Diwali festival

 Como parte de la cultura de la lengua inglesa hemos de estudiar las diferentes tradiciones. En este caso y gracias al origen indio de nuestra auxiliar de conversación, hemos conocido un poquito más de cerca Diwali festival.

Tras la explicación de la presentación, hemos realizado unos farolillos para conmemorar esta efeméride.

¡Qué bonito!

Hello Navodita

 Este mes de octubre tenemos la suerte de contar con Navodita, nuestra nueva auxiliar de conversación procedente de India que estará en nuestro centro hasta final del mes de mayo.

La primera de las sesiones ha estado dedicada a explicarnos un poquito más de su país de procedencia. Seguro que será un período muy aprovechable en el que mejoraremos nuestra lengua inglesa.

Welcome Navodita!!

Here you have some pictures, the presentation that she used at class and a summary video about India.

Bye bye AMY

 Bye, bye Amy!!!

En el día de hoy, Amy ha finalizado su paso por nuestro colegio. Desde octubre a mayo, han sido unos meses maravillosos en los que el alumnado y profesorado ha podido disfrutar de las magníficas sesiones de trabajo con Amy nuestra risueña auxiliar.

Muchísimas gracias por todo lo que nos has enseñado.

Halloween en nuestro cole

 Como centro bilingüe que somos, el alumnado ha podido aprender y experimentar una de las costumbres anglosajonas: Halloween.

Desde la pasada semana, Amy, nuestra auxiliar de conversación nos ha explicado el origen de dicha celebración y hemos realizado juegos en clase. La actividad no se ha limitado a un solo día ni a una parcela ya que se han realizado juegos en la biblioteca, taller de antorchas terroríficas, lectura de cuentos en clase, biblioteca y patios, cine forum....

Todo ello ha culminado con una mañana divertida llena de brujas, piratas, fantasmas... que han inundado nuestro cole y han hecho que conozcamos de primera mano esta tradición de habla inglesa.

Muchas gracias a tod@s l@s que habéis hecho posible que esta celebración se haya llevado a cabo.

No olvidemos nunca nuestras tradiciones y celebremos también nuestro particular 1 de noviembre, día de los Santos.

Aquí os dejo una muestra de las actividades realizadas:

Bye, bye Christina!

 El lunes finalizó el tiempo en el que nuestra auxiliar de conversación Christina ha estado con nosotr@s en el centro.

Ha sido un período en el que el alumnado de educación primaria ha disfrutado de las sesiones con ella. Hemos hecho juegos, hemos aprendido vocabulario, expresiones.... las ciencias sociales y naturales han sido un poquito más interesantes si cabe.

Esperemos que te vaya muy bien Christina.

Un abrazo. 

 

Happy Halloween!

In class this week we learned that Halloween started as a Celtic festival to mark the beginning of winter and the end of autumn. Celtic people thought spirits would visit them during Halloween. Today, we dress up in silly costumes, go trick-o-treating, and we eat lots of candy! In class, we did some small activities, like Halloween bingo, coloring our own monster and creating a Frankenstein dice!

Click here to review the Halloween Presentation!

Have a spooky Halloween!

 

Bienvenida Cristina

Esta semana contamos con una incorporación al colegio muy especial: Christina Trujillo es nuestra nueva auxiliar de conversación y estará con nosotros hasta el 31 de mayo.

Ella nos acompañará en las sesiones de Ciencias desde 1º a 6º. Es Estadounidense y seguro que será fantástico aprender con ella.

Welcome!!!

Welcome Kea

 El pasado 1 de octubre tuvimos la suerte de compartir nuestras clases de Science con la nueva auxiliar de conversación. Su nombre es Kea y viene de la ciudad de Los Ángeles en Estados Unidos.

Estamos seguros que su paso por el colegio será fantástico y de gran provecho para todos.

Ella irá colgando actividades con el alumnado en el blog así que... ¡estar atent@s!

Os dejamos algunas imágenes de la semana.

¡

Bienvenida Kea!

Layers of the Atmosphere in 4th Grade

The fourth graders here at CEIP San Miguel have been learning about the different layers of the atmosphere. We have also learned about the layers in English, which are the Troposphere, Stratosphere, Mesosphere, Thermosphere and Exosphere. They even know key components of each layer! For example, the ozone, which helps keep harmful UV rays from the sun away from the Earth, is located in the Stratosphere and the Exosphere (the outermost layer) has extremely thin air.
We watched a video talking about the different layers of the atmosphere and explained fun facts about each layer, and also the distance, size, and temperature.

