Christmas Time!

I was very happy to hear that some colleagues were looking for Christmas ideas.
So for the next two weeks
Try some Action Songs from you tube like:
I 'm a little snowman
Snowflakes
Santa Claus is coming to town
We wish you a Merry Christmas
For older kids I like to use:

''The nightmare before Christmas'' We watch the movie and sing the song

Whats This?

What’s this? What’s this? There’s colour everywhere.
What’s this? There’s white things in the air.
What’s this? I can’t believe my eyes, I must be dreaming,
Wake up Jack, this isn’t fair.
What’s this?
What’s this? What’s this? There’s something very wrong.
What’s this? There’s people singing songs.
What’s this? The streets are lined with little creatures,
Everybody seems so happy
Have I possibly gone daffy?
What is this?
What’s this?
There’s children throwing snowballs, instead of throwing heads
They’re busy building toys and absolutely no one’s dead.
There’s frost on every window
Oh, I can’t believe my eyes!
And in my bones I feel the warmth that’s coming from inside
Oh, look! What’s this? They’re hanging mistletoe
They kiss? Why that looks so unique.
Inspired! They’re gathering around to hear a story
Roasting chestnuts on a fire.
What’s this?
What’s this, in here? They’ve got a little tree.
How queer. And who would ever think?
And why? They’re covering it with tiny little things,
They’ve got electric lights on strings
And there’s a smile on everyone, so now correct me if I’m wrong
This looks like fun, this looks like fun!
Oh, could it be I got my wish?
What’s this?
Oh, my. What now? The children are asleep
But look. There’s nothing underneath.
No ghouls, no witches here to scream and scare them or ensnare them
Only little cozy things secure inside their dreamland…
Aaah…
What’s this?!
The monsters are all missing and the nightmares can’t be found
And in their place there seems to be good feeling all around.
Instead of scream I swear I can hear music in the air,
The smell of cakes and pies are absolutely everywhere.
The sights! The sounds! They’re everywhere and all around
I’ve never felt so good before,
this empty place inside of me is filling up, I simply cannot get enough
I want it, oh, I want it, oh, I want it for my own.
I’ve got to know, I’ve got to know, what is this place that I have found.
WHAT IS THIS?
…Christmas town..? Hmmmm…

e-twinning project

I 've been thinking of enhancing my students' learning experience by involving them in a e-twinning project with skype. They will meet other students from different countries and exchange ideas, news, projects. They are very excited about it.

Arts & Learning Project

Today was the first day my project students and I met.
We tried a creative ice-breaker holding a ball of yarn and saying something unique about ourselves.
In the end we had a yarn web between us. We talked about sharing, cooperating and imagination, as one student said that to her it looked more like laser beams from a security alarm system!
Then I distributed some quotes about art by famous people. Each one read theirs and explained it.
Last we made a class mosaic with small square paper where each student drew something representative of themselves.

I have created a Wordle cloud about the importance of Arts in Education

The Farm Animals

Teach children all about the farm animals using the following activities
1. Use a farm template or picture and let them stick farm animals stickers.
2. Make clay or play-doh animals
3. Sing Old Mc Donald had a farm
4. Read the book "The noisy farm"
5. Use animal masks and act like an animal
6. Tell the story of the "Ugly Duckling"
7. Make animal riddles
8. Use finger puppets
9. Draw farm animals
10. Discuss what we get from each farm animal

A Colourful Lesson

Teaching the colours can be one of the most fascinating lessons. 

Here are 20+ activities for young learners

1. Show the coloured pencils or markers or flashcards and say the colours

2. Talk about: What things are ....(green)? Make a collage of things having the same colours

3. Make a colour wheel, talk about primary & secondary colours, mixing colours, warm & cold colours

4. Talk about the rainbow colours
5. Make a fruit loop rainbow necklace and eat it too!

6. Play Hide & Seek: Ask  sts to Find sth ...red

7. Colour Race: ask sts to Touch sth...yellow

8. Colour a picture (numbers indicate which colours)

9. Memory : Display 10 coloured pencils or markers or cards and secretly take away a colour. ask sts to find out which colour is missing

10. Sing the Colour or Rainbow song

11. Play Silent balloons: students call out the colour if the balloon reaches them 

12. Play a rhyme game with house pictures: Little mouse, little mouse are you in the...red house?

13. Write a Senses poem  :

Red looks like, sounds like, smells like, feels like, tastes like.....

14. Fishing game: get as many colourful fish using a magnetic fishing rod

15. Read the stories:

The rainbow fish

How zebra got her stripes

The colourful chameleon
Brown Bear, What do you see?
Polar Bear, What can you hear?
Little Robin Red Vest
Zebra's Rainbow
The Mixed-Up Chameleon
16. Sing the action song: 
'We are the pirates with the coloured beards song', You tube song
17. Dress up like your favourite colour
18. Make a mini book about colours
19. Watch the Tweenies show 'Colours are MAGIC'
20. Show sts famous paintings and talk about the colours

Early Reading with Sight Word Fun

My nephew, who is 6 years old, has just started A grade at a school which offers an intensive English class. He was struggling to learn his sight words so I offered to help by... playing!!!
The results were immediate and amazingly positive.
So far we have written the words on two sets of cards (red and blue)
We use the cards for various reading games, such as:

1. Match the pairs
2. Memory
3. Bingo
4. Tic-Tac-Toe
5. Hide and Seek
6. Race to success (board game with dice and race cars as pawns)
7. Parking Lot (BIG card with parking spaces. Race cars park on the right word)
8. BANG (Cards in a container.Pick a card.Read it. Keep it. When you get a BANG card you have to put all the cards back. Can be played with one or two players and it teaches you to lose and have fun)
9. Make a sentence that makes sense
10. Make a silly sentence
11. Fishing game (I use a toy fishing rod and laminated word cards with fish shapes, treasure chest shape etc and put them in a basin filled with water SOOO MUCH FUN!!!)

AND

   12.  Be a word detective (Look for a word that begins with.... or look for this....word in a page)

   13.  WHITE BOARD (write or erase the word I 'm saying)

   14.  Magnetic Letters (arrange them to make a word)

   15.  Play doh letters (use dough to make letters and words, then bake and eat them)