STEM II: the skittles experiment

Hi family!

 Hope you are enjoying this Science Week!

 One of our recent experiments at home was the Skittles experiment. It can get any easier than this!

You just need a bag of Skittles, a glass of warm/hot water ( it is suggested to try water at different temperatures so you can actually see its effect on the experiment!) and if possible a white plate. 

As you can see in the pictures, just lay out the skittles in any order or design you wish. Then simply add a bit of the water and wait for the magic to happen!

Try different patterns and combinations for new effects!

Hope you enjoy!

STEM I: Science week, suggestions and websites.

Hello everyone!

  Ja estem en plena setmana de la ciència, i reenganxem el bloc amb propostes orientades a combinar English i STEM.

 Entenem per STEM la ciència, tecnologia, enginyeria i matemàtiques ( in English Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths). L'objectiu es promoure aquestes especialitats entre els petits i joves de la casa mitjançant jocs, activitats, manualitats,... En alguns casos trobareu també la variant de STEAM que inclou l'ART com a fil conductor.

 Us deixem amb un llistat de les nostres webs preferides per treballar aquest temes, a més de recomanar-vos buscar activitats STEM o STEAM a Pinterest, on trobareu mil i una opcions i suggerències!

 Ah! I no oblideu que tenim Supermoon this Monday!!

 Have a great week and enjoy English with your family!

Learning about FOOD II

Food is one of our favourite topics, as there are many different ways of working English around Food. With our youngest students we love listening to the funny versions of Do you like song of Super Simple Songs

There are now 4 or 5 different versions, that help us work on grammar structure Do you ? Yes I do / No I don't, plus vocabulary.

We also use the opportunity to talk about BREAKFAST/ LUNCH and DINNER ( or supper). We made a poster with our older students about what do they have for each meal?

We will also be talking about what do we use to EAT. I take a box with a spoon, fork, knife, glass, plate, bowl, napkin, tray and cup ( plastic of course!). We look and repeat orally the vocabulary, then write it down on a paper. 

 I also use the opportunity to ask them what is their favourite food and get the conversation going around!!

Have a great day!

Story telling!

Aprofitant la setmana cultural que fem a l'escola per Sant Jordi, vaig explicar un conte en anglès als alumnes de P5. Vaig escollir el conte de Jane and the Dragon, amb un principi que ens recorda a la llegenda de sant jordi, pero amb una herïna en aquest cas que vol demostrar que també pot ajudar i sobretot un final sorprenent amb noves amistats i tot!

El conte totalment in English, va començar amb un calentament amb cançons i vocabulary. El relat amb accions per involucrar els petits no va durar més de 15 minuts i vam acabar l'activitat fent un colour by number d'un drac.

A les extraescolars estem treballant també storytelling, i els grans hem de decidir un conte per explicar als més petits (infantil). Volem fer un puppet show, i aquests són alguns dels títols que tenim en ment:

- The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson. A part de ser una història divertidíssima amb uns protagonistes molt definits, tenim infinitat de material a la web per treballar el conte a classe.

-Aliens love underpants by Claire Freedman & Ben Cort. Divertida i original, amb moltíssimes possibilitats per ser representada.

-The three little pigs. Ens agraden els clàssics, sobretot si donen tant de joc com the three little pigs. L'avantatge és que el públic ja coneix la història i pot seguir el conte sense problemes. A més hi afegiríem alguna cançó.

Com veieu encara no ens hem decidit, ens recomaneu algun conte in English??

English Books for Sant Jordi

Roald Dahl is a classic, and you have probably already read or seen some of his most popular stories such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Matilda. You will find other great titles such as Fantastic Mr Fox or the Enormous Crocodile, shorter stories full of fun and originality.

 Rod Campbell has some great and funny books for younger children, such as Dear Zoo...the main character writes a letter to a Zoo asking for a pet and ....well, you need to read the book to discover what happens. He also publish a fantastic animal ABC book and the Noisy Farm. 

Eric Carle is a fantastic author, full of originality and creativity. We love Brown Bear, Brown Bear or the Hungry Caterpillar. You will definetly get it right with these books, specially for toddlers and preschool.

Dr. Seuss has bestsellers all around the globe that are over 50 years old, but still engaging and beautiful. The Lorax or Top Cat are amazing, and highly recommended.

Julia Donaldson is probably one of the most popular writers with a never ending collection of books and stories. We are great fans of the Gruffalo, but also enjoy her classic The Magic Paintbrush. And if you want to help your preschool and primary students, there is a fantastic new collection Songbirds Phonics, with a wide range of books and levels, aiming at working on various phonetic sounds. They come with funny pictures and instructions for parents or tutors on how to help children enjoy.

Hope you have a great day, week and Saint George celebration! After all, Saint George is the Patron Saint of England and children celebrate his legend as a knight in shiny armour!

Paper Christmas tree

One of our favourite sites and facebook page and pinterest board is Red Ted Art.  Just to get great ideas, inspiration and motivation, I assure it is worth it!

