Found this via the LiverpoolFC Twitter feed!
And given my love of Spain, music and, most of all, Nando, I just had to share it with you.
Thanks to the above tweet I've found this song that won't stay out of my head.
A lovely summer feel good song.
Hope you enjoy it too!
With all sorts of bugs doing the rounds at the moment, here's another little gem that is
a)fun
b)free
c)useful and topical.
El Barrio Sésamo in Mexico has made this little video to encourage children to wash their hands and advises them to sing part of the song 'Pin Pon' to help them judge how long it should take.
So let's see if the sinks will be ringing to the sound of children singing and washing...;o)
On the day of his funeral, here's Michael Jackson singing in Spanish. For a 2001 special edition of his "Bad" album, Jackson recorded "Todo mi amor eres tú," a translated version of his hit "I Just Can't Stop Loving You." He performed it as a duet with Siedah Garrett.
(Thanks to About.com for sharing this)
Can't believe I haven't blogged for nearly a fortnight! Blame reports, three presentations and a morning of preliminary meetings / observation with TeachersTV in one week, and a short break in Spain!
There will be more posts soon, but to keep you going, here's another of the reasons I've not being blogging recently. Enjoy!
Getting into the Eurovision spirit ....
Here's the Andorran entry La teva decisió sung partly in Catalan (disappointed that it switches to English for the chorus but I guess that's so more people understand it!)
And the Spanish entry by Soraya called La noche es para mi (again has English in the chorus!)
Here are the words in case you feel the need to join in!
Vuelvo a mirar, tus ojos son un volcán
No escaparás, tu fuego dirá la verdad
No importa si quieres o no, porque hoy mando yo
Come on and take me, come on and shake me
Quiero saber lo que sientes por mí
Come on and take me, come on and shake me
¿Que no lo ves que estoy loca por ti?
Come set me free, just you and me
La noche es para mí
No puedo más, juro que mío serás
Ven a bailar, ya no podrás escapar
No importa si quieres o no, porque hoy mando yo
Come on and take me, come on and shake me
Quiero saber lo que sientes por mí
Come on and take me, come on and shake me
¿Que no lo ves que estoy loca por ti?
Come set me free, just you and me
La noche es para mí
Ah...
Take me, shake me, take me
Brilla la luz, mi mágica noche eres tu
Ya no hay tabús
Quiero clavarte mi cruz
Come on and take me, come on and shake me
Quiero saber lo que sientes por mí
Come on and take me, come on and shake me
¿Que no lo ves que estoy loca por ti?
La noche es para mí
La noche es para mí
Come set me free, just you and me
La noche es para mí
Wonder who'll win? Could it be Jade and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber? Or Soraya? Who knows with the way the voting works at times!
I love musicals and thought I'd share this clip from Los Miserables with you as I love it!
I went out on Friday to a concert - happens so rarely that it's newsworthy! As part of the Lichfield Festival, there was a Mexican band playing the Lichfield Garrick, so I jumped at the chance to go when invited by a friend - thanks Sharon ;o)
The blurb advertising the award winning Los de Abajo looked interesting (see below)- and the evening proved to be just that!
I'm not sure that the Lichfield Garrick was the ideal venue for such a high energy performance, and I think the band were a bit fazed by the lack of dancing in the audience (well, it's Lichfield for heavens sake!!) but they gave it their all!
Memorable moments included reference by the vocalist to 'the horny section' (he meant the brass section!); the energetic dancing and gyrating of the saxophonist, Daniel Portugal, described by The Independent as 'tall and punkish with a saturnine beard, ... a wild dancing talisman' and member of the aforementioned 'horny section'; various members of the band donning wrestling masks and having a fight; and the encore when the entire band left the stage and went walkabout around the theatre, culminating in deafening the front few rows (including me!) with two saxophones, two trombones, two trumpets, two guitars and a wide variety of drumming!
Their music, lyrically, is not really suitable for use in the Primary classroom - it's very revolutionary and is peppered with colourful language, but it has a good beat and was very different to the pop perception of Latino music. (Check it out by clicking on the CD cover here and then choosing a song!)
