STAR BY PAULA

Hello everybody, I am the star of my group this week. 

We had to choose a topic to explain later in class as if it was children of primary school. We have chosen History, and we have divided history in five ages. My work consisted in looking for information about each age and also I have selected the information in order to make a good exposition.

I had four minutes to do the exposition so, I had to adapt the information which I have collected in order to explain it in time. In addition, I had to take into account the visual presentation, this is, the powerpoint and fit the images and the information.

Furthermore, my group did five surprise boxes (one for each age of history) which contained something characteristic from each age, and my work as a star was to show it in an appropriate way to my classmates supported by the visual presentation and the information that I have collected.

It has been a good opportunity to me to understand how a primary teacher feels, and the difficulties that a teacher could find in a real classroom because in the future maybe, we will have students who do not understand the lesson, and maybe it is because the transmission of the lesson is not the adequate. I have also learnt the importance of visual presentations to make more dynamic the class to children and to make them understand the material in an easier way.  

I have learnt that I have to be more superficial in four minutes because I expose too much information for primary children and maybe is difficult for them to follow me.

Here it is the information that I exposed on Monday about history: 

PREHISTORY

What is the Prehistory?

This is a large age, which started when the human being appeared.

The life of hunters and collectors.

The first prehistory human beings were nomadic, this is, they moved from one place to another. They normally hunted animals and they collected seeds and fruits.

The life of farmers and ranchers.

At the end of prehistory, the human beings became sedentaries, this is, they always lived in the same place because they learnt to cultivate plants and had domesticated animals.

OLD AGE

What is the Old Age?

The old Age is the period that started with the invention of writing. In this age there were big civilizations, such as the Egyptian, Roman or Greek civilization.

The Roman City

The Romans founded an Empire, with big cities such as Rome. They made important constructions like roads, walls, bridges and aqueducts.

Life in Rome

The Roman society involves slaves, without rights and free people like shopkeepers, artisans or peasants, who had all the rights. Their main language was latin, this is, the origin of castellano, catalán and gallego which are actually used in our country.

MIDDLE AGE.

What is the Middle Age?

The Middle Age started when the Roman civilization disappeared and it ended with the discovery of América.

Castles, cities and small towns.

When the Roman civilizations disappeared, their territories were occupied and governed by kings. The people lived in cities and small villages; also, they built castles in order to defend themselves from possible invasions.

MODERN AGE

What is the Modern Age?

The Modern Age started when Colón discovered América in 1492. This historic period which lasted 300 years was characterized by the expansion of the European countries to far lands in order to far lands to trade.

The big advances in sailing and the use of the compass and astrolabe permitted many exploration trips as the Colón or Juan Sebastián Elcano trip.

Art and culture.

In this age there were a big number of artists such as Diego Velázquez. Goya or El Greco.

Also, Cervantes, Lope de Vega or Quevedo wrote some of the works more esteemed of the Spanish literature.

In the cities were realized beautiful constructions such as Major Square in Madrid or Salamanca University.

CONTEMPORARY AGE.

What is the Contemporary Age?

The Contemporary Age started 200 years ago and it hasn’t finished yet. When this age began, the vapour machine was invented, its source of energy was coal instead of animals or people.

This fact went hand in hand with industrialization, and, with it, other important changes.

The big inventions

In the contemporary age there were so many inventions which improved the lives of people. For example:

-The electric light bulb by Edison.

-The phonograph by Edison

-The telephone by Graham Bell

-The cinematographer by the Lumière brothers.

-The radio by Marconi

-The telegraph by Samuel Morse.

At the beginning it was difficult to me to explain the topic in front of so much people without the support of the paper but I have tried to control the situation. However I hope the next time I improved and also explained the topic with a higher level of fluency.

 It was a pleasure to me to expose this topic in class and I hope you like it!

Regards, Paula.