Activities workshop

This week we took a break of the classes to have a workshop to improve our teaching, we brought different activities to show and share with our peers, I found this workshop very useful because I am already planning my next class and I will definitely will use some of the activities that my peers did.

The first activity was about memory cards, the cards were made of a special materials that was very resistant and attractive to the view so I think the kids will love it, this could be done with small groups and give a set of cards to each group to develop the activity, or also this could be done as a whole class by doing the memory cards bigger and paste them in the board.

The second activity was about boxes, I had never imagine how to use boxes before this class, the idea was simple and effective, so I really like it, it consist in making different boxes with vocabulary previously studied, using drawings, and making students choose the correct one and throwing a ball to the box. I think this is really simple and useful activity.

The third activity was  the roulette, it was mention that this activity could be used at any time in the class because it can make the students more active, and can also raise their concentration to pay attention to the class. The best way to do it was to create the roulette with different categories of topics that were already studied, I am almost sure this activity in my next class because I love it. Something that I would really like to add is a small chance to win a reward and the same chance to have a penalty, because I think it will be more interesting.

The fourth activities was about telling stories, this was said to be an activity that would work better if used as a warm up. The activity uses a story to tell the students, in here the techniques to keep their attention are moving the arms to give intensity to the story, the use of pictures to raise the attention of the students and variations in the voice tone and manner to make the students feel the different emotions of the story.  My personality does not really match this activity so I will stay away from it.

The fifth activity was name tags, I used to believe that name tags had only one use that was to have the name of the students, but now I know that they can be used to assign the desk in a way that is beneficial for the teacher and the class; also they can have pictures inside of the name tag, and when the students have them, they will have to say what objects are in the pictures.

The sixth activity was modeling clay, this activity was really interesting because we got an opportunity to do it ourselves in the class, I recalled my memories from when I was a little kid and I used to do it every day. This activity could be used to investigate about the motor skills that the students possess, so I think that with a new class this would be perfect to discover their motor skills.

The seventh activity was about music, what we have to do to properly use a song as an activity is to consider our students, explain step by step the procedure, use the body to model the activity and if possible use pictures to aid the song. Because I really like the music this activity is really interesting to me, what might become a challenge is to find the proper song for the students.

The eight activity was about disposable plates, a bag was created from the disposable plates and inside there were small picture of words that have been already students so the students get top practice with the images and they also get to keep the bag to take it home, in this case the bag is done by the teacher.

 
















The ninth activity was about the use of recycled materials to create something that could be use in a classroom, I was thinking that this could be really difficult but I was wrong, with the use of materials that are found in any house like; a can, color paper, glue, rice and rocks, a great tool was created, this tool can be used to call for silence or for the attention of the class.

The tenth activity was about hats and crowns,  this is an activity in which the students can show their personality by adding different things to the hats that they create, this can reflect what their mood is so this can be really helpful when working with children, also it can be used to show reward for a good behavior if a hat is given at the end of the clas.