Here are some of the videos we recorded, I hope you can see them. Most of you must be at home now, away from the heat. I wish you a very good summer vacation.

Well, I hope nobody read the entry I had published before, because it was a mistake, it was meant for a group of adults.

Next Monday we can continue rehearsing the play. Unfortunately I know Nene is not coming and I am not sure about the rest of the students, so I cannot tell if we will be able to perform it.

You can bring the mobile phones, though, and the rope. 

By the way, this group has two more classes, tomorrow and next Monday. 

For HOMEWORK see the blog before and study your lines.

Hello!

I am going to copy the end of the play. It is based on some of your ideas. I hope you like it.

They start to play hide and seek. Mother is It. She starts counting.

Then Supermoney and his slaves show up in a silly way, not walking but kind of hopping like the 7 dwarfs.

Supermoney: Hello everybody! We bring wonderful news.

Father: Who are you?

Child: What news?

Catchy: We are your friends.

Ironman: We bring presents.

Supermoney: Look, this is fun. - he shows them the mobiles phones.

Catchy: Look, you can play games with this.

Ironman: You can be powerful, like me. There you go. - he gives each one a mobile phone.

Supermoney: Here is an extra one. For a friend.

Child: For my mum.

Ironman: Yes, sweety, for your mum.

Father and child start to play with the smart phone and the other ones leave with big smiles on their faces. Mother finishes counting and starts to look for them; She is surprised:

Mother: Aren´t you playing?

Child: Mum, look at this, this is much better.

Mother (looking): what is this? Where did you find it?

Father: 3 nice men gave them to us. Look, there is one for you.

The 3 of them get absorbed in their computers (or mobiles). Meanwhile Supermoney and his slaves arrive. Ironman takes the house away. Ironman makes a lot of noise but The family is busy with their artifacts and they don't look up. Catchy starts to throw his noose round Father's neck. Ironman grabs him and takes him away. Then throws the noose around Mother's neck and Ironman takes her away.

Superman: Ha, ha, ha. Now I have more slaves!

Then Catchy throws the noose to catch the Child but at that moment he stands up and says:

Child: Mum, Dad, I want to play Hide and Seek!

Catchy misses. Child starts to run and hides behind a tree.

The 3 monsters start to look for him. Meanwhile the Child runs to the truck where his parents are. Mother and Father are still playing with the mobile phones. He shakes them.

He says:

Child: Mom, can you drive?

Mother: Yes, I can drive.

Child: Dad, Can you throw the noose?

Father: Yes, I can.

He throws the noose and catches Supermoney. Then the 3 of them say:

Family: Now, you are our slave!

Bye, bye!

HOMEWORK

This time you only have to learn your lines.

Supermoney: you have 4 sentences (short ones).
Ironman: you have 3 sentences.
Catchy: you have 2 sentences. Bring a rope!
Father: you have 3 sentences. 
Mother: you have 3 sentences.
Child: You have 7 sentences, but they are very short.

Remember to bring the mobile phones!

Sorry, I thought I had written your blog.

Last week we were rehearsing our play and also deciding the end. Children had many ideas.

We were also reviewing vocabulary: actions and words to describe people.

And we reviewed  dates and months. Students listened to a number of dates and had to write them down. They did a very good job. Some students need to learn how to spell the months, though.

HOMEWORK

Remember you must study how to spell the months:

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December

It´s OK if you don´t have time to do the next exercise before the class. You can do it for next week.

Put the words in order to make sentences.

1. get /I/ at/ 7/ up/ o'clock 

2. I/ a /at/ shower/ have/ o'clock/ 8

3. breakfast/ at/ He/ has/ half/ past/ 8 

4. goes/ school/ to/ She/ at/ o'clock/ 9 

5. has/ She /lunch /at/ o'clock/ 12                                                                                                                                           

Hello!

Before I forget, this is for Isma and Nene:

You have to say 4 things  Darkred usually does, saying the time.

Example:

Darkred usually gets up at ten to eight.

He has breakfast at ten past eight.

And so on.


Then you say what he is doing today (today is Sunday and Darkred doesn´t have to go to school)

Example:

Today at ten to eight Darkred is sleeping.

