Children's Book Day 2014

Because of Hans Christian Andersen (or at least it is usually around his birthday) once a year on April 2nd we celebrate children's books! To celebrate here are a few of the children's eBooks I have read within the last 12 months that I really enjoyed, and maybe you would too! They are all available as eBooks so those of you


I just wrote about one children's book I love called Am I small? In this story a girl asks for the opinions of others to find out if she really is small. I great vocabulary builder and available in multiple languages. Plus I have made a few activities that fit nicely with the theme! You can encourage students to use a larger vocabulary, realize small words have multiple meanings or make pretty decorations for your class.


Much Ado About Puffins is a beautifully illustrated book about the trendsetting Puffins and one Puffin named Gertrude who just never quite gets with the trends. It sends a nice message about not worrying about staying trendy and instead staying true to yourself! It could also be tied into recycling and trash quite easily (as the puffins collect the garbage that is washed in from the ocean). Plus, if you visit his website and join his fan club you can receive a free Personalized eBook! Seems like a great gift to yourself for international children's book day!


I'll Follow the Moon is a cute story that is really about the connection babies and mothers have. While some of the words are more advanced there are a LOT of action words. That means you can have students act out the story as you read it! There is a verse that is repeated throughout the story so students can quickly grasp onto that and "read" along with you. Even though it isn't scientifically accurate, it is a very cute feel good story. Plus, it may inspire your students to learn more about turtles in life.
  

Splodge Gets Lost in London is a great model to use for class. It is an eBook that is set up similar to a comic book, and this story is set in London! Great if you are trying to teach your students about life in England as it shows lots of famous landmarks. I think it would be great to have students make their own versions with their animal getting lost in certain parts of their city.

The Knot Monster is another great one with a teaching moment! In this story a girl is introduced to the knot monster that messes her hair up every night. I am not thrilled with the ending, but I think that bad endings make for great class activities. Discuss what better solutions would have been. Maybe draw and write your own ending to the story.

Finally I really enjoyed, "Little Monsters have feelings too!" The book essentially asks children what they would do to monsters? Would they treat them poorly or treat them well? It is well written, simple, and colorful!Most importantly! It really sends a positive message about not bullying and treating others the way you want to be treated.

There you are! In honor of children's book day those are six books I think would go great in a classroom.

Book Review: Am I small?

Spanish and English

I teach high school and university students know, but a special part of me will always have a special place in my heart for teaching younger learners.

Earlier this month I was picking up some Kindle books and I grabbed "Am I small?" Phillip Winterberg Nadja Wichmann
. I normally don't read the kids books that I buy (other than the alphabet books) but for some reason I did skim through this one.

I LOVED it. Lots of repetition to help 'lil ones get used to structure and words! Many different words being used to help them improve their vocabulary (or pick the best word!).

The Vietnamese version

English Only

Most importantly, it sends a good message about how being unique and different is good. I STRONGLY suggest you check this book out! Your students don't speak Spanish? No worries. This book is offered bilingually in MANY different languages from Dutch to Vietnamese!

If you are one of those teachers who prefers to have books in just the language you are teaching, the book is also sold in an English only version (or Africaans, Dutch, Spanish, etc.).

To help motivate you to use this book with your students I am creating activities that would go well with the book. This one focuses on expanding your students' vocabulary, this is an awesome spring time craft and this one helps them realize the different meanings a word can have.

If you want to check out other books my Phillip his website http://www.philipp-winterberg.com/ links to three other books he has written you can download for free! Out of all of them, "Am I small?" was my favorite, but you may like the other ones as well.

Great E-books about teaching with theater

Every wondered how to use acting or drama to teach? Or, why to use theater in your class? This blog seeks to give you three ebook suggestions you may find helpful to find more ways to use theater with your students. After all, who hasn't used a role play to cement vocabulary? I know my Korean students LOVED taking turns reading from a book, while other students acted them out in front of the class. My students now create adaptations of books we read in class. Most English Language teachers love to use acting in the class, and these three books help us with new ideas.
Mary Ann Loesh is an elementary Theater teacher who regularly had, “Fourth Grade Show Off Night” where her students would perform in front of family and friends. She strongly believes that having students move and perform helps them to understand and has so happy with the results she choose to share some plays and monologues to be used with your students.

These plays and monologues are designed to help students understand history, and enjoy acting. As an English Language teacher I also think you can use or adapt these to help your students practice using English. The book specifies grade levels 3 through 5, but I think all teachers can gain inspiration and ideas from reading it regardless of the grade.

This blog only discusses one of her ebooks Out of the Picture!: Using Theatre Arts to Teach Social Studies. In that book there are a lot of starters to get your students using theater. You can use them as plays or readers theaters. If you don't know the difference, check out her other book, The Day Our Teacher Lost Her Mind! which explains it quite well, or check out this Scholastic explanation.
So, why use drama? As she says, “The plays and monologues within this book are designed to help students improve their speech and diction skills, boost their stage presence, and help them understand the basics of putting on a play. However, they are also meant to help students learn about famous historical figured from all walks of life by blending fact and humor together.”

