Jane's Sock

Do you get bored using Mary or Sally or Jack to talk about daily routines? I do! So as a revision of the year , for my 3rd graders, I prepared a worksheet where there is a letter written by a sock. =)

This sock belongs to Jane and he tells about what he is doing now, what he does in general and what he did yesterday. In this way my kids were able to revise the three main grammar subject that they were introduced this year. I used 3 different colours for each grammar subjects. Then they also talked about their socks, watches etc. To be honest while most of them found it funny and interesting, some of them thought it was unnecessary.

You can find the PDF form here :

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bzi_uqEZ0_7qcEN3SV94dGhDOXM&authuser=0

Singing Under A Yellow Lemon Tree

When I see my kids also love the songs that I use during my lessons, I become so pleased -of course. I love it when they sing them even during breaks.

Recently, with my 3rd graders we have talked about present continuous tense and I used "Lemon Tree" by Fool's Garden. Not only has the song got a story, but also the music is fun. I gave them a handout where they can complete the blanks using the target tense. I used my Microsof Word magic and write the necessary verbs inside a leaf =)

Before listening to the song, they try to guess what the blanks might be and some of them guessed correctly. Then we listened, but it took 3 times for them to complete successfully. I remembered my CELTA teacher saying "Students can listen even 20 times! Play the song as many times as they can fully understand." Then we talked about it. 

-When is he sitting?

-What is the weather like?

-Is he happy? Why/not?

-Is this a happy song?

-What does he need to be happy? (you can add more)

Then we watched an animated video with lyrics, but there is a mistake in the video. So I asked them to find the mistake -if they can, one sticker is waiting for them. If you can, you can also have your sticker =)

Here is the video:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAFS43NKFag

And here you can download the PDF form of this handout:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bzi_uqEZ0_7qLU56SEY2eGRobnc/view?usp=sharing

Here Is A Poem / Like A Little Foam

Hey!

Here is a poem that you can read and maybe memorise with your kids during the last days of school! Lessons are about to be finished and kids are already drifting away from you; but no worries! Keep calm and read a poem.There are lots of poems online but I like this one a lot. 

You can read and learn it by heart while your kids are practising English in a fun way. Your kids can act it out. Then you can discuss in terms of feelings or the characters in the poem. Then you can talk about other rhyming words that they know and in groups or pairs they can write a new one!

Hope you'll enjoy reading it:

Catch a Little Rhyme

BY Eve Merrıam

     Once upon a time

     I caught a little rhyme

  I set it on the floor

  but it ran right out the door

     I chased it on my bicycle 

     but it melted to an icicle

  I scooped it up in my hat

  but it turned into a cat

     I caught it by the tail

     but it stretched into a whale

  I followed it in a boat

  but it changed into a goat

      When I fed it tin and paper

      it became a tall skyscraper

  Then it grew into a kite

  and flew far out of sight ...

Zombie-ie-ie

Today I had one of my weirdest lessons ever! 

We were about to finish the last book of this year with my 3rd graders -that is "The Clever Woman" by Herbert Puchta- and the last activity was about Ireland. In that activity there was some basic information about Ireland such as the capital and the population. Also some of the famous music bands were included-and one of them was The Cranberries !

I had a casette of The Cranberries when I was in secondary school and I was constantly listening to it. They were already worn out at that time so I could never imagine that a 9-year-old girl would hear their music.

However, this girl smiled when I said the name: The Cranberries! I was trying to figure out how she heard them when she started to sing "Zombie". Oh I wasn't expecting that!

Then -not to anybody's surprise-  it spread like wildfire and all my kids were insisting on listening to the song. I had nothing else to do but to except.

On youtube I found a video with lyrics since I was not sure to show the original video. Before playing the song I explained that this song is a rock song which means that it might sound different; so no need to worry. If they hadn't liked it, I would have turned it off. But, the moment the song started, all of them also started to sing it by following the lines. I was  dazzled because I thought they wouldn't have liked it. 