The students drew a picture showing the Earth and all of the layers that cover it. They wrote and drew the unique parts about each layer in the picture. The Troposphere is where the weather occurs, so they drew different types of weather, like sunny, rainy, or snowy. In the Stratosphere, they drew the ozone, in the Mesosphere, they wrote ´very cold´,and in the Thermosphere they wrote ´very hot´. The students really seemed to enjoy this activity and it also helped them visualize the different layers of the atmosphere and to understand the unique parts of each layer.

Here you can see some examples of the Layers of the Atmosphere that the students drew:

And here is a photo of them working on the project:

Shop Role Plays in the 6th Grade!

This week in Lucia's 6th grade science class, we acted out various shop role plays! The eager students were put into six groups of four and were given a specific shop to act out a typical exchange between customers and workers. Some of the shops included were a supermarket, an electronics shop and a pharmacy. The students were very excited to act out the little skits and all worked very hard to deliver their lines and act out their roles. It was a great way to show the students how the economy is embedded into our everyday activities, such as going to the market. It also gave them an idea of how these exchanges might go in an English speaking country. AND it allowed them to practice some of their budding acting skills! :)

Thanksgiving in the USA

Last Thursday was Thanksgiving in the USA so we all learned a little bit about it's history and how it is celebrated today (mostly eating yummy food!). Thanksgiving is based on the first harvest of the pilgrims and Native Americans, and also about giving thanks for all the good things we have in our lives. In some classes, we did a traditional activity done with children in the USA in which we create a turkey from the outline of our hand and write in each "feather" (or finger) the things we are thankful for such as family, friends, food, water and toys. What are you thankful for? :)

So good to work as a linguistic assistant here!

My name is Megan and I am the new English language assistant at CEIP San Miguel! I am very excited to be working in a school with such helpful and welcoming staff and students that are very sweet and eager to learn :)

This will be my second year working in Spain as an English language assistant. Last year I worked in a secondary school in Ciudad Real. Though I am somewhat familiar with the city of Granada after having studied there in university, this is my first time spending time in the cute neighboring town Armilla!

The first week at school I introduced myself and taught the students about where I'm from. I told them a little bit about me, my interests and hobbies, about the USA in general, and some fun facts about my state, Washington (not to be confused with Washington, DC). The students then asked me questions about myself and told me a little bit about themselves as well. They told me their names, ages, favorite foods, and hobbies. After showing them a map of the world and demonstrating how far my home is from Spain, many of them were curious to know how long it took me to get here (12 hours, but so worth it!)

Here is a link to my intro presentation

I am very excited to be working at this school and am looking forward to getting to know the students and teachers better! :)

Halloween Special Festivities

Hello everyone! I can't believe it is already November. The weather is starting to feel colder and the leaves are changing color.

This past week we celebrated Halloween, a tradition that originated from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. The children celebrated by dressing up in their scariest costumes - witches, ghosts and vampires!

I made a presentation about Halloween teaching them about how to turn a pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern by carving two eyes, one nose and a mouth. I also showed them how children dress up for Halloween in the United States and go door to door saying "trick or treat" with bags for candy.

After my presentation, I taught them about the four elements (air, water, fire and earth) through interactive storytelling. The children had to stand up and do different gestures and movements to help me tell the story. For example, when the fairy in the story had to get the element of fire from the dragon, the children acted like they were fire-breathing dragons!

After, they all drew symbols to represent the elements in their notebooks along with their own version of a fairy.

Danielle, English language assistant

Hi everyone my name is Danielle and I am the new language assistant at C.E.I.P San Miguel in Armilla this year. It’s my first year living and teaching in Granada. Last year, I taught English in Galicia. The weather has been a lot warmer in Andalusia!

My first day I met the students and told them about California and the United States of America. They learned about the US flag, which colors are red, white and blue and also learned that we have fifty stars because there are fifty different states. I showed them where on the map I live and how close it is to Mexico.

At the end of my presentation, they all got to color their very own US flags!

I also got to show the students a special PowerPoint presentation I had made about myself, where I come from and my interests. Here is my presentation.

The following week I got to meet the rest of the students and learn about the subjects that they are learning in science class. Some of the classes were studying the reproductive and circulatory systems and others were learning about the different stages of life such as, birth childhood, adolescence and adulthood.

In 1st grade class, we got to experience a workshop learning about the different senses: Touch, Taste, Sight, Smell and Hearing. At one of the tables students had to taste lemon, salt, sugar and an apple to see if they liked the flavor or not. One of the tables students experimented with different musical instruments making different sound and music. Another table students were blindfolded and had to describe the textures they were feeling-hard, soft, rough or smooth. They all had so much fun learning about the senses in a creative and interactive way with the help of some students of the fifth grade.  

