Water Cycle Experiment!

Hello friends! Right now in 1st and 2nd grades we are learning about water and the water cycle! In 2nd, we decided to do a fun experiment using plastic bags! Here are the steps for our experiment:

You will need: A zip-lock bag, a permanent marker, a small amount of water, some tape, and a window that gets sunlight

First: Draw a picture on your bag to represent the water cycle! We used pictures for reference, after learning the phases of the water cycle

Next: Pour a small amount of water into the bottom of your bag, and close it tight!

Finally: Tape the bag up on the window and observe what happens to the water over time. The sun heats the water and causes a small water cycle in your bag! 

With this experiment we see all of the steps of the water cycle: collection, evaporation, condensation, and precipitation. How fun! 

We taped ours up on the window and have observed how the water changes throughout the week.

Here's one of our favorite songs we sang about water! What is your favorite thing to do with water?!

Update: Our experiment was a success! Students loved getting to see the mini-water cycles in their bags and talk about them with me and Ms. Maria!

Welcome Back!

Welcome back to school, and Happy New Year!! I hope everyone had a great holiday and is ready to learn a lot of English in 2017! This first week back at school, I explained some American New Years traditions to my classes. Some of them are very different, and might seem funny to my students from Sevilla! Below is the presentation I did to introduce the American New Years traditions to my classes!

Over the break, I also got to run into Destinee, the Auxiliar de Conversación from the 2015-2016 school year!! Here is a photo of us visiting Aracena with friends!

I hope everyone is excited to be back at school, learning and having fun! I look forward to all the fun ahead with my students in 2017!

Holiday Celebrations!

It's the last week before our holiday break, so we have been talking about holiday traditions here in Sevilla, as well as my Christmas traditions in America! We have had fun learning and discussing our favorite foods, decorations and celebrations while practicing English! I have gathered some photos and videos that have information about Christmas and New Years traditions in America, so I will share them here, I hope you enjoy and have a wonderful holiday with your family and friends! I look forward to seeing you all again next year! ;)

My town, Knoxville, Tennessee, during Christmas! We can see Christmas lights, a star, a tree, a wreath, and people by the street:

Typical American Christmas Dinner:

In America, some people love to decorate their houses with Christmas lights:

New York is very famous for its Christmas decorations:

Christmas Vocabulary Video:

The Night Before Christmas, a children's version of a traditional American Christmas Story:

Santa Claus is Coming to Town!:

Christmas Traditions Video:

Jingle Bells Song!:

And finally, in America our New Years tradition is to watch the "ball drop" in New York when the clock strikes midnight on New Years Eve. If you are not in New York, you just watch it with family and friends on TV to celebrate the New Year!

Fun and Games with English!

Since arriving this year, it has been a blast figuring out how much English each group of students already knows, and their favorite ways to engage with the language. We have some impressive students at our school! In Social Science 1A and 1B, we have spent some time learning about fruits and vegetables to help build basic vocabulary. We have had lots of fun talking about the healthy foods we like to eat, and what we have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! To review our food vocabulary, we played a Fruits and Vegetables Bingo game. We had so much fun and we definitely know our fruits and veggies now!

I get to work with Physical Education classes 4A and 4B as well as 6A, 6B, and 6C. Typically I will introduce each game that we play in English to see if students can figure out the rules from my descriptions. Sometimes they have questions, but usually they can understand my instructions very well! Each week I try to incorporate at least one game from the United States, especially games that I played as a child to incorporate aspects of my culture into the class. Games that require the students to speak English challenge them physically as well as engaging them with new English vocabulary while having fun! Recently, two favorites have been "Castle Ball" and the "Infinite Hoop Game."

In Castle Ball, there are two teams, each with their own castle. They have to protect their castle while throwing balls to try and destroy the other team's castle. Whoever knocks down the other team's castle first, wins!

The Infinite Hoop Game requires that students stand in a circle holding hands. The goal is to get a hoop all the way around the circle without letting go of their friends' hands, using teamwork skills to help get each student through the hoop successfully. Once they have mastered one hoop, you can always add more!

English Video Round-Up Week 28/11/16

Hello friends! Here are my English video picks for this week. I hope you enjoy!

This week in 5th Grade Social Science we are learning about the constitution, perfect timing with Día de la Constitución coming up on December 6th (in America ours is September 18th)! For this, I shared a video from my childhood. This is a fun song talking a bit about the constitution and sharing the beginning of our constitution in song form:

In 3rd Grade Natural Science we are learning to classify living things! Here is a fun video discussing the difference between living and non-living things:

In 2nd grade we are talking about natural and man-made landscapes. Here is a video I used to engage students in learning about natural landscapes and their vocabulary:

And finally, here is a song that my infantile classes have loved about Christmas! It combines Christmas vocabulary with English words they are already familiar with: the colors! :

Introducing: English Video Round-Up!

The umbrellas and jackets I am seeing around school are telling me that it is finally Autumn here in Sevilla! We are well into the school year now and I have loved getting to know the classes I am teaching.

I am working with a wide variety of subjects including Natural Science, Social Science, Infantil English,  and Physical Education! These topics are very different and each age group has a unique focus, however for most of these classes I have found a good amount of useful videos to help make learning English fun! I have decided that once a week, I will share my favorite English videos that I have used in lessons for that week in an "English Video Round-Up," so that teachers, students, and parents can see what we are learning, access the videos, and have fun practicing English outside of class! Here are the videos I have chosen to share this week:

Fruits and Vegetables Vocabulary (done with 1st grade):

Geography Vocabulary (done with 1st grade):

Balanced diet video discussing the importance of eating healthy food! (done with 3rd grade):

Moon Song (done with 2nd grade):

Tour the United States Song (done with 5th grade):

And finally an *EXTRA* video because this week is Thanksgiving in America! Enjoy!

Meet the 2016-2017 Auxiliar de Conversación, Brandy Wells

Hello to my new friends at Maestra Isabel Álvarez!

I'm Brandy Wells, and I will be the Language and Culture Assistant here for the 2016-2017 school year! I am 25 years old and from Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. I graduated from the University of Tennessee in 2014 with a degree in Spanish and International Business, and a minor in Africana Studies. During my education I was able to study abroad in Barcelona for one semester, and San José, Costa Rica for 5 weeks! Since graduating I have spent time traveling, teaching preschool (ages 2-5) and enjoying life in the states. In my free time I enjoy exercising, traveling, writing, and finding ways of improving my Spanish! I received my TEFL certification last autumn, and decided to apply to the Auxiliar program here in Spain. I was thrilled to receive my placement at CEIP Maestra Isabel Álvarez here in Sevilla, and I am so excited to spend the year working at such a lovely school.

My first week at the school was spent observing my new classes, getting to know students and teachers, and introducing myself to everyone. During my second week I did a presentation (below) to my classes to show them a little bit about my home through the five senses (sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch). We talked about what we saw in the pictures, and how my city compares to Sevilla! Thank you for welcoming me into your community, and I look forward to spending the year learning and growing with you all!