Measuring with fruit

This term, my Year 1s have been learning about fruits.  We've learned plátanos, manzanas, naranjas, fresas, ciruelas and peras.  These are some of the activities we have done:

• Some simple writing of the fruit words
• "Fruit crush" from Take 10 en español
• Game using number cards, where a fruit is underneath each number 1-6.  One child nominates a number, a second child says which fruit they think is under there, and a third child lifts up the number to see if they are right.
• Read Limón and wrote and recorded our own versions (these are some of last year's)
• Sang La canción de las frutas
• Read Yummy Yucky (there is now a bilingual version of this) and then a Spanish version that I wrote

The week before half term, the class teacher had, by chance, left open by the computer a copy of the children's Inspire Maths workbook.  The next thing that children were going to do in maths was measurement.  This was something I could do in Spanish!

Before half term I took a metre rule into the Y1 classroom to measure things like the chairs and tables, to get an idea of the size of unit the children would need to use for the measuring, given that we couldn't use any numbers bigger than 10.  Consequently I made 3 large A4-size versions of each of the fruits (see picture above!) which my daughter laminated for me.

Here's what we did in the lesson:

• We practised the fruit words again (it had been half term!)
• We practised the numbers 1-6 and then sang this song a few times to introduce the numbers 1-10.
• I showed the children the huge fruits, and demonstrated how to measure things in the classroom using the fruit.  We found out that the whiteboard is 6 oranges high, one of their little chairs is 2 pears high, and one of the girls is 4 strawberries high.
• Using our numbers and fruit words we worked out how to say these measurements - seis naranjas, dos peras, cuatro fresas.
• I gave each pair of children a fruit.  They got a mini-whiteboard between them to record their results.  I said they could write the name of the thing they measured or draw a picture of it to help them to remember, and then write how many of their fruit it was long or high. 
• At the end we fed back and worked out how to say the measurements in Spanish.

The children were very focused and enjoyed the measuring.  I also got measured a few times!  If I was doing this again it would be great to take them outside.  Even though Wednesday was a sunny 16 degrees day, it was also the last session of the day, and I'm not sure I would have got all the children back in again!

This lesson could be adapted for older children, simply by giving them a smaller unit so that they have to use bigger numbers.  It's a great way to reinforce the plural form as well.

Mayans + Aztecs = Maths

Here is my presentation from the #ililc5 Show and Tell.  It's about the Mayan counting system and the Aztecs' use of cocoa beans as currency.  Both enable you to bring cross-curricular maths, history and intercultural understanding into Spanish lessons.

You can also read my earlier blogpost about the Aztecs and their cocoa beans.

It all adds up to Languages

Here is the presentation It all adds up to Languages that I gave yesterday at ALL Language World 2014.  Just as useful for Key Stage 3 as for Key Stage 2!



and here is the link to the Pepsi Numbers ad that I showed:

Des chiffres et des lettres

With Year 4 French I have been working on the numbers up to 31.  We've been playing a simplified version of the numbers round of Countdown, or, rather, of Des chiffres et des lettres.  Here's what we did:

1.  Someone chooses a number between 21 and 31, which is our number to aim for.  It's written on the board.
2.  Someone rolls two dice, adds the two numbers together and says the number in French.  The number is written on the board.  This is repeated to give another number.
3.  Someone rolls one die and says the number in French, and it's written on the board as before.  This is repeated once more.
4.  The children now have a big number that they're aiming for, and four other number numbers to use to make it.  The children use adding, subtracting and multiplying (dividing if you're feeling brave) to use the four numbers to make the target number.
5.  If they can get the answer, they have to explain it in French using the numbers and plus, moins, fois and so on.

Year 4 loved it, though some of their times tables were a bit suspect!

It all adds up to MFL

Here is my maths and MFL presentation from the ICT and Languages Conference in Southampton, with embedded audio for your listening pleasure.  All the resources I referred to are available on MFL Sunderland.

It all-adds-up-to-mfl from Clare Seccombe

Post it!