 Si voleu idees genial, originals i creatives, heu de fer-vos seguidors d'aquesta pàgina. Comparteix moltíssim material a més a més de projectes i idees.

We decided to try out the paper Christmas tree, and it was a great success!!

Aleksandar working on his tree!

We both made a Christmas tree each ( fantastic for adults too!), plus we got to do some origami!

Click here for the link in Red Ted Arts page to download the paper trees and enjoy!

Sock snowmen

Back to our handcrafts! We decided to start getting our Christmas decorations ready. After discussing what to do first, Aleks and Pau decided they wanted some snowmen, as we don't get any snow in Torredembarra!

 This is what we did! ( great for ages 3 to 8 year olds!)

We used some old baby socks, white for the body,and coloured ones for the hat! We filled our snowmen with cotton, but I have seen a very nice version with rice. It makes them more stable! We used thread to tie the sock, and then some leftover material to make a scarf. Some old buttons, little paper pompons and felt pens did the rest! They really enjoyed it and even took them to school to show their friends!

EARTH DAY

I m in the middle of celebrating Spring, Nature and Earth day at our English activities this month.

I have come accross some fantastic ideas and inspiring units and wanted to share with you some of them!

Younger students love learning about Spring, nature and specially BUGS. Check out Crafts by Amanda where you can find some beautiful and fantastic ideas to do with kids. We were inspired by her to do our own twirling ladybirds and children loved it!

Another fantastic set of ideas comes from Renae at Every Star is different . You will find a fantastic flower unit, inspired by Montessori.

At the helpful Garden you can find some amazing material, It was great to come across a Montessori Botany nomenclature set for primary 3 to 6 years. We used it in our activities and children loved listening and learning about parts of plants and trees.

Thanks for reading! Hope you have a fantastic Earth Day!

Learning about FOOD

 Food is always one of my favourite topics to teach. It gives you a wide range of opportunities to experiment, touch&feel, learn, discover something that is both real and part of our daily routine.

 Algunes de les activitats que he treballat amb els diferents grups que ensenyo són:

 Food power point presentation : eina visual amb imatges fotogràfiques. Serveix tant per introduir vocabulari com per repassar-lo i consolidar-lo. Especialment interessant a partir de P3/P4. Podeu trobar la presentació a slideshare

 Songs: ens encanta la canço " Do you like..." de Super Simple Song. Fantàstica per totes les edats. Introduïm vocabulari, estructures gramaticales per fer preguntes "Do you like..." amb respostes afirmatives i negatives. És també genial per deixar els nens ser creatius i pensar les seves aportacions!
Aquí el link

 Dinner plate: " What do you like to eat for dinner?" Aquí unes imatges d'aquesta activitat.

I printed the mats from the fantastic page Picklebums . Kate shares all kind of fantastic ideas, tools, suggestions. Follow her on facebook, you will not be dissapointed!

That's all from me today, remember Have fun and enjoy learning English with your little ones!

Homemade snow

Handmade mug holders or glass mats

Hi everyone!

 Although this would have been a great idea as a Christmas gift, we actually just made the mats for fun, as I had the woden mats around for some time and was trying to find an amusing way for Aleksandar and Pau to use them.

 Vam comprar les bases de fusta en un basar, a molt bon preu. Crec que feia prop d'un any que les tenia per casa sense fer-les servir.

 Els reis ens han portat pintura i pinzells nous, o sigui que un més un, i let's go!

 Basics such as playdough ( plastelina), paint ( pintura), scissors and paper, are a must at our house. Stickers and bits and pieces are always welcome, and will eventually find a way to be used.

Aleksandar choose to paint one colour each mat. 

Pau on the other hand, was happy to experiment and mix!

L'únic que ens falta es potser posar una capa de vernís a sobre les bases per tal d'allargar la seva vida útil.

 As the weather gets a bit cold, and we tend to stay at home more often, I will be posting more indoor activities.

 Have fun and enjoy!

Happy New Year

Homemade Christmas Crackers

Hola!

 Heu sentit a parlar de Christmas crackers??? They are a fun tradition in the UK for Christmas. For more info about the origin and what it is click christmas cracker link

 Although you normally buy Christmas crackers, this year we thought it would be fun to make some of our own. We got to choose what to put inside and how to decorate them. 

 This is the simple process we followed with Aleks!

 Vam utilitzar rotllos de paper de cuina i WC, paper de seda i cinta. A més a més d'uns caramels per ficar dins. Com veieu, l'estètica sembla un caramel gegant. La tradició diu que dos persones han de tirar banda i banda i fer petar el cracker ( els originals porten un petard a dins que sona). Els nostres són "childfriendly" i no fan soroll peró si són divertits.

Tot i ser una tradició nadalenca, potser us podeu animar i preparar-ne per cap d'any o reis!!

Have fun and enjoy!

