January and February

We've been busy learning a lot of new information about our planet, so let's jump right into it! After coming back from winter break students learned about the Earth and it's layers. The following week we talked about weather and climate. Once the class understood the difference between weather and climate we explored the different climate zones on our planet. 

Next, we took a look at the water cycle. Students learned about evaporation, condensation, precipitation and collection and what happens in each step. We used worksheets, games, and songs to learn about the water cycle, all of which can be found here. At the end of the unit we reviewed with a game that we played in class and that students also had access to from home to continue studying individually.

The new unit is all about animals. So far, we've learned about the vital functions, their characteristics, and how animals are classified. We'll continue to learn more about animals such as the 5 different groups they are split into and students will be able to review animal classification before the exam with a fun game! That's all for now, until next time 😊

October, November, and December with Nancy

Hello and apologies for the very late introduction. My name is Nancy and I am the English Language Assistant (ELA) this school year at ​​CEIP Antonio Rodríguez Almodóvar. I am from California, USA and this is my fifth year working as an ELA. 

The first few weeks were spent introducing myself and getting to know how things worked around the school. Once I got the hang of things the first activity we completed in class focused on healthy eating and the food pyramid. As a class we identified different foods into the correct category: fruits, grains, vegetables, proteins, or dairy. Teacher Carmen had previously asked the students to bring in the weekly ads from supermarkets. For this activity, I told the class to find and cut out as many foods as they could find. Then they were each given a plate divided into the 5 categories. Their task was to glue each item in the correct category. The plates turned out great! 

The next unit focused on landscapes and the different types such as natural, human-made, inland and coastal. For the first part of this unit we focused on natural and human-made landscapes. I had a lot of fun with this lesson because I had the opportunity to show the class some of the cooler places in the USA. I showed them photos of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Antelope Canyon in Arizona, the Haʻikū Stairs in Hawaii, Bryce Canyon in Utah, and many others! With each place I asked them to identify it as natural or human-made. The following couple of weeks we moved on to inland and coastal landscapes. I enjoyed teaching this unit because it focuses on nature and all the amazing things the world has to offer.

Next on the agenda is winter holidays! I will definitely talk about Christmas and how my family and I celebrate this special holiday, but there are also other holidays the students may not be familiar with. I am looking forward to sharing these new (to them) holidays next week. 

Time has flown by and I am enjoying every minute of it. I will try to do a better job with this blog to keep you up to date on everything going on with the 3rd graders and all the material they are learning in their science classes. I hope you all have a great winter break with your loved ones!

P.S. To view any of the presentations linked to this blog post, just click on the underlined word and once the tab opens click on Presentación (top right) to begin the slideshow!

March - Animals

In March, it was time to learn all about animals! To teach them as many animals as possible, we played Top Trumps, a game where students work in pairs and have a bunch of cards. They have ten cards each and the cards have a photo of an animal and then their characteristics e.g Tiger - Strength 10, Speed 9, Intelligence 8. They had to play their cards against each other, so if the other student had a Cheetah and the speed was 10, they would win the card of their classmate (if they were playing with Speed for that round). The student with the most cards at the end of the game won! They loved playing this game and had to use English very well to make the correct answers and questions for each other to play.  

February - Weather Project

This month the students did their own weather project! I helped them learn the vocabulary and different kinds of weather in English but they took on the challenge on their own after and worked in teams to create a weather report. The project was all about teamwork so they had to divide tasks between them and talk about the different weather in Andalucia. They also had to explain the weather cycle. They practised their presentation skills which was good for their English too and learned about all the different kinds of climates too (and how there can even be different climates in a single country!). They needed to practise more than they did because in the end they didn´t know their presentations very well. However, it was good that they worked in teams and found information for the project by themselves. 

January - Services and Political Organisation of Spain

©Tripadvisor

In January, we reviewed what we had learned about villages, towns and cities in December. I threw my small blue, fluffy toy, 'Pepito', to different students who had to answer questions like 'do you have flats in villages?'. This is a great trick for getting the quieter students involved and participating!

Then we played a guessing game where students had to pick village, town or city but not tell the others. They came to the front of the class and students had to ask them 'is there a... shopping centre / church / train station etc'. This was a great review and students seemed to remember the differences between villages, towns and cities very well. 

Political Organisation of Spain

This was one of the most challenging things to teach in English. Especially as a foreigner, as I had to learn all about the political organisation of Spain myself before teaching it. First, we went through the organisation in a PowerPoint, where I interacted with them as we went through different slides. I asked them who the president on Spain is, who makes rules in Andaluica and in Alcalá too, before we did a role play where they had to think about decision making and what politicians do. They really enjoyed the role play and it helped them understand in English about politics and decision making. We also looked at national and regional health services. 