I’m looking forward to spending the year working with the students and teachers at C.E.I.P San Miguel!

Countries of Europe

In classes 4a and 4b we have recently been studying the main countries of Europe. We have been describing and explaining facts about each country. The countries we have been focussing on include France, Spain, Italy, Demark,Germany and Portugal.

We then created a flipbook of the main countries in europe. I have posted a great example of one of the childrens flipbooks below. On these flipbooks we included information such as the flag colours, capital, currency, language, population, close countries and famous monuments.

The children, then prepared some presentations, posters and Padlets on different countries in Europe. These works were very good and informative. Some groups created performances were they would move around the class room and pretend to be on a guided tour of a country visiting the famous landmarks. The presentations included information about the famous food dishes as well as famous things to see in each country.

If you are interested in learning more about the different countries of Europe I have attahced a very good link that children have been using for these project with resources and the Webquest as a guide about this topic!

• Europe and the European Union

Children also had the opportunity to develop the critical thinking challenge with a game "the Mystery Country", similar to "Mystery Skype". In this case, children by groups had to guess the country by asking yes or no questions. This way they developed geography skills, listening and speaking skills, how to use and find information, collaboration and communication.

Legends: Nessie Monster

As part of the class 4a and 4b we recently studied the topic of Legends! The children made different legend stories ranging frm the Trojan warriors to the Greek Gods, how cool! They then presented their legend to the class and acted out the story. This was really cool and intresting, I decided to tell me own Legend story which was about the Loch Ness Monster, which is a mythical beast found in my home country, Scotland!

The story told the tale of a young boy who ignored his family and friends warnings and visited the famoud Loch Ness Monster which was said to have great big teeth, six eyes and a love for eating children! The boy wanted to see for himself if the stories were true although he knew that all living things have good points and bad points. The boy travelled to the lake and found the scary monster but soon realised that the monster was actually nice and friendly and they made friends. The moral of the story is to not judge a book by its cover!

After I had told the Legend story and scared the children we did a drawing of the Loch Ness Monster. I have attached a few of the drawings below, they were all really good and scary looking!!

If you want to find out more about the Loch Ness Monster there is a really great film about it called the "The Water Horse", we will try and watch it in class as well. I have attached the link for the trailer below. In Spanish "Mi mascota es un monstruo".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuvPpCMgA9U

Second Blog Post - Holidays, Space, and Geography

Second Blog Post - Holidays, Space, and Geography

I´ve now been teaching at C.E.I.P San Miguel for 4 months! I´m starting to really like my classes and I can honestly say that I´m very impressed with the kids level of english which is constantly improving. Since my last blog post (2 months ago) I have helped teach a huge range of topics, ranging from Space and Geography to Economics and Healthy Diets. In this blog post I´m going to highlight some of the projects that I helped create and teach.


Layers of the Atmosphere - with Class 4A and 4B.

At the moment we are studying the layers of the atmosphere in classes 4A/B. As part of this unit we put together a small flipbook which the children seemed to really love making. Attached below is an exmaple of one of the completed flipbooks, which contained alot of very important information and diagrams.

The Solar Sytstem - With class 5A and 5B

With class 5A/B I had the chance to help out and add my own input with the Solar System topic. This topìc was great to teach and was very practical. The children got involved with creating some great looking posters and models. Attahced below is some photos I took from some of the space models and posters which are proudly presented on the top floor. I helped mainly with the order of the planets poster which again I have attached below as the picture on the right..




The Earths Movement - With class 3A and 3B

Again this is a recently finished topic which was very interesting to teach. We created a poster which described the types of movements which the earth has, Rotating and Revolving. This unit was very fun and engaging to teach. Below is an example of one of the posters which was created! As part of this unit the children also learned about the different seas and oceans around the world as well as the different continents.






















The Economy - With class 6A 6B and 6C

With class 6A 6B and 6C we have been working on the economy in the last couple of weeks. The children have been very engaging when I have asked them questions in english on the topic and eager to learn. This was demonstrated in the recent Kahoot test that we did which involved 14 questions on the economy, 7 in Spanish and 7 in English. The children got on really well with this with some students even scoring 100%! I have attached the link for the Kahoot below where you can see the questions that were asked.

https://play.kahoot.it/#/k/5d3c1f9b-ac11-4b42-bc10-529f59b6d9bc