Where Is Baby?

This song has been adapted from the traditional children's song Where Is Thumbkin and sung to the tune of Frère Jacques.  I adapted the words to our theme this week - Families.

Here are the lyrics so that you can sing along with your child at home.

Where Is Baby?

(Tune of Frère Jacques)

(Start with hands behind back)
Where is baby?
Where is baby?
Here I am
(Bring right hand to front, with pinky finger up)
Here I am.
(Bring left hand to front, with pinky up)
How are you today?
Very well, I thank you.
(Wiggle fingers as if they're 'talking' to each other)
Run away
(Hide right hand behind back)
Run away
(Hide left hand behind back)

REPEAT WITH THE OTHER FINGERS

Classroom Management

When it gets too noisy or the teachers needs the group's attention, the best way to do it is...

3...2...1....POKEMON SQUASHED ON A WINDOW!!!

Never fails! ;-)

Make-A-Monster Contest

This is a fast paced game that Isadora's class played to practice vocabulary for parts of the face and body.  In teams, they used an app on the Ipad to create a monster.  The team could win a point every time they named the body part in English.  The game was fast-paced, noisy and lots of fun.

Who was the winner?  Everyone!

Monster Bowls

It's Friday again and another chance to leave the classroom and use English outdoors. This week we went bowling.  If you look closely you'll see drawings of the monsters that we drew stuck to the bowling pins.  We had to try and knock down as many monsters as we could.  It was a lot of fun!

Make A Monster

We spent the week reading stories and playing games about monsters so I thought it would be fun to create our own monsters.  We did this in many ways this week.  We drew, we moulded with playdough, we used our imagination AND we also used technology.  On our ipads we have an app called Make a Monster.  The children could choose different body parts to assemble their own unique monster and then share it with the group.  This allowed us to practice language for describing physical appearance using numbers, size, colours and body parts.  "He's got six, big eyes".  "What colour are they?" - "Yellow"

 

Making faces

We explored feelings this week - sad, happy, scared and angry.  This gave us an opportunity to revise vocabulary for the parts of our face - eyes, ears, mouth, nose, and eyebrows.  We looked at how our faces change as we make different expressions and then used playdough to recreate these emotions on our playdough mats.

I'm Happy All Day Long

Here are Fabíola's class singing our song of the week - I'm Happy All Day Long.  We sand this song to learn vocabulary and structures for talking about our feelings.  This week we have learned sad, scared, sleepy, angry and happy.

Here are the lyrics for those of you who would like to sing along at home!

I'm happy, I'm happy
I'm happy all day long.
I'm happy, I'm happy
I'm happy all day long.

Ha ha ha
Hee hee hee
I'm happy all day long.

(Repeat with other emotions)

Muddled up animals

After reading the book Muddled Up Farm, we decided to draw some of our own muddled up animals.  Each child picked two animal cards from the deck and had to combine them to create new, original animals.  There were cow-birds and cat-horses and all kinds of crazy new creatures.

On the farm, in the sea or in the wild?

We have been looking at animals this week in English class.  The children learned the names of the animals and the habitats where they lived.  Using a felt-board, we divided the animals according to where they lived and took turns placing them in the right environment - the wild, the sea or the farm.

We had lots of fun listening to a story about some funny animals in the book Mudled Up Farm ...

... and singing the song Old MacDonald Had a Farm.

Claire reads Muddled Up Farm

The theme this week was animals and as well as singing the traditional song Old MacDonald Had A Farm, we also read a book about a not so traditional farm.  This story, Muddled Up Farm, was a big hit.  The illustrations and sound effects allowed the humour to reach the kids in Cleo's class.  Watch the video and you'll see what I mean.

Muddled Up Farm

Everything that is mixed up on Muddled-up Farm! From the cat to the cow, to the pig and the goat, this book is full of surprises that had the kids at UPUERE laughing out loud.

Happy Mother's Day

We were talking about our feelings this week so I thought I'd make this photo montage of the children at Upuere to celebrate Mother's day.  Congratulations to all the mothers at Upuere.  I hope this makes you smile!

Singing with emotion!

You probably remember the cute video of Cleo's class singing the Hello Song.  Well, here's the Goodbye song - sung with plenty of emotion!

Old Mac Donald

Here is a video of the song we sang this week as part of our animals theme!  Watch and sing along with your child.

A day of art and hands on learning

More often than not, the best way to teach colours is to give the children an opportunity to get in and play with them.  This is what we did in the final lesson of this week.  The children went and used the wonderful art room at Upuerê and had the opportunity to experiment with different colours and tools.  There was eye dropper and coloured water, paint and sponges, cotton-tips and brushes.  Everyone was hard at work creating amazing works of art which will be on display at the school next week

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Getting messy is all part of being a kid.  As a teacher and a parent we do our best to keep it under control but sometimes, despite your best efforts, this happens....

Oh dear Maria Fernanda!!  How did you manage this - wearing a painting smock?!!  Oh well, the paint will wash out and as you can tell from the look on her face, this little girl had so much fun in English today!!

Let's go outside

Today was a beautiful sunny day so Lilian's class went to the beach for English class.

We all had a great time playing in the sand, singing our song of the week (Beach Beach Sandy Beach) and pretending we were swimming in the sea.

Going on a colour hunt

This week was all about colours and animals.  In English, as you may already know, we put the adjective BEFORE the noun.  By learning colours with an associated noun, the children also pick up this important rule about word order. 

We played a fun game to practice the new vocabulary. I called out an animal and, in small groups, the children had to run and retrieve an object in the same colour.

 

Fabíola's class loved the story this week.  The vocabulary we have learned is..

brown bear

red bird

yellow duck

blue horse

green frog

purple cat

white dog

black sheep

orange fish

teacher

children

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See?

This classic children's picture book has been a huge success in classrooms all over the world.  This week we read the i-pad version, projecting the beautiful illustrations up onto the whiteboard.
You can also purchace an online version of this book from Amazon for your i-pad or kindle.  Alternatively, watch this story with your child on youtube.

Reviewing vocabulary during Circle Time

We have been learning about animals and habitats this week and so we did a quick review during circle time.  In this video you will see the children naming an animal and then to decide where that animal lives. We limited the habitats to forest, sea or farm but next time I will probably use jungle or 'the wild', too.  I'm sorry about the terrible audio.  Circle time was outdoors and there is a lot of backround noise. It's a great video though and I'm sure you will enjoy seeing your children understanding and using English.
Here are some things to look out for while you are watching. 
When they don't know the word in English, they will often use hand gestures and sound effects to get the meaning across without automatically switching to Portuguese. 
You might also notice that I am speaking at a normal speed and using lots of gestures and repetition to help support the meaning of my words.
At the end of the discussion we sing a song. You can watch a video of this song here!

Swimming at the Upuerê beach

Cleo's group had a great time playing at our pretend beach on Friday.  We set up a beach umbrella and beach towel. 

After playing with sand toys and a ball, we had fun splashing around in the sea!

Naturally, we didn't forget to put on our sunscreen to protect our skin!