Which planet do you come from?

Which planet do you come from? is a lesson plan of 6 units which aims to extend the knowledge of Year 6 children about the Universe. This teaching unit has been based on CLIL methodology, focusing on Arts and PE as the main subjects to develop the chosen content.

The Buddha of Suburbia

The Buddha of Suburbia (1990), written by Hanif Kureishi, won the Whitbread Award for the best first novel. It has been translated into 20 languages and was also made into a four-partdrama series by the BBC in 1993, with a soundtrack by David Bowie.

The Buddha of Suburbia is said to be very autobiographical. It is about Karim, a mixed-race teenager, who is desperate to escape suburban South London and make new experiences in London in the 1970s. Gladly, he takes the unlikely opportunity when a life in the theatre announces itself. When there is nothing left for him to do in London, he stays in New York for ten months. Returning to London, he takes on a part in a TV soap opera and the book leaves its reader on the verge of Thatcherism.

The suburbs are "a leaving place" from which Kureishi's characters must move away. To Karim, London—even though it is geographically not far away from his home—seems like a completely different world. Therefore his expectations of the city are great.

• Hanif Kureishi discusses The Buddha of Suburbia on the BBC World Book Club
• Susie Thomas article on the London of The Buddha of Suburbia

Click here to view a file with evidences on different topics of the book

Christmas celebration: links for intercultural understanding

Christmas today

Today, only around 60 percent of people in the UK are Christian but Christmas remains the biggest holiday in the calendar. It is a largely secular holiday, with the main element the exchange of gifts on Christmas day.

Chocolate Father Christmases ©

In previous centuries the Church worried about Pagan influence on the Christian festival, but today ethical considerations are focused on the over-commercialism of the holiday, with the average person in the UK spending hundreds of pounds on Christmas-related purchases (an average of £384 in 2007, according to a Halifax report).

Protests against consumerism have been made by Christians and non-Christians such as 'Buy Nothing Christmas', encouraging people to spend time with their families instead of spending money on them.

With carol concerts, Christmas trees, office parties, midnight mass, and television programmes, today's festival has elements of the Pagan, Christian and folk traditions.

Christmas remains a time to forget about the long dark days and celebrate with friends and family.

COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING

Communicative language teaching is an approach that represents the 

philosophy of teaching that is based on communicative language use. It is also 

based on communicative competence 

CLT enfaces national/functional concepts and in communicative competence 

rather than grammatical structures. 

TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE ACTIVITY

In a TPR activity the children listen and d the movements accordingly. The 

sentences are repeated several times. In the beginning is important to maintain 

the order. The children learn vocabulary using mimes, gestures and drawings on 

the board. Doing the movements themselves is an important way of memorize. 

Soon the children do the movements on their own and in a different order. 

We can play a record to identify the order of the sentences that we have worked 

with them. Use pictures in the book to put the numbers of the sequence is a 

good idea to support the children with the task. Comparing the results all 

together is positive feedback. 

Here we can see how a teacher engages a group of very young learners by 

using an action story-. 

Phonology

The ReadingKey Classroom Vocabulary Program is an extremely powerful tool that will insure steady grade level reading progress for your students throughout the school year. Students who can correctly read the words for their grade level typically score in the top 10% on standardize national reading tests. The program is designed to be taught in a classroom setting of any number of students. As vocabulary (reading words correctly) and fluency (reading words smoothly and easily) are stated as important reading instruction skills in the new “No Child Left Behind” policy.

Because the program is organized into precise daily vocabulary units, and requires only 30 minutes of instruction per day, it is the ideal program to run alongside your school’s current reading program resulting in significantly higher student success and greatly improved test scores. If the program is used beginning in Grade 1, it will enable identifying problem readers much earlier.

If teachers would like additional practice in vowel sound pronunciation (some undergraduate college teacher programs do not teach vowel sounds), we have audio and video instruction for the vowel sounds at-http://www.tampareads.com/realaudio/tests/index-rm.htm 

DAILY STEPS FOR USING THE CLASSROOM

1. SET UP THE VOCABULARY COLUMN LIST

Print out the day’s Classroom Reading Wall “Lesson” –tape together – and place in a location where it can be easily seen by all students (i.e. front board).

2. VOWEL SOUND PRACTICE 

Discuss the colored vowel sound seen in each word. Have the class say the sound as you point to the 

colored letter(s) in each word. 

