miércoles, 20 de noviembre de 2013

ENJOY WITH...


Hi guys!


Today I have been thinking about ideas for the creation of my poems and I have come to the conclusion that my post will be about this topic because I think there are many things that we must consider as future teachers about the use of poetry in class.

As Raquel showed in class, children often see poetry as something hard and boring, but we can change this vision. To get that all students have access to the world of poetry not see it as boring, dense or incomprehensible, the poems should be selected properly by the teacher. 

He or she has to get the children do not see literature as a problem but as an entertainment, especially in the first cycle of Primary Education, when they know poetry for the first time. Because of that in this cycle the poems should be short and not too difficult to understand for a child of seven years. We also have to select poems with resources such as repetition for example and we should enhance the rhythm.

However in the second and third cycles, I think the poems should be getting longer and abstract in order to the students can improve their skills slowly.


In addition we should not forget that student motivation is one of the basic principles that help them to develop a significant learning and to relate what they have learned with their prior knowledge so we have to present poetry as an attractive topic and capture their attention from the first moment.


To conclude I want to add that we can use poetry in all the subjects. Here you have an example of a poem to introduce the life of the butterfly in Natural Sciences:

Caterpillar

Brown and furry
Caterpillar in a hurry,
Take your walk
To the shady leaf, or stalk,
Or what not,
Which may be the chosen spot.
No toad spy you,
Hovering bird of prey pass by you;
Spin and die,
To live again a butterfly.


     -Christina Rossetti-



I hope that you are agree with me!
See you soon!=)

martes, 5 de noviembre de 2013

OUR "Ready To Read" LABRARY!

Hello everyone!

Today I want to talk about our library project because I am very excited with the result and I would love to make it real in the future.
As you have seen in class it consists on a mobile library so it can be moved to all the places of the school. It has boxes covered with different color papers and these boxes contain the books. Each color represents one genre. I think it is essential because in this way the students can choose more easily the type of book they want to read.

The library will also have one cupboard where children can put their opinions about the book they already have read on a paper with the same color as the genre of this book. In this way the students can read their partners opinions and have an idea about what they think about some book.


The final budget on our project is about 133€ so I think it is not too much money and the children will enjoy it very much.In the budget there are not the books because we would ask to the children to buy one different book each one and bring it to the school. And also we would ask older children from the school to donate their books from when they were younger. Moreover publishers can give us some books if the school has bought their textbooks for many years.


As we have shown you in class, we have designed many activities based on this library and the best one for me is the mail box. It consists on that students from 2nd course will write on the template which book they will like to read and students from 1st course will write on another template which book they will like to hear from an older student. In this way, once a month the teacher will open the mailbox and choose (from a raffle) those children that picked the same book, a couple to go together during the break and read the book.
I think that this is a good way to motivate them to use the library and to read more books in order to achieve a higher fluency in their reading.

I hope that you like our idea and I want to know your opinions!

Thanks!=)

lunes, 4 de noviembre de 2013

LEARNING A NEW READING STRATEGY


Hi again!
Today I want to show you the reading strategy which my group and I analyze the other day in class.
It is called “The four square retelling” and here you have the video where you can see how a teacher uses this strategy with their students in class.

 

As you can see, this strategy allows that children can organize the main ideas of a text or a chapter that they or their teacher have read before. Through the Four Square chart which is organized by the succession of the main actions (with these words: First, Then, Next, Finally) they can continue the sentences and build the story summary.

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Then they have to draw each scene. I love this part because I think it is an interesting way to know how they are imaging the action, the characters and the spaces. Moreover it is perfect to motivate them because most of the children like to draw and paint.


 I think that a good way to use this strategy in class would be do it in two sessions. In the second session students could cut their drawings and interchanged them with their partners. Then they could organize the actions and see the differences with the drawings they have done.

I say this because I think one of the best things about reading is everyone imagine things differently when is reading the same book. Maybe it describes perfectly some character or some landscape but I think that none would imagine it exactly equal. This is the main point that differentiates reading of cinema or theater so I think it is important to give them the opportunity to discover how special it can be read.

Furthermore this strategy is designed for children who are in the first cycle of Primary Education so it is a good way to structure the events and reinforce their sense. I think that it can help them to understand and encourage the reading of other texts or books.

I hope you like this strategy and help you as future teachers! :)