Travelling - part 1 :)

A lot has been going on lately, I apologize for not writing, but I hope it is the last time I have to do it.

In February we talked with kids a lot about different kinds of transportation. It was an intro to the topic of Slovakia.

When we start a new topic, it is very easy just to say "Hello guys, this week we will talk about...". But even I am bored with such introduction, so this time I invited a special guest - a hand puppet, Fred the Moose :) Children had a chance to talk to a stranger, who had a little problem: he wanted to go for vacation to America, but he did not know how to get there! Kids' task was to propose him different means of transport. It was not just a simple fun exercise, but it was a serious problem solving! When children run out of ideas, I showed them pictures prepared earlier. In the end we decided that the best way to get to Italy (children changed the journey destination :) is to use an airplane. Fred the Moose was delighted :)

After that we divided the vehicles on water, air and land vehicles. Together we created a big board with many  means of transport.

On diagnostic tests it turned out we're not that good in composing pictures from pieces, so I decided to practice it more. Everybody chose one set of puzzle and made a picture. This time it was easy - just 4 pieces. (I covered the names, but you can ask your girls which picture is theirs).

Other pictures you can see in the classroom - I took this photo before all of them were done.






























When we had a board of vehicles, I added paper tags with their names. Then we tried global reading exercise - we recognized words written on big flash cards by comparing them to tags on the board. We read: BUS, CAR and BOAT.

We can count very well, we practice it everyday with our calendar. This time we started to add numbers :) Number is a very abstract thing for children, so it is quite important in the beginning to help them with concrete objects. In our classroom, we added toy vehicles - cars, airplanes and trains. Nevertheless, children usually add like this:

Teacher: How many cars we have?
Children: one, two, THREE!!!!!
Teacher: How many airplanes we have?
Children: one, TWOOO!!!!!
Teacher: So how many vehicles we have together?
Children: one, two, three, four, FIIIIIIIVE!!!!

You can see, that they count every piece anyway - slowly they're shortening that long way to find the result of addition.

Next we practiced fine motor skills - we had two worksheets:

 

We had dotted traces - vehicle tracks and letters. First worksheet was about cutting properly and the second one was about rolling the play-dough and sticking her on the letter traces. It's not that easy to roll the play-dough, as you can see on the worksheet above, but at least we can read the words :)

One day we saw a presentation about vehicles now and in the past. Children were guessing what vehicle is on the picture. Some of them were easy to guess, but with other kids had quite a problem :) If you are interested in watching the presentation, contact me on my email (irenawanot.pl [at] gmail.com) - I can send it in .pdf or .ppt format :) 

To repeat vocabulary we used a very simple song, your child can sing it for you without a problem: 

How did you get here? How did you get here? x2

I came here by car... (or any other vehicle), by car, by car :)

Once I found girls standing by the board (during their play time), singing that song and showing pictures one by one. It's always amazing for me, that a simple thing, which we repeat everyday, is still fun for them! I experienced, that even when I think that something is already boring and we have to change it, children ask for it. One girl came once to me and said reproachfully: Irena, you forgot something! We didn't sing "Good morning everybody" song! :) 

Other exercises connected with vehicles? 

Making sounds: brrrrrrrm, shhhhhhhhh, choo choo choo choo - good speech exercise 

Moving like vehicles - a simple drama activity where children have to imitate the vehicle

Workshop ideas: 

Making vehicles (cars, trains) out of carton boxes (e.g. after tea), 

Making sail boats out of piece of polystyrene and paper on a stick (if you put it on the water and blow, the boat will float :) 

In next post: How we got to know our home land - Slovakia :)

Greetings!

Irena

ANIMAL WEEK - polar animals and hibernating animals

There are animals who like winter weather and animals who don't like it. This is why I combined those two topics in one week.

First we should talk about arctic animals. I prepared photos on my computer to show them to children. We can meet: an arctic fox, an arctic hare, a caribou, a muskox, a penguin, a polar bear, a seal, a snowy owl and a walrus. You might be surprised by the amount of different strange animals, but I think they are very exotic and interesting for children :)

Children get to know how is it possible for these animals to survive in low temperatures and more about their habits and natural habitat. They notice (or I can do it for them) that all of these animals move in a different way, that's why we do a physical activity "Walk like a..." ...polar bear (on four "legs"), penguin (with feel "glued" to each other), seal (laying on a belly, using just hands), arctic hare (jumping like a bunny), snowy owl (waving arms like wings).

