This week English class has been mainly focusing on new words and vocabulary and of course on our new exciting IPC topic “Time and Place, Earth and Space”.
The main goal for the English class was to motivate and encourage students to build a confidence in speaking and self-expression in English. In order to achieve this goal students needed to have a constant encouragement, relevant words.
That’s why we have started our mornings gatherings by spelling simple, everyday use words like “like, they, swim, me, jar, warm, light, country, ball, time, girl, boy etc”. During activity students had to individually spell out loud assign by me word, and that occur in front of the whole class. Since we all know it’s not always easy to speak up in front of others, especially when the language you have to speak with is not your mother tongue I decided that before the activity we had to have a discussion why is it important to support each other in our group and that we are all learning in this class. As well I mentioned that it’s good to be respectful and patiently wait until a child before us finish his/hers task. At the same time it was a small introduction to a new concept that I wanted to present students this week, “team work” and “cooperation”.
This week we have also talked about “opposites” in English language. And during this activity children were learning again new words and their meanings. We had a lot of fun filling in worksheets together and individually and after hard work later I have organized different fun games where they needed to match correct opposites.
We have begin our new tradition, weekly reflection time that will take place every Friday. Students can write about their feelings, what have they learned that particular week and on what skills they need to work harder following week. It’s a great opportunity to practice English vocabulary and to learn more English words which brings us to the main goal fully expressing themselves during English classes. By the end of each term we will create an individual reflection book that students can take home to show their families.
Exit point for the new topic in English class was “time”, and firstly we were brainstorming together to find out what do we actually know about time, what is time and what we would like to learn about it. It was quite interesting to hear children’s answers and how they were trying to speak English even if they didn’t have the right vocabulary. I was very proud of them. Later students were introduced to a new vocabulary and concepts, like “waste of time”, “play time”, “timetable” and “time scale” and we have watched a movie about time and clock, which was a great introduction point to learn how to read a clock.
In math time we have continue working with shapes and we learn how to read clock.
In order to match our new topic with weekly art classes I have shown children a short movie about an american painter and illustrator Chesley Bonestell, who was inspired by space and fascinated with solar system and planets. He has created amazing and beautiful art and after children felt inspired and they wanted to create their own similar to his paintings art work. You are more then welcome to see our art display outside the corridor.
On Friday I have asked blue group if they think people can spin spider webs, children were surprised and confused with my question but at the same time very curious, so I suggested that maybe we should try to spin a web. I asked them to sit in the circle on the mat and I assign one of the children to hold the white string, their job was to pick up a friend to toss the remaining of string. The activity proceed until the string is finished and all children were called out. this activity provides experience in sharing materials, responsibilities, and of course social problem solving. And as you can imagine children enjoy it!
After we answered individually few questions about cooperation, for example “write 3 classrooms rules to help everyone to remember to be cooperative” or “how can you be more cooperative”. We finished this lesson with making an individual's posters about being cooperative and doing the right thing. Great lesson! Useful for life!
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