Moreover, we've been doing Present Continuous Tense recently, and while listening to the song I found out that there is Present Continuous Tense in it! Out of the blue my lesson was turning into a new one. When the song finished I asked if anybody had any idea on the content of the song. Of course nobody thought about that. I said it is about war so is it a happy song? No, it is sad Ms Aysu =)

Then we talked about the tense that was used in the lyrics. e.g.: "In your head they are fighting." I asked when they are fighting? Is it past? I didn't go further as I already planned and prepared another song for them. I will share it soon.

Then they wanted to listen to it again and I said if they would be quiet. And they did and they got the song in the last 5 minutes.

So, this made me think : Why do we always keep using children's song instead of "real songs"? I never listened to songs for children when I was 9 or 10. I was listening to what my 9-year-older brother was listening. 

Here is the link to the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv5wF-E9D8Y

P.S.: I couldn’t escape from the question though: “Why is their name a fruit?” I have no idea=)

A (New) Silent Way

 Today I woke up to find out that my voice was hoarse – and as a teacher who has little monsters in the classroom can you imagine what that means?

To my big surprise my kids were quite understanding. I went to the class and told them that I was not able to speak loudly but they needed to be OK with my moving lips. First they did not get it, thinking I was only making a joke; but then they understood that I was really serious -I could barely make any noise! Then they all said "Get well soon Ms Aysu." =)   (It's nice to see them being kind in English)

The rest of the lesson went very quiet. For the first time in my teaching life I literally did not speak at all -reducing my TTT to zero level while thinking my lovely CELTA tutor. 

In one of  my 3rd grade class we were to do a listening lesson, which I felt lucky! I wrote some of the instructions on board, and did some  miming, and asked them what they could do with the task. I don't know if it is because we are almost at the end of the academic year or they love me more, but they were more focused than before. They tried to read my mouth for the answers or instructions.

Then I had an epiphany : I don't need to be loud in a Turkish classroom! So I decided to use this "silent talking" more and turn it into a game -maybe. I think I can say the vocabulary without a sound, for example, and they can try to guess.  More words mean more points.

In this way I ended up with the idea that the louder the teacher speaks, the louder the kids will get. When I calmed myself down, the kids became more quiet +.+ 

P.S:Have you heard "The Silent Way"? It was developed by Caleb Gattegno in 1960 to leave all the speaking to the learners. I wasn't using that method, but I immediately thought of that.

( You can find out more from here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Way )

Grammar Revision with Pictures

Hey Hey!

Have you heard boredpanda.com? It is a great website to follow and I have been following it on my Facebook. A few days ago I came across with this news that is about "astonished animals". As a teacher I cannot "just" read news -or listen to music- , but I look at everything as a lesson material. So, when I saw the "astonished animals", I wondered why. Then I thought that I could use these pictures as a tool for creative writing as well as grammar revision. 

Here are some ways that I came up with to use these lovely animals:

* You can ask why these animals look like this. What have they seen? And they can describe the vision through the animal's eyes including where they are etc.

* You can revise Present Perfect Tense by making some sentences such as "The koala has seen an alien."

* You can revise modals either in past or present: "The koala might have seen an alien and he must have been frightened." 

* You can revise if clause: "If the koala saw/ had seen an alien, he would/ would have run away, so he can't have seen an alien." Or as the teacher you can ask "If you were this animal in the forest and got frightened, what would you do?"

If I can come up with any other idea, I'll add to the list ^.^

http://www.boredpanda.com/astonished-animals/

Story Starter

Hey Hey,

There is this website -that I found out during a teaching course- where you can create your own stories with your kids. This website offers you the start of a story according to your kids' level. 

First, you sign up for free and choose the theme including fantasy, adventure, sci-fi and scrambler. Then by spinning you will see the beginning of your story. Besides, if you do not like it, you can change each part of the story.

After you decide your story, you can write it on a format that you choose (a notebook, a letter, newspaper or postcard). You can even draw a picture online. After you finish you can either download your story or print -or both !

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/story-starters/