This week we are thinking about how art can inspire a composer to write a piece of music.
As we have been studying Grace Darling and how she saved some shipwrecked sailors, I thought this piece of music perfectly captured the mood of the sea that night – dark and stormy.
What do you think? Does it make you imagine a ship out at sea being tossed about in the waves?
It’s fascinating to think the composer Anna Clyne began this composition after seeing an image of a wave. She drew a picture before going to the piano to write the music.
Using materials you might find around your home, follow artist Amy Leung’s step by step guide on how to create a sculpture using ‘Night Ferry’ to inspire shapes, patterns and textures.
You might like to upload a photo of your sculpture to the Ten Pieces website or send a photo to your teacher on SeeSaw.
Another very famous composer called Mussorgsky wrote a whole series of music after he had visited an art gallery. It is called ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’.
Follow the link to see the paintings he wrote music to go along with.
How would you describe some of the music – happy, angry, sad?
¿Qué tal? ¡Estoy feliz porque hoy hace sol! (I’m happy because it is sunny today!)
This week will be all about you in Spanish – how to ask and answer questions like what is your name, age and where do you live.
¿Cómo te llamas? – What is your name?
Me llamo… – My name is …
Me llamo Toby. – My Name is Toby.
¿Y tú? – And you?
¿Tienes cuantos años? – How old are you?
Tengo ….. años – I am …. years old.
Tengo ocho años – I am eight years old.
¿Cuando es tu cumpleaños? – When is your birthday?
Mi cumpleaños es ….. – My birthday is
Mi cumpleaños es veintitrés de mayo. – My birthday is the 23rd of May.
¿Dónde vives? – Where do you live?
Vivo en Edimburgo / escocia – I live in Edinburgh / Scotland.
*Ms F’s Top Tip* – When you see ll in Spanish, it is actually a special letter. The sound it makes is y, like in ‘you’, so estrella sounds like es-tray-ya. You may recognise it from me llamo (my name is) and amarillo (yellow) and llueve (rain). In Spanish the letter ñ is also a special letter, where you make a nyu sound, so año sounds like an-yo. You might remember seeing it in mañana (tomorrow) or araña (spider).
So, a simple conversation might sound like:
Maria: ¡Hola! ¿Cómo te llamas?
Tomás: ¡Hola! Me llamo Tomás. ¿Y Tú?
Maria: Me llamo Maria.
Tomas: ¿Tienes cuantos años?
Maria: Tengo ocho años. ¿Y tú?
Tomás: Tengo ocho años.
Maria: ¿Dónde vives? Etc.
Ideas to help you practise
Create your own all about me flashcards – one set with the Spanish words and another set with a picture or photo of the answer. You can then use these to play a game of memory, match pairs, or create your own game.
Have a conversation with a parent or sibling. See if you can teach them how to say the Spanish words.
Write out these questions and your answers – put them up in your house so you can practise saying these.
Make an ‘all about me’ poster with a picture of you in the middle and the questions (with answers) around the outside.
Make a sock puppet and use it to practise asking and answering questions in Spanish.
This week we are going to continue on our seashore theme and have a think about the different things we might see on a trip to the seaside. You could use two different words/signs to say where you were going – beach or seaside.
As the seashore is where the land meets the sea you might need signs to talk about both of these things – sand and sea.
To spot some of the sea creatures we talked about last week you might have a peak in a rockpool.
And here are some signs for other things you might like to do or spot at the beach.
Ideas to practise your seaside signs:
Draw a beach picture and include lots of the Signalong words. Then tell someone about your picture while showing them the signs.
Look, cover, sign, check – look closely at a sign then have a go at the sign without looking at the screen. Check back to see if you remembered it correctly.
Continue with last week’s “At the seashore I saw…” memory game but add new signs like a boat, a shipwreck or a sandcastle.
See if you can find some beach themed songs with these signs in them and sing and sign along. Or you could make up your own song or rap and use the signs as actions.
Have fun practising. Feel free to share videos of you signing with your teacher. And let me know if there are any signs you’d like to learn before the summer holidays 🙂
¿Qué tal? ¡Estoy feliz porque me gusta la playa! (I’m happy because I like the beach.)
This week’s Spanish challenge is to find out the names for some things that live on the seashore.
Some of the animals have a different word for ‘the’ at the beginning. Some start with el and some start with la. Why do you think that is? (Answer: under the Spanish words.)
¿Que vive a la orilla del mar? – What lives at the seashore?
El cangrejo – crab
La gaviota – seagull
La foca – seal
El alga marina – seaweed
El caballo de mar – seahorse
La ballena – whale
El pulpo – octopus
El delfín – Dolphin
La anémona de mar – sea anemone
El erizo de mar – sea urchin
La estrella de mar – starfish
La concha – Shell
El percebe – barnacle
El frailecillo – puffin
La medusa – jellyfish
*Ms F’s Top Tip* – Remember j in Spanish makes a sound like ch asin the Scottish word loch. So cangrejo sounds like can-grey-cho. When you see ll in Spanish, it is actually a special letter. The sound it makes is y, like in ‘you’, so estrella sounds like es-tray-ya. You may recognise it from me llamo (my name is) and amarillo (yellow) and llueve (rain). In Spanish the letter c can make a hard sound like ‘cuatro’ if it comes before a, o or u. But if c comes before e or i, it makes a soft ‘ss’ sound. So frailecillo sounds like fray-le-sea–yo.
