Ecosystems

Plants

Use these videos to learn about plants.

Our first six weeks with Teacher Melanie!

Our first six weeks with Teacher Melanie!

Now that I’m adjusted to my new life here in Spain, let me tell you about these amazing first six weeks…

I am the Auxiliar or Culture and Language Assistant here at CEIP Antonio Rodríguez Almodóvar and my role is to encourage conversation and introduce relevant American culture into the classroom. Let me say…this is THE BEST job I’ve ever had! I am showered with love and appreciation and I get to use fun activities to get students involved in their curriculum. I think the one thing that I have been shocked by is how much I am truly able to teach the students. When I have their full attention I am able to introduce new subject matter and they walk away with knowledge and new confidence in their English. There is no better feeling!

Ooh fourth grade, how dear you are to me! I absolutely do not have favorites but I feel like my fourth graders have pulled out the best in me. Each class is impactful and unique and they met me with an unmatched energy level the minute I stepped into class. They truly gave me my confidence to teach…and for that I’m thankful because it impacts my ability to teach in all of classes. On my first day in our getting to know me conversation, they asked me to sing my favorite song and I haven’t sang in public since I was a 4^th grader myself. That was the moment that changed me! Here are the rest of our highlights:

In the first three weeks we got to know each other and I learned the classroom structure and lots of names! I also taught the Rock Cycle using a diagram and question/answer session and we had a day where they played a Guess Who style game using types of rocks. Thinking back I’m not even sure how we’ve covered so much in such a short amount of time! Our time together is always productive and progressive.

In week four I introduced the activity I was most excited for! I created a Fear Box similar to this one:

This is a tool I intend to use more throughout the year when I can. The idea is to insert an object that they must describe. The item may be unrelated but the words they should use will relate to the subject material. The rest of the class must then guess what’s inside. Unlike the video, the item inside is hidden from the audience. The first time we used it, it went flawlessly and was quite the entertainment. The students loved it and look forward to using it again. It gets them out of the comfort zone of using the same phrases and forces them to try to find words that they know or want to know!

In week five we did a review of landforms using a guessing game. Each student was assigned a landform that they’ve learned and given the opportunity to present it to the class. They used categories (landscape/body of water), direction (NSEWC), and relational clues (near, next to, etc.) to describe their assigned landform. The class was then allowed to guess the correct landform.

This activity was fun, interactive and competitive. I challenged the students to try to be the student who guessed the most landforms. This activity integrated their review, their public speaking, their directions and relational words, which they are learning in other subjects. They enjoyed it and I will use more activities like this to encourage their public speaking!

Last week I transformed into “MRS GREN” in order to teach the life processes of living things. Each letter of the name stands for a different life process and helps them to memorize each type. I lowered my glasses to the tip of my nose and spoke with an odd drag to make the day memorable. They giggled and participated willingly as I asked them to help me spell my name. Before the activity I asked the class if they could name all of the processes and they doubted themselves. By the end of the activity they knew each process and we reviewed an example for each process.

Needless to say, we have FUN in fourth grade!

5 kingdoms

You can use this song to learn some facts about the 5 kigdoms of living things. 🎶🎤🎶

How plants perform excretion

Plants are living things, like animals. Therefore, they perform the life processes we already know. Some of them are tricky to see though. In this video you can see how some plants perform such an important life process as excretion... an nutrition too! 

Have you ever seen a plant like this? Be careful if you run into one of this!

Living things

Landforms in Spain

Igneous rocks, sedimentary rocks, metamorphic rocks... All of them can create differenet landforms. Do you remember landforms? I'm sure you do.

Just in case, here you have a presentation to remember the most important landforms. And, you know what? We can find in Spain all of those landforms. That's amazing, isn't it?

Check this physical map of Spain as well, it's going to be very useful.

Spain main landforms:

RIVERS

1. Río Miño

2. Río Duero

3. Río Tajo

4. Río Guadiana

5. Río Guadalquivir

6. Río Segura

7. Río Júcar

8. Río Ebro

MOUNTAIN RANGES

9. Pirineos

10. Cordillera Cantábrica

11. Sistema Ibérico

12. Sistema Central

13. Sierra Morena

14. Sistemas Béticos

VOLCANO

15. Teide

PLATEAU

16. Meseta Central

HEADLANDS

17. Cabo Finisterre

18. Cabo de San Vicente

19. Cabo de Gata

20. Cabo de Creus

GULFS

21. Golfo de Cádiz

22. Golfo de Vizcaya

ARCHIPELAGOS

23. Archipiélago Canario

24. Archipiélago Balear

OCEANS AND SEAS

25. Océano Atlántico

26. Mar Mediterráneo