A gentle reminder – Apple time

A gentle reminder – Tomorrow please send a sliced apple as part of your child’s lunch.

(As requested in the last literacy blog).

Thanks

Library Time

Tomorrow Wednesday 1st March I will be changing the children’s library books since Monday was a holiday.

Thanks

Term 2 Week 7 – Writing Letter a

The second letter of the week was letter a.  We only spent one lesson on this where we saw that apples grow on trees and that they are a source of food for creatures like birds and humans.

These are very good for us because they are a fruit and they have loads of vitamins which keep us healthy and strong.

The children learnt that there is a proverb which says an apple a day keeps the doctor away.

To promote this saying and to make the children more aware of healthy eating we are going to do a collective exercise that of eating an apple altogether in class. 

So please this coming Wednesday send over a sliced apple as part of your child’s lunch.  Will try to persuade even those children who do not eat them to take a bite or two!   🙂

The children watched a video clip which shows how apples grow on trees.

Apple tree life cycle animation:

10 apples up on top song

The children practiced coming up with words which start with letter sound a.  They also practiced writing this letter on the interactive whiteboard after which they proceeded to write the letter on their workbooks.  This is how the pages looked like:

As you can see from the pages above letter a is a caterpillar letter.  This is because when you start writing it, the letter curves straight away so a caterpillar could actually go round it if the letter existed in three dimensional form.

Besides following the letter formation mentioned in the above pages I stress the following points

To help the children get the correct formation:

• Letter a is written in one motion. We do not lift the pencil from the paper whilst writing it.
• We cannot write a zero, stop and then write a 1 next to it.
• Letter a has a tail at the end.
• The tails cannot be very long as would transform it into another letter altogether.

We will be working with letter a next week as well.

Term 2 Week 7 Writing Letter n

As regards letter sound n I mentioned the topic work associated with it in the topic blog.  The children also watched a song which is related to the story:

The children practiced coming up with words which start with letter sound n.  We mentioned words like nose, neck, nice, numbers, nine, nurse, necklace, nail, nail polish and nuts.

They also practiced writing this letter on the interactive whiteboard after which they proceeded to write the letter on their workbooks.  This is how the pages looked like:

As you can see from the pages above letter n is a one-armed robot letter.  This is because it has like one arm jutting out.

Besides following the letter formation mentioned in the above pages I stress the following points.

To help the children get the correct formation:

• Letter n is written in one motion. We do not lift the pencil from the paper whilst writing it.
• The top part of the tunnel has to be round not like a square.
• Letter n has a tail at the end.
• The tail cannot be very long.

We also worked a page where we had to work with two first letter sounds n and p.

In the Garden – Part 1

“In the garden” is the new topic we started working on during the 7^th week.

During circle time we spoke about the many things and creatures we can find in the garden.  The children managed to come up with many ideas of their own such as flowers, ants, snail, grass and trees.

We went into detail of what might live in trees and this lead us to the word nest.  We spoke about what a nest might be made up of and what it is used for.  We watched a story called

The best nest by P.D. Eastman

The children created their own nest using a paper plate.  They painted it half blue and half brown and after it dried up they glued recycled shredded paper for the twigs.  They also stuck a small bird in the middle.  They will be finishing this craft next week by sticking 5 eggs onto it.

This links us to the number lesson since we are currently writing our number 5’s. More detail on this number in the numeracy blog.

The n sound was the first sound we started working with this week. More details as usual in the literacy blog.

We also spoke about what might grow on trees.  One of the things the children mentioned was apples.

Letter a sound was the 2^nd letter we started discussing during this week.  More details in the literacy blog too.

Carnival Festivities – Part 2

The children were very excited to show us their costumes.  We made a big do about it and after each one telling us what they were wearing I took a photo of every child near our ‘special’ door.

Besides enjoying their party food the children played some games I had prepared for them.

They also enjoyed the entertainment offered by Pippo the Clown in the music room

Carnival Festivities – Part 1

This week’s high lights were our carnival festivities.

Work on this project started weeks back.  First there was the choice of the topic.  Each class had to choose a country which they would represent.

After putting our heads together the pre-junior B team came up with the idea of the flower festival held in Nice in France.  We thought of using this idea and parading it on one of the most popular monuments in France, the Eiffel Tower.

At this point I want to thank Ms. Corinne and Ms. Christine for the hard work they put into this project.  Without them this project would not have been possible.   Our first step was to put together the design on our class door.  With great patience and artistic flair Ms. Christine created a replica of the Eiffel tower.  The children painted the petals for the huge flowers which accompany the tower.

The base for the Eiffel tower was made from wood.  Then endless flowers were made from kite paper.  The children painted the flowers for the box base.  Then finally it was put together and several accessories were added on.

The children got to know some information about France such as the capital city being Paris.  It is here that the Eiffel tower is found.  It is a very tall structure made out of metal.  People climb on the tower to watch the splendid view of Paris.  Here is our mini Eiffel tower.

The children were very proud to help pull along our little float and show it to the junior classes out on the turf where everybody was gathered.

In turn they enjoyed watching the lovely floats the other classes put together.  They danced away to the cheerful carnival music which was being played.

Besides the parade the children had a party in class………. You will find more pictures and information in the following blog.

Ms. Corinne was the mind and hands behind our costumes.  Here is what we wore.

……….. and the endless cutting of circles for the flowers and putting them together.  Well done!!!

 

Happy Birthday Silvio

Happy Birthday, dear Silvio.

This is the lovely moment when your friends sang Happy Birthday and then tasted your yummy cupcakes.   🙂

Playing with the Parachute

As part of the pattern work topic we have been working with these past few weeks we have also extended this during the P.E. sessions.

The children have been playing various games using the parachute.

Here are some photos of the children having a good time.   🙂

 

Term 2 Week 6 – Writing number 3

During the sixth week we finished practicing our number 2’s and started working with number 3.  The children counted various objects stopping at number three.  They recalled that Mr. Snake was the animal who helps us remember the formation of this number.

Writing number 3

As you all know by now our main focus is on the formation.  The children have to say the steps that are in the rhyme above or use language which is close to this rhyme, whilst writing.

WALT and WILF stuck on our whiteboard help us remember these steps.  Here is how our number writing pages look like.   (They include WALT and WILF).

Other important points

• I always remind the children that we start writing from the line at the top left and proceed to the right side, than we go down to the next line and start from the left hand side at the very edge. Usually whilst explaining I physically show them on paper as they might not know right from left.  Also children at this age have a tendency to just pick a box and fill it in and then choose another at random.
• When we start writing this number we have to curve straight away. We cannot write a horizontal or a sleeping line as I like to call it.
• After the 1^st curved part I point out that we stop for a very little bit but our pencil is still touching the paper, than we curve again. I do this to try and avoid having a space between the top curve and the bottom curve of number 3.
• We write this number all at once. We do not lift our pencil from the paper until the number three is done.  The children need a reminder for this at times.
• I also remind them from time to time to write the number in the box.
• If they have just a dot in a box, that is not a mistake but they have to use their imagination and remember how to form the number. At times they would need guidance from where to start and to where they need to proceed.