English for Playtime: April 2014

Tuesday 29 April 2014

Monday 28 April 2014

Our children preparing the dictionary.

Ummm, they are hard-workers.

Conference Latvia-Spain

Our second video-conference has been with Latvia. First they have sang us a wonderful song and then it was the turn of our three years old children to sing a song too. Amazing!!!!

Conference Turkey-Spain

The first video-conference was with Turkey. Rita and her three years old children have heard a song sung by our six years old children. Then it was the turn for us to listen them. What a fun!

Thursday 24 April 2014

LEARNING TOGETHER - WORKING ENGLISH LESSON AT INFANTIL EDUCATION WITH THE HELP OF THEIR FAMILIES. Part 2

LEARNING TOGETHER, ACTIVITY 4. “Excursions”.

In the vocabulary of infantil students, the animals have a fundamental importance. Animals are very motivating elements for children. They are part of our environment, attract their attention and let us play with their sounds.

In our school we work animals vocabulary with songs, videos, games and pictures. Also, part of our philosophy is that things that we are working with must have a real reference. Therefore, we usually plan visits to our enviroment, along with families to strengthen the content we are working.

Outings with parents are a good opportunity to practice English. Parents know the elements that we see in school and encourage their sons to use them. In these picture we can see an example of a visit to a nature reserve in Chirivel.

LEARNING TOGETHER, ACTIVITY 5. “Handmade color ensartables workshop”.

Handicrafts are a staple in children's education. They improve their motor skills, creativity and are a playful element at these ages. At school, for many of the hanidcrafts we make, we need the cooperation of the parents. We also took advantage of the need for this collaboration to work with families the fundamentals of the English language.

An example of this model of cooperation has been when parents have helped in the make of a handycraft of a necklace made of pasta. Students elaborated it in school and then they had it colored at house, naming the colors in English.

LEARNING TOGETHER. ACTIVITY 6. “Human Body”.

Another example of a shared handycraft is in the figure of a human body. In class we made the figure of a human body and at home with the family, they put the differents body parts, naming them in English.

LEARNING TOGETHER. ACTIVITY 7. “Bingo”.

Numbering is an essential element at early school. We introduce it in differents ways, some more manual, others more graphic and gradually we give the meaning and teach children to operate with numbers.

The game is a key learning axis. Makes learning meaningful, motivating and relevante for students. We work maths with numerous games and from different areas (English, physical education, etc.). One such game is bingo, where students have to check off the numbers written on a tablet and win the one with all the numbers crossed .

To work with families, we give students a card with numbers which they play bingo at home, the only requirement is that must be taken into account that parents have to name numbers in English.

LEARNING TOGETHER - WORKING ENGLISH LESSON AT INFANTIL EDUCATION WITH THE HELP OF THEIR FAMILIES. Part 1

LEARNING TOGETHER - WORKING ENGLISH LESSON AT INFANTIL EDUCATION WITH THE HELP OF THEIR FAMILIES.

LEARNING TOGETHER, ACTIVITY 1. “Daily food.”

In our school, one of our main goal is to work healthy food in infantil education. We believe that healthy food must be worked with children as early as posibe so they are able to get used to the new flavours of each food and also to raise awareness among families of students who must take care how their children feed.

For this purpose we have designed a schedule in the school where we specified the food that students should bring each day. So, children review each afternoon the foods they should bring the next day in English with their families.

LEARNING TOGETHER, ACTIVITY 2. “Workshop on healthy eating”.

In this line of co-work with healthy foods, we elaborated together, with the help of the family and the cooks, vegetable salads, fruit salads and bread. Foods we choose are often those wich the children have most difficult in eating. Parents are responsible for bringing food and so we take further interaction with them. To generalize the new words, parents go with their children to the market at afternoons and play with the names of food that children already know.

LEARNING TOGETHER, ACTIVITY 3. “Cards which works standards habits”.

At our school we believe that working standards of behavior in early childhood education is critical. In this work, the coordination of the families are essential. For working with standards habits and make families participate, each month the students take home a card which has written inside the habit that we want to work with.

In addition, parents assess whether their child has done properly the tasks we have given them. If they done it successfully, they should color the happy face, if not the sad one.

This is a good opportunity to introduce some vocabulary words related to verbs. Children enjoy and are motivated doubly.