Με αφορμή ένα εργαστήριο δεξιοτήτων για τη φιλία, και στα πλαίσια της λέσχης ανάγνωσης της βιβλιοθήκης μας, επεξεργαστήκαμε το πασίγνωστο και διακεκριμένο βιβλίο του Γρηγόρη Χαλιακόπουλου, εμπνευσμένο από τον ποιητή και μεταφραστή Φερεϋντούν Φαριάντ. Τα παιδιά στο Δημοτικό Σχολείο Σαβαλίων άνοιξαν την καρδιά τους και το μυαλό τους, συζήτησαν και έγραψαν τις εντυπώσεις τους. Ευχαριστούμε!
It’s the time of year again to dive into the ocean of raising awareness about environmental issues and inspiring students of the 5th grade to think about ways they can protect our planet. As we went through this unit, and among other ideas that they had, the children expressed the will to create placards to encourage other students in the school to care about the environment. Now, I happened to have a whole box of used markers that were just rubbish, but I had heard about such markers being used to make watercolour.
First, we took 10 of our classroom minutes to take the felt tips and some of the inside sponges that hold the colour out of the plastic parts, and then group them into two major categories: Warm colours and cold colours. We put the plastic remains in the recycling bin.
Then, we added some water in the jars, and left them for a week near one of the windows in the classroom. After that, they were ready to use.
In the end, the cardboard pieces (that came from a box which held photocopy paper) started looking like this, and they were ready to write our messages on.
In the end, we are planning to hang these from string and place them in spots around the school that is easy for eveyone to see. Stay tuned!
Dear all, I hope you had a lovely May 1st. This is a wonderful word cloud we created, along with my students of the 5th grade, who answered my question about what positive things they experienced during the lockdown and the stay at home period, due to Covid-19. Do you like it?
My 5th graders are very imaginative. They were inspired by the Jack Smith detective story in our textbook, and they worked in groups to come up with their own comics. I really loved the process, even though they seemed to want more time. They did manage to finish according to schedule, however, which was lovely (apart from 5 students who were not able to cooperate fast or well enough, and so in the end they didn’t produce their own story). Here is a video I made with all their efforts.
I recently happened to come across this great article called “7 Fin Ideas for Writing and Publishing Student Poetry”, by Hannah Hudson, on the We Are Teachers website. It was great, because I wanted to get ideas for something to do in class on World Poetry Day, March 21.
Here’s a sample of what we’ve been able to accomplish in class with 5th and 6th graders (4th graders needed a little more time):
I had prepared a list of adjectives, in alphabetic order, which we translated and analysed, working in groups. Then, the students chose the adjectives that they thought described them best. They finished their work by drawing themselves as accurately as possible. It was wonderful to see how absorbed they were, trying to write self-defining poetry! Students love to define themselves, and this is a basic step towards building mutual respect and solving discipline issues in class. All they need is an opportunity! Marvellous!
No, dear smiling Greek student of a little town school who thinks he knows everything, we don’t celebrate Black Friday today. Today is Thursday, and it is Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is one of my most favourite celebrations. I really like the “Count your blessings” message, and I think it has a very special place in the teaching and learning process, too. This year I chose my 5th grade students to do a fun activity of collaborative colouring of a turkey, on the feathers of which the students glued what they were thankful for.
I also find this worksheet very useful. It’s simple and explanatory. Or, you can check out numerous videos available. Just don’t let the kids grow up thinking Black Friday is actually a holiday. That would be a sin on an English teacher’s soul. Happy Thanksgiving!
This semester I was very lucky to have entered a seminar that I have been after for three (3) years! It’s an online seminar, combined with two meetings, called “Digital Storytelling” – and I have to thank Ms. Marianthi Kotadaki and many good colleagues for being our tutors.
After getting acquainted with all the theory and then the many tools for digital storytelling, we each had to create a story. I was so happy to see many amazing stories, but mine was this (and it’s the first time I am posting this outside of the seminar environment. It has only been shown in class):
Then, I translated the scenario of my story into English and left all the verbs out, asking my students to complete the Simple Past tense. We then carried on to thinking about “What happened next?”, a popular question in Φιλαναγνωσία< and one of my favourite questions to trigger children’s imagination. These were the results:
In the story by E1 class, the girl finds her voice…
And in the story by E2, the deer is transformed into a handsome prince!
I am so happy because my students not only created beautiful stories, but because we also got to discuss concepts like diversity and identity. Feels like a good day’s work!
![20170406_094204[1]](https://blogs.sch.gr/dimiph/files/2017/04/20170406_0942041-e1491481896909.jpg)
It was really fun today, to have each student of E1 study the way to say “Happy Easter” in a certain language, and then practise it until they were able to write it down to a piece of paper with their name on, as well. Nobody else knew which language they were given, so the guessing began! The person who was able to guess at the first try, was the winner. And the winner was the person who understood the Chinese way to say “Happy Easter”, and then he taught it to the rest of the class. After that, during the break, they all rushed to meet the Chinese student of D1 class of our school, to wish him a Happy Easter in his own language!
Happy Easter! (English)
Καλό Πάσχα! (Greek)
Sretan Uskrs! (Croatian)
Frohe Ostern! (German)
Buona Pasqua! (Italian)
God Påske! (Norwegian)
Glad Påsk! (Swedish)
Paskalya Bayramınız Kutlu Olsun! (Turkish)
Felices Pascuas! (Spanish)
Joyeuses Pâques! (French)
Fùhuójié Kuàilè! (Chinese)
Hreestohs Vahskryesye! (Russian)
Hyvää Pääsiäistä! (Finnish)
Selamat Paskah! (Indonesian)
The students of E class in the 4th Primary School of Amaliada surveyed students of all the other classes in the school, about some of their habits. The aim was to show how healthy or unhealthy students habits are, and this is how we did it:
First I gave each student of E1 and E2 a handout with the following questions:
How often do you eat souvlaki?
Do you eat healthy snacks (fruit, dried nuts, sesame bar, yoghurt, home-made pies etc.) at school?
Do you drink 8 cups of water every day?
Do you exercise?
What time do you sleep at night?
Then, we carried out an in-class mini survey, and in both E1 and E2 the results were almost identical: Most children have habits that tend to be healthy, as they mostly eat souvlaki once a week, they usually eat healthy snacks, they usually drink 8 cups of water every day, they exercise systematically and they sleep between 9-10:30 p.m., which is appropriate. There were exceptions, of course, but the vast majority is found in the “healthy habits” category.
After the in-class survey, the students were willing to conduct a larger one, where I would divide them in teams and send them off to interview students from another class. All the rest eight classes of our school were interviewed, at least a sample of 10 students (or more) from each one. I was really surprised by how fast it happened, since I had given them 5 working days to complete this phase. I was also surprised by how talkative some shy students became, for the sake of their project.
When they finally came back with their answers, we concentrated and grouped them. I thought it would be a tedious procedure, but it turned out they were paying enough attention to count the As, Bs, Cs and Ds corrently!
These are the sentences they wrote:
Good job! And above all, this is very good news!