Seven years ago I worked with a class in fifth grade (later 6th). They were absolutely amazing...I could do anything with them, suggest anything to them and they gladly did it. We had so much fun! Together we made this page with their short stories, poems...Check out Hanna's saga...The man mentioned in the story (Rony) was a VFU-student that all girls were crazy about. ;) and Hanna (18) is now sharing her time between studies and politics.
Diktboken
Barn i krig (An animated film my class made when they were sixth graders)
They also made an animated film about the Swedish election 2006, but I haven't uploaded it yet on Youtube. Hanna says it's my fault that she's into politics because of the theme about politics and the film we made. I gladly accept it's my fault ;)
Monday, 15 October 2012
A class blog
My class have a blog. Every week there are two new students who write about what the class have been doing at school during the week. I like this idea better than the idea of writing weekly or so letters to the parents about the plans for the coming week. I used to do that but found it was quite stressful to actually DO all the things I'd written down and planned to do,because as you all know, working as a teacher especially with younger kids, things happenes all the time. I am not all in charge of my time and planning.
The bloggers sit together and plan what they want to say about the week. I do want them to write in a way that will interest the readers, not with bulletin points or one word sentences. This is a great way to work extra on the writing. The bloggers also upload pictures and films, they might even edit them first too. They are in charge of the whole presentation and know the password for the administration user as we all are administrators for our blog. This gives them all a sense of responsibility, managing and protecting a password. They are also very polite in the way they express themselves no bullying, making fun of each other or so. Sometimes they comment each other and it is usually quite cheerful.
Next I have another dynamic page on the blog where I post homework. It is usually a text for them to read and questions to answer. My idea is to have Swedish and English texts, and texts with science or social studies input as well. This is to give them experience to do work on the computer and not only visit game sites och social sites. Next year they will all use Fronter in their now school and will be given one to one computers and they will need to use a digital calendar and follow the plans the different teachers have laid out in their "home room". Doing home work on the computer is also quite fun as it is a new thing for them.
Regards
Jasmin
Thursday, 11 October 2012
Here comes my blog post about the popular community Pinterest. You can access Pinterest on the web site: http://pinterest.com/ and by Android app or iPhone/iPad app. It´s free and easy to use but you need to create an account before you start pinning.
What is
Pinterest? You create virtual bulletin boards on Pinterest by sharing content from
the Internet to people across the world. You can create boards about any topic
like English grammar, English rhymes, English listening activities etc by
saving them on your Pinterest profile. You can later on access your content on
any computer with Internet connection. The whole idea with Pinterest is that
you pin web sites and interesting links. Then, you share the links that you pin
with other Pinterest users. The users can also repin your pins if they like
them and you can follow other users by subscribing to their boards.
You don´t need to share pins with
the whole world. You can instead create collaborative boards and invite only
pupils from your class. Then you can share documents and work together on different
projects. The invited members can comment the content in a collaborative board
and inspire each other.
Why use
Pinterest as teachers? It´s a good way to collect and organize ideas that you
get from the Internet. Here you can find inspiration and get ideas for classroom activities. You´ll find
stencils and printables and you can also get inspired by other teachers from
other countries and develop your own teaching skills.
What
should you think about when you use Pinterest? It´s important to read the Pinterest
terms before you use the site as a teacher. The must safe thing is to only pin
content you´ve created and it´s important that you ask yourself the question
who owes the content that you are publishing. Don´t forget to also check for
the PIN IT symbol on private blogs and websites. Many publishers have added these
buttons to their sites to make the readers know that it´s okay to pin their
pages to Pinterest. Read more about copy right law with Pinterest here: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/03/13/dont-get-stuck-by-pinterest-lawyers-warn/
I personally use Pinterest every
day as a way to prepare for my lessons. I personally think it´s a good way to
save files instead of having to print them out ore bookmarking them. The fact
that Pinterest is a visual community also makes it easy for the user to
directly find a specific link.
Here are some interesting web
sites about Pinterest that can be interesting for you:
Happy pinning!
/Lisa Edvinsson
Wednesday, 10 October 2012
.jpeg)
Electing a president in plain English
Soon there will be an election in USA for a new president (or will Obama hopefully win again?). Anyway, I used this (updated) link four years ago...
 |
Here is the link. |
Tuesday, 9 October 2012
How to Post on the Course Blog
This is how to make a post on the course blog:
1. You need to make sure that you've logged on to Blogger as the person who has the permission to make posts (i.e. using the ID you used when you accepted the invitation to become an author).
2. Then when you access the blog, you'll see a link (in small, light-blue letters) at the top of the page called 'New Post'. Click on that link and you'll see a text box that looks like this:
I'm in the 'Compose' function right now, but if you wanted to do fancy things with html, you'd click on the 'Edit HTML' tab instead. 'Compose' works fine for most of the things you might want to do.
3. You can either write directly into the text box, or copy and paste your text from, say, a Word document.
The tools in the bar at the top of the text box are fairly standard - you use them to change the formatting of your text after it's in the text box.
4. You'll notice too that I've included a picture in the middle of the text (that's the screenshot of what a post looks like). One of the tools at the top of the Compose page looks like a picture in a frame. Click on that and you'll go through the process of uploading and publishing your graphic to the blog.
