Mercy and Ingrid: Food and Drinks

HELLO!

First of all, let me tell you that Mercy and I feel very happy about this class and we saw that our students achieved successfully the objectives that we set up in the planning. We are hoping that they feel the same and that in the future they continue learning as much as they want. 


I want you to see the materials we used:

1. Shakers
2. Thumbs up and down
3. Cards
4. Disposable plates
5. Puzzle
6. handmade food and drinks items
7. Cards for the shopping list, bags and the list of shopping.

 This was when we asked them along with us to sing the welcome song. They are singing and they begun to feel that it was time to start the class. After that they felt more comfortable with everyone and then I started the lesson. 

The warm up was used for reviewing the last topics they learned. We thought to focus on the numbers from one to twenty, days of the week and the actions verbs from the previous class. 

They were called by the name and they picked up one card from the secret box. They had to tell me the number of the card and then they opened it and say whatever they found in the card. 
Because this class is only once a week, I thought that they were going to be able to say what the card had inside, but they had troubles. They are still learning them and that is good so that everyone saw that they need more reinforcement in those topics. It is good to think that every class should review at least one part of the target language. 

 I called Maritza to be the first one. And when she passed in front and delivered the answer,  the rest was able to copy what she did and when they were called they were familiar with the activity. 

As I said before, they are still having problems with days of the week, numbers. Especially with the pronunciation of them. The actions were a little bit easy to produce. 

One of the biggest challenges I had to overcome was to loose my fear of not delivereing the class as I had planned. As you see in the picture, I am using a puppet! 
Using it was difficult, but I enjoyed the moment. They were expectant as you see in the picture. I had prepared a short conversation of the puppet "Toti" and me. The rest of the dialog was improvised and I think ir worked out. :) 
Teacher Yanni told me to reherse my voice with the puppet and think about how can I manage the presentation of the topic with the puppet. Well, let me tell you that it was not easy to minimize my voice jejeje, I try to focused my own voice with the puppet's voice and there were moments where I felt that I mixed them. From that moment on, I felt very confident and happy because I felt that the children were very excited about the target language and they were remembering those words. 

I used thirteen words. These were presented with the puppet. The puppet helped me to present them and I just hold the card for the students and they repeat after me or the puppet. 
They were paying attention and like to see how much words they were learning. The funny moment arrived when I showed them the "soda" image. some say that students said "coki" jejejej, and everyone laught! Children are so creative at making up words!

I wanted to showed and practice the target language with the puppet. Teacher Yanni explained to me that one way to do it is to use the puppet and point each card. I had also to make error correction and as you saw in the class, they were error corrected inmediately and with more drilling they were capable of saying the word. 

In the next activity, the children were introduced to "good for you" and "bad for you". I also made use of the thumbs up and down to explain these to words. At the beginning they seemed confused, but I modeled the first item of "donut" and they started to know what they were supposed to do. As they saw how the first one did the task, the rest were willing to try out. 

I also asked them: Is water good or bad for you? they answered using their thumbs up or down. I was glad that they used them, because the next practices were also using these two tools. 

They were very excited about participating!

As they grabbed and pulled  the food item out, I asked them the questions and finally we covered all the food. 

Mercy was the teacher in the practice stage. What I considered Mercy achieved in her part, is that these children understood what food were good and bad. 

Another thing that I wanted to highlight is that since the previous activity had the children energetic, the next one was to put that energy in a hands-on activity. I mean, they had to put that energy into the puzzle and they did calm down. 
The puzzle pieces were designed so that they can be challenged. If the puzzle was easy to put back, they were like "this is too easy for us". They were in pairs. Another thing that Mercy did was to put the youngest children with someone older. 

 What I perceived from this stage of practice is that they were able to work in trios and pairs. Since they are still egocentric in some cases, they do not like to share what they are doing with someone else. So, what I conclude is that they can learn to do so if you teach them how to do it. 
It is not easy to prepare them not to be selfish, but in the case of most of the this group, I saw that the pair was working toguether. I did not anticipate that they were going to share, but I was glad. 
Then, the next thing that I noticed is that the oldest children resolved very quickly the puzzle and they started to talk or move. 
I think Mercy was immersed in other pairs and it was a moment where she was not really paying attention to them. However, they were not doing a big mess or interrumpting the class so much. What I did is to approached them is told them to be quiet. The pair of children that finished the task, called teacher Mercy and presented the puzzle. She asked them some questions and that was it. 

The next activity was to put the food and drinks items in the correct face of the disposable plate. Mercy prepared the plate so that the children work in both 
sides. 


As you see, they were very concentrated and liked to paste the items. Much importantly, they got the meaning of bad food and good food. 
Something that Mercy did was to model how the activity was supposed to be done. 
This was very important to do because if not children were to paste whatever they like in the incorrect sides of the disposable plate. When they finished, they recognize the two questions: Is pizza good for you? They said: "No, bad for you!!".

