I remember the best teacher of my infancy and it was assembling all these qualities, I expect in a future to be able to be the teacher that always I have wanted to be.

Worst Professor is quite the opposite, their classes are little participatory, to study hard and it is boring, is very authoritarian, do not have confidence with his students, it does not value the positive attitudes...

I hope that all the people who want to be teachers take into account what should not be done, thus students will be much happier and learn much more.

Teaching is rewarding.