If you want to find out more, here are a few sites about them, and one of their songs
http://www.myspace.com/losdeabajoska
http://www.realworldrecords.com/artists/los-de-abajo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_de_Abajo_(band)
yo soy músico
Here comes part three of my reflections on the units I'm currently using in KS2 Spanish. If you've read the other parts on Units 5 and 11, you'll recall that I've taught the units to half of the school and am now teaching the parallel classes until the summer break. So the current groups are probably getting a better deal as I refine and adapt from the first run, but may not finish the unit in its entirety as the end of term leads to much lesson disruption!
As with Units 5 and 11, Unit 14 has an opening stimulus from which the unit stems. In this case, a song. Based on the well known children's song, I am the Music Man, Yo soy músico has proved popular with Year 5. The QCA Unit which can be downloaded from here in PDF and RTF, gives the lyrics - you just have to sing it! Helen Myers has recorded a music only version - clever lady!- which can be found here, and if you want to hear how it sounds with a class in full voice, check out the WCPS Spanish podcast in the right hand column - although I'm sure you've all subscribed to it in iTunes ;o)
At the top of the post is the Powerpoint I made to go with the song. Note that it has two parts. The first half is in the first person singular - Yo soy músico, which is the version used in the first instance when the teacher (or volunteer class member!) is the Music Man. The second part is in the first person plural - Somos músicos - as the class join in with the whole song and we all become Music Men. I used animations having listened to Nick Mair talking in Oxford about boys learning best when there is action and movement in the graphics. There is an initial disadvantage as the class comment on the guitar playing pig etc mid-song, but after the first view, this stops and it really helps memorisation.
Scheme of work for Year5 spanish summer yo soy musico
Looking at the medium term plan above, you can see that the objectives for the first lesson are to express simple opinions about music. This proved popular as we listened to some different types of music and decided if we liked them or not. In a previous unit on free time we had learned the phrase la música pop / rock / clásica and most recalled the phrase - and the accompanying action -
ofón / batería have accents - I explained it using people's names - when we see a name in English we know (usually!) how to say it as there are stress patterns - it's AlexANder not AlEXander and accents help show us how to say words. Pupils completed a simple sheet to finish the lesson - labelling and also trying to use their LLS to work out what six instruments were in English. Some of the words were obvious and others needed a bit of thought - but a few did work out los platillos are cymbals by thinking of plates!
Here's the second of four posts on the Spanish QCA units I'm using with KS2 this term. The first, QCA Unit 5, Los Cuatro amigos seemed to be popular so I hope you find this one helpful too.
First thing to say is that I really enjoyed teaching this unit - and the class seemed to be equally enthused. The combination of music, literacy and Spanish proved popular, and this half term the cross curricular element is extended as habitats is a topic in Science. And I was really pleased with the outcomes of the unit.
You can download the Unit in PDF or RTF from the QCA website.
Below is my medium term plans - being adapted as I go along and discover what does and doesn't work.
Medium term planning QCA Unit11 El Carnaval del os Animales
Unit 11 is based around and inspired by the Saint Saens piece, Le carnaval des animaux, and the opening lesson was heavily reliant on music. I borrowed the CD of The carnival of the animals from the library, but then found a great website that provided snippets for each animal theme. The site being in Spanish with short comments on the music makes it a possible resource for more experienced linguists to use in the discussion of music in Spanish rather than the English we used for ours. And it's a gift for the teacher who can point the pupils in the right direction if they're struggling.
We began by looking at the title of the Unit. I asked pupils to suggest what they might be learning in this topic, encouraging them to explain their ideas e.g. it's something about animals I think - the last word looks like animals; 'carnaval' looks like carnival etc. None of the class made the association with the piece of music as none had heard of it. Having established the title, I asked them to suggest what sorts of things they might learn - they're good at this as AfL is a focus this year at WCPS. Lots of suggestions hit the mark and others would've been good avenues for exploration given more time.