They work very hard and showed it to teacher Mercy. At the end, they all answered the questions that Mercy asked them. 
What she should have questioned also was for the whole group the same questions with different items in the disposable plate, so that everyone say it out loud. 

Mercy regroup the children for the next activity. As you see, boys do not like to be with girls! When this happens, as teachers we have to tell them that we want them to colaborate. It is important not to negotiate with them, because if not next time they will do the same with us. Mercy managed it great. She decided the four groups and they were saying no, no, no with girls no! but Mercy forced them :D 

 The four groups were given four different list in which, they first had to fill in. The items that were in the list contained two or three missing words. 
Each group were filling in with some help of teacher Mercy. They spent more than five minutes because it was that easy, we wanted them to be challeged!!!

My case of study, Imelda, was immersed in each activity showing that she was so capable of contributing to each group activity. Since she is the youngest one, she does not feel left out, on the contrary, she feel part of them. As you see, they are waiting for some help! 
After completing the shopping list, they were standing in lines. As Mercy explained how to do the next step, they were ready to look for the items in the next side of the room. 
As you might imagine they run, quiet fast to shop! Shoppaholic!

It took a while to complete the four items in each group, but they did it nicely! 
 the task was not done yet. Teacher  Mercy had to check at least one bag, so she took one to see what they had collected. 

They were so interested in this part of the lesson that they approached instantly next to teacher Mercy! They wanted to know how the groups did. Teacher Mercy picked one list and one bag from one of the teams. She was taking out the cards, asking questions and checking the list. 

I really liked how she manage this last stage. She wanted to measure if they knew the vocabulay and how much they had learned up to that point. 

What I learned from this last class is to fall every negative barrier from my mind. They were the ones that fight over me all the time. I overachieved most of those thoughts. I  liked to present the topic this time, I felt confident and cannot wait to practice more the facts and ideas that were taught in this subject. 

This is our planning:

Objective of the lesson: By the end of this lesson, SWBAT recognize and differentiate the bad food from the good one.  In addition, they will be able to answer to these questions in the last practice: “Is (water) good for you/Is (candy) bad for you?” and say the correct answer “Yes, it is” and “No, it is not”.
Time	Stage	Procedure	Notes
5 15	Welcome Song Warm up	I will set up the song so the students can once again sing along with both teachers Children stand up in a semi-circle and I will give them the directions to follow. The students will be sitting down on the floor (semicircle). Teacher will have a secret box in which a card will be taken out. The box will contain for example: a t-shirt with the word “t-shirt” at the bottom of the card. A student will be called out to pass and to grab one card out of the box. Teacher will ask: Color of the item; quantity; spelling. The vocabulary included here will be: Days of the week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) actions (swim, eat, and run, fly, climb and jump). Each of these images will have also a number from 11-20 for review.	Aim of the activity: To get the students sing. Also, in warm up, students will have the opportunity to review the previous vocabulary, days of the week, numbers from 11-20, actions.   Type of learner: A-K-V Interaction:teacher-students Materials: cards with the old vocabulary already learned. Responsible: Ingrid Girón
15	Presentation	Introduce the topic “Drinks and Food”using one puppet and a theater scenario to present the topic to the children. They will be sitting down on the floor. The puppet will show each vocabulary item using the items of the fruits, vegetables and the like made of carton.  The puppet will use these items to present them the vocabulary. After that, puppet will make the students to repeat after me the name of the vocabulary items. Finally, the puppet will ask them to repeat the word at least three times along with him. It will also introduce the “good” and “bad” so that students know that not all food is good for them. It will mark the difference. Teacher will stress the: Color and name of each vocabulary.	Aim of the activity: Encounter and remember target vocabulary. Type of learner: V-A - Interaction:  Teacher (puppet)- students Materials: puppet, cards with the pictures of the food and drinks. Responsible:  Ingrid Giron
15’’	Practice	Activity 1: First, students will sit down in front of the wall where they will have two big circles. These two circles are going to be empty. The two circles will have a sad and happy face inside. There will be 2 groups of 8 children. I will choose or order these two groups and they will have two boxes with them, each one for the two groups. What they will do is to make two lines. The kids that are in front of the line are first. They will introduce one hand and choose one item of a food or drink. They will show it to the rest of the group and teacher will ask:  What is this? And then when they have answered: Is soda good for you? Whether the item is healthy or unhealthy food or drink, that student will make use of the correct answer (Yes, it is; No, it is not). In order to avoid distractions or boredom from the rest that are waiting for a turn, I will use the two questions for them to respond as a group.	Aim of the activity: Students will learn to decide what type of food they have taken from the box. Moreover, they will answer whether the food is good or bad for them. Type of learner:V-A Interaction: Teacher- Students Materials:  handmade items of food and drinks, two circles on the wall, colorful box with the items of food in. Responsible: Ingrid Giron
15’’ 10-12’’		Activity 2: Ss sit in a circle will work in pairs. I will give each pair the pieces of a puzzle. Each pair will have a different puzzle (either a food or a drink item). When they finish, I will ask which is the item and if it is food or bad (one question to every member of the pairs). Activity 3: Ss will be seated in a circle. I will give each student a disposable plate divided in sections; I will also give them food and drink items, so each of them can select the good ones for pasting at the front of the plate, and the bad ones at the back. Once they finish pasting the items, I will go to each of them for checking the items by raising one of the plates in each student. For example, I raise Imelda’s plate, and I point to the items in it (one by one) and ask them “what is it?” (if it is better I can choose the S) and they say the items. I also ask them if those items are in the right side. It will be with just one of the two sides.	Aim of the activity: To use Ss’ cognitive skills and practice target language Type of learner: V, A, T Materials: pieces of puzzle, board, pictures with all food items in the puzzles, glue, colorful pages. Responsable: Mercy Márquez Aim of the activity: differentiate good and bad remembering target language. Type of learner: V,A, T Materials: disposable plates, glue, food and drink items Responsable: Mercy  Márquez
15’’		Activity 4:  Students will sit in a circle. I will give them a shopping list to every S. Every word in the list will have missing letters, so that Ss can complete the words before shopping. Once they have completed the words (I will be checking all Ss’ list while they work for making sure the words are well written), then I will make four groups of Ss. In front of them, there will be drinks and food items. There will be a leader in every group in order to check the list items, and the other three students will run to look for the items in the list for completing the shopping list (one item per student). Once they complete the list, they will show the list and the items to me. I will get out the items of every group (one group at a time), and all students will check with me if the list is completed. E.g.: if there is water in the list, I will get out any item and ask “Is this water?” and they will answer “Yes, it is” or “No, it is not” according to what they see. When they say “Yes, it is”, I will also ask them “Is water good/bad for you?” by showing them hands with thumbs up (good) or down (bad) so they have a clearer understanding of what they are being asked. Closure: We’ll set up the song so the students can once again sing along with both teachers.	Aim of the activity:To recognize food and drinks and internalize target language. Type of learner: Visual, auditory, kinesthetic, tactile Materials: shopping list, food and drink items, thumbs up/down, two baskets for carrying the items,  Responsable: Mercy Márquez

