Let's Talk About Toys: Games and Worksheets

Christmas holidays will certainly have brought a large number of presents to our student's houses, so if you didn't talk about toys before Christmas, the right moment could definitely be now, when every child will be eager to tell everybody else what he found under his Christmas tree.

You can find high quality material about toys to download here:

In the file 'Little bugs story cards 1' you'll find the story of a clumsy elf who helps a young boy get a new robot. It's a story younger students can easily act out thanks to its repetitive patterns. In the file 'Little bugs flashcards 1' you'll find the flash cards which show all the toys mentioned in the story.

I printed a small card version of those flashcards so we could play several games with them.

One game I particularly like to play is 'The wind blows for…': Have your kids sit in a circle, let them choose a couple of cards and when you call out a toy saying, for example: "The wind blows for anyone who has got a scooter."  those who are holding a card with a scooter on it have to swap chairs, as fast as they can. I don't usually remove any chairs because I want them to focus on learning and not on winning the game however, it might be an option to take into account if you're teaching primary students.

Another game the kids loved was this:
Call on one of the kids, let him or her choose a card, without showing it to anyone or saying what toy is shown on it (sometimes this is the hardest part, he,he,he!). The child then has to act out playing with that toy while the rest of the class tries to guess what toy he or she is playing with.
They loved it so much that they could happily have kept playing the same game for the whole hour!

As always I looked for some songs to help them quickly memorize the new vocabulary: this one is really simple and it's the perfect way to introduce the topic. The second song inspired me to come up with another guessing game: just take a small cardboard box and fill it with the cards. This is now your "toybox". Next, slowly take the cards out of it, one by one, while the children try to guess what toy you're taking out. Of course if you have the chance to use real toys instead, go for it! 
The last one is a chant and you can make the most of it by using the expression 'have got' while playing "Go fish".

Interesting worksheets about toys can be downloaded here. I played bingo with my students and, of course, they won many sweet prizes.

Have a wonderful time heading back to school!

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Lucy dedicates a lot of time and love to thinking about and writing the posts she shares with all of you. Because she believes that a better teaching is the key for a better future. If you find any help, value or joy in this blog, please consider becoming a supporting reader. A donation, in any amount, will be gratefully accepted. 

                                                   

 

  

Phonics - Teaching Reading and Writing (ESL)

http://dollarstoremom.com/2011/04/make-a-phonics-flip-chart/

In one of my previous posts I wrote that my challenge for 2014 was going to be teaching reading and writing in English to some of my students who could already understand and speak English quite well.

Looking for some ideas and advice I came across such an abundance of strategies and material that I almost felt overwhelmed.

However, I've been able to design an effective plan that is already showing some results.

Everything started to become clearer when I was able to take a look at a collection of booklets specifically designed with the purpose of teaching phonics.

It's published by Collins and it's called Collins Easy Learning Age 5-7

It's interesting because the books cover many letter sounds with examples and colorful drawings. Also, there are a couple of workbooks to keep practicing a little more.

I decided to use them as a sort of guide through the maze of phonics, but also as a 'test' to use at the end of each module.

Then, following my 'guide', I searched the internet looking for entertaining activities linked to phonics, first of all because I wanted to dive deep into the topic and second because engaged kids are the secret to successful teaching.

Well… I would say I found a treasure. 

Look at this page and take your time to explore it, because it's an amazing source of almost anything you need to teach this topic.

The worksheets you'll find here are great! Crosswords, puzzles, cut and paste activities, cards. So far my students have enjoyed them a lot.

Furthermore, it's so nice to see how the children are getting more and more confident with every class.

I can see how they are reasoning about what letters they need to write every single word, making a big effort not to peep at the word bank that follows the exercises.

However, the best of all is seeing their eyes light up with satisfaction when they realize that they can spell correctly.

Below, I give you a list of other things I'm using these days to expand the phonics experience:

- Cards to teach Rhyming words and Phonics

- Spelling Games from Instant File-Folder Games for Reading grade 1-3 published by Scholastic
  (sample pages available)

- Success with Reading Comprehension Grade 1, also published by Scholastic
  (sample pages available)

- Dr Seuss rhyming books (Children love them!)

- Alphablocks cartoons. (Very engaging and fun. Available on YouTube)

As you can see, tons of material is available, so I personally selected those phonics that Spanish children would find the trickiest to recognize. I imagine that kids from other countries will need to focus on different sounds and patterns.

Good luck with your work and, as always, have fun!

More about reading

More about writing

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Lucy dedicates a lot of time and love to thinking about and writing the posts she shares with all of you. Because she believes that a better teaching is the key for a better future. If you find any help, value or joy in this blog, please consider becoming a supporting reader. A donation, in any amount, will be gratefully accepted. 

                                                   

                    

Winter Lesson Plan

Winter has definitely shown up here in Madrid, therefore it's time to dive deep into this topic with my preschoolers!

I discovered, thanks to a Montessori blog, a Ukrainian folktale called The Mitten written by Jan Brett.

The story is about a white mitten, laying on the snow in the wood, that  soon becomes a shelter for several animals: a mole, a rabbit, an owl, a badger, a fox etc. 

To see how it ends take a look at this video.

The story teaches sequencing and a lot of vocabulary related to forest animals and the winter.

The tale is easy to retell so you can shorten it, printing out the characters cutting out a big white mitten and setting up a little drama time instead of reading the original book. 

At the end sneeze aloud and send the animals flying into the air… The children will be happily surprised!

Some activities to do after the reading and strictly related to the story are: color and decorate your own mitten or color only the animals that appear in the story. 

Here you can find the worksheets.

Then, you can go a step forward and talk about winter clothes, cut them out and stick them inside a handicraft wardrobe to practise there is and there are  

Finally for those of you who have a lot of time to spend in the classroom I would suggest to take a look at this interesting Snow Pack

Happy February!!!

More about WINTER? Take a look at this board game

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Lucy dedicates a lot of time and love to thinking about and writing the posts she shares with all of you. Because she believes that a better teaching is the key for a better future. If you find any help, value or joy in this blog, please consider becoming a supporting reader. A donation, in any amount, will be gratefully accepted.