At ten past eight Darkred is still sleeping.

And so on.


In our last class we worked on a play. The play is part of our project. Children had decided that they want their parents to have more vacations and that's what the play is about.

Later they got together with another group of students, and did some activities with the topic Summer Holidays. 

HOMEWORK

1. This week students must study their first lines in the play:

Sergio Hello, I am a 21st C machine. I was born in the United States. My name is
SuperMoney. And these are my slaves. My slaves think they are very important, but they
aren´t.

Isma  Hello, my name is Ironman, I design machines. I am clever, I am shrewd, I am powerful.

Pablo:  Hello, my name is Catchy, I capture slaves with a rope. I am fast, I am ruthless, nobody can escape from me. 

Daniel It's such a beautiful day. It's so nice to be here on vacation. 

And listening to the birds.

Nene  Oh yes, it is. I love sitting on the grass.

Yes, we can play. When we finish lunch.

David: I like playing hide and seek. Can we play hide and seek?

Fantastic, I love playing with you!

2. To review the months go to the link and do exercises 2, 3 & 4. http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=2244

Have fun!

Hello!

Yesterday we spent most of the time preparing the Design for Change project. Students had to prepare their part for the presentation.

Later we recorded everone in the group presenting their parts. Everybody did it well.

HOMEWORK

We must practice a little more the Present Simple, which is the tense we use to talk about routines.
http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=513 Go to the link, do the 1st Exercise: listening and matching the sentence with the picture.

Then, read the text  about Ben and do the 1st Exercise after the text: Put the sentences together.

Hello!

Yesterday most students had done their homework but there was a bit of confusion about how to do it. So finally some students had drawn lost of clocks but had not written down the time in the clock.

Oh well! You are all learning how to tell the time, I have no doubt.

Besides checking homework, which took quite a while, we did some of the exercises in the book. Students had to complete some questions and answers about Molly' routine. Most students did quite well.

Remember,  we use the Present Simple to talk about routines, actions we do everyday or often. To ask questions in the Present Simple we use an auxiliary verb: do. When we talk about one person who is not part of the conversation (3rd Person Singular) we use does, not do.
To make a questions we use

First:                                                           do                 or                  does
Second: subject (or person)                    I/you             or        he/she/Name: Mary
Third:  verb                                    Ex:    get up, go, have, sleep

The question:  do you go ...?        or       does he/she go...?

That's easy, isn't it?

After completing the exercises students wrote 5 things they do everyday and the time when they do those things. Example: I get up at half past seven.
Then, they interviewed a partner: What do you do first? and wrote down the information:

get up    7: 30

When they were finished the whole group got together again and they asked other students:

What does X (Pablo, David, etc.) do first?
and the student answered:
X gets up at half past seven. (with the -s at the end of the verb)

HOMEWORK

Put these words in the correct order to form sentences;

1. get/I/at/7/up/o'clock 

2. I/a/at/shower/have/o'clock/8

3. breakfast/at/he/has/half/past/8 

4. goes/school/to/she/at/o'clock/9 

5. has/she/lunch/at/o'clock/12

6. past/half/3/home/I/go/at 

7. dinner/have/I/o'clock/5/at 

8. bed/I/to/at/go/o'clock/9 

 

Ask a question for each sentence. Examples: 1. What time do you get up?

4. What time does she go to school?

    

Hello crazy boys and only girl!

Yesterday students read their homework, which was a list of birthdays. I am glad to say that children in this group don't have any problem using the possessive as in

My mother's birthday...

I guess it is because you have got used to it while being very young. That's great!

Later on the teacher explained how to tell the time and then students completed a worksheet full of clocks. We still need to practice a little more with the minutes.

Remember: Minutes first:

20 to
20 past
10 past 
5 to
25 to
25 past
Etc.

Once again we practiced the Present Simple. This is the tense we use when we talk about things that we do everyday. This time we talked about Molly and what she does everyday (from Monday to Friday, because weekends are different).
Remember how to make the Present Simple?
Example
I go                                       Do I go?                                                  I don't' go
You go                                 Do you go?                                             You don't go
he/she/it goes             Does he/she/it go?             He/she/it doesn't go
we go                                    Do we go?                                              We don't go
you go                                   Do you go?                                            You don't go
they go                                  Do they go?                                           They don't go

Positive                                Questions                                              Negative                                        

Well, students picked up the trick pretty quick. They asked and answer questions about Molly's routine.
Questions:What time does Molly get up?

