"How to make a carnival mask" with year 6 07.02.13

As you know, kids are having a great time at school preparing all the carnival stuff and also thinking about their costumes and masks. My year 6 students made a plaster cast mask and it was really nice to wear it during the carnival party. 

Ignasi Iglesias school has a digital magazine where all the children write different sections as articles, games, etc. in order to develop their writing skills and to create an enjoyable reading for all the students. For year 6 students it's easy to write an article in Spanish or Catalan, so the teacher decided that the kids would write an article in English related to carnival: how to make a carnival mask. 

My tutor suggested that I prepare a lesson about the creation of the mask and I completely agreed. I decided to do a power point to help the students to learn the name of the materials we need to make the craft in English and to learn the process as well. First of all, I have written all the materials in English and I have added three extra ones in order that kids learn more vocabulary. Then, they have copied the words in their notebook. Right after, I have showed them some verbs that express the actions to make the mask (to cut out, to stick, etc.) and they have completed the sentences (to cut out the plaster cast strips). So with the materials and the process, kids have written their article about carnival masks.

Before doing this activity in class, I thought it was a bit difficult for year 6 students, but they haven't had any problem to do it. They have even worked quicker than I planned, so they have done a good job. Children have paid attention during most of the time and they have been motivated to learn the new words and to write the making process of the mask. At the beginning of the task they were a bit confused because they didn't know what  to write in their notebooks, but as they are very clever they have got it fast.

I think that power point is a good resource to show writings to the whole class. Students can see the sentences and can also interact with the teacher and with the rest of their classmates solving the activities. I consider that cross-curricular activities are very useful to learn a new language; in this case we have learnt English writing an article about crafts for the school magazines. If we are obliged to work with the book we can combine these kinds of activities in order to enrich our lessons.