BILINGUAL PLAY

Last Wednesday was the showing of “The Little Red Riding Hood” and “The Three Little Pigs” to all the grades. Our cast of wonderful actors was made up students from the sixth grade classes who volunteered to do the play in English. We made the set and costumes (almost) from scratch and Ruben, the music teacher, complemented the actions with creative sounds effects. A big thanks does out to all the people who participated in the making of these two plays!

UNIT - DAILY LIFE

In this unit students learned to recognize the characteristics of their families, the roles of family members and friends in their daily lives, as well as the features of their daily lives (with an emphasis of the sequence of the days and their school schedules). We worked with “What have you got (on)…” and “I have got…” sentence structures.
We began the unit with the story “Goldilocks and the three bears” and reviewed the members of the family: granddad, granny, mum, dad, sister, and brother. Students then made their own family trees using family pictures which they pasted in the appropriate boxes.

Students then classified activities such as sleeping, learning, eating, showering, playing, reading, cleaning, washing the dishes, watering the plants etc depending on if they are done at school or at home. At school, students have a variety of subjects. After seeing the difference between weekends and school days in a month, students learned about the subjects they have at school: language, maths, religion, English, computers, science, P.E., music and art. They decided which subjects they liked and disliked, and which ones were their favorite.
For the end of the unit activity, the students wrote an imaginary letter describing what classes they have every day, their age and where they live.

Here is a link to online activities and printable projects and recipes:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/laac/menu.shtml

UNIT - PHYSICAL PROCESSES

In this unit students learned about physical forces. We started the unit presenting the forces of push and pull with toys and other objects. Students learned to respond to daily directions such as "pull the door open, push the door closed, pull the blinds up etc".

We also sang the song "wind the bobbin up". You can find a good version of it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXo_8BvoZhU

The students liked it so much they ask to sing it almost every day!

In physical education, we used the forces of push and pull: we played tug-of-war and had the students pull each other on gym mats.

In the classroom, students made their own "push-pull" ice-cream cones. Yum!

While push and pull are physical forces used to move objects, electricity and human energy are forces that allow us to do work. In this part of the unit, students learned the difference between human and electrical energies. We presented the concept experimenting with an egg: students beat one egg with a fork and one with a blender. They learned to differentiate objects that need electricity to function.

Students then learned that light can be both natural and electrical. They saw that the sun, fire, the moon and candles are forms of natural light, while lamps, televisions, computer screens, and flashlights are forms of artificial light. We experimented with these different kinds of lights in the classroom, and had students decide which ones (sunlight and overhead lights) were better for working.

Here is a neat link to an online activity where students identify sources of light:

http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/light/eng/Introduction/pop.htm

While a good working environment is one with sufficient light, it is also one with few noises. Students saw that excessive noise (using various musical instruments) can be detrimental to a healthy classroom or working environment.

BOOK DAY

On Friday, April 23rd 2010 we celebrated our first ever bilingual Book Day! We had a great time reading books in Spanish and English. Each student had brought in their favorite book out of which they read a few lines. The English teacher and auxiliary then each read a book in English. Students also got to make their own bilingual bookmarks, each with a spanish/english quote related to reading. Check out the pictures!

UNIT - MATERIALS

Welcome back!

For our return from spring break, we started the materials unit.

In this unit we introduced different types of materials: stone, metal, glass, plastic, wood, cotton, leather, and wool. We used flashcards and random objects found in the classroom as visual aides and had students use (both in written and spoken form) the sentence structure " it´s made of ..." to describe what these objects. They also described them, using the vocabulary from the five senses unit: rough, smooth, hard, soft and the new vocabulary: bend, stretch, twist.

Here is a fun online experiment / quiz. It tests various materials to see if they are bendy and/or waterproof:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/scienceclips/ages/5_6/sorting_using_mate.shtml

Later, students learned that some materials such as wool, cotton, and leather are found naturally and can come from plants or animals. We further explored these natural materials. Students learned that wool, cotton, and leather are best for clothing, while glass, stone, wood, and metal are best for other objects such as houses. In the case of clothing, students learned that warm (and waterproof materials such as plastic) are more suited for cold weather, whereas cool materials are more suited for hot weather.

We finished the unit teaching students that some materials can be recycled. We placed different colored boxes (coordinated with the ones they might find on the street) for plastic/aluminium/glass, paper, and trash and had students recycle their snack and work materials.
This is an online recycling game that tests students on what can be recycled:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/barnabybear/games/recycle.shtml

"HAPPY EASTER!" PENCIL HOLDER

Before the students went on their "Semana Santa" break, they made "Happy Easter!" pencil holders to take home. This is a fun hands on project that is practical and very easy to make.

Materials are:

- a toilet paper roll

- colored pencils or markers

- scissors

- foam paper (for the "feet")

- cotton balls (for the "tail")

Father´s Day

For father´s day students made an english/spanish book for their fathers. Students used colour, food, animal, toy and season vocabulary they learned in class and chose one of each that best represented their fathers. They wrote out the word and drew it out on the page. They finished the book with a poem (see picture).

Daddy I love you

For all that you do

I´ll kiss you and hug you

Because you love me, too