While looking for something else yesterday, I came across this post on the Number Loving blog.  It's all about Post-its and different ways that you can use them.  I was inspired by the first idea in the post, which I thought could be adapted easily for use in the languages classroom.  I particularly liked it because it promotes pair work and is also good for the repetition of vocabulary and structures.  

The aim of the game is to claim squares on the grid by writing the answer on a Post-it and sticking the Post-it on that square.  Each one in the pair needs to have a different colour or shape of Post-it so that you can see who has claimed which square.  Once the squares are all covered, pairs remove the Post-its and give them and the grid to another pair, who match the post-its to the correct squares.

I've made a French maths version, to go with my numeracy resources, and also a Spanish weather one, which I am planning to use with Year 5.  I'll make three different ones, so that, on tables of six, no pair is doing the same one, and laminate them.

Weather Postit Grid

Number Postit Grid

Off to find some small, cheap Post-its!

UPDATE 12.01.13:

Year 5 have had their first session of writing on the Post-its this week.  I purchased a big pack of 51mm x 38mm Post-its from my local Staples (soon to be closing down - I obviously haven't bought quite enough there).  I made three different versions of the grid so that each pair on the tables of 6 was doing a different one, and you can download all the grids from MFL Sunderland now.  Below are some pictures of the grids in action.  Next week, as a starter, they will be given another pair's grid and Post-its to match up.  If you are trying this yourself, I'd recommend doing a demonstration first.  Some of my class didn't quite understand what they had to do to start with.

UPDATE 2 16.02.13: Read about how @mflgirl has adapted this idea for use with her AS French class to work on speaking.

Sort it out!

It is well-known in the Twittersphere that I have a sister who is also a language teacher.  It is less well-known, however, that we also have two brothers, and that one of them is a maths teacher.  Recently I came across this maths resource via a tweet from the TES.  It's a Venn diagram activity, but not just any old Venn diagram activity.  It's a Superhero Venn diagram activity by @mrprcollins.  And it made me think of my brother, who is a comic enthusiast as well as being a maths teacher.

This type of activity could be adapted easily for MFL, particularly in KS3 and KS4 to make topics like Personal Identification more interesting.  Here's an idea for how it could work:

What do you think?

Moorish Mosaics

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12736086@N08/2386423111/

This morning was an unusual morning, in that I spent all of it with Year 3.  I've taught them Spanish since they were in Year 1, and they are a cracking little class.  The only problem was that last week they finished the Year 3 Scheme of Work and I needed to find a whole morning's worth (2.5 hours) of things for them to do.

I received via Twitter a brilliant suggestion from Jackie Berry: Islamic patterns which could include some maths symmetry work.  

After some research I found this resource from the V&A and this link about symmetrical patterns at the Alhambra in Granada.  I decided to adapt the V&A resource to work on Moorish Spain and the mosaics in the Alhambra. This would be a perfect fit into the Scheme of Work, as we have just finished making mosaic suns in the style of Gaudí at the end of our "Shapes" unit.

Here's what we did:

1.  We recapped where in the world Spain is and also noticed on the map how close Spain is to North Africa.

2.  We found Granada on a map of Spain.

3.  I described the arrival of the Moors in 711AD and how they stayed in Spain until 1492.  We worked out how long they stayed (781 years) and talked about what a long period of time that is.  We looked at a map of the Moorish occupation in about 1000AD.

4.  We talked about the Moors' legacy, in particular the language.  We noticed several words that we have been using this year that are Arabic in origin.  I explained that when we are learning Spanish, we are essentially learning a mixture of Latin and Arabic.

5.  Continuing the theme of the Moors' legacy, we looked at a photo of the Alhambra with the snowy mountains behind it, and also some photos of the interior.  We noticed how some of the pillars reminded us of the pillars of the market place in Gaudí's Park Guell.

6.  We looked at some samples of the tile mosaics from the Alhambra and discussed the differences between these mosaics and those of Gaudí in Barcelona.  I was amazed by how much the children could remember about Gaudí's mosaics and their insightful comments about the Moorish mosaics.

