Happy Thanksgiving

 

I hope you find this material useful

 

Greeting Card

 

e-card :http://www.care2.com/send/card/6731

Quote:

Despite the changes which come into our lives and with gratitude in our hearts, may we fill our days-as much as we can-with those things which matter most. May we cherish those we hold dear and express our love to them in word and in deed.”

–Thomas S. Monson, “Finding Joy in the Journey,”, Liahona, Nov 2008, 84-87

 

Lesson Plan :

Lesson Plan Title : Thanksgiving Myths

Age Range: Grade 6 through grade 8 (Middle School)

Overview and Purpose: Several of the Thanksgiving "facts" we teach our children are historically inaccurate. This lesson will help students separate this holiday's facts from fiction.

Objective: The student will be able to name five Thanksgiving myths and provide the correct information about the myth.

Resources:

Internet access for each student

Activities:

Have students research Thanksgiving on the internet and find five myths about the holiday. Have them write a paragraph explaining how each inaccuracy began and what the correct information is. Come together as a class and discuss the students' findings.

Wrap Up:

You can introduce this lesson by naming some common myths that the students would be familiar with and discussing whether they are fact or fiction.

 Supplementary Material:

 

 

 

 

 Presentation on Soft skills

 

Sharing and working together

According to a research conducted in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Spain, Mexico and Peru by Universia, Peruvian graduates are not so satisfied with the level obtained when culminating their university majors. Satisfaction percentage of Peruvian graduates is 59% compared to over 70% obtained by Colombia and Argentina.The main reason for this dissatisfaction is the difficulty graduates face to get a job immediately after graduating. Only 33% could get a job that relates to what they majored in while the rest had to take whatever job available.

 

However, the percentage of people satisfied with their secondary school learning is higher: 68% students, 62% teachers believe secondary school was good, even if university professors disagree. They claim that after finishing secondary school students are incapable of doing analysis and synthesis, do not master a second language and have poor time management, all of them important skills for a professional. The strengths these students show are interpersonal skills and mastery of the IT tools, their weaknesses are the lack of linguistic competences such as oral and written communication.

So what kind of knowledge, skills and attitudes should a remarkable professional display? Human Resources experts say that the core skills are not enough, professionals need to develop competences that provide them with adaptability, ability to learn and willingness to improve (soft skills).

Follow this link to view a presentation on soft skills that I did for the 5th International ICPNA Conference in Lima, Peru. http://prezi.com/pqqioqnr2twi/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

September celebrations

 

September 21st is International Peace Day and World Gratitude Day, this is a good time to thank all the ones who have contributed to  my personal and professional growth and keep trying hard to contribute to Peace.

 

In Peru, we are also getting closer to Spring Day so I thought that to celebrate all these events I could share some material to raise awareness of these two important values: Peace and Gratitude.
Below you can find a card that can be used for discussion for secondary students on the topic of Peace.

Peace Card: http://www.care2.com/send/card/5290

There are also some worksheets for doing Spring crafts

 

 

 a link for a spring game for the little ones

http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/word-games/label-the-picture/spring

Finally, there is a Brain Teaser activity for Primary.

 

The greatest sin against yourself is to have a good impulse and fail to act upon it.

 

Activities for Father´s Day

 

 

 

Teacher Guide To Father's Day



Father's Day is a holiday set aside to celebrate all of the dads, grandfathers, brothers and uncles who are father figures, and to show appreciation for these males by expressing how thankful we are for them. The first time Father's Day was celebrated was on June 19, 1910 by Sonora Dodd who lived with a Civil War veteran single father with five brothers and sisters. Their mother had died, and Ms. Dodd wanted to show how much she appreciated her father's commitment to her and her siblings and so she started the tradition of Father's Day. There was already a day for mothers, but she wanted a day set aside for fathers. However the idea did not immediately catch on as many people did not want to accept the idea that fathers were just as important as mothers.

 

 

http://www.care2.com/send/card/6371

 

April 22 is Earth Day, I hope you can find some of the suggestions I chose and shared here useful to raise your student´s awareness of this celebration and, most important, take action and make changes at home, at school and in the community to help preserve our natural resources.
 
My first contribution is a reading text taken from the page: http://www.teach-nology.com/themes/science/earth/ 
 
You can find worksheets, lesson plans and some other help about almost any topic and at different levels. Below you will read the teacher guide to Earth Day for introducing the topic and allow students to do further research or to follow it with specific actions on how to deal with the problems mentioned.

Earth Day is celebrated every year on April 22. The first Earth Day celebration was in 1970, and was organized by the United States Senator from Wisconsin named Gaylord Nelson to bring political attention to all Americans about how the earth was being neglected by trash and waste of water, electricity and natural resources, like gas. He noticed that there was a lot of pollution and waste in the United States, and believed that if enough people wanted to change the bad habits of turning the Earth into a garbage pile and making all the water dirty, then they could do it one person at a time. Now Earth Day is celebrated all over the world by many countries.