Answer: The reason why some animals have different versions of saying the in Spanish is that some are male words and others are female words. Well done if you worked that out!
For male animals you would use el for ‘the’ or un for ‘a’. For female animals you would use la for ‘the’ and una for ‘a’.
Most of the animals you just add s to the end to say there is more than one (plural). The only different one is:
Dolphins – delfines
Ideas to help you practise
Create your own seashore flashcards – one set with the Spanish words and another set with a picture or photo of something that lives at the seashore. You can then use these to play a game of memory, match pairs, or create your own game.
Practise your Spanish along with Mrs McCracken’s sign-a-long animals – remember we learned the word for fish last week.
Play Pictionary, where one player has to draw something from the seashore and the other says the answer in Spanish.
Pick something that lives at the seashore and act like it, you could use sounds or actions. The other player has to guess in Spanish.
Draw a picture of the seashore and label what lives there in Spanish.
¡Que te diviertas!
Ms Ferguson
Here are some fun videos to help you practise and learn some other words for animals, including wild animals:
As our topic at the moment is the Seashore I thought we should learn a few signs to describe the creatures we might see on the beaches and in the sea around Scotland.
First of all, here is how to sign Seashore.
Here are some creatures you might find on the beach or in rockpools.
And here are some creatures you would find in the sea.
Same as fish but with thumb up for the fin!
Ideas to practise your seashore signs:
Play a memory game with your family. Start with “At the seashore I saw…” and add a name and a sign. The next person will say your creature and add one of their own. See how many you can remember in one go!
Make a video to teach someone else some sign, you could even send it to someone else in your family. Maybe your gran would like to learn!
Draw an underwater picture and then point out what you have drawn with words and Signalong. Keep an eye out for Ms Ferguson’s next post and you can add the Spanish words too.
Hope you enjoy learning more Signalong. Let your teacher know if there is anything else you’d like to learn and I’ll do my best to fit it in to a future post.
¿Qué tal? ¡Estoy feliz porque me gusta animales! (I’m happy because I like animals.)
This week’s Spanish challenge is to find out how to say I have pets and name some animals.
Some of the animals have two different ways of saying the animal. One that ends in o and one that ends in a. Why do you think that is? (Answer: under the Spanish words.)
¿Tienes mascota / mascotas? – Do you have a pet / pets?
¡No tengo mascota! – I don’t have a pet.
Sí, tengo … – Yes, I have …
Un perro / una perra – a dog
Un gato / una gata – a cat
Un conejo / una coneja – a rabbit
Un cobayo – a guinea pig
Una serpiente – a snake
Un pez – a fish
Un ratón – a mouse
Una tortuga – a tortoise
Un pájaro – a bird
Un caballo – a horse
*Ms F’s Top Tips* – When you have a double r, like in perro you have to roll your rs, like a purring cat. Remember, j in Spanish makes a sound like ch as in the Scottish word loch. So conejo sounds like coney-cho. When you see ll in Spanish, it is actually a special letter. The sound it makes is y, like in ‘you’, so caballo sounds like cabye-yo. You may recognise it from me llamo (my name is), amarillo (yellow) and llueve (rain).
Answer: The reason why some animals have one Spanish version that ends in o and one that ends in a is that it is for you to say if it is a male or female animal. Well done if you worked that out!
For male animals you would use un and the word ends in o. For female animals you would use una and the word ends in a.
So if you have a male dog, you would say, “Yo tengo un perro.“
But, if you had a female dog, you would say, “Yo tengo una perra.”
If you want to say you have a number of pets you could add the number and y (and) to help.
For example, to say “I have three cats, two dogs and four rabbits“, it would be:
Yo tengo tres gatos, dos perrosyquatro cabajos.
Most of the animals you just add s to the end to say there is more than one (plural). The only different ones are:
Fish (more than one) – peces
Mice – ratones
Ideas to help you practise
Have a conversation with a parent or sibling where you take turns answering ¿Tienes mascotas? (You can make up your answers to make it trickier.)
Create your own animal flashcards – one set with the Spanish words and another set with a picture or photo of an animal. You can then use these to play a game of memory, match pairs, or create your own game.
Play Pictionary, where you have to draw an animal and say the answer in Spanish.
Pick an animal and play ‘articulate’ where one player has to describe the animal using clues, but without saying the name of the animal. The other player has to guess the animal in Spanish.
Create a poster or draw animals in your jotter and write the Spanish next to the animals.
¡Que te diviertas!