My case of study

I liked how Imelda wanted to participate, even when the rest of the classmates think that she is too young or a baby, she is in the same level as the rest of the classmates. Maybe, she does things slowly because she is very focus and likes to do spend more time in the tasks. 

She is not able to read much in our mother tongue. This year was spent to start learning on that, so she is still practicing. In the picture, I helped her to deliver the answer. We have to learn that even when this program is only once a week, they are very aware of each activity, developing them with some difficulty. We have to think that they can learn as much as we expect and if they miss some topics, we do not have to assume that they learned it. We have to always review those topics as much as we can. 
Imelda showed to the teachers participation, willingness to learn and desire to be perceived out the rest. She is very introvertive, but she delivers answers whenever you ask her. She might seem to you not willing to be in the class, but this is not true. She uses other skills to be perceptive and attentive in the class. She is auditive and likes to use that skill to answer something. At her home, she is very attentive to every word the grown ups are saying and how they are saying them. 
She lives with much more grown up people and they treat her with caring and respect. Her mother and grandmother say that she is much more mature than other girls her age. It is true, she does not act or speaks like them. 


Annyeong! 

Juan and Raul: Actions

Hello everybody!!! 

Topic: Actions
Vocabulary: Swim, jump, fly, climb, eat, drink, drive
Grammar: I can/can't, She can/can't, He can/can't, it can/can't
Review: Animals, Family members, alphabet.


This class was so interesting seeing our classmates teaching one more time! They were so enthusiastic and driven to get everything done and not just that, but with great performance in their teaching! Congrats to Juan and Raul! 

Let's first disscuss what they did in their teaching this Friday 8th!

Raul and Juan sang the "Hello" song and after that I was told that he began the warmup activity using a similar version of my name tags, it had the same principle of the name in one sheet of colour paper and inside they found an image, the ones that you see in the picture below: 

They reviwed family members, individual letters, and other vocabulary that they were already familiar. 

The children were here standing and listening to Raul's explanation of today's class. In fact, I think that they are now  able to do many things and remember lots more. Their thinking is very active and are much more attentive in each class. This one was not the exception. Raul had flashcards with the action in a coloured paper. He grabbed one action from the list they had, and showed it to the children. He said the action and perform how that action verb was like. I think this demonstrated that he had thought on that before. Since these verbs are about "doing", they must perform to the children so that they were able to get the meaning. They distinguished the verbs and one thing that called my attention was that he called out the previous verb for the children to remember. As we know, they are very vivacious and perceive how that verb is different from the last one and so on. Raul also made clearer pronunciation, because this was also part of the learning process.