Out of the picture starts with a brief listing of terms that a teacher / director should know. I never acted, but I was familiar most of them. For example, some of the words are: stage left, stage right, center stage, etc. Nonetheless, there may be some terms that are useful for a teacher to appear knowledgeable to her students. If you want to use more terms with your class you can use an online glossary like this one from TheatreCrafts.com

Next she includes several games students can use to practice dictation, emphasis, connotation, and several games to practice the new terms.

Speaking of games, there's another great book about drama for teaching by Julie Meighan: Drama Start Two Drama Activities and Plays for Children.
This has over seventy games! Some of them you probably know ("Two Truths and a Lie" for example) but I am sure there are some that are new to you. For each game Julie explains the difficulty, the directions AND (most importantly) the importance from a theater perspective. It also includes two scripts for plays about animals the students can perform. The title says ages 9-12, but I know teachers who teach below or above this group could still find many of the games useful!

A drawing of The Alamo from the 1600s

Back to Mary Ann's book, the plays and monologues start with monologues from the Alamo. She gives a brief history of the Alamo and introduces a few basic tips for a monologue: speak loudly, speak clearly, and speak slowly. She goes through the differences between a speech and a monologue, and advises students make brief introductions BEFORE their monologues.

Then come the monologues: Jim Bowie, Moses Rose, Santa Ana, Davy Crocket, William B Travis, The Wife, The servant girl, James Bonham, Susanna’s Tale, Travis’ Letter. All minus Travis’ letter are fictional accounts which Mary Ann feels best show the emotions of the time.

Sample Costume!

As the book winds down, she introduces her concept of a living museum. A living museum is essentially when students select a historical figure to research and present a speech about. Sometimes the students even dress up a bit! The short plays she has written take it to another level.

"Night at the Wax Museum" and "I Dream of History" both are plays in which different historical characters come to life. Rather than being complete, these plays allow for the students to insert their own speeches on behalf of the characters. I LOVE this idea It is less work than creating a whole play by themselves, but it makes the play more their own.

The last play is complete without any need of additions from your students. However, I think you could still easily add more paintings to make the play personalized from the students. I would use the play as a model and have students create their own. You could divide the class into small groups and have them each select one painting from a different era. Then put it together and make a unique version of, “Out of the Picture.”

Finally, the last ebook I'll discuss is by Maggie E. Morgan, How To Teach English Culture To Foreigners Through Drama. This is definitely more research based. It goes through the importance of teaching culture, the role of drama in contrasting two cultures, and looks at a specific research study (analyzing the results as well). It includes lesson plans and exercises. This is a very thorough read; however, I found it much less interesting and harder to get through than the other books. Nonetheless, if you are interested in the research this is a much different book than the previous two and gives a very complete look at the why and how of drama in the class (it also includes a comprehensive bibliography for more research).
In summary, if you are looking for a way to use theater in the classroom, any of these books would be a great start. If you do get a chance to read them, let me know what you think! Alternatively, if you have a different suggestion I'd love to hear about it. Just leave it in the comments.

Here's another Water Freebie!

Since I just posted about the UNICEF mobile site to donatewater and keep students off their phone, I thought I should share this great ebook about different ways to get your students thinking about water.

 The book is designed for teachers in London: however, most of the activities can easily be adapted to the city where you teach. Some of them are obviously English related: write a story about a river in the shape of a river for example, but other activities that aren’t English based are great examples of tasks you can use for task based lessons.

 Keep in mind that Earth Day is coming up in the spring, so if you are planning to incorporate anything about water conservation into a lesson later, it may be best to introduce something water related now. This way when you teach water conservation later, they will be able to refer to the earlier lesson.

For example, students can animate the water cycle (MEW010) and focus on a specific tense. Alternatively, students can focus on the use of transition words.

There’s another activity where students go online and try to track specifically where the water in the school (or house) comes from. Then they track the path via the pipes to their house. This should give them appreciation of how far their water travels.

A lot of science experiments are great for getting students to talk to one another, write down their thoughts and then share them with the class. For instance, you can have students make a water filter and try to filter water you have made dirty. Later they can present their filter to the class and hypothesize what could have made it better.

Was every mission great? No. A few flat out would not work in my area. For example. When they suggest counting rain drops left on cardboard, they are envisioning a rain that doesn't come down in sheets the way it usually does in Culiacan. Bu that's fine! There are more than enough suggestions, so I can ignore the ones that don't work for my class and adapt the ones that may.

The book overall is well written. It is NOT written specifically for an English Language Teacher, but if you are like me, then you are used to adapting lessons all the time! Plus, this book has super cute illustrations by Tom Morgan Jones. 

There's also a version of the book for students without all the teacher's notes.

I saved the best part for last! There's a related website MissionExplore.net
At this site teachers (or students) can sign up and start earning basges! It is all in Beta right now, but it looks like LOTS of fun and a great way to keep students engaged and maybe get the competitive ones really working hard!