Goodbye Everybody - Have a nice weekend!

Lillian's group have been learning useful classroom commands.  A great way to do this is with Total Physical Response.  So, we went out to the sports court to play a ball game which practices the language we have been learning in the classroom.

During circle time we looked at vocabulary for parts of the body which appear in our song "Hokey Pokey". Watch this song on YouTube with this link.

It's the end of the week, so I though I would leave you all with this video of the children singing.  In this video we sing the "Goodbye Song", used to mark the end of each lesson.

Have a nice weekend!

Big, small, up and down!

This week Joyce's class have done lots of different things this week.  We have listened to and practiced greetings and farewells as part of our daily routine as well as with this week's story Who's There Spot, by Erill Hill.


At circle time we have been learning opposites: big and small, up and down.  Here is a video of us in action!

Meet our class

Welcome to our class!!

The focus this week was on learning greeting and farewells, useful language in the classroom and parts of the face and body.  You could practice these at home this weekend: eyes, nose, mouth, ears, legs, tummy, arms and bottom.  Insert these words into the song our SONG of the week and dance with your child.

The kids in this class love listening to stories.  Our book this week was Who's There Spot.  They took turns coming up and lifting the flaps to see who was hiding there.

 

It is great to see both of the Portuguese teachers participating during these classes.  It is great for the kids to see them trying to speak in English, too!

The Hokey Pokey

Our song this week is the Hokey Pokey.  In our version we don't sing "right arm" or "left arm".  Instead, we have been singing it with the vocbaulary we have learned this week: eyes, nose, mouth, ears, arms, legs, tummy and bottom.

A long week!

This lively group are making lots of progress, especially with their understanding of English.
The focus this week was on learning greeting and farewells, useful language in the classroom and parts of the face and body.  We made puppets with their photos and a variety of different materials as well as reading a story and learning a new song.

Their favourite at the moment is called "Everybody Do This", it has a very catchy tune and great movements.  See if your child will teach it to you!

As a special treat for their hard work this week, we spent the last part of Friday's class on the small court.  We played a game called STOP.  This involved understanding and following instructions in English, which was not easy!!

I hope to get some video of these kids speaking English on this blog next week.  Until then,  enjoy these photos that we took of the kids to use with the puppets they made.

Who's There Spot?

 

This is the book we read this week.  It helps to reinforce greetings and farewells as well as introducing some new animals.

The Spot books are a wonderful collection of lift-the-flap books by Eric Carle.  There are lots of animated videos of the stories that you can watch on YouTube.
Here is a link.

Hands-On Learning

It's lovely teaching this small group in the mornings.  Organizing hands-on activities is so easy and I get to spend lots of time working 1-2-1 with each child.  This week we looked at parts of the face.  We played with playdough and put eyes, a nose and a mouth onto the blank face mats I had made and laminated.  We also used a variety of materials to make collage puppets of ourselves.

Dialogues with Puppets

Welcome to Fabíola's class! 

After just two weeks of classes we can already understand a lot of English and we love participating in all the songs and games.  Especially our circle game which practices: big, small, up, down and around.

This week, the class have been learning greeting and farewells, useful language in the classroom and parts of the face and body.

Our art activity was a big success, too.  We used different materials to make puppets of ourselves and used them to practice a mini dialogue they learned from the book we read this week.  Watch Helena and Sophia's dialogue in the video below and guess what phrases we'll be learning in English next!!

Answer: How are you?!! - I'm fine!!

Hello and How are You?

The focus this week was on learning greeting and farewells, useful language in the classroom and parts of the face and body.  Practice these at home this weekend: eyes, nose, mouth and ears!

The kids in this class love listening to stories and singing songs.  Our book this week was Who's There Spot.

Here is a video of the group singing the song we use to start off each lesson.  It's amazing to this they have only had week of classes!!

The Lyrics (as requested!)

Hello, hello

Hello and how are you?

I'm fine...I'm fine

And I hope that you are, too.

Making Puppets

What a great week!  So much happening in UPUERE: so many activities, new words, names to learn and LOTS and LOTS of photos!!

I love to hear the children call my name as I walk around the school   "Hello Claire!!".  I really feel like English has been accepted and adopted by the kids as the language they use with me.

