GUIDE BOOK

I took my guide book for the printing and I am so happy with the result. Here I add some photos of what can be found on this guide. Also, I will upload a document in a PDF for anyone who wants to use it in his/her class.

Irakasleentzako gida from billabonakoa

LANGUAGE CHALLENGE

Here you see all the material I used to improve my English these last weeks. I have to say that my particular teacher helped me a lot with my weak points but I think that we are seeing the results of the hard work.

LAST DAYS OF WORKING

I spent the last week finishing my power point and preparing the oral presentation. I was feeling very nervous because I worked a lot on this project and I want to give a good ending.

Firstly, I finished the guide book and taking this like a reference, I completed the power point. When the power point was finished, I began with the presentation. For that I took all dispositive I prepared and I wrote in a paper what I had to explain on each one.

Once this works was finished I started preparing the speaking. Is the most difficult thing for me and unless I have to improve, I’m happy with my evolution.

POWER POINT

Here I upload the power point I have prepared for the final task of this project.

Aurkezpena bat from billabonakoa

SHARING IS ENRICHING

After working on this guide during months I found many interesting techniques and materials. Although I’ve done my best to offer many options I think my guide needs to be completed with other people’s inputs. That’s way I would like to invite people to write me about their experiences using my techniques and also to share in this blog any other interesting material they faind.

TO WORK OTHER FEELINGS AND DIFFERENT VALUES

More short stories can be found in the following link www.elarenmunduak.com or in the collection “ sentipuinak “. Apart from those “ Paula y su cabello multicolour “ is an especial fairy tail about a girl whose hair changes colour depended on her mood. This last one is very useful relates everyday happens with feelings that children recognize easily thanks to the visuality.

BOOKS TO WORK ON DEATH

Sometimes we try to hide the issue of the death to children. It’s a difficult topic for all of us and we sometimes forget that sooner we’ll need to confront it.

For that, I propose some different books about death that can be useful to help our children understand what it is.

They have to realise that it isn’t only a thing that happens in their house and they have to know that the void they notice when something like this happens is something natural.

 So, it will be easier for children to express what they feel if they know where their feelings come from.

Here are some interesting books to work on this.

CHANGES FROM LEARNING CONTRACT TO REALITY

First I design a learning contract taking into account the theoretical and practical part of a project, but when it comes to practice, it’s been very difficult to try my exercises with children since currently we are on holiday.

I wasn’t able to use all my techniques with children groups but somehow I used that time to deepen my theoretical work.

That’s why my blog doesn´t tell about practice experiences and focuses more than expected on the design of the activities. Unless, the project won’t show my practical evaluation I will explain my experiences orally.

For all this, my final project will be a guide book for any professional who wants to work on feelings. I will provided exercises for different ages so that, my guidebook will be useful for any educator.

FEELING CARD GAME

In this video, Liana Lowestein explains a card game that she change to use it for the identification of feelings.

This way she becames learning each feeling a game and children get to know the feelings a joyful way.

I think that it's a very interenting method because it aboids the long explanation of the teacher letting children discover by themselves.

NEW INFORMATION

Today, I’m uploading a link with different material to work on our feelings. I found a website in which there are very useful and interesting activities; I didn´t have time to analyze them deeply, but for the moment I saw some activities that could help understand where our feelings come from. That´s way I recommend you to give a look.

http://www.sheffkids.co.uk/adultssite/pages/communicrateworksheets.html

EXPERT INTERVIEW

1. How do you work the coexistence project at school?

It’s been 10 years since we started a coexistence project in the Ikastola. The main goal was to improve the coexistence among all those who shape our Ikastola. For that, we organised four spaces.

1-Procedures to avoid problems

Social skills (basic skills, assertiveness, empathy, “I” messages, active listening) apart from working this in all the levels, we activated many procedures to solve problems: relaxing corners (Infant School), agreespots (Primary School 1-4), and mediation point (P.S. 5-6). The aim is to enhance the respectful environment among students, and to solve problems talking.

PUTTING IN PRACTICE

Before Christmas I put in practice different activities for my project as I said in the last post.  This time, I tried with the faces. 

For this activity, I used 9 years old group. I gave three faces each, which mean sadness, anger and happiness. I said them that they had to choose one of the three faces to express how they felt before beginning with the class. After that, I looked to all the faces I gave the class taking their feelings in mind.

After the class finished we did the same exercise again and we analyzed if there had been any changes in their selection.

I think that this is an easy and practical way to know how each student feels and to know if anybody had any problem. As we do in other activities, it is important to repeat the exercise at the beginning and in the ending; because students can change their feelings and we can analyze the evolution.

