The Compass

I used this activity in a Spanish Language lesson about homophones but it can be used for any other topic.  I learnt it in some courses I took about new methodologies for the classroom.

Steps:

1. I gave the students the drawing of a compass and they glued it onto their notebooks.

2. When I said each of the cardinal points, they had to meet one classmate and write their names on the drawing.

3. Once they had collected four names (one for each cardinal point) they sat down and I explained the next step to them.

4. When I said “North” they had to look for the classmate that they had written in North. Then, they had to think about two homophone words and make a sentence containing the two of them.

With this activity they learn how to work with different classmates and, at the same time, they learn how to solve problems or do any activity together.

By Mercedes Delgado

Primary 5

Santísima Trinidad School

Spain

Lego rhyming

Understanding the sounds of English is a step towards reading, and so we try to play with sounds a lot, especially with rhymes. The object of the game is to hop the figure from one end of the LEGO board to the other, landing only on rhyming words.

Using masking tape, I wrote out short words, and stuck them onto two stacked LEGO bricks of the same color. I made sure to include a couple sets of 7-8 rhyming words so there would be enough words to get the figure from one end of the board to the other.

We started our figure on the word “ran”. We talked through that word, and then hopped the figure to the next rhyme: “man”. He need to sound that out too, but by the time the students did a few more “hops”, they were shouting out the words, because they were confident with the rhyming ending, and know the sound the first letter makes.

4 fine motor activities using Lego Duplo bricks

This is probably one of the most useful Websites you can find for nursery and early primary teachers. I love when moms actually teach teachers. 

http://www.funathomewithkids.com/

Image courtesy of La Novia de Villa

http://www.funathomewithkids.com/2014/06/4-fine-motor-activites-using-lego-bricks.html

1. Pipette skills

2. Balancing marbles

3. Chopsticks practice

4. Balancing blocks

Here you have a wonderful book by the author of this Blog

Lego first steps

Maide, one of the Primary 1 teachers in Santísima Trinidad School (Spain), is fully convinced that cooperative work will never happen without cooperative playing being promoted first. That's the reason why we usually see his students cooperating and playing with Lego bricks. 

By Maide - Primary 1 - Santísima Trinidad School

Phonics poetry + Alphablocks

Phonics poetry + Alphablocks: what a powerful combination for teaching phonics OA!

Symmetrical Lego figures

The pupils at Erich Kästner Schule learn together in the 1st and 2nd school years. These classes are called "Learning Groups". We have six of them.

Today they worked together to create their own symmetrical figures with Lego stuff. They enjoyed it very much. In the following days we want to draw them in our exercise books.

http://www.funathomewithkids.com/2014/06/learning-symmetry-with-legos-and.html

Learn English with Playmobil

Our Playmobil teachers are being trained in London now! I reckon were going to learn a lot of English! 

Tim is walking across Westminster Bridge. In the background you can see the Houses of Parliament and the Big Ben. 

Photo taken by PCC member TheGreenMan.

Day of open doors at Erich Kästner Grundschule

On Wednesday the 5th of November a lot of parents, grandparents and guests came to visit our school's life. We used the event to introduce our project and give the kids the chance to try learning with Playmobil, Lego and Schleich. We as teachers did also our first experience with the stuff. All enjoyed it like you can see on the photos.The kids matched the figures to the words. The older ones gave some little help to the younger ones. It was great.