He was using the portfolio technique to show the kids these verbs. The only thing that I could perceive is that while he was teaching them the verbs, some kids were out of the circle in front of him. Some were not paying enough attention to him and I would prefered them to be sit so they all can see much better the portfolio. That was all I can point. Then, Raul only showed them the picture from the portfolio and he wanted them to say out loud the verb. I like that they said it even when they did not master the pronunciation. This gives me the exemplary thought that children like to participate even when they are unsure about how they are doing it. 

 I was pretty happy that they are learning the actions verbs. This activity was designed, I guess to measure how much they have clarified vocabulary from other classess with the new vocabulary as well. They stressed more vocabulary from last classes. They made a line in front of teacher Raul. He showed the first two children a picture of a vocabulary previously learned and with two boxes  behind him with the prizes. He gave the first one to answer a piece of ribbon to praise them. I was surprised and happy because many of them are remembering many of the vocabulay that was taught and that is something to be proud of. Minor surprises, great expectations! 









The next activity Gloria and I were discussing the following:

1. They were in two lines, girls versus boys. They were standing in front of Raul while he gave directions about the game. The game itself was great to see because children were so happy to participate and eager to win! However, I think that they were not set in the way they could be more comfortable in this game. Gloria and I discussed that Raul would have set the girls and boys sitting on the floor in other way, becuse boys were near the cons and they were winning more points. Maybe the two lines in front of the cons and kids sitting on the floor. So, Raul call one verb and the pair could stand quickly and grab the hoob and lastly select the correct con.
2. I would have set the cons far from each other, so that they run a bit more and think more about what plastic con to select.
3. The hoob was too big to grab quickly from the floor, but that was what they had and at the end it worked nicely.
The activity captured their attention and it was always high throughout the activity!! Since their attention span is short this kinds of activities where they used the body and cognitive mind let them spand more their attention on activities.

Juan's activities were active and he incorporated many kinestetic activities because he was aware that they like and enjoy more by moving around. He spend many of his lesson to spelling, action verbs, colours. They practiced again the verbs so they can have the opportunity to internalize them through the practice. I think that they had unconsiously thought about the ECRIF approach in mind. To me they were capable of demonstrating this. With the practices that Juan gave children review some animals, colors, the verbs and they also count the letters of the verbs. They recycle much of the vocabulary. This was an essential part. 
I liked very much and I see how Juan has grown in his performance. His voice was not soft and was audible. He also control the indiscipline; something that he did was that he called the name o the kid making noise or something. 
He also did modeling when remembering the actions with children. They all did what he did and repeat constantly the verbs and at the same time they perform the verbs. 
They all know that the verb "fly" means volar because they raised up their hand in the air and pretended to fly like birds. In fact, a kid mentioned the word "bird" when they all were raising their hands!!!

 They also moved around making a circle doing what Juan said and do. This also had them recycling the verbs. In the picture below, you are seeing that Juan showed them the proper names of the actions. This is also very very helpful for them to integrate in the learning of actions verbs. Eventhough they do not know how to pronounced them, they were able to remember them. The next activity also had the name of the verbs below the image and they pasted on the chart of CAN/CAN'T. 

Juan made them spell the word and you can see that they were very focused. 

They also practice the can/can't and Juan made the comparison. He said: "I can jump", and mimic the verb by jumping. Then, he said: "I can't jump" and he made like not being able to jump very well. Kids followed him. 

The spinning wheel that Juan used was not similar to Monica's. This was used for selecting them to get one verb from the ones that were next to Juan and then they had to say color, spelling and the verb. Then, the person selected by the arrow had to take one picture and say what was. Some pictures were verbs, one of a turtle and so on. I think that they were reusing the energy they had with nice activities. They were not bored nor playing around. If they were not paying attention, Juan called out his or her names. Kids love messing around whenever they had the chance. The next activity gave them the perfect moment for that. However, I could see that they were not interrumpting Juan or something bad occurred. 

Teacher Juan used a song as a background so they passed a hat and made a movement that he first did,  so that at the end one can pass and select one picture and answer some questions that Juan prepared. They moved funny and they all at the end answered the questions about the picture. They were all laughing and participating. 

 Finally, what I loved to see is that they participated until the end of the class. Juan song for them using the CAN/CAN'T. I do not recall about the lyric, but he sang slowly at the beginning and then he speed up when saying the verbs. They also move their arms pretending to do the verbs. 


Teachers Juan and Raul have learned a lot this time, I bet. We all are because we are witnessess of their achievements and we are sure that they are having fun and learning at the same time. They created great practices, which were helpful for the next classes!! Congrats and we all are proud of you guys!


See you next time!!!