I thought about practising fine motor skills by making an owl or a penguin - very easily, without any pattern. Just cut a random shape, looking more or less like a penguin or an owl (out of black or white paper) and draw the rest (or cut another pieces to make a white belly for penguin). The point of this activity is that it doesn't matter if you can cut or you cannot, every shape is a good shape, there might be baby penguins or grandpas owls, it is less stressful for children (they sometimes don't enjoy cutting with a pattern, because they can see it's far from perfection). We can make a gallery of penguins/snowy owls later :)

Another physical activity that I thought of is "Jump on the ice-float!". Children can "swim" around the classroom while the music is playing, but when it stops, they have to jump on the ice-float (a special place marked out with rope or in another way). Those who do it first become Masters of Survival :)

I realised that my children are very good in counting, they can count in English up to 15 (without a mistake!) and some of them even more. That is why I decided to introduce them to addition up to 5 (for a starter), using signs "+" and "=". An exercise for it I called "Add the penguins!" (of course at home you can add ANYTHING!). Children add the penguins standing on two ice-floats. They show on their fingers how many penguins are on the two ice-floats. Then they do the same, but on a worksheet - they have to draw as many dots as many penguins are in two boxes.

Similarly we get to know the hibernating animals. I prepared pictures on my computer, which we can watch and describe. You can see that there are just 5 animals on the pictures. I decided to limit that amount to animals hibernating in Slovakia and I chose only those who are the most popular and which children already should know.

So in the picture you can see a squirrel, a brown bear, an European chamster, a groundhog and a hedgehog.

Children get to know how these animals prepare to spend the winter, where they make their hiding-places (lairs, holes and burrows :), what happens when they wake up (some of them wake up few times in winter, eat a little bit and fall asleep again).


As we got to know two groups of animals, we can practise our classification skills. Children see two spots: an ice-float and a bed, on which some animals are sitting. But some animals actually forgot where they should be, children's task is to decide which animal shoud stand on the ice-float and which should go to bed.  The same they do on a worksheet.

I prepared for children also a drama activity. Children listen to a story about bears who get surprised by winter and very quickly have to prepare for hibernating. Children act out the story, being in roles of bears. This activity helps to show better our feeling, develops empathy skills and is also a good physical exercise :) it also develops listening skills and understanding English.

Also with hibernating animals we can add. "Add the hedgehogs!" is a parallel activity to "Add the penguins!", just now we're using hedgehogs instead. Children also finish that activity by filling a worksheet, which is a bit more difficult than the one with penguins.

That's what I prepared for Animal Week in a shortcut :) I hope that when I come back from my sick leave I will be able to do some of these things with your children... But don't be afraid, we will add anyway and practise other skills anyway :)  
Greetings! Irena
PS. If you want to have some winter-land-animal fun, see this link: http://lolsnaps.com/upload_pic/223.jpg :)

Some useful vocabulary: arctic fox, arctic hare, bear lair, brown bear, burrows, caribou, chamster, fat, fur, groundhog, hedgehog, hibernation, hiding-place, ice-float, muskox, penguin, polar bear, seal, snowy owl, squirrel, to stock up, walrus.

Secrets of Winter - snow & winter clothes

First: sorry for such a long delay in writing, things were pretty crazy last week in my life ;)

Before that week I spent a weekend in High Tatras, in Horny Smokovec. I took some pictures of snow and packed some snow to take it to Bratislava :) I like telling children about my trips, because it helps them to talk about their life, they are more open and it helps bonding. I think it's very important for them to be able to share personal life with others, it develops their social and emotional skills, makes group a Group.

So we started the week from a riddle: Where was I this weekend? I gave them hints like "there is a lot of snow now" or "I had to climb up and later I slid down on a sled" or "I had to wear warm winter shoes and winter suits", finally they guessed that I was in the mountains :) Then we watched the pictures, children were describing them and we sung a part of a song about 4 seasons:

"- Hello winter what's your color?
- I am white, I am white, snow is white, ice is white, white is my favourite colour, white is my favourite colour!"

We played a short "Colour Game" - I asked: What else is white? Milk is white! Sun is white! etc. - first children where shouting "yeeees! noooo!" but because I don't like shouting in my classroom, we decided to show "yes" through putting our hands up and "no" through holding them on our knees. You can play that game with any colours you want - you can mix the colours or play only one colour at a time.

