Sharing Practices: the world of chocolate

Before our visit to Wales from the 3rd  to the 8th October 2015 , The collegues of Ynystawe Primary school in Swansea,informed us about their school activities.

 The topic they were working on :  chocolate.

From the seeds to the bars, form the past to nowadays.

We were asked to bring chocolates from our own country.

From Italy we brought Novi chocolate bars

and Perugina chocolates.

Our students in primary school started working on chocolate, too.

They collected information about cocoa trees and plantations.

 They touched and  manipulated the seeds as the Welsh children did.

They tasted cocoa powder and used it as drawing paint or dough.

Our chidren tasted Wesh chocolate and saw photos about our Erasmus friends.

It was really a great work.  Crosscurricular activities with students completely involved in.

 Thanks to the Welsh team for the warm welcome and the sweet school practice.

Sharing school practices is a way to know better each other and to improve our professional way of teaching.

Phisics in a box- Science Fair

This project is developed by students of 2nd course of Secondary Education. The project objective is to develop a box about an area of physics (mechanical, pressure, acoustics, optics and electromagnetism). The box has fifteen experiments, each one in a bag with a QR code. The QR code leads to a video (which is in support of the project blogs) showing us how to do the experiment and then explains why it happens.
Along with the experiments in the box, there is a manual that explains how to do it and a tablet to see the video and scan QR codes. The ultimate goal is to create boxes that allow to learn independently and experimentally that area who receive it. The last activity is an exhibition opened to parents and the rest of the school where they can show all the work they had done.
The project  from last course is in http://fisicaenunacaja.blogspot.com.es

European day of Languages

To celebrate the European Day of Languages, Fifth Year pupils investigated different aspects about different languages.  They had to look for the places where the language is spoken, some useful words, a palindrome, how to say 'happy birthday' and some animal sounds. Then, they created a poster.

We used mainly this webpage: http://edl.ecml.at/LanguageFun/tabid/1516/language/en-GB/Default.aspx

They enjoyed learning about your languages (German, Polish, French, Italian) and also about Portuguese.

Telling Time

To reinforce the concept of „quarter”, „half”, „past” and „to” we used analogue clocks designed and built by pupils.

1.    A teacher says a time and children set the hands on their clocks.

2.    Children work in pairs and ask each other the time and set their clocks.

What’s the time?

It’s quarter to four.

3.    Pupils set their clocks and say what they usually do at the time.

I go to school at half past three.

Flags, countries and nationalities

Following Marzia's idea http://creatingtomorrowschoolstoday.blogspot.com.es/2015/05/open-day.html Year Six pupils built flags from different countries linking this activity with English because they are studying some countries, nationalities and languages. After building them, they had to investigate on their tablets and then present and describe their flags to their mates.

Social Stratification

In our Social studies in English lesson we talked about social stratification. Students enjoy the lesson as they started it playing heads or tails. They had 5 coins each and had to earn as many as possible in two minutes. That's how they created their class pyramid of wealth.

Later students worked on stereotypical view of class system in a society. They had to decide if it still exists or maybe we are a classless society.

They created their own pyramid with the examples given. This is what they decided on:          
                                          

However, when they read between the lines and got the stories of the people mentioned above, they slightly change their minds:

Another group thought differently:

In the end we had a debate: Can we really easily tell that classes in society exist? And... more importantly: Are people what others think they are?

Our celebration of the European Day of Languages

As we annually celebrate the day which reminds us how important languages are in everyday life, this year we decided to create our own languages.

The objective of the lesson was to create 10 basic words or phrases of the language introduced by a group of students. They had to create name and flag / logo of their language too.

Everyone had a lot of fun and some of the ideas were absolutely fantastic.

Now they will definitely remember the date, as they have contributed to it as well. :)

"Vi vil plante et træ" (We will plant a tree)

Dedicated to those teachers who believed in my project "Creating Tomorrow's Schools Today" and are enjoying it now. I would like to be in Wales with you but you know that "shit happens". Keep up with the good work anyway!

THANKS A MIL

Miguel Ángel

Greetings from Denmark!

"Vi vil plante et træ" (We will plant a tree), an unofficial anthem of the Danish educational system. Planting trees and training children for life so as to make a better world. That's exactly what you do.

Vi vil plante et træ

(we will plant a tree)

som skal vokse sig stort

(there will grow up great)

helt op hvor himmelen bliver blå

(right up to where the sky is blue)

for vi vill gerne bevare vore grønne jord

(because we want to preserve our green earth)

så den er god at leve på

(so it is good to live in on)