World Book Day

It can't have escaped your notice, especially if you work in a primary school, that next Thursday (5th March) is World Book Day.  Around this time of year, those who work in schools or who have little children of their own are asking on Twitter and in the Facebook groups if anyone has any ideas for costumes for the day.  I had my time, when my daughters were at primary school, of making Hetty Feather costumes and Paddington costumes, and would have appreciated ideas for simpler, easier and cheaper alternatives.

A couple of years ago I made myself the tee shirt that you can see above.  I printed the covers of some of the books I read with the children onto the special paper that can be ironed onto fabric, and arranged them on both sides of the tee shirt and its arms.  I wore it on last year's World Book Day, and the children enjoyed recognising some of the books that we have read together.  Unfortunately the pictures didn't cope very well in the wash, so if you try something like this, a gentle handwash is the way to go.

I always enjoy seeing what the children are wearing.  One of my favourite ones was one of the Year 6 girls a couple of years ago.  She was wearing an old tee shirt and pair of leggings, onto which she and her mum had written lots of different words in black Sharpie.  She had come as a dictionary.

A couple of days ago I received from the primary school where I am a governor their weekly newsletter detailing their plans for World Book Day.  They are going to have a vocabulary parade inspired by Miss Alaineus, A Vocabulary Disaster.  I'm sure that this is something that could be adapted for other languages, not only for World Book Day but for language days or weeks, European Day of Languages and so on.

UPDATE 9.3.20:  This year's dictionary tee shirt!  A quick Sharpie job :)

Curriculum map and overhaul #2

Shortly before Christmas, I blogged about my review of my scheme of work for KS2 Spanish.  On my to-do list for this half term was to give some shape to the thoughts I had about it before Christmas and also what has occurred to me while teaching the current scheme this term.

Above you can see the new outline that I have been working out.  Some thoughts:

• I'm now really pleased with Year 3, particularly with how the high-frequency verbs are interwoven and revisited.
• I'm less happy that ser (to be) and tener (to have) to not feature in Year 4.  Can anyone think of a way that they might be incorporated?
• The Y6 topic Then and Now, to be honest, is very much a repetition of the preceding unit, En mi pueblo.  The only new language is adjectives describing a town and the two imperfect forms era and había.  I'm considering scrapping Then and Now, putting the adjectives into the previous unit and making Unit 18 all about clothes, which could then work on regular -AR verbs and incorporate a lot of previous language from Years 3-5.  What do you think?
• Delaying adjectival agreement until Year 5 might make it easier for the children!

All feedback is very welcome.  Time is of the essence for me now, as I have almost finished Unit 4 with my Year 3s and have already started new Unit 5 with my beginner Year 4s.

Your top 10 reads of 2019

Here are the top ten most-read posts on this blog during 2019:

10.  #LW2019 Goosebump Learning - my presentation from Language World 2019.  Don't know what goosebump learning is?  Have a read!

9.  Languages in the news - From the end of February / beginning of March when languages were all over the news thanks to a BBC report.  I also wrote a second news post in July, following the publication of the Language Trends 2019 report.

8.  Spirals and waves (updated) - a post from 2017 all about how to use Festisite to make word spirals, waves, eggs, hearts....  Have a go!

7.  Primary Writing magazine - next steps

6.  Primary Languages Writing Celebration magazine5.  Write Away Paperwork - these three blogposts all deal with the inception, development and publication of Write Away! magazine, of which there are now 3 issues available to read.  Do you fancy seeing what primary children write in their language lessons?  Take a look!

4.  A concertina-ed effort - a post from 2012 which tells you how to make concertina books.

3.  Primary Languages White Paper - a post about the recommendations of the Primary Languages White Paper, which was published in March this year.

2.  Wheel Decide - about the app Wheel Decide, which you can use to make spinning random word or sentence generators for use in class.

1.  #LW2019 Sketchnotes - a post containing my sketchnotes from this year's Language World.  I suspect its popularity is due to the inclusion of a sketchnote about the new Ofsted framework!

Everything you need to know about Tarsia, calligrams and minibooks

Recently I have added some more free resources to my online shop.  They are a series of pdf "Everything you need to know about..." guides.

You can choose from:

• Everything you need to know about Tarsia in the language classroom
• Everything you need to know about calligrams in the language classroom or
• Everything you need to know about minibooks in the language classroom

Each resource is a compilation of posts from this blog and other documents that I have made to support these topics.  I thought it would help you to have everything in one place instead of having to search through various sites.

Curriculum map and overhaul

At the end of last month I attended the 4th annual Northern Primary Languages Show (#NPLS19) in York.  The session I was particularly looking forward to was by Dr Rachel Hawkes, who was talking about vocabulary.  This is my sketchnote from her thought-provoking session:

My main takeaways from Rachel's session were:

1. It's generally acknowledged that by the end of Year 6 children will have reached level A1 on the Common European Framework.  This requires knowledge of 500 items of vocabulary.
2. The vocabulary taught should be informed by the words' frequency in the language. (I blogged before about high-frequency language in Spanish and in French.)
3. Key verbs are crucial.
4. Vocabulary needs to be revisited frequently is it is to stick.

This persuaded me to take a closer look at my curriculum for KS2 Spanish.  I had a feeling that it included considerably more than 500 words, and wanted to look at the inclusion of key verb forms and the thread of the grammar and structures.

I got some pieces of A1 paper and my new Paperchase markers and set to examining my curriculum.

 

First observations:

• The red numbers at the bottom of each sheet are the numbers of new words.  I was interested and surprised to see that once I had added up each year group's totals, it only came to 417 words, 472 if you include the music man unit, which I don't always do.  Children may exceed 500 words by using their dictionaries to personalise their work.
• There is a good coverage of the verb tener (to have) but with the verb ser (one of the verbs to be) I really only cover the third person singular.
• The grammar and structures are a bit haphazard now I look at them like this.  For a better 'thread' I'm thinking of moving family and pets from Year 5 into Year 3 to replace food and opinions.  This will help to reinforce gender and to introduce plurals, as well as revisiting tener and llamarse.  The food unit is a big jump into some complex concepts.
• Weather would be better suited to Year 4, as the language involved is much simpler than other Year 5 topics.
• There aren't enough question forms.
• The only time I look at regular verb conjugation is in the music man unit, but, as I said earlier, I don't always do this unit - it's one I keep in my pocket just in case. I need to build in a regular -AR verb earlier on.

This is something I'll continue to mull over during the Christmas holidays.  If you use my scheme and resources, I'd love to hear your ideas and comments.