Lesson Plan: Food

This is a lesson plan I have created for my 3rd year "Conocimento del Medio" (science) class. The resources I listed are very helpful, especially for ESL students and I highly recommend them if you need to write a lesson plan. Since the students are beginners and have trouble paying attention for long periods of time I will probably want to cut out one of the practice activities as well as the production activity and replace it with a game. For now this is what I have:

Objective: This lesson will teach students vocabulary and conversation tools about types of food and also help students to make healthy food choices by using a food pyramid.

Type: Food

Vocabulary: food, diet, healthy, unhealthy, food pyramid, water, carbohydrates, vegetables, fruits, protein, fats, vitamins, yogurt, bread, cheese, meat, eggs, tomato, potatoes, carrots, peas, apple, banana, pear, orange, grapes, strawberries, pineapple, pasta, butter, oil, rice

Levels: Beginner (3rd grade science section B)

Materials: food flashcards (with visual and name), 1 filled in food pyramid, 1 blank food pyramid, blackboard and chalk.

Resources:

http://www.eslflashcards.com/

http://www.britishcouncil.org/kids-flashcards.htm

http://www.esl-kids.com/flashcards/food.html

Time: 60 minutes

Interaction: Student to teacher, Teacher to Student

Potential problems: Students may have trouble remembering vocabulary and pronouncing vowels while trying to speak in English.

Presentation:

Pre-work:

Before the lesson begins (one week before) students will be told to bring in a list of their favorite foods. If they know the words in English they can write them and if not they will write them in Spanish and learn them in English when they get to class.

Create Interest in Topic:

Students will come to class with their list of favorite foods. I will ask them the following questions before we begin:

What types of food are there?

Why do we need food?

What does food give us that helps us stay healthy?

I will also ask them in Spanish because most likely they will not know the answers in English. I will write the different types of foods on the board (carbohydrates, protein, fats, vegetables, fruits) and explain how they each keep us healthy. I will also draw a giant pyramid (but leave it empty, to be filled in later)

Then I will call on the students and ask them what they wrote down as their favorite foods and copy these onto the blackboard next to the pyramid.

Practice:

1. Pronounciation is what we focus on the most. I will hold up a flashcard that says the name of a fruit/vegetable/meat (along with a picture) and the students will repeat after me. After they are able to pronouce the vocabulary well I will fold the sheet in half so that they can only see the picture. I will then ask them, what type of food is this? A fruit? A vegetable? I will do this for every vocabulary term.

2. Then I will hand out the filled in diagram of the food pyramid. Students will use this as a study tool and it will help them in this activity.

I will ask the students what they like to eat, and what they eat for each meal. They will respond with:

“I like to eat ____.”

“I don’t like to eat ____.”

“For breakfast I eat _____.”

“For lunch I eat ______.”

“For dinner I eat ______.”

We will make a list on the board of breakfast, lunch and dinner foods. They will also write this beneath the food pyramids I have given them. We will talk about the different categories and how much of each we should be eating (serving size).

3. Then I will ask the students to come and use tape to place the flashcard in the proper box in the food pyramid.

Production:

1. Lets make a salad. Ask the students what type of foods you put in salads? Name some of the specific foods you would put in a salad. (review vocabulary again)

2. Students will be given a food pyramid diagram that is blank. They will begin to fill it out in class with the names of the new foods they have learned. If they do not finish in class they can bring it home for homework.

Summer/Post-Graduate Idea

I met a girl this weekend from England who is working here in Málaga as an aupair. It sounds like a pretty sweet gig. She is living with a family who have two daughters, ages 5 and 7. They live near the mountains with a beautiful view of the city, but only 20minutes from the city center where I am. The parents are doctors and she said they have made her feel extremely at home. Her housing as well as her meals are covered by the family ( she lives in the "basement" which she says is about the size of her actual house in England). In addition she is paid 400euro/month. The kids go to school during the day and she begins her time with them at 5pm. She is required to speak to them in English, which is easy enough for her since she barely knows Spanish. She gets weekends off and if they need her to babysit she gets paid extra for that. Anyway I just thought it was an interesting option and if you want more information this is the name of the website: aupair world.

1st day in 2nd grade with Danny

After my class with the 3rd graders I went to 2nd grade with a teacher named Danny. There are 25 students in Danny's class. Danny used to teach high school in Torre del Mar and this is his first year working with the 2nd graders. There are no separate special education classes in this school although a specialist will come in periodically and pull kids out who need special attention. Integration is huge. Danny told me there is one student who came last week to his class from an orphanage. His parents are unreachable and his brother is in jail. The student does not know how to read and write so Danny mostly gives him coloring activities. No one knows how long he will be here for. There is a girl who sits in the back of the room at least 3 feet behind the last set of rows in the center. She is in my direct line of vision since I stand in the front center of the room. I observe her for a few minutes and pick up that she is very autistic. Danny tells me she is repeating 2nd grade. He says he doesn't know how to say what her disorder is in English. He explains it in Spanish and basically says she is "half a normal person" almost "deficient." If she fails this year she will have to go to 3rd grade next year even though she most definitely will not be prepared. I want to save her. My plan is to kidnap her and place her in one of the autistic programs my mom has helped to implement in Washington Heights, NY.