Answers: Molly gets up at half past seven.

HOMEWORK

http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=7689

Here is a site to practice the time. You can watch the video to remember. Then do Exercise 1. Draw the right clock in your notebook.
Exercise 2: 

It's ten o'clock.  It's half past ten.  It's a quarter past ten.  It's a quarter to ten.	It's one past eight.  It's five past eight.  It's five to eight.  It's eight o'clock.	It's half past nine.  It's twenty past nine.  It's twenty-five past nine.  It's a quarter to five.
It's ten to nine.   It's a quarter to two.   It's two past nine.   It's ten past nine.	It's twenty to nine.  It's twenty past eight.  It's twenty past nine.  It's twenty-five to nine.	It's half past eight.  It's twenty to six.  It's eight o'clock.  It's a quarter past eight.
It's five o'clock.  It's eleven to five.  It's five past five.  It's five to five.	It's nine to one.  It's a quarter past one.  It's a quarter to one.  It's a quarter to twelve.	It's twenty o'clock.  It's eleven o'clock.  It's twelve o'clock.  It's half past one.
It's fifty to six.  It's a quarter to six.  It's a quarter past six.  It's a quarter past five.	It's seven past one.  It's twenty-five to one.  It's twenty-five past two.  It's twenty-five past one.	It's five past ten.   It's ten to one.   It's one past ten.  It's ten past twelve.

Write numbers for the clocks: from left to right: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Do only 6 clocks and write the time in your notebook.

Exercise 3: Do the column of clocks on the right.

This is funny. The only computer that links properly to last week's homework is mine. I tried to copy and paste but it didn't work. How strange!


Yesterday we reviewed actions and we used the Present Continuous: he is smiling, they are cooking, she is running. We played a game to reinforce students' learning.

Later we started a new unit. This is easy because it is about months and dates and we say the date in every lesson and everybody knows the months already.
Students asked each other when is their birthday and then wrote is on a piece of paper. They grabbed a paper and said:

Whose birthday is September 8th (for example)? And the student whose birthday is September 8th had to say: It's my birthday.

We also practiced the ordinal numbers. Here they are:

First (1st)
Second (2nd)
Third (3rd)
Fourth (4th)
Fifth (5th)
Sixth (6th)

The rest of the numbers are just like the regular number but they have -th at the end.

But when we get to 21 we repeat the pattern again.

Twenty first (21st)
Twenty second (22nd)
Twenty third (23rd)
Twenty fourth (24th)
Twenty fifth (25th)

And finally the last day of the months that have 31 days is:

Thirty first (31st)

FOR DANIEL, WHO IS HAVING DARKRED AS A GUEST THIS WEEK

You must make up (invent) a friend for Darkred. You mus write:

His or her name: Example: his name is Groovy.
Age:  Example: He is 5 years old.
Looks:  Example: He is big and fat. He has green eyes and curly blue hair. He has beautiful yellow wings.
Clothes: Example:  He is wearing green shorts and a purple scarf.
Sports: Example: He likes swimming and flying.

HOMEWORK 
Ask 5 people to tell you when is their birthday. Your mother, your father, your grandma, etc.

Then write:example: My grandma's birthday is on May 6th.

Hello boys and girls,

I'm sorry I couldn't be there last Monday. I know you had a nice class, though and finished all that work I had left for you.

HOMEWORK: go to this link to a worksheet.http://www.eslkidslab.com/worksheets/set3/actions/actions%20what%20are%20they%20doing.pdf

Write the sentences in your notebook. In the first sentence you must start the sentence saying the boy or  the girl or the children or the man or the woman. 

Example: The boy is flying a kite.

The second sentence stars with a pronoun: it, he, she, they.

Example: He  is flying a kite.

Yesterday everybody was in class again. And we continued talking about friends and describing them.

