My CLIL Science Corner

 HELLO, HELLO! Some days ago I told you about some of my life hacks as a teacher, did you read the post? It is available in this blog. If you want to read it, click here    Creating all our resources is time-consuming, so why not investing some money in ready-to-use games?  Some weeks ago I found these memories in the supermarket Aldi . They are perfect for playing in small groups or to use them in learning stations. (click on the image to see the memory games)  Apart from playing a memory game you can also plan other activities such as classifying in categories, finding the odd one, finding out which card is missing... The one about animals also includes facts about the animals, so these cards can also be used for a reading activity. But... why using memories in your classes?  Playing memory games improves attention, concentration and focus.  Memory games improve visual recognition.  You need short-term memory to play memory games, so this brain function is improved and as a consequen

 💖 Hi teachers! 💖 Just three school days for our desired and deserved Christmas break 😉!  I'm sure you have worked very hard writing your lessons plans, creating your own materials, dealing with classroom management, attending meetings, working during the weekend... Yes, as teachers, sometimes we think we are superheroes with superpowers and we end up  the first term overwhelmed.  At the beginning of each school year,  I promise myself it is going to be different. I try to convince myself that I will only be working during the week, but this never happens. I end up working at school, after the school and at weekends. Too often, as teachers, we think we must create all our resources and that is really exhausting and time-consuming. Does this sound familiar to you? If it does, keep reading 👇👇 As many of you, I have been creating my own resources, but then I realised I didn't have free time for me and my hobbies. That is why this term I have started implementing some life hac

HIYA! 😊 Today I have a question for you: "What's the perfect age to implement CLIL?". Many times in schools CLIL is thought to be perfect for older students (10-11 year-olds) and implementing CLIL  in the first grades (6-7 year-olds) is not considered appropiate. We tend to think that CLIL is better for the third cycle because students have a better command of the target language. They have been studying the target language for some years so they have learned more vocabulary and grammar if we compare them with younger students. But... is it possible to teach 6-7 year-olds with a CLIL approach? My answer is it is! I have taught Science with a CLIL approach in the first cycle of primary school and I must confess it is highly rewarding 💖 Teaching CLIL in the  first grade (6-7 year-olds) can be challenging, but also very gratifying. At this age, kids get easily involved and if you provide them with the vocabulary and structures they need, they start using the language in a

  GOOD AFTERNOON! 💕 Well... or good evening or good morning, depending on when you are reading this post 😊 In this blog, I have already dealt with the following principles of CLIL: ☑ The 4 Cs ☑ Scaffolding ☑ Bloom's Taxonomy Today's post is about " The 3 As tool in CLIL ". Are you ready? 😉 The 3 As tool is used for planning CLIL lessons. Whereas the 4 Cs helps us in the overall planning of the unit, the 3 As tool is of great help when we plan the language our students will need in the activities we have planned. The 3 As stands for A nalyse,  A dd and A pply. Let's have a look at the three stages: 👉 Stage 1 : ANALYSE content for the language OF learning. This means the key phrases and the vocabulary needed. 👉 Stage 2 : ADD to content language FOR learning. This refers to metacognitive or learner's strategies, language for group/pairwork, understanding instructions, how to deal with not understanding... To me, this stage is highly important. If we wa

  HAPPY WEDNESDAY! 💕 This morning I was revising the posts I have written in this blog and I have realised I hadn't shared one of the most important principles of CLIL: THE 4 C's . So here I go! What are  the 4 Cs? The 4 Cs stand for:  CONTENT , COGNITION , COMMUNICATION and CULTURE . A successful CLIL unit should combine the 4 Cs . CONTENT refers to the subject or theme of the lesson or unit. When planning CONTENT of the unit, it is essential to think of the knowledge, skills and understanding we want our students to learn. COGNITION refers to thinking skills our students will develop during the learning process. When planning the activities of the unit, we should include activities that help our students go from low thinking levels to high thinking levels (Bloom's Taxonomy). You can also read about " Bloom Taxonomy and CLIL " and " Activities based on Bloom's Taxonomy " in this blog. COMMUNICATION refers to the students' use of the target

  Hello! Hello! Today I would like to share with you the CLIL unit  I prepared for my 10-11 year-old students during the third term. Kids love animals whether they are vertebrates or invertebrates, don't they? Since they had already studied the vertebrates in L1, their teachers and I agreed to deal with the INVERTEBRATES .  Invertebrate animals are more present in our lives than we  think; that's why I decided to entitled this unit: WHAT INVERTEBRATES LIVE AROUND US? As usual, I follow the steps described in the post " How I plan a CLIL unit or project ". These are the activities that I planned: 1) DIFFERENCES BETWEEN VERTEBRATES AND INVERTEBRATES.  I  created a presentation with several slides. In slide 1 there were two groups of animals: Group 1 (vertebrates) and Group 2 (invertebrates). The title of this slide was : " What are the differences between these two groups of animals?   Students could already identify the characteristics of vertebrates, so the next