3. STOP AT THE VOWEL SOUND

In this powerful and unique step the class says the sound made by all letters up to the vowel sound. For example, if the word was “fast” – the students would say the sound made only by blending the “f” and short 

“a” together – “fa.” Start with the first word and have the students call out all of the “STOP AT THE VOWEL SOUNDS.” To make it easier, use your hand to cover over the letters to the right of the colored vowel sound.

4. COPY CAT EXERCISE

Students absolutely love this entertaining procedure for beginning the memorization process of any important sound – word – or concept. Whenever the teacher says the words - “COPY CAT” - the students stop whatever they are doing and are to repeat everything said or done by the teacher. The teacher can then say important sounds – words – or phrases and the entire class repeats in unison. For maintaining interest, try adding a few unrelated “yawns” – “coughs”– “noises” etc. The teacher signals the end of the activity by sliding her finger/hand across her throat.

5. BOO-BOO CATCHER GAME

Another fun activity! Students begin by placing both hands on the top of their desk. The teacher says the words in order (pausing 5 seconds before saying the word) but intentionally makes a mistake on one or two of the words. When students think the teacher has made a mistake, they raise their hand 

and say the correct word - (This technique increases student concentration, thereby 

enhancing memorization).

6. TIMED READING 

The teacher calls on a student to say the words in order but uses a stopwatch – timer – (or classroom clock) to time how many seconds it takes to say the list. Write the student’s  name and time on the board. Repeat this process with several students to see who has the fastest time. This mild competition makes for a fun and exciting activity. 

7. WORD OF THE DAY

The last word on this list is called the “Word of the Day.” It is typically harder than the other phonics based list words and therefore, requires much more time to commit to memory.

8. VOCABULARY WORKSHEET PRACTICE 

The next step is to further solidify memorization of the words by using a powerful memorizing  technique known as “Recognition Memory.” Pass out the appropriate LESSON worksheet  available from the Vocabulary Building section on our web site (or CD). Following SKILL 1 Directions -The teacher then calls out each word (or definition clue) in random order. Students are to then look over the Reading Wall words and choose the correct answer 

and write it on the worksheet. Students then complete Skill 2 and 3 on their own.

9. STUDENT READING WALL

What about students who still show difficulty learning the week’s vocabulary words? Simply give these students one-on-one instruction for 5-10 minutes daily using our special “Student Reading Wall” techniques and you’ll prevent these.

Click here to view the entire document for Grade 1

Click here to view the entire document for Grade 2

Click here to view the entire document for Grade 3

Primary literacy in Finland

WHY PRIMARY TEACHERS FROM FINLAND DEAL SO SUCCESSFULLY WITH LITERACY IN THE PRIMARY YEARS? SOME IDEAS

In that Country there is the idea of children learns by doing. We can see a class where the children are working separately and the teacher helps them in some specifics moments.

In early ages they don’t learn at the same speed at others. For example, in the video, we can see that there are lots of different levels in the same class. Some of them are written a whole book with 6 pages and now they are doings their covers, and others are still working in their stories. Some of them have papers books with corrections and they are writing them in the computers to print them after, and other ones are writing directly in the computers.

In the curriculum the reading and learning skill are reflected in different kinds of text. They were seeing poems, information texts, stories and jokes. Also, the actual activity is focus on creativity and the aim that they can express themselves (not important only for writing but also for oral expression)

Different spaces at the same time. The have freedom to move into the class to the library upstairs. There isn’t a unique class with only a teacher, and a unique task.

Telling stories: all the children do their own hand puppets to work with drama for write the stories after. Furthermore, telling stories is a routine in the everyday school.

The organization of the day class: They start by making a circle, a good way to introduce the children to the school day with some sounds and rhythms to make they calm. They manage the idea that all the children want to say something talking in a small groups. With this idea the teacher encourage the time to communicate. This activity finish with some fed-back for the whole class (one child of each group say what were they talking about).

For the activity of making books they started by doing a magazine where everybody could include stories of their own. Now they can put all their own stories into one book. They had have the change of develop imagination

When the children finish the principal project they can move it for other story. In the library they can play games about reading and writings skills (opposites, read newspapers…)

Key factors: resources, personality education, and less people with lower abilities. Also, the society in that country appreciates education a lot. They are focus in learn other languages at very early stages. For that you have to know very well your own language to learn another one. They give the story-telling and playing a lot of importance in child’s growth.