Review of Services

This week we reviewed the different services in Alcala and towns in general e.g social services and health services. We drew a table and they had to work out what contributes to each service e.g hospital in health services. They were engaged with this but loved it more when they used white boards to write their answers. They had 15 seconds to work out which service the photo on the board belonged to. Then they wrote on their boards and shouted out the service together. For this, they had to think quickly and practise their spelling. They also used investigator skills to look closely at the photo, because sometimes it could be more than one kind of service! 

November Landscapes

In November, we learned about natural landscapes! I think this is an important topic for the students to know about and talk about in English because they will be traveling and want to understand the different landscapes they see. It is also helpful for when they progress into the older year groups and learn about how climate change is impacting their favourite landscapes!

After introducing the landscapes with some beautiful pictures and interacting verbally with the students, asking them if they prefer a mountain landscape or an ocean one, for example, we did some refresh games. This involved me running through the photos really quickly and the class had to shout out the correct landscape. They had to recognise the landscape really quickly, which was a good challenge and by the end, they seemed to recognise all the landscapes.

Next, I handed out photos of different landscapes on their tables. They had to pick one and describe the landscape to their partner. For example, 'there are trees on the left and water on the right'. They had to try and guess which landscape their partner was describing. If they got it right, they got to keep the picture. This worked really well as they got competitive and really listened to each other and asked questions in English.

Finally, we did a survey where the students asked each other 'What is your favourite landscape?' and recorded it on a survey sheet.

We also watched a short video with British landscapes and I would pause the video and ask the students what landscapes they could see.

They definitely like this topic and I think it is making them curious about exploring the world one day!

October with English Language Assistant Teacher Daniella

October at CEIP Antonio Rodríguez Almodóvar

A whole month working as an English Language Assistant at CEIP Antonio Rodríguez Almodóvar has flown by. My name is Daniella and I am 23, from the United Kingdom and currently teaching English at CEIP. I am in science classes teaching science in English, which I love because the students get to practice their English through their science learning. I think I am the first British language assistant that the school has had, so I am looking forward to bringing some British culture into the classroom. This brings me to one of the most exciting days so far at school… Halloween!

Halloween at CEIP
It was so amazing to see Halloween celebrated at CEIP by all the teachers and students. I was blown away by the costumes. Halloween originated in Scotland and Ireland so it was a great festivity to intertwine with some British cultural history! I told class 3A and 3B about the history of Halloween and how people wore costumes to scare away the evil spirits. They seemed interested and learned some new vocabulary as well as the geography of the UK and Ireland. I asked the students questions about Halloween in Spain to find out how it is similar or different to the UK, where Halloween is a big deal. They were surprised that everyone puts a pumpkin outside their door in the UK, and that we eat the insides of the pumpkin sometimes too. It was great to see the students trying to explain what they do on Halloween and what they dress up as without realising they were improving their English by practising and learning new vocabulary.

Spooky Word Search and Bingo
We did a spooky word search and bingo. I taught them some new vocabulary like ‘broom’ and ‘cauldron’ by drawing pictures and writing the words on the board. They had to understand the new vocabulary for bingo because I would call out a word and they needed to know it to find it on their sheet (and as with all games, they all wanted to win so worked hard to remember the vocabulary).

First Impressions of English & Intentions
 
I have been so impressed by the high level of English across the year groups! The first step to learning a new language is motivation and to be motivated the children need to be excited and confident. I hope I can make the students have fun with their English learning and not worry about making mistakes (as that is how we learn after all).

Science

In October, we learned about the 5 senses and how to stay healthy including having a healthy diet.

To teach the 5 senses I brought a tea towel into class with some different objects hidden underneath. They had to feel without looking and describe using the structure ‘I touch with my hand…’ and saying if the objects were hard or soft. They loved this game and it got them all asking questions and replying in English, as well as learning about their 5 senses.

To learn about a healthy diet the students worked together to fill in a food wheel, putting 'apple' in the Fruit and Vegetables section for instance. Then they made their own food wheel, cutting and sticking the foods into the right box as well as writing down why we eat different foods, e.g for protein or vitamins. I showed them different foods on an Ipad and they had to tell me which category the food is in and why we eat it. This was a good test and they used their English very well.

Let’s see what November holds for science learning using English!

Catching up...

I've been behind the past few weeks! I've been traveling and trying to keep my creativity alive in the classroom, so blogging has taken a back seat unfortunately but here's what we've been doing in third grade:

SCIENCE
I spent a couple classes working on their oral exams which is always a welcome change of pace. I am able to sit with each student one on one and encourage them in their speaking. We moved onto another unit about animals, focusing on reptiles, amphibians and fish. They moved quickly through the material so I was able to come in and help them with review! They are getting stronger everyday at their comprehension and pronunciation and Teacher Fatima does a wonderful job encouraging them!

