CLIL4PRIMARY: Patricia Carmena

Cross-Curricular Mini Project

Topic and project title	Ecosystems
Your subject area: How will the project fit with your subject?	Natural Science and Arts. Students will learn the specific contents of the Natural Science area and they will put into practice what they learnt in the Arts and Craft class. At the same time, they will feel more interested about the Natural Science lesson, having in mind that at the end of the unit they will work on an Arts and Craft project.
Who are you doing the project with?	None
Learning objectives	To learn about ecosystems and elements (biotope, biocenosis, population, community, habitat). To identify the different types and characteristics of ecosystems. To learn about the relationships between living things: food chains, populations... To learn about environmental problems and how to look after the environment. To work and cooperate with other students.
Anticipated problems (and solutions)	To deal with new/difficult vocabulary. Students will make a list with the new vocabulary. Dictionaries can be used too. To understand new contents. During the explanations, children will watch different videos to support their learning. To do a specific task related to the subject (oral and written exercises) Cooperative learning will help students to cope with difficulties by working in pairs for daily activities and by working in big groups to carry out more difficult tasks like the ecosystem mini project presentation or the crawl wall activity.

Teach your mini-project. Reflect on how it went. Be prepared to give feedback.

v Group and date taught	v 5th Grade students. v From 5th to 23rd February,2018
What did you do?	Students were introduced to the new unit "Ecosystems" through different pictures, using the"see, think, wonder technique" (IBL), encouraging them to guess and predict the contents of the topic. *What can you see in this picture? Where do you think is it? Is it cold or hot? What happens in this picture?* To teach the contents of the lesson, different resources were used in the classroom such as pictures, videos, games and songs. To increase their curiosity and attention, students were told that throughout the month, they should write a short essay about an animal and its habitat to decorate the walls of the school aisle. At the same time, during the Arts and Crafts lesson, they should work in groups, choosing an ecosystem to create. First, they should use the internet and books to find out information about the ecosystem. Then, they collect the information on a paper, write labels for the components of the ecosystem and make the model use all kind of materials (plasticine, plastic toys, drawings, pictures...) When the model is finished, students present their work to the class. Introduction pictures Materials used Students’ work
What went well	Students were very motivated about the mini-project. They were very pleased to work in groups. They gained confidence speaking in front of their classmates and showing them their work.
Reflection for future practice
What needed improvement/changes and why	More sessions/time to prepare students' speech in front of the class.
What would you change considering level, age or other factors	I would promote more interaction between students, developing other activities to promote communication like making a survey to other students from different classrooms during the break time.