5. Blogger saves your draft text automatically at fairly short intervals (the Save Now button goes dark when everything's been saved). When you're ready, though, you could click on the Preview button for a last check on what it looks like … and then you click Publish Post when you're ready.
6. If you notice something you want to change even after you've posted your Blog Post, as an author you can access all the posts on a blog when you log on. If you click on the 'Posts' option, you'll see them all, and then you'll see a sub-menu under each post name, if you hold your cursor over the title of the post. One of the options there is 'Edit'. There is an easier way to do it, though. If you click on the little pen at the bottom of your post in the blog, you come straight back to this Edit page. When you've finished editing, just click on the orange 'Update' button at the top of the page.
Don't forget to add your name to your Blog Post!
Monday, 2 January 2012
Learn English Kids!
I have found the site Learn English kids on the Internet. You can find the site here :
http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/
I think this is a page that you can use a lot when you are teaching English to young kids . The site is built up to be used for second language acquisition and teaching. It´s a good site for teachers, students and parents to work with. To be able to use all of the functions on the website you have to start a charge free account on the site. It is also good if you have a flash player installed on the computer; it is often pre- programmed on new computers. As a teacher it can benefit the teaching if you have a Clever board or a projector in the classroom so you in a easy way can show the students how the page or task works. After starting an account it´s just to surf out and use all the good exercises.
On the site there are five headlines games, listen & watch, read & write, make and speak & spell. Under every headline there are hundreds of exercises to listen to or do. For many for the exercises there are discussion questions or examples of how you can work more with the exercise.
Under the headline games you can find good games that help the child to develop their language. One example is a game there the child shall label the furniture in the bedroom. Under listen & watch you find example of kids that tells stories, different songs, movies and so on. Read & write headline collect the exercises that help the children to develop their reading and writing skills. An example of a task called "your turn". In this task the child get a question and shall answer it in writing. A story maker is an example of what you can find under the headline make, it´s an easy tool to make a short story. This is a good tool for enlargement of the vocabulary. Under the headline Speak & spell you can follow Sam and Pam and training pronunciation through songs, games and action.
As a teacher there are many possibilities to use the tasks on the website. The tasks are not connected to the syllabus or the curriculum but most of the exercises match the Swedish syllabus in some way. One way you can work with the site is to give an exercise as homework to the students. You can find good exercises about furniture´s were the students are supposed to know the name and were the furniture goes. This is also a good site to listen to authentic English but you have to listen to the video before showing it for the children so you can prepare the children in advance so they understand the words in the text.
Something that is important to think about before you start to use the site is way you use the exercise, dose it fit your purpose? It´s a good site but it is easy to get carried away of all good exercises. Remember it have to be in a meaningful content for the students.
A problem with the site is that it can be hard to find an exercise again. There are not possibilities to make an exercise a favourite, so to find the same Halloween exercise the next year can be very hard. So if you find an exercise that you like try to save it on your hard drive or print it out!
//Maria Skanbäck
http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/
I think this is a page that you can use a lot when you are teaching English to young kids . The site is built up to be used for second language acquisition and teaching. It´s a good site for teachers, students and parents to work with. To be able to use all of the functions on the website you have to start a charge free account on the site. It is also good if you have a flash player installed on the computer; it is often pre- programmed on new computers. As a teacher it can benefit the teaching if you have a Clever board or a projector in the classroom so you in a easy way can show the students how the page or task works. After starting an account it´s just to surf out and use all the good exercises.
On the site there are five headlines games, listen & watch, read & write, make and speak & spell. Under every headline there are hundreds of exercises to listen to or do. For many for the exercises there are discussion questions or examples of how you can work more with the exercise.
Under the headline games you can find good games that help the child to develop their language. One example is a game there the child shall label the furniture in the bedroom. Under listen & watch you find example of kids that tells stories, different songs, movies and so on. Read & write headline collect the exercises that help the children to develop their reading and writing skills. An example of a task called "your turn". In this task the child get a question and shall answer it in writing. A story maker is an example of what you can find under the headline make, it´s an easy tool to make a short story. This is a good tool for enlargement of the vocabulary. Under the headline Speak & spell you can follow Sam and Pam and training pronunciation through songs, games and action.
As a teacher there are many possibilities to use the tasks on the website. The tasks are not connected to the syllabus or the curriculum but most of the exercises match the Swedish syllabus in some way. One way you can work with the site is to give an exercise as homework to the students. You can find good exercises about furniture´s were the students are supposed to know the name and were the furniture goes. This is also a good site to listen to authentic English but you have to listen to the video before showing it for the children so you can prepare the children in advance so they understand the words in the text.
Something that is important to think about before you start to use the site is way you use the exercise, dose it fit your purpose? It´s a good site but it is easy to get carried away of all good exercises. Remember it have to be in a meaningful content for the students.
A problem with the site is that it can be hard to find an exercise again. There are not possibilities to make an exercise a favourite, so to find the same Halloween exercise the next year can be very hard. So if you find an exercise that you like try to save it on your hard drive or print it out!
//Maria Skanbäck
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)