I asked children the  most important question: Is it possible to bring snow from Tatras to Bratislava? Of course almost all children knew that it would melt, some had an idea to put it into a fridge :) I showed them a jar with water and told them how I wanted to bring snow to Bratislava, since I heard that there was no snow anymore in here. Children looked at the water in a jar, they realised it's dirty and that they must not eat the snow. By the way we also got to know how snow is made: in the clouds, where are pieces of dust, water gathers around the pieces of dust and when it's very cold, raindrops freeze and turn into snowflakes, get 6 arms and fall on the ground. We sung a well known (by our children) song: "Snow is falling on the ground":

("Frere Jaques" tune)
Snow is falling, snow is falling
on the ground, on the ground,
wintertime is now here, wintertime is now here
look around, look around

I used that topic to repeat our knowledge about shapes:
* we saw pictures of mountains and we realised they look almost like triangles,
*we had an exercise with "shape snowflakes" (what shape is that? find another one? which one is bigger, which one is smaller? - you can simply practise it with your children, just cut out those shapes and ask them to find pairs)

* we had a very difficult worksheet:

* but we tried to make it easier with card game: "Find matching card" with similar shapes on the cards - that game was easier than the worksheet and gave children more fun (healthy competition and high-fiving those who found a pair :)
* on the beginning of circle time we often repeat shapes (square, triange, rectangle and circle) - we have them hung on the board, they are in 4 colours (yellow, green, red and white) and I ask them both: "what colour is square?" or "which shape is white?" or I just show the shape and children say the name.

On another day we focused on the shape of snowflakes. We saw pictures of snowflakes taken by Wilson Bentley (http://snowflakebentley.com/) and we pointed out that it's almost impossible to find two identical snowflakes. Later we made artworks - string snowflakes - you can see them in classroom. More snowflake artwork ideas you can find in internet :)

Note: Children weren't very happy when I showed them flour glue which I prepared for our artwork, some of them were quite afraid to put their fingers in it and during work they were wiping their hands all the time. It is very good for their sensory development to touch different substances (even dirt), the more impressions they get, the more developed their senses are :) We also don't want our children to grow to be mysophobic, so they need to know that a little bit of dirt doesn't kill us.
Sometimes, if you have some extra free time, bake with your children and let them mix the dough with their own hands or make some flour glue (it's non-toxic!) and make some paper-mache masks on a balloon. And let your children play in mud - if you don't want them to destroy nice clothes, dress them in daddy's old T-Shirts :)

The last topic part was "winter clothes". We had a Bag of Secrets, where we could find different clothes, children were deciding if they are made for winter or not. It was interesting that when I showed them a spaghetti-strap top, which in my mind was for summer, they noticed it can be worn under T-shirt in winter :) clever children :) so we practised our winter clothes vocabulary, we filled a worksheet about it and on another day we checked the words in Velky Obrazkovy Slovnik. Maybe that's not a lot, but remember that everyday we go outside and we practise that vocabulary in the best way - in real life experiences.

Some of the words we used last week: boots, circle, dust, gloves, hat, mittens, mountains, raindrops, rectangle, scarf, snow, snowflake, square, tights, triangle, warm socks, winter, winter jacket, winter suit.

That would be all, I will write soon about the plans I had for this week, but unfortunately I got sick and I need to stay at home for few days.
Enjoy your time with children! Greetings :)
Irena

Circle of time - part 2

This week is all about Months and Seasons of the Year. We remember already what month we have now (children always shout JANUARY TWO THOUSAND AND TWELVE!), so all we had to do was to learn all the other months :) To do it - we used a very calm but catchy song:



"January, February, March and April, May, June, July and August, September, October, November, December, These are the months of the year."

After two days we started to sing it without video, a bit faster and just once or twice, so children don't have time to get bored with it.

We have small cards with the names of the months in four different colors (we repeat basic colors), which symbolize 4 seasons of the year: blue - Winter, green - Spring, yellow - Summer and red - Autumn (Fall). We also put on the board symbols for those seasons: snowflake, flower, sun and a red leaf. How we learn the names? Try this song:



"Four seasons in a year, I can name all four, do you wanna' hear, let's get ready and say them all: WINTER, SPRING, SUMMER AND FALL"

Children sing the chorus and listen (and watch) to the rapped stanzas - they can see and hear what we can do in all 4 seasons. By the way: I always tell them that Jesen has two names: Autumn and Fall, so they understand and are able to use them both.