I feel very satisfied with this activity and the results I got. I think that this is a very useful method because they can identify their feelings easily and the teacher can notice easily if there was any problem. Also, if the teacher sees it necessary more expression faces can be added.

LANGUAGE CHALLENGE

During the last three weeks I´ve been working with my English teacher to improve the language. Since I need to read many articles and write many posts in English, she is helping me with my reading and writing skills. For that, she sometimes prepares specific reading exorcises so that I analyze the article and answer some questions. She also reviews the writings I do for the blog.

Thanks to these work, I get to know my weakest points and my teacher prepares grammar exorcises to improve them (preposition, word formation...).

That´s why I am positive about my language challenge because I am seen a development in my English expression. Day by day, I feel I can explain things better.

REFLEXION

In this post I will write about reflexion I have done since yet.

·        INFORMATION I HAVE FOUND

I think that this is a topic who needs a lot of time to analyze and you always have things to improve or change.

Even so, I am happy with the information I collected and with the activities I am preparing based on them.

·        PRACTICE I HAVE DONE

I think that the only way to see if the project is useful is putting it in practice. I am really satisfied with the practice I have done so far and I think it is a good way to make progress both, as a teacher and personally.

Knowing how each child feels is easier to connect with them and so, get good results. Also, if you get change your student´s feelings and if you make them feel better, you get a motivation to keep working.

·        “ INSIDE UP“ VIDEO

I think that is an interesting way to give information about feelings. Changing the format can be a good idea sometimes, and this film is especially well done for children.

SELF ASSESSMENT

SELF-ASSESSMENT: CRITERIA FOR ASSESSING THE PROCESS

DATE: 2015-12-15

1.      Have you made any progress [since last time]? Show evidence.

If you have not made any progress, or very little progress, explain why.

Yes, I have made some progresses on my work. I design some exorcises to put in practice and I work these with children.

I am preparing the post to upload to my blog where I explain how my experience is and how it goes. Also, I had done the interview programmed and I am preparing it to upload.

2.      Have you come up with anything that you hadn’t foreseen on your learning contract?

Yes. When I began thinking how I can put in practice the methods I design, I realized that this week are chrisms holidays. I thought that there wasn´t enough time to do all the activities so, I decided to do what I have planned but with my dance group children.

I have different groups so I have the opportunity to work with different ages.

Other change I have done is the interview form. At first, I supposed that I would record the interview bat at last, I had a chat with Marisa and we wrote together the answers. I did this change because she preferred to do so.

PUTTING IN PRACTICE

Last week I put in practice a method to express feelings with my dance group children. They are six and I used with them the “numbering feelings” method.

As I have explained in another post, this method consists in putting numbers to our feelings, so that, if the teacher sais to number from 1 to 5 each student has to think which number to put for their feelings each day.

They understood without any problem what they had to do and I think that it was very useful. I have done it twice and noticed changes between the first one and the second one.

On the first, the bigger number of the students said the same number and they didn’t take it seriously; but in the second one, the method went better.

So, I get the conclusion that this method needs a continued process and to get the objectives I want, it will take time.

Finally, I realized that “ numbering feelings “ method helps me a lot realizing how  each of my students feels and also, it helps them realize how they feel.

INSIDE OUT

Inside out, is a film which shows us how our mind can act when we feel each emotion and what each one means.

These characters are designed for children so, is easy and entertaining for them. There, I will put some examples for different parts and feelings.

GOOD ENERGY SONGS

This is a song which shows a positive way to see positively the diary life.

The song is in Basque. It is sung by Maialen Lujanbio and the lyrics also, are written by her.

INTERVIEW

These are the questions I sent to the teacher responsible in Irura for the coexistence project. Next week, I will put these questions with the answers she gives me.

1.      How do you work the coexistence project at school?

2.      Do you have different methods for Infant school and Primary school?

3.      Can you explain some methods you use for children to express their feelings?

4.      Do you notice any changes since you began using these methods?

5.      Are new projects in precess?

ADAPTING FEELINGS

In this entry I will adapt the feeling expression exercise for Primary school. As we used the three expression faces in the calming down corner, each child will have the three faces in his/her desk.

They will have to value their feeling three times per day (morning, after the break and after lunch) .

As in Infant education, the aim of this technique is to understand everyone is feeling.

The point of doing it  three times per day is that if bad feelings appear  they can notice what the reason was or what made them feel angry or sad.... Thanks to this, teachers can help working on those feelings. The same happens when good feelings show up; they can get to know what makes them happy.