Pardon a Thanksgiving turkey!

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.

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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!

“Αίσωπε και Potter, παραμυθοβγαίνουμε;” – Είμαστε όλοι νικητές!

Έφτασε λοιπόν και η εποχή εκείνη του χρόνου που κάνουμε τον απολογισμό μας, την αποτίμηση των προγραμμάτων που υλοποιήσαμε, συμπληρώνουμε φόρμες κ.ο.κ. Βαρετό. Ας μας πούνε καλύτερα τα παιδιά τι αποκόμισαν από το πρόγραμμα. Με τα δικά τους λόγια. Για την ακρίβεια, ας δούμε τι ιστορίες δημιούργησαν, με την καθοδήγηση της ακούραστης δασκάλας τους, Πετρούλας Κουρτέση, και το δικό μου, δυσανάλογα μικρό, λιθαράκι:

Πρώτη ιστορία: Κυνηγητό στο δάσος.

Δεύτερη ιστορία: Ο Αίσωπος και η Beatrix Potter στο Παρίσι!

Η Πετρούλα δημιούργησε εξάλλου και αυτήν την παρουσίαση, όπου μπορείτε να δείτε πολλές λεπτομέρειες σχετικά με το πρόγραμμα φιλαναγνωσίας που υλοποιήσαμε.

Πώς σας φαίνεται; Εμείς πάντως το διασκεδάσαμε πραγματικά!

Digital Storytelling: Seminar classroom practice

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):

Το Ελάφι και το Κορίτσι του

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!

“Αίσωπε και Potter, παραμυθοβγαίνουμε;” – Η Ιστορία της Τζεμάιμα Παντλ-Ντακ III με πασχαλινές δραστηριότητες!

Είναι κάτι στιγμές, που κορυφώνονται όλα όσα ετοίμαζες καιρό. Σα χείμαρρος έρχονται και παρασέρνουν μαζί τους κάθε αρνητική σκέψη, κάθε επιφύλαξη, κάθε φόβο, κάθε αμφιβολία. Λίγο πριν το Πάσχα, και σχεδόν ταυτόχρονα με την εβδομάδα εθελοντισμού Let’s Do It Greece 2017, στην οποία συμμετείχε το σχολείο μας, έγιναν πολλά όμορφα πράγματα με το Γ1.

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Σταδιακά, φυτέψαμε σπόρους παραδοσιακούς από την κυρία Όλγα Βενιζέλου – Ρουβά σε πλαστικά που φέραμε από το σπίτι. Οι σπόροι φύτρωσαν και τα βλαστάρια που μεγάλωσαν πολύ, τοποθετήθηκαν ήδη στην κήπο του σχολείου. Αν θέλετε να διαβάσετε για την προετοιμασία μας, μπορείτε να πατήσετε εδώ. Σιγά σιγά, ο κήπος του κύριου Μακ Γκρέγκορ γίνεται πραγματικότητα! Συγκινητική η στιγμή που, μόλις τελειώσαμε με το φύτεμα και ποτίσαμε τα βλαστάρια, ένα παιδάκι με ρώτησε “Κυρία, θα κάνουμε κι άλλες ιστορίες της Μπέατριξ Πόττερ;”. Διαθεματικότητα ολέ!

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Έπειτα, σειρά είχε το μικρό μας σκετσάκι, που το γράψαμε εμπνευσμένοι από τη συνάντηση μιας πάπιας με έναν αλεπούδο στο δάσος. Ήθελαν να το παίξουμε στον κήπο, αλλά λόγω του Let’s Do It Greece είχε κίνηση εκείνη την ημέρα, οπότε συμβιβαστήκαμε με την τάξη. Τα πήγαν πολύ καλά, και αυτοσχεδίασαν κιόλας! Είμαι περήφανη 🙂 Περισσότερες λεπτιμέρειες για την προετοιμασία αυτού του κομματιού, εδώ.

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Τέλος, πώς θα μπορούσαμε να μην φτιάξουμε τη Τζεμάιμα και τα τέσσερα τζεμαϊμάκια της, ένα μόμπιλο που στόλισε τον πίνακα της τάξης λίγο πριν το Πάσχα; Ο πίνακας παρεμπιπτόντως έγραφε ένα πρόβλημα μαθηματικών με πάπιες, χήνες και κότες – όχι τυχαίο, φυσικά! Είπαμε, ότι η συνεργασία με την Πετρούλα Κουρτέση, τη δασκάλα του τμήματος Γ1, είναι απίστευτη! Αξίζει να διαβάσετε για την εκκίνηση του προγράμματος, εδώ.

Καλό Πάσχα λοιπόν σε όλους!

 

 

 

 

What’s the weather like? A project for D class, popular among students

This project was done with a lot of excitement! The students really liked going up to the map of Greece in the classroom and finding the towns the wanted to talk about! They revised the relevant language of telling the weather beautifully! They added drawings of the weather description near each town they had chosen and some even wanted to present their project in class, just like a weather forecast!

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A letter to Santa Claus in Lapland!

Every year, with my D class students, we will normally send at least one letter to Santa Claus in Lapland around December. The “elves” from the Santa Claus main post office in the Arctic Circle will normally answer; of course, the children don’t believe they will, because “There is no Santa Claus!!!!” (as they say), but they always do, which is lovely!