Then we listened to snippets of the music, in order, and I asked for suggestions as to the animal it represented. As I've already mentioned, this was done in English and was much more successful than I had thought it might be. As my lesson allocation for the class covered their music lesson too, we were able to spend more time on Spanish by combining the two lessons. The music topic was based on rhythm and this fitted well. The pupils love contemporary music but it was good to see and hear them discussing a classical piece and passing positive comment. The suggestions of animals were sometimes accurate but some were off mark and this was probably due to not being given an idea of the animals we might be considering, so this half term when I did the same lesson with the other class, I began the same but introduced the vocabulary in Spanish prior to playing the music. This allowed more accurate identification of animals and moved us onto discussion of how the animal was represented / suggested by the music much more immediately. I introduced the animals using the PPT below, accompanied by actions e.g un león was two hands like paws ready to pounce; un gallo, one hand on top of head, one under chin with wiggling fingers like the comb and crop; un elefante with your arm as a trunk etc. Using images and actions we played Beat the teacher, ¿Dónde está ...? Simon dice, name the animal from the action and viceversa, to reinforce the vocabulary.
El Carnaval de los animales
The second lesson began with a video of Los pollitos dicen..,I'd downloaded it from Youtube which was fortunate as Youtube is now blocked at school.
We watched a number of times and pupils began to join in with the opening lines as they wanted. Having looked at the video, I challenged the pupils once more to think about one of the objectives for the lesson. Several suggestions were made including habitat, food, mummies and babies, and, the correct answer, animal noises.
We recapped the animal vocabulary using actions, images and also rhythm. As we repeated the words, I clapped the rhythm. Pupils echoed the clap back again and we played games around the rhythm of the words. More of that later..
Moving on, we listened to a number of animal noises and asked the pupils to make educated guesses on the animal that made each noise, commenting on similarities and differences. We made a great cacophony of animal noises, akin to an unruly zoo as we practiced Spanish animal noises - the class were very amused that Spanish animals spoke another language too! With the noises came additional animals, extending beyond the initial stimulus. Below is a consolidation worksheet that we used to round off the section of the lesson as well as the PPT I used.
Los sonidos de los animales
Worksheet lesson 2 Unit 11
After the lunch break, we decided to make an animal symphony using percussion and voice! This met the objectives of the music unit as well as suggested activities in the QCA guidelines for the Spanish unit. Pairs of pupils were given an animal picture and a percussion instrument to create firstly a sound effect for their animal, and then used it to beat the rhythm of the word in Spanish. we took this further by individually presenting our pieces and then joining them together with teacher in the role of conductor bringing in and cueing out animals. The resulting 'symphony' was very interesting and you can listen to it here on our podcast WCPS Spanish (sounded better live, I must add!) A very enjoyable activity and an excellent for trying to maintain a steady rhythm and stay in time with others!
The next lesson was based around time and concluded with a class full of hot sweaty children and two children in first aid! Having recapped numbers 1-12 using a soft ball and various games - always a winner when I start chucking things around the room as I am hopeless at hand-eye coordination - I used an ELC clock to model the time for one and two o'clock before several bright sparks took over for three o'clock, half the class for four o'clock and 28/30 by five o'clock. We played time bingo and completed some questions from the IWB (sadly can't save those in Doc.Stoc so will have to put them in My Box of Goodies)
With o'clock times stuck in our heads and consolidated with a written exercise, I ventured to suggest we could go out onto the playground and play a game. This was a popular idea - although not so popular when the class discovered that there were three other classes outside and they weren't working, just running around. However, to their credit, they mostly concentrated and several children from other classes came to see what we were doing! We played ¿Qué hora es, Señor Elefante? , a variant on What's the time Mr Wolf in which the animal changes each time, and the players have to move like the animal named e.g like an elephant for Sr. Elefante, like a swan for Sra. Cisne etc for the number of steps that corresponds to the time. More practice needed on the movement - never seen a tortoise run, nor a fish! However, lots of volunteers to be 'on'. We also played El Carnaval de los animales, very like fruit salad but with animals instead of fruit. Having given each child the name of one of six animals in Spanish, I called an animal and all those with that name had to move around the outside of the circle back to their space in the manner of their animal. If I called El Carnaval de los Animales, everyone had to move around the circle like their animal. This was the cause of the scrapped knees in first aid I'm afraid :o( but the injured parties weren't too sad so it was OK (phew!)
