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