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

WELCOME JULY! 💞 We all agree that it has been a hard school year, don't we? We have had to get used to new routines (face masks, hand sanitizers, classrooms with open windows in winter, online teaching, lockdowns...).  Each school year I need the first days of the summer holidays to get over the stressed of the school year and today I would like to share with you some tips I put into practice to recover and make the most of my summer. 1) SET OFF THE ALARM CLOCK . This is one of the first things I do on 30th June. I sleep until my body has enough. This doesn't mean I get up at 11 am, but I let my body "speak". Ok, you may have kids and that's not so easy. Then, make sure that you have time for you before everybody wakes up. During this time you can do those activities you like the most: reading a book, stretching, having a cup of coffee or tea in silent... 2) EAT HEALTHY . You may agree with me that when we are under stress we tend to eat more junk food, drink mor

  HAPPY WEDNESDAY! 💓 Teachers, how many times have you asked your students to do an investigation and when they search for information on Internet, the web pages they find are too difficult for them to understand? In my case, I teach Science in English and that happens most of the time. However... Look! 👀 KIDDLE is a visual search engine for kids , offering safe kids webs, image and video search. It is in English, so it is perfect for CLIL and English teachers.  How is KIDDLE designed specifically for kids? Have a look at the images below: Did you know about Kiddle?  What do you do to help your students search for appropriate information? Eva💕

  Hi Super Teachers! Today's post is about the 21st Century Competences or Skills . These are 12 abilities our students need to develop in order to succeed in their future careers.   These skills can be divided into 3 categories: 1) LEARNING SKILLS . These skills teach students about the mental processes required to adapt and improve in a modern world environment.  2) LITERACY SKILLS . These skills focus on how students discern facts, publishing outlets and the technology behind them. There is a strong focus on determining trustworthy sources and factual information to separate it from the misinformation that floods the Internet. 3) LIFE SKILLS . These skills take a look at intangible elements of a student's everyday life. These intangibles focus on both personal and professional qualities. Nowadays it is not enough with "filling" our students with a lot of contents. As educators, we should help develop the 21st century skills. Do you have into account these skills

Hi teachers! How are you doing?💖 Today I would like to ask you a question: do you bear in mind the 4 skills ( listening, speaking, reading and writing ) when planning your CLIL units or projects? I try to do so, even if sometimes it is a bit tricky. From my point of view, it is highly important that our students have time to practise the 4 skills in their CLIL class because, in fact, they are using a language to learn in a similar way they would if they were learning content in L1. Whenever they are learning contents from any subject in L1 they are also using the 4 skills: maybe they are watching a video and they are listening to information they need for a purpose (listening) ; they are discussing a topic (speaking);  they are searching for information in books or on internet (reading) or they are writing a report (writing). So, why not practising the 4 skills in our CLIL lessons?  Would you like to find out what activities I use in my CLIL lessons to practise the 4 skills? Good!

  HIYA! What is STEM ? STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics . You may also have read STEAM. In this case,  the A stands for Art.  STEM or STEAM programmes aim to increase students' interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Students are involved in a new way of learning and problem-solving. In STEM sessions students have an active role and they are engaged in hand-on activities. Moreover, they are developing the 21st-century skills they will need in their future workplace. I am not an expert in STEM, but I have started introducing some activities in my CLIL Science lessons and I promise my students love them! I love seeing their faces when they get their aim and their enthusiasm. Whether you are already teaching STEM or if you want to get started, here you have some STEM websites recommendations for your CLIL lessons. You can also adapt the activities for your students. 1) SCIENCE FOR KIDS :  https://www.sciencekids.co.nz/ In this

  HOWDY! 😍 It's been a while since my last post. As teachers, you know that the end of the school year is overwhelming: meetings, grading, festivals... and these are some of  the reasons why I've been absent. I have had this post in my mind for weeks and today I have finally some time to share it with you. I love reading books for teachers to keep updated, to learn more and to help me reflect on my practice. I want to share with you these two books which can be really useful for CLIL teachers: 1) " CLIL: Content and Language Integrated Learning " by Do Coyle, Philip Hood and David Marsh. For me this book is the "bible" of CLIL and it is a "MUST HAVE". Not it only deals with theoretical concepts, but also how you can adapt CLIL to your context, assessment in CLIL, evaluating the impact of CLIL, programmes and future directions. 2) " 101 Scaffolding techniques " by Donna Lee Fields . If you are looking for ideas for Scaffolding, here you h

Good afternoon teachers! Have you realised it's just four weeks until the end of the school year? This countdown makes me feel stressed, but I had to share with you this tip my 6th graders shared with me two weeks ago. As you may have read in other posts, I use videos in my CLIL Science classes to clarify concepts, to introduce content... (you can also  read a post " Videos and Songs for your CLIL Science Lessons" ). This term my students are learning about "Invertebrate animals". I wanted them to search for their own information and I suggested them watching some videos I had found on Youtube. The content and the language were quite good for my students, but the character spoke too fast. When I arrived in class, I told them about the videos and explained them we were going to watch the videos several times because the character spoke too fast. Some of the students raised their hand and said: "Don't worry, Eva! You can slow down the playback speed"

  Hi! Some weeks ago I wrote an article for the magazine of my school. In this article, I explain how CLIL has been implemented in our school. While writing this article, I came up with the idea of sharing with you the contents I teach in my CLIL Science lessons. In another post, I shared with you why in my school we decided to teach Science with a CLIL approach (click here to read the article), but I have not shared which contents I teach in my CLIL Science lessons. In the school where I am working at present, I have taught Science with 6-7 y/0 and 10-11 year-olds. UNITS CREATED FOR 6-7 YEAR-OLDS 👉 Move Your Body In this unit, students learn about: *Parts of the body and actions *How their bodies have changed from babyhood to childhood *Our senses (hearing, tasting, touch and smell) 👉 Recycle And Save The Planet In this unit, students learn about: *The materials objects are made of (paper, plastic, fabric, wood, glass...) *Natural or man-made objects/materials *The properties of ma

  HAPPY SATURDAY!! Teachers,  Today I would like to share with you the session 6 of the ELECTRICITY unit I have been sharing during these last weeks. It is going to be FREE until Monday 12th, so hurry up to download this material. Then, it will be availabe in my TpT Store . This unit is a Jigsaw activity, a cooperative Learning technique. This session includes: * Lesson plan of the unit * Adapted information about Renewable and Non Renewable energies * Worksheet to track experts' information in pairs * Worksheet track all the experts' information I hope you like this cooperative learning technique and that your students have fun doing it. Eva ❤