ART
We spent a couple weeks on Van Gogh's "Sunflowers". The students recreated the famous painting and I told the story behind its' origin. Van Gogh painted it to decorate a bedroom for a friend who was coming to visit...lucky friend eh? After they completed their recreations they then created their own painting for a friend. Last class they started a drawing competition that is being sponsored by the library. They are creating a mailman from space and trying to win some cool prizes. They look amazing so far so I hope to see some finalists from our school!

Weeks of February 25 - March 1 and March 4 - 8

These past two weeks were slightly off schedule as we celebrated Andalucia Day on February 28 and International Women's Day on March 8. We've also had some teacher's out with various things going on so these past two weeks were definitely a lesson in going with the flow which is very important! All that said, they were very good weeks and the students had a lot of fun with the activities that were related to these two very important holidays.

SCIENCE
In third grade they wrapped up their units on farm animals, bird and reproduction so we were ready to review! With a classic game of Jeopardy we covered all of the subject matter. Each table became a group and were given the chance to answer questions from the category of their choice. One class had a bit more fun with this than the other class did, but the questions were exactly the same for each so there was just a bit more studying that one class needed to do. The winning team was given a prize and everyone was encouraged to study for their exam. The following week I began their oral exam portion and we will continue with that in the coming week.

ART
In art we learned how to draw a lion step by step using a YouTube tutorial. I used this time to talk about what type of landscape they would draw for their lion to live in. We sang "In the Jungle" more times than I can count but it was really fun!
The following week Teacher Carmen was out but we continued with the lesson she prepared. The students were given Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" as inspiration and asked to recreate their own version of the classic painting. We have some beautiful pieces in the works and I'm looking forward to seeing the completed works this coming week!

Week of February 18 - 22

NATURAL SCIENCE

This week in third grade we learned about birds. I used the book and we covered the vocabulary about wings, beaks and nutrition. Then Teacher Fatima played a video with several birds in it and we pointed out all of the types of bird characteristics we could find.

This activity was simple and a strong finish for the unit. Next week we will begin reviewing the unit so this time spent reinforcing content will be good for them. I used stickers for participation and it works well to get them involved.

ART

In art we are also working with animals. Teacher Carmen had the students bring in pictures of animals and cut different body parts to create a collage of a unique animal. I explained the activity in english and let their imagination go.

I used this activity to teach them the names of animals in english and help them name their unique animals with english names. Art is a more personal time where I get to communicate with the students about many things. We get to know each other a bit more and they get to ask me about words that may help them with other classes.

Our first six weeks with Teacher Melanie!

Our first six weeks with Teacher Melanie!

Now that I’m adjusted to my new life here in Spain, let me tell you about these amazing first six weeks…

I am the Auxiliar or Culture and Language Assistant here at CEIP Antonio Rodríguez Almodóvar and my role is to encourage conversation and introduce relevant American culture into the classroom. Let me say…this is THE BEST job I’ve ever had! I am showered with love and appreciation and I get to use fun activities to get students involved in their curriculum. I think the one thing that I have been shocked by is how much I am truly able to teach the students. When I have their full attention I am able to introduce new subject matter and they walk away with knowledge and new confidence in their English. There is no better feeling!

My third graders have been fully invested since day one. They always give me their attention and are hungry to tell me new things and receive feedback. They help me to see the true difference and character of each grade level. I am always able to merge right into their lesson and they are eager to have me be a part of their class, which I appreciate very much!

SCIENCE

So far we have learned about our city around us, and the physical and political maps of Spain and Europe. These classes were helpful for me as well! I’ve learned some landforms and capitals, which is great information for me to talk with the students about. We spent a couple weeks also doing oral evaluations and I truly enjoyed that one on one time with each student. Last week we began animals and I wrote a story as a listening and logic activity. I read the story aloud and then asked for the order of animals. They did very well with this activity and next week we will build on it by having them answer more questions.

ART

In arts and crafts the students constructed their own city maps and presented them to the class. They worked carefully on these and presented some quality maps by the end of the unit.

Last week we began animals and I taught the students how to make their own hand puppet. They really enjoyed this activity and were even making more than one puppet. The goal was to create an animal puppet and make a short story with friends to present in class. I’m looking forward to hearing their stories and watching them present.

Outside of traditional classroom instruction I also took the opportunity to teach about Martin Luther King Jr on MLK Day. They all drew pictures in their notebooks about what his dream looked like to them and several of them shared their own dreams. We have some future lifesavers in third grade! They watched this video as part of the activity.

I also made sure to bring a little bit of the American style of holiday celebrations for Valentine's Day by giving the students candy and a Valentine treat to keep and to share. At the end of the school day I could see that they had shared all of their stickers with their friends and were enjoying their lollipops...ahh spreading love! :) <3