Ms Ferguson
Here are some fun songs to help you practise and learn some other words for animals, including farm animals:
This week in P2 we have been using the Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch as inspiration for lots of our home learning activities. I thought that it might be nice to find out some signs that could help us to sign about foods we like for lunch.
Here are a few key signs we might need when talking about eating a picnic lunch.
And here are some signs for things you could eat and drink at a picnic. I’ve chosen some from Mr Grinling’s lunch and some things I know are popular on the school menu!
There are so many food and drink signs I could teach you but I might run out of space on the blog! If you would like to learn some more, especially different types of fruit and things to put in sandwiches, you could visit Woodbank School’s webpage and check out their Snack Time/Lunch Time video – https://www.woodbank.calderdale.sch.uk/communication/signalong
Or if there is a sign for food that you really want to know, email me and I’ll see if I can find it out for you.
Ideas to practice your food and drink signs:
See if you can sign what you are having for lunch or dinner today.
Play a memory game with people in your house. You could start the game “In my picnic basket I have…” and add a food you can sign. Then the next player will say yours and add one on. The list will get longer and longer, can you remember them all?
Draw a picture of your perfect picnic and name and sign the food and drinks you have drawn.
Listen to “The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch” and see what bits of Mr Grinling’s lunch you can sign.
I’m off to eat my lunch now… I wonder what I’ll have?
I hope you enjoyed listening and learning to sing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow‘ last week. Did you work out that the ukulele was the instrument which accompanied the song? It’s looks like a miniature guitar, but has only 4 strings, rather than 6 strings.
This week we are learning about how music can enhance telling a story. In class, a little while ago, we listened to Peter and the Wolf by Prokofiev. Each character in the story is played by a different instrument of the orchestra and has their own repeated melody. Some are very high pitched and others very low.
You can listen to the story again here:
Can you retell one of your a favourite stories? Choose a story with two or three characters and create a little melody or a rhythm, for each character, played on an ‘instrument’. (Remember an instrument can be your voice, your homemade percussion instrument or even some kitchen utensils). Every time the character appears in the story you play their melody or rhythm.
Now retell the story and add in your rhythm or melody for each character. Good luck and have some fun!
You might like to send a recording to your teacher on Seesaw. We love to hear what you have been up to.
¡Estoy feliz porque hoy hace sol! (I’m happy because it is sunny today!)
This week’s Spanish challenge is to practise the words for describing the weather.
Hace calor – It is hot.
Hace buen tiempo – It is good weather.
Hace sol – It is sunny.
Hace frío – It is cold.
Hace mal tiempo – It is bad weather.
Hace viento – It is windy.
Nublado – Cloudy.
Llueve – Rainy.
Nieva – Snowy.
Tormenta – Stormy.
*Ms F’s Top Tip* – Remember ‘v‘ in Spanish always sounds like ‘b‘ and ‘h’ is a silent letter. When you see ll in Spanish, it is actually a special letter. The sound it makes is y, like in ‘you’, so llueve sounds like you-ebeh. You may recognise it from me llamo (my name is) and amarillo (yellow).
Some other words that might help you are:
Hoy – today
Y – and
So, if you wanted to say today it is sunny and windy, you would say:
Hoy hace sol y viento.
Ideas to help you practise:
Have a conversation with a parent or sibling where you take turns answering ¿Qué tiempo hace hoy?
When doing your weather report task this week, include the weather in Spanish as well as English.
Create your own weather flashcards – one set with the Spanish words and another set with a picture or photo of the weather. You can then use these to play a game of memory, match pairs, or create your own game.
Practise Mrs McCracken’s Sign-a-long signs for different kinds of weather using the words in Spanish.
Gather together some items that you would use or wear if it was a certain type of weather – like sunglasses, snow boots, a kite and an umbrella. Ask a parent or sibling to say a type of weather in Spanish, and you have to pick up the right item to match the weather.
The weather in Scotland is always changing. Yesterday morning it was raining but by the time I went out for my daily walk it was beautiful sunshine. We never know if we need our rain jackets or our sunscreen! I thought this week it would be interesting to find out how to use Signalong to talk about the weather.
Here is the sign for weather.
If we wanted to tell someone what the weather is like today, or what it will be like tomorrow we might need these signs –
And here are some of the weather signs you might want to use to talk about Edinburgh weather. Hopefully we won’t need the snow and ice ones for quite a while but we can practise them in time for the winter!
Ideas to practice your colour signs:
Have a look outside and practise the sign for the weather you see.
Have a go at telling someone what the weather is like today. You could say “The weather today is…” using the correct signs and then choosing the weather sign that suits.
Watch the weather online or on the TV and try and use the sign along with the presenter.
Have a go at making up your own weather report using sign and show it to someone in your house or perform it to your teddies.
Make some weather symbols, like the ones at the top of this post, put them in a hat or a bowl and pick them out one at a time. Can you do the sign to match the symbol?
Have fun practising and I hope the sun keeps shining for us! Mrs McCracken
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Sciennes Primary Five 