3/15/2010

WORDS AND NOTEBOOKS




Last week, one of our students, Cristina, asked me to help her while studying vocabulary as it was very hard for her to learn new words by heart or to remember them when writing, for instance.
I told her that in my case, repetition had made wonders but it was boring.
I forgot to tell her (Cristina, pay attention!)it is also very useful to keep lists at hand or to group vocabulary: positive adjectives, negative ones, verbs expressing ways of looking, synonymes for very used words, verb lists, etc.
Notebooks are not easy to carry, we don't usually have them at hand while working or are too big for our needs (whenever you learn the words you don't need those words anymore but the notebook is not full!!)
Well, here's the answer to our needs, and another step into recycling.

Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord is an amazing woman, she is really in love with books (specially books made for children and teaches them how to make them too) and just with cereal boxes, elastics, little sticks or just used sheets and nothing else, has solved our problem: a handy useful and temporary vocabulary notebook (the hot dog booklet) we can adapt for our purposes by listening (more practice for your ears) to her nice and clear directions. Have a good time!!

**Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord:
"I've been making books in schools, libraries, and with my family for twenty years. My primary goal is always to make it easy and fun. It is my pleasure and delight to share what I have learned and bring the joy of making books to you. "
By the way, more ideas or suggestions to learn vocabulary are welcome!!!

6 comments:

  1. Hi Lucía,

    I will have to watch the video about 100 times more if I want to understand something but it really was very intuitive. My children love doing crafts and sometimes we see "art attack". Next weekend I will teach them to do notebooks.

    Thanks a lot. As usual, you are always surprising us.

    Cristina González Angós

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  2. Paloma Blanco3/18/10, 7:57 PM

    This video reminds me the origami. Some years ago I could watch an amazing origami exhibition, you can´t imagine the amount of things people can make with a piece of paper!
    I think there is no special clue to learn vocabulary: sometimes we learn very difficult words easily and however we find hard to learn the easiest ones. I know its a nonsense, but I always have problems with the word "cloud" I don´t understand it but sometimes if I have to use this word I have real problems because I don´t remember it. I will have to make a tiny notebook for this word.

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  3. Hi!
    I'm new here, this is my second comment and after reading this post I have to say that I'm discovering a lot of new things.
    I love doing crafts and I found the video really interesting. I couldn't stop seing new ones. I also found very interesting the "work-a-day journal" and "stick and elastic book".
    In addition, I think it's a good way to recycle paper.
    I also have to do my notebooks!

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  4. Cristina,
    Remember you do not have to understand every single word of the video, just the general idea! Yo can listen to it several times, in different moments and little by little you will understan more and more. :-D
    Paloma, you are right: I also thoght about origami when I was watching Susan's video, and yes, again, each students has a way of studying vocabulary...and mnay other things. We all have a diffiult word: mine is "acquaintance"!!
    Silvia, I'm glad you had seen the recycling part of this post. in a corner of my mind I thought also about our unit on new energies, and in our latest post on earthhour.

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  5. Elena de los Cobos3/25/10, 8:43 PM

    Hello everybody. I´ve watched the video and I found it quite interesting. I wish I was good at crafts, but for me it´s really difficult. The funny thing is that when I whatch it, it seems easy but if I try I´m not able to fix it right, but anyway, it´s a good idea because it help to recycle paper and at the same time to have a good time trying to do it.

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  6. Sure, Elena, and a great activity for children!

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