Gaby's Teaching Journal

  A Transdisciplinary Inquiry about Rainbows The transdisciplinary Unit "How we express ourselves" became a great opportunity for my young 1st graders to analyze the concepts of form, perspective, and connection.  We began the week writing what we know and want to know about rainbows. Using the song and video "I can sing a rainbow", students were challenged to learn the colors of the rainbow in sign language. This allowed us to understand different ways to express an idea and how expressing ourselves can connect us with others. Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5m3TLBmeuc Students' questions also guided the inquiry:  can you eat a rainbow? (perspectives and connections) and how are rainbows formed? (form) To answer the first question, we read the book: "I eat a rainbow" by Bobbie Kalman. This inspired us to express our ideas through a poem: To answer the second question we watched videos to learn how a rainbow is formed and t o fini...

  How Can literacy skills be developed in young English learners?     The field of English Teaching to young learners has undergone important transformations in the last decades. In the specific context of Latin America, traditional classroom practices relegated English learning to filling up worksheets, learning basic shapes and colors, singing the alphabet, and more worksheets. Multiple research in brain development, language acquisition, and the highlight of 21st-century skills has brought a shift to those traditional teaching paradigms.     From my experience, literacy skills can be developed in young English learners. Kang (n.d) suggests 5 ways to achieve this: 1- Immerse students in print and literature. Make sure students are exposed to a variety of printed resources, including real-life texts (recipes, stories, informational texts, menus, instructions for board games, etc). Reflect with your young learners that they can find print anywhere around th...