The Hokey Pokey!

Here's a fun song that we did in class as part of our theme on the Face and Body.

Now you can sing along at home, too.!

My School

As part of this theme, we learned the names of objects in the classroom that we use everyday.  This helps us to use more English in our everyday lessons, like moving from one activity to another and doing art and craft.

For those of you who would like to support your child's learning at home, here are some words you could use at home.

• chair
• table
• floor
• crayon
• marker
• scissors
• glue
• paper

All About Me

In the second week of classes we continued exploring the topic All About Me.

We read the story Spot Makes a Cake by Eric Hill.

We made our own birthday cakes in the playground, sang the 'Happy Birthday Song' and learned to count our candles in English.

The language focus this week was...
Saying Hello and Goodbye
What's your name?
How old are you?
What's your favourite colour?

Technology as a Teaching Tool

Ipad day is always popular with our students.  To make sure they are getting the most out of this time, the apps are pre-selected to match the language we are learning that week.  There are also activities and whole-class games played which introduce and practice the language they will need to play the game on the ipad.

Here are some that you might like to download and play with your child at home:

• Agnitus (colours, numbers)
• Make Monsters (body party)
• Mr Potato (body parts, numbers)
• Cut The Buttons (classroom objects, fine motor skills)
• Dr Panda's Hospital (body parts and health)

Learning English through Art & Craft

Once a week, our English class takes place in the Art Room.  Art activities provide a wonderful medium for learning languages with plenty of opportunities to consolidate what the students have been learning in an independent and creative way.

Over the course of the year the children will have the chance to experience and experiment with a wide range of mediums.

As part of our colours theme, we old recycled coloured markers to make watercolours.  This free activity allowed the children to use the colour vocabulary we have been looking at all week in a natural context.

The children also used crayons and coloured pencils to draw portraits of their friends as part of our All About Me theme.

We had a lot of fun colouring shapes to make displays for our classroom.  We used crayons and markers, but experimented with a new texture by using black paper and chalk to colour our shapes.

 

To learn the names for materials we use in our classroom, the students did a collage using the materials of their choice.

Activity Centers

Our activity centers give children not only give them opportunities to use the language we are learning, also work on other skills that they are developing.

The class is divided into small groups, offering the teacher a chance to interact more closely with the students and provide extra language support where needed.

 

Playing Outdoors

Every week, we take the children out into the playground to learn games and play in English.  It' s a wonderful opportunity to get physical, burn some energy and learn outdoor games that children play in different countries.

As you can see, it's lots of fun!

Back into English...2014 has begun!

The year has gotten off to a wonderful start.  We started off the semester by establishing our routine and some basic classroom language.  As you know, this allows children to understand what is expected of them even if they are not yet able to understand what the teacher is saying in English. Within no time the kids pick up on the routine, understand and respond in English! Aahhh… to be young again.

Here are some of our lesson stages which make up our routine.  Click on links to see some photos.
Greet the students with our 'Hello Song' song.

The class register (British English)/ Attendance (American English)

Circle time

Activity Centers
Art & Craft Activities
Technology
Outdoor play
Songs
Story-time
Tidy up time (please note this song can also be adapted for home ;-))
Goodbye song

The subject for the first two weeks of school is “All About Me”. In the first week the kids played name games, learned name songs and completed some activities of their favourite colors/colours.

They have also been reviewing their shapes (circle, square, triangle, and rectangle) with various activities. They painted, colored/coloured, watched a video, and played some games to test their knowledge.  And guess what? They all passed!