7.  We noticed that the main difference between the two styles of mosaic was that the Moorish mosaics are very symmetrical, and Gaudí's are more random (for want of a better, more artistic word!)  We practised making symmetrical patterns on the IWB.  I then gave them each one of the triangle sheets from the V&A site and with great gusto they set about making symmetrical patterns:

When I do this again I will draw the mirror lines on the sheet before photocopying. This boy drew his own on and found working out the symmetry much easier.  This kept them occupied for a good half hour.

8.  After break we set about making some much larger scale mosaics.  We noticed that the Moorish mosaics only use black, blue, green and gold on a white background.  We used the irregular hexagon, the eight-pointed star and the octagon from the V&A site.  We invented our own patterns as we couldn't work out how to make the shapes fit together.  I think I might be a bit more adventurous next time!

Here are our finished mosaics:

If you'd like to have a go at this yourself, you can download the resources from MFL Sunderland.  You can read more about my Gaudí unit here.

You say mileage, yo digo kilometraje

I mentioned in my last post that I would be doing a data handling activity using a mileage table with my 3rd year Spaniards.  I thought I'd tell you what we did.


It was another request from my colleague who teaches maths to Y5 and Y6.  The more data handling the better!  Here's how it went:

• I cut up a sheet of questions for each group and stapled them all together at one end.  I wrote each group's number on the question 10 sheet:

• Each group (mixed ability, 3 or 4 to a group as for the jigsaw activity) had an A3 copy of the kilometraje table (see below) and a number help sheet.
• We looked at a simplified mileage table on the board and practised reading numbers from it.  We discussed the fact that in Spain they measure distances in kilometres and not miles, and that it was important to include the unit of measurement when talking about distances.
• I gave each group the first question.  They had to find the correct number of kilometres on the table and then write that number on the question paper in Spanish in words.  When they thought they had the right answer, a representative from the group brought me their answer.  I sent them back with it if the number of kilometres was incorrect, if there were spelling mistakes or if the word "kilómetros" was missing.  If the answer was correct, I tore off the next question from their group's pile and they took it back to their table to find the next answer.
• When the time was up (about 20 minutes) the winner was the group that had answered the most questions correctly.

It got off to a bit of a slow start as the children got used to reading the values off the table, writing the big numbers in Spanish and adding "kilómetros" on the end each time.  It was interesting to see that we have spent so long working on the numbers 30 and above that they forgot that the 20s don't work in the same way!  One of the Y5 groups did fantastically well and managed to complete 9 out of the 10 questions, and it got very competitive towards the end!

I did something similar to this with a fast-track Y9 class once.  I introduced them to the typical Health topic questions about drinking, drugs and smoking - "Je fume quatre cigarettes par jour", "Je bois une bière chaque semaine" and so on.  I gave each group a pile of scrap paper and they had to write sentences in this vein that were (a) correct and that (b) no other group had already written.  As they brought their sentences to the front and they were approved, we wrote the group number on and blu-tacked them onto the board.  By the end we had a winner of the competition (I seem to remember there was a small prize involved) but also lots and lots of examples of sentences.

On both occasions the boys in particular responded well to the competitive element, and the girls enjoyed working in groups.  And all I had to do was stand at the front and read sentences.

It took me a long time to make the kilometraje table, so if anyone would like the original Word document to adapt, please let me know.

Kilo Me Traje kilometraje-qus

image of the car by the brilliant @bevevans22

A jigsaw for starters

A couple of days ago I was planning a lesson in Spanish on Big Numbers, in particular for big numbers between 30 and 2000.  The main activity was to be a data handling exercise of reading a mileage (kilometrage?!) chart of distances between Spanish cities.  But I wanted a starter that would help the children to revise the numbers after the half term holiday.  I wanted to try something new and so had a look at this Starter Generator from TES Resources.  At the same time I put out a tweet and received an interesting reply:

I really like this idea and I also really liked the jigsaw idea from the TES.  So I  made a jigsaw puzzle which, once completed, displayed the instructions and the questions that the children had to answer.  They had a blank piece of paper to write their answers and a number reference sheet to help them:
Spanish Big Nos Jigsaw





I divided the children into mixed ability groups, the idea being that everyone in the group could contribute in some way.  Even if they weren't sure about the number in Spanish, they could put the jigsaw together or help to work out the answers to the questions.  


