Workshop day

Third period!!!!!

Workshop day

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.” 
― Charles William Eliot

Of course we learn from books, ideas that we find on the internet, tips that people with experience give us and workshops too. Thus, in this opportunity we will learn many activities that come from a workshop day we had in the university in which my friends and I showed many activities or games to use when we run out of ideas and nothing comes to our minds.

While teaching kids, we have to use so many activities that there are sometimes when we just run out of them. However, in this entry I will show you some activities you can use to teach not only kids or basic students, but they can be adjusted to the needs or the level of your students.

Memory games

Firstly, the workshop started with Ileana’s ideas of memory games. Ileana presented different sets of cards that can be used to play with memory in a classroom environment. These cards can be presented with many topics that reflect some specific vocabulary that is legated to an image. This means that abstract ideas can be harder to be represented in a memory game if you want the cars to contain pictures, which is something that makes them more appealing. Nevertheless, you can use them with concepts and words too. The idea with these little cards is that you can have them on the students’ desks and they can play with them in pairs, or to save time and materials you can work on a big set of cards that can be pasted on the board or even on the floor if the classroom and the number of students allow such an activity.

To sum up, it is known that memory games as the one described above help kids practice some specific vocabulary, but also helps kids improve their memory and level of concentration, thus, let’s go ahead and start using memory games in classes.

Boxes activity:

this activity was develop by me, and I taught my classmates how to recycle old boxes of shoes that you have at home to be used in a funny and active task.

· Topic recommended

 for the activity: Pets

· Stage of the lesson in

which the activity can

 be used: practice stage

· Materials to be used:

boxes of shoes, color paper,

glue, pictures of animals,

and balls of paper.

· Cost of the material:

-Empty boxes of shoes that

you have in your house

-color paper: $0.20 cents

per unit in paper stores

-glue: $1.00 the bottle in paper stores

-Pictures of animals: you can print them at home or buy them

in paper stores $0.30 cents per each.

 Take the empty boxes of shoes you have in your house and cover each with paper of different colors. Example: one box can be yellow, another one red, and so on.  Do not cover the tops, just the boxes. We will not use the tops.

 

Then, paste the picture of a different animal like: cat, or dog on each box. The pictures should be big enough so that kids can distinguish them.

 You can paste the pictures on the top of the back side of each box so that they can be seen. Finally just make some balls of paper to throw in the boxes.

 How to develop this activity in the classroom !!!!

To practice whether your kids have already acquired the animal nouns you have just taught them, you have to divide the class in two groups (it can boys against girls or as you prefer)

 Then, make two lines with the two groups and place the boxes in front of the kids’ lines. Give one ball to each student at the top of the lines; next, you say the name of an animal and the students with the balls should throw them into the right box. Write down the points earned per each team if you want the losers to receive a punishment at the end of the activity. Finally, you decide how many times each student can participate!!!

Puppets!!!

Puppets are always a good activity when your kids are getting bored.

This activity was developed by Luis Amaya who did a good performance with his puppets by changing his voice and improvising a story.

You might think that puppets are expensive and you cannot afford them, however, Luis presented a version of puppets that is much cheaper than buying real ones in a store. This idea is about using socks and some other materials to create your own puppet. This will perfectly work with kids who do enjoy talking to puppets, no matter the material that has been used to make them.

Spinning wheel:   

Monika showed a very create way to review topics in the classroom, and this is using a spinning wheel. This spinning wheel can be divided into many sections. Each section can review a different topic, the one that you prefer the most. 

This activity is very innovative and will help students to get up if they are already getting bored, furthermore; this spinning wheel will definitely get the attention of everybody.

How to tell a good story:

Raul did perform a very superior activity to tell stories in an inventive way so that kids can really follow the gist of the stories.

Raul told us a story with the use of a flipchart. While he was saying the story, we were observing the images that really made us get into the fairy-tale.

 

 Flipcharts are very useful tools when reading stories, not only for kids; but also for adults because they help people visualize what they are hearing, and in this way, you as a teacher can assure comprehension of pronunciation that may not be that clear for students; nevertheless, by watching the images students can clarify their ideas in their mind.

Name tags:

Name tags do now work only to label students with their names, but to use them in activities during the class too.  Ingrid showed a way to use name tags in a task. She designed name tags with form of girls and boys faces, but that was not all; inside the name tags were either a word or a picture. Students had to match the pictures with the words to get in pairs for future activities during the class.

I like this ingenious idea because is a way of planning ahead. In this case, you not only save material that is usable twice (as name tags and to make students get in couples too), but you also save time without creating too many pamphlets.

Songs:

Songs are always with us when we have already taught every part of the lesson and we still have time; thus, the more songs you know, the better. Hence, in this occasion Juan taught a song about the days of the week to the tune of the Adam’s song.

Songs not only help cheer the class up, but also help kids remember and internalize vocabulary in a funny way. There are some kids that find difficult to memorize vocabulary; however, a song can help everyone to internalize vocabulary that in this case, it will become in the lyric of the song.

Plates:

This was a very ingenious idea that Abigail taught in the workshop. Plates can be used not only to eat, but also to create different handicrafts with kids; nevertheless, in this occasion she showed how to create a bag with the plates. You just need two plates that should be cut three centimeters below the plastic edge, as simulating a down smile. Then you paste the plates, and you decorate them as you prefer.

This idea can be useful for the kids to keep all the little things they crate at the class. 

Modeling Clay:

Modeling clay is always a good idea for kids because they love modeling clay. However, this activity does not have to work only to entertain children; every activity we develop in the class must be meaningful and related to the topics we are teaching. Thus, in this case, Cristela proposed a topic to be used when using this activity which is animals. You can make students design animals while you teach them the pronunciation of them at the same time. This task can work with fruits too, or any other topic that can be easy to design using modeling clay.

Recycling materials:

There are a lot of ideas to develop in order to recycle materials that we have at home. For example, Jc presented an idea about how to create some recycled shakers. The only thing you need is some empty cans of sodas, any kind of pebbles or sand, and some colored paper to decorate them. First, you put the pebbles inside the can, then you cover the top of the can with scotch tape, and finally you just decorate the can as you prefer.

These recycled shakers can help you keep the attention of the kids if they are a little distracted, they can also work if you need to sing a song. In conclusion, there are many activities in which you can use these cheerful recycled shakers.

Hats:

The last activity was developed by Gloria who taught how to make students create their own hats. The topic recommended for this activity was adjectives such as, happy, sad, angry and the like. Students are supposed to decorate their own hats with the intention of showing the moods they have at the moment of the class.

I like this idea because most of the time, the teachers are the ones who decorate hats for kids, but in this opportunity; children are the responsible ones for the design of their hats, which can be very beneficial for their own learning since they have to use their fine motor skills and also the adjectives they have been taught in the class.

To sum up, all the ideas presented in this workshop are fantastic to work with kids; they are also adjustable to many topics and in this way, we have more ideas to use in our kids’ classes.!!!!