Walking water experiment

SALT DOUGH CHRISTMAS TREE DECORATIONS

Hello everyone!!

 We have been extremely busy these last two weeks, specially this weekend getting ready for Christmas. We enjoyed our Kid's Club on Saturday and spent Sunday getting some things ready for Christmas.

 We have still not put up our tree, but we have been preparing some decorations to go on the tree.

 Salt dough, està feta amb 1 got de farina ( substituïu per Maicena en cas d'al·lèrgies), 1 got de sal comuna i mig got d'aigua ( a discreció, heu de veure que queda una masa compacta com de pizza o pa). Com veieu a les fotos, els dos petits de la casa van ser responsables tant del procés de fabricació, com de l'elaboració i posterior decoració. Es pot coure la massa per endurir-la més ràpidament. Nosaltres ens esperem un parell de dies.

Podeu afegir colorant a la massa per fer motius com arbres, o podeu deixar el color natural.

 Hope you like it and enjoy it!

DIY Window Clings

Hello!

 Long time no see!!! We have been up to many things lately....we have just started an adult English Speaking club to meet up once a week for a chat in our town, and as you may have seen, we also started the Kid's Club on Saturdays.

 But as always, we are still into trying out all kinds of crafts and experiments with the boys. 

 Our latest try out, was making our own window clings. We found loads of tutorials and tips on the internet and specially pinterest.

 What you need is really simple. These are the ingredients:

Washing liquid, glue, colouring ( I use food colouring but any will do). You can vary the amounts to the quantity you would like to make, also taking into account if you want to make different colours. We put half a pot of glue ( I think of 100ml) and a little spoonful of fairy liquid. Probably it would be better to use a neutral colour soap, as fairy left things quite green. Then you will need a glass pot or jar to put the ingredients in and long sticks to mix them.

  Then we used some plastic folders, and with a paintbrush Aleksandar made some letters ( he is right now into reading and writing and numbers, so that was his choice). Pau on the other hand enjoy making blobs that resembled leaves somehow. 

 You should then leave overnight ( an a good 12 hours) the figures to dry. Then you can peel them off the plastic and stick them on the window or any glass suface. They can be reused many times.

 Unfortunately I didn't manage to take pics of the final results, but here you have some inspiration ideas from the internet.

Have fun and enjoy!

Youtube channel English

Incy wincy spider

Hello everyone,

 Halloween is near and that means scary things and costumes. Well, some children love scary things, others get scared.

 When I started working last year at the daycare, I used to have children aged 6 months to 2 years old. Instead of talking about monsters, witches or jack o lanterns, I decided to talk about spiders....well, one specific spider, who is a very friendly spider.

 This year, we started some of our halloween decorations with incy wincy spider. 

 It was quite a simple activity. First we used FINGER PAINT (make your own homemade fingerpaint ). We used black, made a print of their hand with paint on an orange PAPER PLATE. You can also cut out a PAPER CIRCLE OR SQUARE. 

While the paint was drying ( I am thinking of using an alternative with my students at school. They will draw the spider and cut it out and stick it on the paper/plate not sure still which one to use!) I cut holes around the edge with a paper puncher (or hole punch). 

Once the paint was dry, we gave incy wincy EYES. We got a pack of plastic eyes from a shop, but you can also paint them! 

The final touch as you can see was making the spider web for incy wincy. I stuck a piece of white wool on the back of the plate with sticky tape and then let the boys make the pattern they wanted.

Simple, easy and they had loads of fun!

 You can also sing with your little ones the incy wincy spider song. You will find lots of versions on the internet. This is the one we like, which you can find on my youtube playlist

And remember, have fun and enjoy!

Giant Bubbles

As it looks like the sunny and nice weather will be around this weekend, why not try to make giant bubbles?. My suggestion, is simply to go outside and try . We had to give it a go a few times before we actually managed to get some good size "giant" bubbles.

 In any case, take all kinds of material that you can use to blow bubbles, and your kids will certainly have fun for a while!

You need these ingredients and lots of patience

 Remember: Have fun and enjoy!!

Homemade playdough ( non edible)

Hello everyone!!!

 because you never know when the weather might suddenly change, and autumn might decide to appear, it is useful to have some indoor activities that are really easy and simple to organise.

 I found this homemade playdough at Happy Hooligans web, which by the way is a fantastic website and has loads of ideas. I follow them both thru pinterest, facebook and check the web from time to time. Totally recommended!!

 As you will see, you only need two ingredients: HAIR CONDITIONER (any brand or make will do) and flour ( we started off with cornflour but needed some plain flour at the end. If you want the gluten free option then go for the cornflour!!)

 Just take a look at our two boys. Pau, our youngest was not specially motivated to make the playdough, but once he saw the final result, he decided he wanted to play with it. They loved it!

PLEASE REMEMBER! This is a non edible version. So if playing with babies or toddlers, keep an eye on them.

 Have fun and enjoy!