Apart from that we saw some pictures showing 4 seasons - children had to recognize the characteristic nature changes and peoples actions on the pictures. The easiest way to see the changes in nature is to observe the trees. We watched this animation:



and we described the trees on the pictures of seasons. This was also topic of our artwork this week: How do trees look in different seasons? We drew our hands and arms on the grey paper and cut them off, glued it to the white paper and painted with our fingers (the most important was the interpretation of the topic, not the accordance to the reality). Cutting is still very hard for us, but we practise a lot.

We also have a tree in our classroom, made of branches found outside on our playground. Now there is some crepe paper snow on it and we will talk about how it will change during the year.

The other way we understand how the year divides to months and seasons is the story about 12 Months (the one with Maruska and Holena). First time I told the story with my own words, using also pictures of violets, strawberries and apples. Then we will practise remembering it through acting it out - we will have a little theatre :) I found only English version in the internet (much longer and more difficult than the one I told your children), but I am sure you know it in Slovak or you already have it in your kid's library.

http://oaks.nvg.org/czech15.html

Thanks to this story we practise the names of the months and we get to know new symbols of seasons: violets - Spring, strawberries - Summer and apples - Autumn (Fall).

Circle of time

Last week was all about Days. We talked about:
- the days in a week (we realised that Mr. Week has seven children: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday), and the terms like YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW
- the parts of the day like MORNING, AFTERNOON, EVENING and NIGHT (about characteristic signs on the sky: sun, moon, stars, blue and black sky and about what we do during the day: we wake up in the morning, we go home from kindergarten in the afternoon, we eat dinner in the evening, we sleep at night)
- the weather: SUNNY, RAINY, CLOUDY, WINDY, STORMY, SNOWY.
By the way I introduced children to the calendar: everyday we count the days and write a new number on our calendar - so we can practise counting (even to 31!) and we get used to the look of the numbers.
From now on we start every "circle time" with questions: What month and year is now? Let's count the days on our calendar. What is the day today, what day was yesterday, what day will be tomorrow? What is the weather outside? - it's very quick and it brings routine to our circle time, what is good for children to feel safe and focus on the further part of the activities.


We sing a song "Days Of The Week", which I created for our classes. Below you will find a player so you can listen to it :)


Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday and Friday
These are the days when I go to kindergarten
Then comes the weekend
Saturday, Sunday
When I stay at home and play on my own.

The other text we learnt is "Mr. Week is exercising" - also created by me, supposed to be just a rhyme (riekanka) but it's very nice to give it some melody, or created by you or the one I recorded :)


On Monday you must jump, jump, jump (children jump)
On Tuesday you must stamp, stamp, stamp (children stamp their feet)
On Wednesday you must clap, clap, clap (children clap their hands)
On Thursday you must touch your lap (children squot and touch their knees)
On Friday you must turn around (children turn around)
On Saturday just touch the ground (children bow down and touch the ground without bending their knees)
On Sunday you must count to ten (children count)
...and you can start again!

What you can do with children is to talk about your plans: "tomorrow we will do this and that", or tell them "it's monday, so we will do that". Indicate what is the day today and use all the expressions like "it's such a nice afternoon" or "it's evening so you should put on your pyjama and go to sleep". You don't have to say it in English, the most important thing is for them to UNDERSTAND the circle of time, that weeks go one by one like on a carousel, that after every Sunday comes another Monday etc. 

Enjoy!


If you would like to get the songs in MP3 version, you can give me your email address and I will send them :)

Welcome

Hello Everyone :)

Few days ago I realised that song lyrics hung on the noticeboard and few sentences about current themes are not enough for you to know what's happening in our group. I decided to try writing this blog to help you be up to date with stuff your children do on circle time in our classroom. I don't promise that I will do it systematically, but I'll try.

On this site you'll be able to find songs we sing (hopefully in audio versions :), short explanations of what we do and suggestions how you can help your children progress :)

I promise not to upload any pictures or personal data of your children, so that access to our site can be public.

So, let's start this journey and wish me good luck :) lots of hugs!

Irena