The highest score in Year 6 was 6/10.  I wonder how Y5 will do tomorrow?

The mind of a man is like a clock

"The mind of man is like a clock that is always running down, and requires to be constantly wound up."  William Hazlitt


The half term holiday is drawing to a close, and, like many other teachers out there, I'm thinking about planning for the last half term of the year.  Fortunately, nearly all of my classes will be a repetitions of lessons that I have taught in the past.  Years 5 and 6 Spanish, however, are the ones that I have to plan and make completely new stuff for, as they are the only ones nearing the end of their third year of formal Spanish learning.  We're just finishing big numbers (we've worked out that we could now count up to 999,999 if we only had the time) and will be seguing from distances between cities in Spain to reading and understanding the timetables for buses between major cities in Spain (request from Y6 teacher who takes them all for maths).  Therefore, teaching them to tell the time in Spanish will be the next step.


So earlier this afternoon, while the girls were watching Annie (Disney version) for the nth time this week, I set to thinking of possible activities for "Telling the Time" and couldn't really think of anything.  Like William Hazlitt said, my mind had run down and needed winding up.  I decided to read back through my previous blogposts to get some ideas.  I use my own blog posts a lot, just like I use MFL Sunderland all the time, mainly because all my resources are on there.


In the hope that it will be useful to someone else, here is my list of ideas for teaching telling the time, in no particular order:

• use the RecorderPen and flashcards to practise listening and understanding and build up the times
• Tarsia puzzle, dominoes or follow-me cards with pictures of clocks or digital times on one side and times in words on the other
• Timetables for data handling
• Time ballet
• Worksheet where children read the times and then draw the hands on the clocks (or vice versa)
• Teacher says a time, children use little clocks with moveable hands to make the time and hold it up
• Fling the Teacher game
• Song - I like "Un dos tres ¿qué hora es?"
• Human lines - give 5 or 6 children a written time, they line up at the front of the room and the rest of the class have to put them in chronological order
• a game of Blue Numbers
• a game of Cluedo - columns with es la, son las/number/y cuarto, y media for example.  Teacher thinks of a combination, children have to use the grid to work out that combination.  Teacher can tell them when they have 1 part right or 2 parts right.  Lots of thinking and listening involved.
• Pin-number writing frame activity to support weaker learners.  Work out times then put them on a blank clock.
• Small cards of numbers of hours and numbers of minutes etc, teacher says time and children have to hold up the right cards.  Or give cards with the words on, show a clock face and children have to hold up the right words.
• Higher/lower variation - teacher puts a time on a clock and hides it.  Children have to work together to work out the time that is on it.  Teacher can only say "más temprano" or "más tarde"

I've also had a look around for an online teaching clock for displaying random times for speaking work.  This one from Cambridge University Press is delightful.  Click "open clock" then "show panel" to select the sort of times you want it to show, then click on the cat's paw to change the time.  I also like this one from Sandfields, as there is plenty of scope for changing the settings.

I already have some worksheets that I can use, but may well use some of the online worksheet generators to make some simpler ones quickly and easily:

• apples4theteacher
• themathworksheetsite
• SEN teacher

I'll be putting any resources that I make with my other KS2 Spanish resources.

Do you have any good ways of teaching the time?

Handling Spanish data

Two weeks ago I reached the "weather" section of my Olympics scheme of work with Year 5 and Year 6, having already done a lot of work on sports and sporting equipment.  We learned ten weather phrases and a song (with actions!) to help us to remember them.  Last week I gave the children an outline map of Spain and a copy of the weather symbols.  They had to cut out the symbols, stick them onto the map and then write the corresponding weather-forecasting sentences like "En el norte hace sol."  While Year 6 were finishing theirs, their teacher came in to the room, and saw what we were doing.  He said that with last year's Year 6 he had done some data handling using a table of information about Spain, and would it be possible for me to something similar, as some of the class are still struggling with reading information from tables.  We did a very quick brainstorm and I finished the class with the next lesson pretty much planned in my head.


I spent most of last Friday researching, preparing and planning the lesson.  I found this site particularly useful for finding the data that I needed.  