We are still learning some of the questions. Remember, if you want to know if somebody is tall or short, if they have long hair or short hair, blue eyes or brown eyes, the question you must ask is:

What does he/she look like?

or

What does Jimmy look like?

or

What does your mother look like?

And if you want to know about somebody's clothes ( trousers, shirt, dress, sweater, etc.) you must ask:

What is he/she wearing?

or

What's Jimmy wearing?

or

What is your mother wearing?

HOMEWORK
Describe 4 people in your family.
Example
My sister is short and a little heavy.
She has got short gray hair and brown eyes.
Now she is wearing a black T-shirt and a red skirt.

Hello ! I´m glad you had a nice vacation. So did I.

Yesterday we reviewed vocabulary to describe people. There were words that students had forgotten: bold, beard, pony tail, pig tails, braids. But they remembered most of them.

Later we started a new unit in the book. It is about friends and we practiced describing and talking about our fiends. First we listened to a description of George. Students had to put what they heard in the right order. That is a good exercise: students just need to relax and fill in the boxes they can, they don´t need to get nervous thinking about what they could´t understand because eventually they will understand. 
Then, students drew a picture of one of their best friends and wrote down a list of things about him/her.

Example:

Name: Lenny

Age:   8

Looks: short and thin, curly brown hair and green eyes.

Clothes: white T-Shirt and jeans.

Sport: basketball.

Next, they had a conversation with a partner. They asked the questions:

1. Who is your best friend?
2. How old is he/she?
3. What does he/she look like?
4. What is he/she wearing?
5. What sport does he play?

Answers (Example)
1. My best friend is Lenny.
2. He is eight.
3. He is short and thin and he has got curly brown hair and green eyes.
4. He is wearing a white T-Shirt and jeans.
5. He plays basketball.

HOMEWORK
Do the exercise on the website: http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=736  
Then choose 3 children in the exercise and answer the questions:
1. Who is your best friend?
2. How old is he/she?
3. What does he/she look like?
4. What is he/she wearing?
5. What sport does he play?

You need to make up (invent) some of the answers.

Hi!

Next week is our last week before the holidays. These holidays are called Easter Holidays though nowadays they call them Spring Holidays, because Easter is a Christian celebration, while spring is a universal celebration.



One thing they do to celebrate Easter or the Spring Holiday is decorate eggs.

For HOMEWORK you can watch this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P09FiCLhd1Q

Now, say 3 things we can do to decorate an Easter egg.

Everybody had made a description of the place where they live. They read it aloud and I must say their descriptions were well done.

Yesterday we started a new unit. It's about our family and describing them and other people.

The first questions students had to answer was:

How many people are in your family?
  And they had to answer something like this example:

We are four: my mother, my father, my sister and I.

We listened to a boy called Sam talk about his family. He has a tween sister. His tween sister looks like him, but she has long hair and he has short hair. He also has a baby brother with big ears and a small nose.

We also need to learn how to describe people. We practiced describing people last year. And some students remembered a lot.

We studied some adjectives:

Tall, medium height, short, heavy, medium weight, thin. 

Pretty, ugly, handsome, dark, fair. 

To talk about hair: long, short, straight, wavy, curly, black, brown, blond or fair, red.

To talk about ears and nose: small, big.

HOMEWORK

Go to this link:http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=7824

In the first part you see 6 pictures. To make a sentence you need to use have got or has got for some of them and is or are for the other ones. Make the sentences.
  Example: A girl has got long hair.
A dog is small.
Then complete Exercises 1 and 2.

Hello!

Has your house or flat got a balcony?  Is there a garden outside your house? Has it got a basement?

Most students in this group live in a flat with 1 or more balconies. One of them lives on the third floor, another one lives on the second floor.

We read about 2 boys - Paul and John - and 2 girls - Mary and Sally. We read about where they live: in a city or in a village; in a flat or in a house; what their house or flat is like: has it got a balcony? A basement? A garden?

Students read each one a paragraph - they did a very good job - then they filled in a table with the details about each child. Later we had a contest between two teams. They had to ask the other team questions:

Does Mary live in a house?

The other team had to answer quickly:

Yes, she does. Or No, she doesn't, she lives in a flat.

Has Mary got a balcony?

No, she hasn't, she has a garden.