The focus this week was on learning greeting and farewells, useful language in the classroom and parts of the face and body.

Kellen's class used different materials to make puppets and used them to practice a small dialogue they learned from the book we read this week  "Who's There Spot?".  They did REALLY well!

Participating in the blog

If you would like your child to appear in the blog, please make sure you sign and return the permission form.  If you have lost the form, ask your child's teacher for a new one!

Introducing UPUERE

Hi friends...or as we say here Oi amigos!

We are a childcare center in Brazil. Do you know where Brazil is on a map? It's a long way from Australia!

The name of our center is Upuerê (uuu-poo-eh-re). This word means movement and action in the indigenous language of Brazil.

We learn English at school and this week we read a story with Australian animals in it. It’s called Wombat Stew. We went outside and made our own Wombat Stew in the playground. When it got too hot we went inside, did an art activity and learned some new words in English.

Here are some of the words we learned this week…

• Hello = Ola
• Good Afternoon = Boa tarde
• Bye bye = tchau tchau

We loved your email and the pictures. We have some questions to ask you about your school and the things you do.

1. Why do you all wear hats in the playground?

2. Do you have a swimming pool at your school?

3. What is the name of the tree that James’ seed pod came from?

We took some pictures to send to you, too

 From your Friends at UPUERÊ

New Friends

 Dear Kindy Friends,

We are a kindy in Brisbane, Australia.  Our kindy is called Margaret Cribb Child Care Centre.  Our names are Wena, James, Jasmine, Dollyn, Charlotte, Sanily,  Jayden, Evangeline, Eve, Oliver, Ethan and Lily.  Our teachers’ names are Tamara, Louisa, Gwyn, Sophie, Ray, Gary, Helen and our art teacher Libby.

At Kindy we play inside and outside.  When we are outside we play in the sandpit, with water, climbing frames and play ball games.

Inside we like to play with the dinosaurs, play in home corner, do collage, play with the light box and do drawing.

James really wanted to tell you that we found a seed pod in the sandpit.

From,

All the Kindy children and teachers at Margaret Cribb.

Margaret Cribb Child Care Centre

70 Coleridge Street

ST LUCIA  QLD   4067

Ph: (07) 3365 1509

www.mcccc.org.au

The Key-Pals Project

This month we are celebrating International Month of Friendship by participating in an E-pal Project with students living overseas.  During this project, the children will build a relationship with other students in another part of the world using 21st-century tools. 

By the end of this project, students and teachers will have shared photos documenting day to day life at school, an art activity done by the students for their e-pals, a short video with a special message, and an exchange of e-mails which describe specific details of their lives and ask thoughtful questions about the lives of their E-pals.

They will discover similarities and differences between places and people and increase their social and cultural awareness.  This project will provide an authentic and engaging learning experience which will have a direct impact on student motivation to learn a second language.

About Australia

This week the children learned a little more about their teacher and the country where she comes from...Australia!!

We looked at some photos of my family and read a book about some funny Australian animals.  It is called "Wombat Stew".   The children loved the story and many were even singing along with the song.



Grupo 3 went outside to make a Wombat Stew in the playground.

Grupos 4 & 5 got to play with some Australian animal puppets - a platypus and an echidna.  Do YOU know what these animals are?

Here are some videos you may link to watch with your child:

• Platypus
• Echidna

MORE PHOTOS COMING SOON!

First Week of School!

This week, all the groups had short but fun classes.  The games and activities were based on this classic children's book by Pamela Allen.

Through the story, we worked on vocabulary for instruments, sounds, and some adjectives (noisy and quiet).  We learned about high and low notes by making a water xylophone and listened to different sound we could make with it.

Most importantly, the children were introduced some important routines and classroom language that will be used in every English class.

Here are some of the routines we have practised:

• greetings
• getting into a circle
• moving from one part of the classroom to another
• reading stories or playing games
• getting the class’ attention
• starting and stopping activities
• tidying up
• ending lessons

There were some funny reactions from the students when they heard me speaking in English...and ONLY English.  Here are some quotes from this week...

"I know where you are from. You're from Disney! That's why you talk like that."

"Were you born this way?"

"Why are you talking like that?!"