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This year, we have a new student in class, who came from China last summer and used to go to school there. So, we are on a “get to know other countries” mode, and in this context the kids wanted to know more about Finland. So, why not ask Santa Claus?! You know, the good old “let’s ask the locals” Greek policy, instead of doing the homework. But if Santa replies, then voila! There’s the motivation they need to start doing some homework indeed.

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Needless to say, the students like to draw Christmasy stuff to go with their letter, and they all sign the letter, which is written by the one with the best handwriting (the choice is theirs).

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And this is a very nice picture with a boat; “because we are traditionally a nautical people.” And “the Finns should know it’s not always sunny in Greece.” Don’t you love how innocent and straightforward kids are?

 

Shakespeare inspiration comics: Romeo and Juliet, King Lear and The Merchant of Venice

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My other 6th grade students, from ST2, wanted to create comics as well, around the time when we were talking Shakespeare. So they found information about several of the Bard’s plays, we discussed each one and then they voted on which one they would like to work on. I told them they only had to work on a scene, not the entire play, of course, so here’s what they came up with:

Nagia, Yiannis, Christos and Thanasis worked on King Lear. I was impressed by the way they worked, Thanasis did the drawing, the rest had created the text, Chris did the coloring and Nagia and Yiannis were coordinators. Well done!

 

ST2 King Lear 1ST2 King Lear 2ST2 King Lear 3

 

Then, three girls, Yiota, Joanna and Athanasia, were absolutely focused on doing something from Romeo and Juliet. They each worked on a particular scene and finished it separately. They had a hard time agreeing on the text, though, in the beginning. Oh, and of course, they had fun by changing the story a lot!

 

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And this is what the third team did, Zachary, Iliana and Gabriel, assisted by Thanasis and Yiannis, who were kind to help them towards the end, as they were running out of time:

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I like how one thing a class does inspires another class to do something else, I love how my idea for comics was something that touched everybody. Also, the ICT teacher today told me he was inspired to do a comic on The Merchant of Venice with the students of the 5th and 6th grades, based on the English text that I wrote, a school play for the E class -which I will ask my students to adapt to Greek, before they make their comic version on Toondoo. Perhaps we will be able to present it alongside the performance! Cool. I promise you to write more on the play in a seperate article, coming soon! For now I’m still thinking about the casting of the roles, lol! Hope you enjoyed this post!

‘Daedalus and Icarus’ comics for the English class

 ‘The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.’

-Mark van Doren

That means getting your students out there in the real world and finding things they can relate to (with a certain filtering). One of the things I turn to is…

…comics!!!

 

Comics can be used to teach content, values, to coax reluctant readers, for fun and also be the outcome of students’ work. Here is an example, where, to begin with, 6th grade students from the ΣΤ1 class in our school wrote the story of Daedalus and Icarus as a dialogue.

The students worked in teams to produce dialogues based on the story of Daedalus and Icarus. They also practised the Simple Past and the Simple Present. This is the first draft.

 

20160201_092847  20160201_092948  Daedalus and Icarus comics for the English class  20160201_092821

After they wrote the final draft of the dialogues, it was time for them to show their artistic talents! At least one student in each team was willing to carry out the task of the actual drawing, but all the rest helped with their ideas and with how the text should be placed.

Previously, the students had been introduced to the terminology of comics and had been given some tips that would help them draw their ideas down to paper. With the aim to encourage creativity in mind, computer assisted comic making was not given as an option. For more information about comics in education, visit http://athenscomicslibrary.gr/εκπαιδευτικαπρογραμματα

Only two teams out of the four managed to finish in time (2 teaching hours), but the students of the other two promised to finish next time… You know how it goes! Of course, they all wanted to do more!

This was the result:


The Super kids team (Lydia, Theodosis, Rafaela and Mariefi) came up with this:

 

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And the Koroivos fans team (Dimitris, Maria, Panayiota and Makis) collaborated on this:

 

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Don’t you think my students are talented? Here’s a video I made to show their work (or, you can click here):

 

 

Enjoy!

 

The ancient theatre vs the English Renaissance theatre

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I am so happy that my E class students enjoyed learning about the differences and the similarities of the ancient theatre and the English Renaissance theatre. After completing a series of lessons that I designed especially for them, where the aim was to give them new vocabulary and help them practise the Simple Past, they were able to produce the following sentences.
The Ancient Theatre

  • The acoustics was very good
  • The orchestra was circular
  • They were all actors
  • The seats were made out of stone or marble
  • It had paraskenia behind the scene
  • Behind the paraskenia there were two parodoi
  • The koilon was semi-cicular and it was amphitheatrical
  • The actors wore always masks

The English Renaissance theatre

  • It had balconies
  • It had wooden seats
  • The stage was above the ground
  • It was open, but the balconies had a roof
  • It was circular
  • The acoustics was bad
  • The actors spoke loudly and made gestures
  • The actors were all male

 

I also enjoyed this series of lessons very much! Especially the part where I prepared a presentation and a short video from the film Shakespeare in Love to show them.