HOMEWORK

Write about the place where you live:

Example

I live in a house in a village. My house is big. It has got three (3) bedrooms. The bedrooms are upstairs. 
Downstairs there is a kitchen, a living room, a dining room, a study and a bathroom. 
There is a basement. There are toys and bikes in the basement. There is also a garden with flowers and trees. My brother and I play in the garden. There isn't a balcony, but there are many windows.

Some of you already know many of the words we are studying: the furniture in the house.
.
I'll go over it:

Living room:  sofa, armchair, bookcase, coffee table, lamp, TV stand

Dining room:  table, chairs.

Bedroom: bed, bedside table, shelf, lamp, chest of drawers, wardrobe.

Bathroom toilet, sink, bath, shower.

Kitchen: cooker, fridge, cupboards, sink, table, chairs.

Study desk, chair, shelves.

Well, I think I remembered everything, but if there is anything I forgot you can tell us in class.


In this unit we must learn to use There is and There are:

There is a chest of drawers in my bedroom. ( 1 thing).

There are five (5) drawers in the chest. ( More than 1 thing).

We also need to ask questions:

Is there a table in the living room?  ( 1 thing).

Are there 2 beds in your bedroom?  ( More than 1 thing).

HOMEWORK

1. Write 6 questions about your house. 3 singular questions, Ex: Is there a table in the living room?  ( 1 thing). And 3 plural questions. Ex: Are there 2 beds in your bedroom?  ( More than 1 thing).

2. Write the answers. Ex: , Yes, there is a table in the living room. ( 1 thing).
or  No,  (A) there aren't 2 beds in my bedroom, (B) there is 1 bed. (When you say No, then you need to add another sentence (B) to the negative one (C).)

We missed Nene in our last lesson. There were only boys. This time it was Pablo who acted as a teacher at the beginning of the class.

We started a new unit: in this unit we talked about the place where we live. Here in Spain most people live in a flat. But some people live in a house with a garden. People who live in the countryside or in a village may live in a cottage. 

Most students already know the names of the rooms in a house or flat. We had studied them last year:

Bedroom, living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, study, laundry room, corridor, hall, etc.

We listened to a recording and found out where Maria, Michael and Monica lived. Then we listened to a description of their place and had to identify the correct picture in the book.

Later, students had to make a drawing of their flat or house. Next day they will talk to other students in the group and find out about their partner's place.
In this unit we also review the prepositions of place because we need to describe the place where we live saying things like:

The bathroom  is between my bedroom and my sister's bedroom.

Or,

The kitchen is next to the study.

HOMEWORK

1. Make 5 sentences about your flat or house. Example: The dining room is behind the living room. 

2. Go to this link http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=6367 and do the exercises. They are very easy.

Maybe it's late, but I have been very sick and unable to do any thinking.

Last week we reviewed actions in the Present Simple and practiced the adverbs:

always, sometimes and never

Remember? We listened to a recording, identified the picture they were talking about and then chose the true sentence. The recording was about a boy's daily routine.

HOMEWORK

Read the following sentences and decide whether that's something you  always do, you sometimes do or you never do. 

Ex: I never have milk for breakfast.

Did you notice where I put the word never. It's between I and have, or between the subject and the verb.

1.Have milk for breakfast

2. Walk to school

3.Go to bed before 10:00 o'clock.

4.Drink Coca Cola with my dinner.

5.Watch Disney Channel.

6. My mother reads stories to me before I sleep.



Sentence 6 is a bit different because the subject is: My mother.

Hello boys and girl.Last Monday I was happy to see how you gradually learned how to make sentences in the Present Simple.

Remember you wrote it on your notebook

I' ll write another one here so you don't forget.

Action: walk.

I walk
You walk
He/She/it walks

We walk
You walk
They walk

So, you see, when we talk about somebody that is not in the conversation, only one person, we put -s
at the end of the verb.

At the end of the game you were all doing very well.

Also, all of you had done their homework, although some of you had not finished it.

Students in this group had a lot of ideas to improve Leganes, their neighborhood and their schools. Although some of them are more like dreams, like having a beach in Leganes, but it's nice to dream, isn't it?