Next we looked at adjectives. Pupils had already commented on the colours of the nouns on their wordlist (see initial PPT) and had met colours in a previous unit. Some recalled the need for agreement and noted why there were two versions of most adjectives.
I used Querido Zoo (Dear Zoo) as the stimulus for the lesson - a familiar story to many and again introducing another couple of animals for those who had already grasped the others as well as great for introducing adjectives describing animals, and the word for 'too' - demasiado. Having read the book on PPT, pupils made their own conclusions in groups about the meaning of the adjectives before we discussed (and corrected!) ideas together. Having introduced a few more ideas including rápido / lento, fuerte/débil etc, pupils made up some sentences using es and no es to describe animals. This turned into a guessing game with definitions being offered and others trying to guess the animal, and there was also a pleasing clamour to find out more adjectives using a dictionary - cue impromptu lesson in bilingual dictionary skills!
Habitats came into play next - using the suggested habitats from the QCA unit in a IWB flipchart (again, will have to put it into My Goodie Box!) we looked at pictures and guessed the theme of the lesson before placing animal cards into the appropriate habitat, making statements about where the animals lived. We used the first person, pretending that we were the animal preparing for the written part of the lesson when pupils took the role of an animal to be interviewed. We reviewed personal identification questions and modelled a couple of examples on the IWB before pupils went away to produce their own introductions.
4AT had heard that 5MW had been recording and they wanted in on the act. So we set up our recording studio in a corner and several pupils came to record their work for WCPS Spanish, our podcast. It was great to see all abilities represented in the volunteers, including all SEN pupils, and there were some who were reluctant to go to lunch as they hadn't had a chance to record. In fact, we even moved the studio to the library during their library session to allow more participation. Great to see them so motivated.
I actually had an extra lesson with the class and decided to continue on the animal theme! We looked at the Build my WildSelf site and discussed the different animals and body parts included (this recapped vocabulary learned in year 3) Having designed their own Wild Self (a very amusing task attacked with great gusto), pupils designed their own hybrid animals on paper and wrote simple sentences about them such as;
Tiene la cabeza de un elefante.
Tiene el cuerpo de un pez. 
Tiene la cola de un lagarto.
Tiene las piernas de una jirafa.
I made a display as part of the Unit too, well received by all of KS2 including the staff who liked its vibrant images and interactive quality - all the stuff to make it below! Just laminate! You can see more of the display here .
display
Since completing the Unit, I've discovered the following resources
I'm currently experimenting with various Spanish units from the new QCA SoW for KS2. I'm using Unit 5 Los cuatro amigos with Year 3, El carnaval de los animales (Unit 11) with Year 4, Year 5 are doing Unit 14 Yo soy músico and Year 6 are looking forward to some café acting with Unit 23, Poner una cafetería.
I'll report more fully when the units are completed as to how good, bad or indifferent I found them etc, but as a taster, I thought I'd share a snippet!
Hot off the press, here are Year 5 singing 'Somos músicos' with great gusto.
This is my first attempt at embedding a player on my blog - if it doesn't work, you can listen tot he same audio from the Podomatic player on the right ;o)
I love singing and enjoy using song in my lessons. I've written before about the values of using song, rhyme and rhythm to aid learning whilst having fun. Although I'm not averse to making up my own songs, I'm always on the lookout for more songs to add to my repertoire.
In the summer I purchased a CD from Early Learning Centre called Fun with Spanish.
It has traditional songs from Spain (such as Tengo una muñeca) and England (such as Polly put the kettle on) sung in the original language but also translated into the other language. This is good as the tunes are familiar and the gist of the song already known to the pupils, meaning they have no hang ups about meaning.
The CD costs £5 - quite reasonable I think! And if you want to use it, here are the animated presentations I've made to go with the traditional English songs in Spanish plus the concluding rap.
Uno_ dos_ tres_ cuatro_ - Get more documents
El barco zarpó - Get more documents
Lingo rap - Get more documents
Me pongo de pie - Get more documents
Polly pon agua a hervir - Get more documents
En la parada - Get more documents
