There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly - Fall and Autumn Cookies

For me, baking season officially starts when autumn days become brisk and short. Last year I baked tons of gingerbread men for my preschoolers in order to make the whole story more interesting. 

This year my choice has fallen on  the song "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" which tells the story of an old woman who swallowed several animals one after the other, each one increasingly larger, in an attempt to catch the last animal she had swallowed.

This song brought to mind the image of happy children and their parents making animal-shaped cookies in their kitchens while listening to the song in the  background. Then I could see those same children later pretending to be the old lady and swallowing one cookie after another following the same sequence as in the song.

To make that vision come true I had to call my good friend Rita who's not only a great teacher herself but also an awesome confectioner. She started her professional career as a psychologist and used her natural talents with kids to teach English to a generation of Spanish students. Despite leading an active and busy life, her love for food never waned, so two years ago, Rita started a food blog mostly dedicated to baking and the fascinating world of cookie decorating.
 

Can you think of anyone more suited to this challenge?

Her blog has several cookie recipes you could choose from, but these two are my favorites for the fall season: Maple and spicy fall cookies, Spicy Pumpkin Cookies

Once we had baked the cookies, we spent a couple of hours decorating them. Althoug I felt a little clumsy because it was my absolute first time, even though I really enjoyed the drawing part… I was oblivious to the existence of edible ink food coloring markers (!!!!) until last Sunday.

And you could do the same with your kids too. Remember that having a good time is one of the basic ingredients for learning!

--> Quiero leer este post en español 


Lucy dedicates a lot of time and love to thinking about and writing the posts she shares with all of you. Because she believes that a better teaching is the key for a better future. If you find any help, value or joy in this blog, please consider becoming a supporting reader. A donation, in any amount, will be gratefully accepted. 

                                                   

 

Winter Lesson Plan

Winter has definitely shown up here in Madrid, therefore it's time to dive deep into this topic with my preschoolers!

I discovered, thanks to a Montessori blog, a Ukrainian folktale called The Mitten written by Jan Brett.

The story is about a white mitten, laying on the snow in the wood, that  soon becomes a shelter for several animals: a mole, a rabbit, an owl, a badger, a fox etc. 

To see how it ends take a look at this video.

The story teaches sequencing and a lot of vocabulary related to forest animals and the winter.

The tale is easy to retell so you can shorten it, printing out the characters cutting out a big white mitten and setting up a little drama time instead of reading the original book. 

At the end sneeze aloud and send the animals flying into the air… The children will be happily surprised!

Some activities to do after the reading and strictly related to the story are: color and decorate your own mitten or color only the animals that appear in the story. 

Here you can find the worksheets.

Then, you can go a step forward and talk about winter clothes, cut them out and stick them inside a handicraft wardrobe to practise there is and there are  

Finally for those of you who have a lot of time to spend in the classroom I would suggest to take a look at this interesting Snow Pack

Happy February!!!

More about WINTER? Take a look at this board game

---> El post en español

Lucy dedicates a lot of time and love to thinking about and writing the posts she shares with all of you. Because she believes that a better teaching is the key for a better future. If you find any help, value or joy in this blog, please consider becoming a supporting reader. A donation, in any amount, will be gratefully accepted. 

                                                   

MEET THE ANIMALS!, by Stephane Husar and Loïc Méhée

Today I'm talking about the second book of Cat and Mouse, edited by Anaya, that invite our young learners to get to know the animals!

Meet the Animals Cover

As animals are their favorite subject at this age (3-4-5) you won't have any problem capturing their total attention.

Exactly like in the previous one, Cat and Mouse - Learn the Colours!, we'll meet again the main protagonists, the big-headed orange cat and the little squeaky mouse, but this time they will introduce us to some farm and jungle animals.

The dialogue structure is repetitive and catchy and apart from animals' names we'll also discover their noises. Do you know what kind of noise a sheep makes?

After reading it I added some more activities as always.

First of all I seized the moment to teach the most appropriate song 'Old MacDonald' mentioning the farm animals we saw in the book.

I used this song during the next classes to play 'Musical Chairs' and the 'Statue Game': they were allowed to dance when the music was on but they had to freeze in position and hold it when the music was off.

Then I stuck some flashcards representing the animals from the book on the wall and lined my kids up into two queues. When I called out an animal they had to run towards the right card and touch it. 

You can also make the noise and they have to say the name and touch the corresponding animal.

Another game they love is performing the animals. Make them sit on the floor in a semicircle, call a student out, show him a card. He has to perform the animal and the rest of the class has to guess the animal performed.

Afterwards you can play again the "I spy" and "I can see a…across the sea" games. 

Finally if you have worksheets to color, that will help too.

This book has also a CD that you can use to make them listen and repeat. 

Actually it contains a lot of nature's sounds and my pupils enjoyed it quite a lot.

I still haven't tried the 'Theatre', but I've already noticed them saying stray sentences from the book, so I imagine it's not going to be difficult to arrange it. 

Have fun!