My next contribution to your class is a reading page on Global Warming and the Green house effect  that you can use to focus on specific problems and to initiate research on these issues by preparing your own questions on the text or, even better, asking students to prepare the questions. This page and some other sample pages can be downloaded from the same link above.

 You can send e-cards or ask students to make their own. This is an example of an e-card with a wonderful poem that you can send to your students or use in class for group discussion. You can  find the card in the link below.

 http://www.care2.com/send/earth-day-cards.html

An additional advantage of this page is that :

Sending a free Care2 ecard helps important organizations because Care2 members earn butterfly credits when they send free Care2 ecards. Credits can be redeemed for meaningful gifts like safe drinking water,carbon offsets, or help for shelter pets through amazing organizations.

Members earn the credits and they choose the gifts. Now it's easier than ever to make a difference.

Care2 connects you with over 350 nonprofits, elected officials, and millions of members so that you can take action and make your voice heard.

Last  but not least there is the song Heal the World from Michael Jackson but I found a version with slides that are not from the original video but that really motivate students to see how easy it is to make a change in the world. Warning: Watch the video first since some of the pictures could be really moving and may affect very sensitive people, so you need to decide if it is suitable for your class or not.

  Heal the World (link to video)

 

Remember : You can make a difference every day.

 

 

Classes start next week and most parents are worried about stretching their budgets to buy all the material and stationery that their children will need. However, I read in El Comercio on Monday that Education for children should no longer be based on pen and paper. The writer of this article (La Educación en un mundo cambiante) quoted Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs, who was one of the lecturers of the Seminar: Curriculum del siglo XXI: Educacion Esencial para un Mundo Cambiante held last year in Lima. The quote was: "The world is constantly changing and the enemy is the pencil" since, in his opinion, once something is in writing,it becomes static and outdated.

The writer of the article (Lea Sulmont, Facultad de Educación UPC) said she was worried about the curriculum and its effectiveness at integrating the necessary competences for this changing world. The writer´s concern was that the curriculum (contents, skills and evaluation) should be revisited so as to make sure we offer our students real opportunities of development in the global world.

 

It is true, she said, that the web and the technological applications allow access to updated content in real world and that evaluation could be done now with ppt, prezi, animations or simulations anytime and anywhere. However it is not only resources we should focus on but also the skills the students need to develop to access information, as well as to communicate, produce, collaborate and live in the XXI century.

I am confident that we, teachers, the most important resource an institution has, will do our best to incorporate technology in our classes and to organize activities that will allow students to develop the necessary skills for this century. So I wish my colleagues a Happy School Year full of interesting challenges, projects and success.

The Chinese New Year started last Sunday and one of my resolutions was to learn something new each month. I learned how to use Vocaroo, a very easy and simple tool to record, share and embed  audio messages so I decided to record something from one of my favourite books: Meditations for Women who do Too much by Anne Wilson Schaef and encourage you to use Vocaroo just by going to http://vocaroo.com and following the instructions. The potential of this tool for providing feedback to students, for students to leave messages are incredible.

 

Audio and voice recording >>

 

 

 

Induction: The Best form of Professional Development

 

The article starts mentioning that to redesign professional mentoring is not enough to have mentors but to have effective induction processes.

The main message of the article is that new teachers need more than just mentors who they try to reach whenever trouble arises and that institutions need to create a culture of professional growth and lifelong learning before beginning teachers ever see their first class.

 

Some of the characteristics of effective induction programmes are:

• They should help new teachers establish effective classroom management procedures, routines and instructional practices.
• They should promote unity and teamwork.
• They should train and support new teachers engaging them in the fulfillment of the institution´s mission.
• They should start with 4 or 5 days of workshops before school begins.
• They should integrate a mentoring component and some kind of framework for modeling effective teaching.
• They should provide opportunities for inductees to visit demonstration classrooms

Demonstration classrooms: Experienced teachers set up their rooms to model the first day of school in an effective classroom. Afterwards, observers discuss the strategies that new teachers found useful.

• They could provide  a SPA Day.

A SPA (Special Professional Assistance)Day is for mentees to spend a day with a mentor observing each other and then having lunch together to exchange ideas on what they have observed.

• There could be monthly support meetings and Curriculum facilitators

Curriculum facilitators: teachers to whom mentors and teachers can go to and who provide support, teach demonstration lessons, conduct informal teacher observation and offer sugestions for improvement.

According to Mr. Wong, what is needed is a sustained training programme to keep new teachers, nurture them and take them step-by-step through the year and beyond.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

I joined the TESOL CALL Interest Section Electronic Village Online (EVO) Sessions last year when I read the invitation sent by RELO Andes in ELTeCS and really learned a lot. I am sharing this with you so you can join the different activities this year; some of the courses are really demanding but learning is guaranteed.
"For five weeks in January-February, participants can engage with volunteer ESOL experts in collaborative, online discussion sessions or hands-on virtual workshops of professional and scholarly benefit. The sessions are free and open".
I have joined the session on podcasting and am really looking forward to learning more about this.

This is the link http://evosessions.pbworks.com

Enjoy your learning!!