Today the students learned the different parts of the body in Spanish and next week I will need to prepare a lesson plan of the body parts in English. It is my job to make it extremely easy and simple for the students to learn and to also make it fun and enjoyable. We have been told to focus first on pronunciation because if we write the words down the students will focus too much on the way they are spelled and not how they are actually pronounced. I will most likely use a game like "simon says" or "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" to engage the students.

I felt like a celebrity again when at the end of class Danny told the students they could ask me some questions. "¿De dónde eres?" they ask. "I am from New York." Then there are two more questions which I had to look at Danny for clarification because I could have sworn they were the same as the first question. One was "¿dónde vives?"and the other Danny translated to me as "are you REALLY from New York? there is no way!"

I'm a celebrity

It's pretty much official that I am a celebrity in Torre del Mar, Spain. I went into my first class today, third grade. The class had not started yet and since it was my first time in there I thought I would chat it up and see how their English was before the teacher got there.

Me: Hello, my name is Alex. I am from the United States.
Chica: "¿¡conoces Hannah Montana?!"
Otra chica: "¿¡ La conoces?!
Me: Si la conozco. ( I just made the critical error of mixing up "saber" with "conocer." )
Chica: (squealing) aaaaaaaaahhh. ¿Tu eres famosa?
Me: No I am not famous. I meant I know of Hannah but she is not my friend in real life.
Chicas: (sighing)
There are more questions about Hannah and comments on how much they all love her. I decide I really can't talk about Hannah anymore so I ask them if they want to see some pictures of where I am from in the United States. I tell them I am from New York and I whip out 3 postcards I grabbed in the airport before I left (one is of the statue of liberty, one of times square and one of the skyline). I am INSTANTLY swarmed. They scream "¡¡¡¡FIRMAME!!!!" All of a sudden the number of students surrounding me doubles, triples, and then quadrouples. Girls and boys alike flying out of nowhere. They are tugging on my shirt, standing on their chairs to see me, shoving pens, notebooks, napkins whatever they can find in my face for my autograph. I am finally understanding why celebs hate paparazzi and wishing that I had a team of security to fight them off. The teacher walks in as I am clearly powerless amongst her 9-year-olds. In an attempt to assume authority I say, "¡sientate! Después podemos ver las fotos." The children disperse to their seats and I can finally breathe. Then I taught them the different parts of the body in English. Not sure if they still think I am a celeb or not. I guess I will find out next week when I return to that class.

"Swimming with no direction"

This morning at work Jenny and I had a nice talk with the music teacher, "Chauny." Many Spaniards know English very well, but are nervous to speak and will therefore only speak to you in Spanish. I have definitely experienced this, but "Chauny" is great because it is clear she does not care if she makes mistakes with her grammar or vocabulary, she wants to practice. She has been helping to design our schedule along with several other teachers in the school. Today she explained that as "auxiliaries de conversación" aside from teaching we will also help the teachers to design the curriculum and to translate what they already have into English if they have not done so already.

Chauny also shed light on our role in the school (we are employed by the Junta de Andalucia and therefore a "project" of theirs). While she thinks the concept is very important she told us that she does not like the way the project is being carried out. She thinks it is extremely disorganized or like, "swimming with no direction." She said that when CEIP Blas Infante volunteered to have this program in their school the Junta said they would give them all new computers and paper etc. However, this has not happened yet. Since it is a fairly new program at CEIP Blas Infante (only three years), I knew there were definitely going to be some organizational challenges and obstacles. I told Chauny that we understand and it will be our job to prepare for anything, be flexible and take initiative. A big part of our position is to be creative. I consider this to be one of my strengths so I am actually looking forward something coming up last minute and figuring out a way to improvise.

By 2012 all schools in Andalucia will have "auxiliares de conversación."

Project "Comenius"

Project "Comenius" is something that C.E.I.P Blas Infante is working on implementing into their program. They are working with schools in five other countries in Europe, (one is the Czech Republic) to orchestrate a "pen-pal" sort of system. The students allowed to participate are ages 6-11. The schools must apply for the project using a "preparatory visit grant." The goal of the project is to talk about traidtions, festivals, and holidays in each country so that children know more about their European neighbors. Although we did not learn much about this project I think it is such a great idea and I am really looking forward to helping out with it and possibly even giving them contacts in the US so that they can become pen-pals with Americans.

C.E.I.P Blas Infante

Today was my first day of work. C.E.I.P stands for Colegio de Educación Infantil y Primaria. I got to work early so I walked down to the beach to watch the sun rise over the Mediteranean. It was gorgeous. I met Jenny, the other girl working in the school as an "auxiliar de conversación" (that is our official title in the school). She is from Britain choosing to do her year abroad teaching. We did not do much the first day besides walk around the school and get introduced to everyone. There were lots of kisses and hugs and I felt very welcomed. The kids are very cute and I found out I will be working with students ages 6-12. I will have a period with each grade. Each grade is divided into "A" and "B" and I will be working with "A." Each year is given a number for example, the 6yr olds = 1; the 7yr olds= 2; the 8yr olds= 3 etc. We were not able to finalize the schedule because there was a bit of a dispute over whose classroom we would be helping out in so I will know by Monday when and what classes I am teaching. I am really excited to get to know the students and watch their progress over the year.