Next week we are we are celebrating Valentine's day, which is really on Saturday February 14th. Just like we did in Halloween week we'll get together with another group and students will be teaching other students or learning from them.

HOMEWORK

Here are some words we can learn for Valentine's Day:

Heart, Valentine's card, roses, Valentine's gift, love, ring, kiss, puppy.


Make a drawing of each one of the words. (Look them up in the dictionary if you don't know, or check the link:http://www.anglomaniacy.pl/valentinesDayC.pdf )

Hello!

So what do you do on Wednesday morning? I am sure you go to school, just every week day.

In our last lesson we talked about what Mr.( the man) and Mrs. (the woman) do at weekends.
We talked about Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon, Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon. 

When we talk about days we say ON. On Monday, on Tuesday, on Wednesday and so on.

Students have a little difficulty remembering that when we are talking about somebody in the 3rd person singular - somebody who is not you or I like he or she or my friend or my brother or my mother- we add an s to the verb. We say:

My mother cooks spaghetti on Saturday.

My friend Joe plays football with me on Friday afternoon.

Ana goes (go is special and we add es instead of s) to the cinema on Sunday afternoon.

We reviewed daily actions with the flashcards and played a game with them. And we watched a video some of the students already knew from last year. It is a fun video. You can watch it now if you want:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUXkj6j6Ezw

Nene told us about Darkred timetable, what he does each day of the week. And that's what Sergio, who took Darkred home for the week, has to do. Have a great week Darkred and you two enjoy yourselves!

HOMEWORK

Make a timetable for the weekend for yourself:

Example:

Saturday 
Wake up at 10.
Have breakfast.
Take a shower
Get dressed.
Ride my bike with my brother
Have lunch with my family.
Read my book.
Go to the park with my family.
Go to a cafe with my family.
Go home and have something to eat.
Watch TV
Go to bed.

Sunday
Wake up at 10.
Have breakfast.
Get dressed and brush my hair.
Do homework.
Go to the bakery.
Telephone my friend.
Have lunch with my family
Go to my friend's house.
Play with my friend.
Go home.
Help my mother cook dinner.
Have dinner.
Read my book.
Go to bed.

Hello again!

Yesterday we continued studying actions that we do regularly: that means that we repeat them every once in a while: every day, sometimes, often, etc.

Like have lunch, we do it every day. Or have a music or a judo lesson, we have the lesson every week.

We studied 2 ways of asking questions. When we are talking to somebody and say:

What do you do after school?

or

Do you go school on Saturday?

When we are talking about somebody (1 person):

Does your brother walk to school?

Does he drink milk for breakfast?

Does your father clean the car every week?


HOMEWORK

1.Follow this link and do the exercise. I hope it helps you remember when to put the s at the end of the verb.http://www.agendaweb.org/verbs/present-simple/index.html

2. Say 4 things you do after school. Example: First I have a glass of milk and some cookies; then, I do my homework; then I ride my bike with a friend; then I eat dinner with my family.

Then, ask your brother or sister or a friend: What do you do after school? And write what your brother/sister/friend tell you.
Example: First, Juan does his homework, then he plays video games; then, he eats dinner and then, he sleeps.

Hello Everybody. Last Monday we had our first lesson of the month.

We started a new unit. This new unit is about the Days of the Week, which most students know very well by now, and what we usually do each day of the week.

We studied some actions we do everyday and some that we do some days or often:

Things we do everyday: wake up, wash my face, brush my teeth, comb my hair, have breakfast, get dressed, go to school, read books, write, do homework, have dinner, watch TV, sleep.

Things we do often: sing, draw pictures, play an instrument, ride my bike, play sports, have a shower or a bath, play with my friends, buy things, talk on the phone, 


HOMEWORK

Watch this video again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct4-x_CtOjM Imagine you are Toby and answer the questions; this is an example: What do you do on Sunday, Toby?  On Sunday I go to Mars. I play with my friends.

1. What do you do on Monday, Toby?

2.What do you do on Tuesday, Toby?

3. What do you do on Wednesday, Toby?

4.What do you do on Thursday, Toby?

5.What do you do on Saturday, Toby?

6. What do you do on Friday, Toby?