The Old House - Story project 2012

In the summer of 2011 I flew to Norwich to participate in the course "Literature in the Language classroom". (I might have mentioned it before...)

It was a very rewarding course and it later led to this project:

While teaching 5th graders I decided to put in practice some of the techniques I had learned in the course and so I developed a project based on the story "The Old House". It is a mystery story that comes with the student's book: "Way to go". Usually the so called extensive reading is left behind because the curriculum is extensive enough to get us busy for the entire year, but when we think about extensive reading as another way to teach the curricular topics, it comes handy.

The students read and explored the story in class with my help, and after that they actually built the house which was the central part of the story.

Was it also an arts project? Yes, of course it was! 

The funny thing is that in order to build the house right they had to understand the story well...

This led to some nice conversations among the students as they were arriving school with their wonderful projects. "The house was yellow, not green!" ; “ It had two floors, not one!” or " It is too beautiful, it should be ugly because it was an old house"... and this went on and on until the day the school's director and the teacher responsible for the library (where the exhibition was held) had to decide which house was the winner.

Yes, it was a contest! With prizes! 

It wasn't mandatory, maybe that's why kids were so engaged. They weren't working for grades; they were working for a prize.

I really recommend this kind of projects because they:

• get students engaged in learning;
• get parents working with their children at home;
• allow kids who aren't that brilliant at languages to show their teacher that they are much better in arts;
• allow interactions with other places at school rather than the classroom;
• boost students' self esteem (by watching their work at the library's spotlight);
• create a much better image of the English lessons and for that reason = MOTIVATION
• ... 

  

The course where I learned techniques to work with literature in class took place at NILE (Norwich Institute for Language Education). It was integrated on a Comenius program supported by our national agency: PROALV. 

Halloween Haunted Houses

English global test 5th grade

This global test was adapted from several materials of the book "Tween 5". It covers the following contents:

• Sports
• Family
• Body
• House
• Prepositions of Place
• Can / Can't

I prepared two versions of this test. The "easier" version can be downloaded here.

English test 5th grade - house / Teste de Inglês 5ºano

Here is one more English test. (Once again, it is adapted from the book "Way to Go 5" by Porto Editora)

Topics:

• House
• Family
• Have got
• There is / there are

Note: The listening exercise can be easily done using google translator. Write the words (parts of the house) in a certain order and then press the microphone. This is a nice tool to use in class.

PowerPoint - My House

Here is my last creation. I don't want to seem arrogant but it is really GREAT!! hehehe
It is a PowerPoint presentation about the parts of the house and some furniture!
I hope it is useful. Don't forget to comment! It really makes me happy when I read what people think about my work.

Note: this is a message from the year 2008... I  discovered that I had accidentally turned it into draft, so now I'm republishing it.
(If somehow the  PPT doesn't open please try this new link: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/40110390/TF%20downloads/house%20parts1.pptx )   in : 18/04/2013  

Evaluation Test 5th grade - House / family

Hi everybody! It's good to be back!
Here you have an evaluation test about the parts of the House, Family and Can/ can't.
This test was adapted from the book " Way to Go" from Porto Editora.

Granny's House

My youngest students made these little houses. It was an activity that I found on ESLprintables and it worked wonderfully with the kids!

The butterflies are protecting the identity of the children!

My dream house

Some of the drawings that my students made when I asked them to draw their dream house!

Where's the lost butterfly?

If you've been following my blog, you'll certainly recognize this house. (Or another very simmilar to this one)

Today, as my students had already learnt some vocabulary, I decided to create a story about a buterfly who was always getting lost.

I took a magnetic butterfly to class and asked the kids to close their eyes. While they did that, I would put the butterfly either in the bedroom or in the toilet or on the roof of the house.

Each time I would ask :"Where's the lost butterfly?" The students would quickly point and say: "toilet", "kitchen". Then I would help them say the whole sentence: "The lost butterfly is in the kitchen."

This activity had a magical effect on my kids specially the girls who were almost "in love" with the butterfly.

You can do the same activity using a different animal or a member of a family like a father or a mother...

Video - House

I found this video on youtube! I hope you like it. I'll use it in my next lessons! It's cute!

Builing a house in class - Result

As I promised before, here you can see how the House became much better. The kids have done a great work!

Vocabulary about the house

Here you have one more WS about the house!

Builing a house in class

This was the way the I found to teach the parts of the house and some furniture to my youngest students (1st grade):

When the students got in class, this empty house was already there on the blackboard. This has caused curiosity right from the start which was my main aim.

First of all I've shown a Power Point presentation where I've introduced some vocabulary about the parts of the house and furniture correspondent to each of those parts.

Then I told them that our new house also needed some furniture so we had to go shopping and fill the house with wonderful things.

I've handed out some BW copies with pictures of all the furniture they needed for the house. They've coloured and cut them. The house soon began to look much cosier.

Soon you'll be able to see the result here! ;)

House - WS

"Everybody in a house, a very big house in the country" ;D!
Here is one worksheet about the house.