Here's what we did:

1. Revised our weather phrases and song
2. Revised and practised further our points of the compass and how to put them together with the weather phrases.
3. Looked at the Spanish weather map from ElTiempo.es.  I pointed out the days of the week along the top and we practised saying what the weather is like, again using the compass points and the weather phrases.
4. Looked at another map of Spain, this time showing the regions.  I explained how the Balearic Islands are a region despite being in the middle of the Mediterranean, and we talked about why the Canary Islands were shown in a box on the map.  I also showed them a larger-scale map showing Ceuta and Melilla.
5. Gave the children an outline copy of the map of the Spanish regions with 8 questions to answer.  The idea was that they worked in pairs, using the map and their prior knowledge of countries and weather, to predict the answers to the questions such as "Which region do you think is the largest?" and "Which region do you think is the warmest?"
6. Gave the children a copy of the table of regional data and they set about using it to find the real answers to the questions. 
7. Gave the children a list of 24 questions to answer using the table, in order to practise further reading information from a table.

Afterwards I showed the Year 6 teacher what I had been doing, and he was very supportive and thought that it had hit the right note.  I mentioned that some pupils who are in the middle ability range of the class for Spanish were particularly responsive, as the Spanish work as being couched in mathematical terms, something that they are a lot more comfortable with.  It's always good to find a way of reaching those children for whom a language isn't the easiest thing.


I was also particularly pleased with the significant intercultural input of the lesson.  As well as the obvious aspect of getting to know Spain and its regions and weather, I was able to draw attention to the uses of commas and decimal points when writing numbers in Spanish.  


I said to my Year 6 colleague that I am aware that it is very important that I use the correct mathematical vocabulary when teaching this kind of lesson, and he said that yes, this needs to happen to ensure consistency across the curriculum.  A lack of consistency of this kind is something that Ofsted would pick up on.  I now have a copy of the Mathematical Vocabulary Book for KS1 and KS2 so that I can swot up on my maths before "teaching" it!


I enjoyed teaching this lesson, especially as it was truly cross-curricular. It brings to mind this recent news report about learning maths by using it for real purposes, and echoes my school's philosophy of getting maths into as many areas of the curriculum as possible.  It shows that maths is not a discrete subject but that it can be useful in all areas, and it adds validity to the learning of another language by making the link with maths.  I think it's vital that, given the new Ofsted framework and its emphasis on numeracy across the curriculum, MFL teachers know which aspects of numeracy are already embedded in their schemes of work and that they have a repertoire of ideas and resources that they can use to highlight maths in their lessons.  I have started to compile a collection of such resources and ideas here. 


My Year 6 colleague said today that his class also need more practice with pie charts and percentages.  Trying to figure out how I'll be able to fit that one in.....!

MFL + Maths = all in a day's work

Michael Gove's plans to extend primary languages into KS1 were greeted with cautious optimism in the MFL community.  Some members of the public, some other teachers and headteachers, however, preferred the "What's the point of teaching them a language when they can't even read/write/speak English?" approach.  An afternoon of comparing the MFL Frameworks for KS2 and KS3 and the Literacy objectives for EYFS through to KS3 will show beyond doubt the contribution that learning another language can make to literacy skills in the mother tongue.  Generally speaking, learning a language reinforces the Literacy from the previous key stage.

In a press article earlier this year, the CBI criticised the "inadequate" literacy and numeracy skills of school leavers.  So English and Maths teachers obviously have some work still to do.  I wonder if they are aware how much MFL teachers are helping them out?  Are MFL teachers aware how much Literacy and Maths they are teaching?  I've done a fair bit of work on Literacy, and always kind of knew that in MFL we cover some Maths, but, until I started to look into it in some detail recently, was unaware exactly how much.

KS3 MFL reinforces KS2 Literacy, and it would appear that it also reinforces KS2 Maths.  I would urge any MFLer to have a look at the KS2 Maths curriculum to see just how much they do.  A particular eye-opener for me was looking at the key vocabulary for KS2 Maths.  Here is the key vocabulary for "Time":

Familiar?  When we consider the new Ofsted framework for January 2012, I think it is vital for MFL teachers to find out exactly how they reinforce Literacy and Maths, and for them to open a dialogue with English and Maths teachers to let them know exactly how MFL supports and reinforces their subjects.

