Miss T.

Teaching primary kids English as a Second Language in an IB school in Madrid. Blogging about everyday school life.

[misstesl]

Listen!

[incidentalcomics]

Branches

Happy (almost) Autumn! A book and calendar of my comics have just been published by Abrams. 

[misstesl]

Critical thinking and collaborative activity. Fun learning.

[misstesl]

Did you know that today is International Peace Day? Well, I didn’t… Honestly, I thought it is sometime in January. Anyway, one of the kids came this morning asking if I planned something special to celebrate it. I haven’t… Luckily, I have planned to do a short (20 minutes) creative writing activity so I only had to change the theme. I gave them a starter and they finished it. “When I close my eyes and think of Peace…”

[classroomchaos]

[misstesl]

Team building activity in summer school.

[misstesl]

End of the year

For us teachers end of the year doesn’t have the same meaning as for any other people. It’s not the 31st December. It’s when school year ends. Some of us finish the year at the end of May, others at the end of June. Some still count the days… For me official school year has already ended. Although I still work in July. It’s not hard work. It’s summer school with a lot of entertainment. Honestly, I quite like it. I know more about the kids and we have a lot of fun.

[misstesl]

And he truly did. Bless him. 😂😂

[lingvistov]

Every Book Is A Remix - Prints Available!

[misstesl]

[tunedintoteaching]

That moment when you cannot wait until Winter Break starts, but don’t want it to start yet because you have so much to get done before then.

[misstesl]

Reflection/blogging kids

I always played with the idea of introducing blogging to children. But last year my kids were too young (6-7 years old) to write their thoughts in a second language. And here I am now teaching 6 graders. Perfectly capable little people. So we started to use Kidblog. It’s a safe platform. Controlled by me (as their teacher). For the moment I only use it as a reflection of the unit we’ve finished and I love it. It’s really interesting to read about what activities my kids liked doing during the unit, what we should do more or less of. Basically it helps me a lot how to plan the next topic. It also helps kids with their writing and gathers their thoughts about the previous month.

What really surprised me whilst reading their blog posts that even my naughtiest, laziest student who I never thought was listening or intentionally doing something study related and he’d rather be anywhere else, started his reflection with a sentence like this: “In this unit I had a lot of fun, I have done a lot of things like… ” and he wrote plenty examples where learning took place. Cherry on top he finished his posts hoping the next unit would be as entertaining as this one was. I guess learning continues for them and for me.

[themushroomkiller]

This is some advice I got from a priest mentor of mine years back. He said: ‘Here’s the rule, the airtight rule. Criticize somebody precisely in the measure that you are willing to help him or her deal with the problem you’re raising.’ The point is that if you are 100% willing to commit yourself to helping the person deal with the problem you’re raising, off you go. Critique ‘til the cows come home. If you’re totally unwilling to take even one little step to help the person deal with the problem, then keep your mouth shut. Don’t say anything. Maybe a little bit of commitment? Maybe a little bit of critique. That has never left my mind, that little piece of advice. When I feel the urge to criticize someone, ‘alright Barron, are you willing to commit yourself to helping him deal with his problems?’ If not, keep your mouth shut.

Father Robert Barron (via themushroomkiller)

LOVE this advice.

(via hisnamewasbeanni)

[misstesl]

As a formative assessment on our unit “Who we are” kids have been making posters and writing poems about how they maintain their health. They enjoy working in little groups or in pairs. They laugh a lot together and come up with funny ideas as they are trying to find rhyming words to make their perfect poem.

[misstesl]

[misstesl]

I can’t imagine my life without… Lovely activity to do with the class to know kids better.

[weareteachers]

http://www.weareteachers.com/blogs/post/2015/09/28/best-of-teacher-helpline!-what-to-say-when-a-student-isn’t-working-up-to-his-or-her-potential