From the draft proposals for the new Ofsted framework:

When evaluating the achievement of pupils, inspectors will consider

• the extent to which pupils develop a range of skills well, including communication, reading and writing and mathematical skills and how well they apply these across the curriculum
•  the standards attained by pupils by the time they leave the school, including their standards in reading, writing and mathematics

When evaluating the quality of teaching in the school, inspectors will consider

• how well teaching enables pupils to develop skills in reading, writing, communication and mathematics

I asked the #MFLTwitterati what are their favourite ways of incorporating Maths into their lessons, and combined the answers with things that I have done in my own lessons:

Numbers

Simple calculations

Ages

Comparative (older than, younger than, more than, less than, more expensive etc)

Countdown (the numbers round)

Loto (play with calculations and not just numbers)

Number tennis

C’est quel numéro?

Crosswords where the clues are sums in words and answers are numbers written in words

Higher / lower (plus / moins, más / menos)

Numbers Tai Chi

Hold up small cards to show the right number

Put small cards in order

Pupils hold number cards in right order to make a telephone number

Songs to reinforce order

Games like Snakes and Ladders, Blue Numbers etc to reinforce

Strip bingo

Dominoes or shape puzzles to match the written word to the figures

Psychic counting

PowerPoint activities such as Fly past

Colour by numbers

Follow-me cards with the numbers in figures and words, or phone numbers

Use number words for phonics practice

Standing-up-sitting-down games for practising multiples while counting

Noughts and crosses, Connect 4

Surveys

Carry out surveys

Show the results of the survey in graphic form

Work out the percentages

Shopping

Compare prices

Le Juste Prix – higher or lower

Multiply prices of individual items at market

Buying stamps

Sending parcels

Use a French website to “buy” equipment for school using budget of a certain number of Euros

Find out the price of the same items in £ from a UK website

Weights and measures

Add up a bill

Time and Dates

Telling time

Speed, distance, time calculations

Dates

Cinema prices and times

School timetables

Bus and train timetables

Dates Cluedo

Follow-me cards with the times in figures and words

Battleships with dates (numbers on x, months on y) Can use the same grid for Connect 4

Plurals

Count the number of items and write how many there are, making the noun plural as appropriate (worksheet or mini-book)

Make pictures with different shapes and write/say how many of each shape there are

Past tenses

Years for big numbers

Calculate how long ago something was

Intercultural*

French départements

Numbers of countries that speak the language, speakers within those countries

Number of languages spoken in the world, number of speakers of the top 10 languages and lesser languages

Cocoa bean calculations (Spanish)

*Many of these aspects of Maths have links to intercultural understanding

I have also simplified the KS2 Maths objectives to make them more accessible (and understandable!) for MFL teachers, and you can download them here.

Here are some more ideas for incorporating Maths into MFL:

Number sequencing
What is the next number? - neuf, dix-huit, vingt-sept, _______

Put the numbers in the right order: siete  doce  cuatro  veinte  catorce

Addition and Subtraction
Use a website like www.bonbonsgourmands.fr.  Give the students a budget of a certain number of Euros, they choose what to buy, work out the total and the change they would receive.  All in the target language of course.

Multiplication and Division
Work out who receives the most pocket money, when given sentences giving the amount that people receive and how often they receive it.  (Thanks to Fiona Joyce for passing on that idea.)

Play the Number Challenge (like the numbers round of Countdown) from Triptico.

Fractions and percentages
A good vehicle for introducing some comparative and superlative work.

Shapes

Make pictures out of certain shapes and write correct plurals to say how many of each shape there are.

Take this one step further and make a picture with coloured shapes.  Then the writing will involve numbers, shapes, plurals and adjectival agreement.

Measures

For something a bit different to shopping lists and recipes, have a look at websites like this one.  "Avec un dollar je peux acheter trois paires de tongs au Vietnam."

Reading temperatures from a thermometer is a skill that students need to practise.  This could be an introduction to climate and weather.

Maths?  All in a day's work for an MFL teacher.